01-07-2011, 07:25 PM
World of Warcraft is different from Warcraft 2. It's basically a first-person shooter game, in a fantasy setting, where you wander around exploring a persistent universe. I haven't played it myself, but have watched it being played. You go on quests (often monotonous -- "go kill 12 wolves and bring me their pelts!"), and join with others to form guilds, which is the only way to conduct player-v-player war or to delve into the most difficult areas of the virtual world.
The thing that most makes me tag WoW as PBM in disguise is the obsession of its players. Reminds me of when I was explaining EC to a new girlfriend back in the day, with my gaming-partner-brother standing next to us. Apparently we got so animated just talking about it that she started laughing in delight -- "you're just so INTO it!"
Another modern analogy might be fantasy sports leagues -- same level of enthusiasm from the players. A friend of mine was the "commissioner" of his league for years until it got to be too much for him and he "retired".
PBM in the old sense is rather long in the tooth, but still we have so many people playing so many games with such similar experiences! It kind of reminds me of the foreboding gloom that has descended upon the newspaper business -- this in an era where people are reading more news than ever before. It's just *different* now. But it's still here.
The thing that most makes me tag WoW as PBM in disguise is the obsession of its players. Reminds me of when I was explaining EC to a new girlfriend back in the day, with my gaming-partner-brother standing next to us. Apparently we got so animated just talking about it that she started laughing in delight -- "you're just so INTO it!"
Another modern analogy might be fantasy sports leagues -- same level of enthusiasm from the players. A friend of mine was the "commissioner" of his league for years until it got to be too much for him and he "retired".
PBM in the old sense is rather long in the tooth, but still we have so many people playing so many games with such similar experiences! It kind of reminds me of the foreboding gloom that has descended upon the newspaper business -- this in an era where people are reading more news than ever before. It's just *different* now. But it's still here.