CoH and WoW

Some asswipe actually dared to call the plot and story of my favourite MMORPG World of Warcraft “stupid and inane” in hos blog. Naturally, I’m going to write my own blog entry explaining in a few paragraphs why he can lick my currently hairless fat scrotum, and why I’m writing this entry while waiting for my lvl 70 mage to regenerate mana between battles rather than doing so while waiting for some cum-ridden fucking cunt of an "super hero". So, a few rounds of mortal combat between the two:

One: The plot
Now, while I can agree that some quests are pretty inane - but come on. Are the side quests in City of Heroes wonders of innovation or creativity? Shouldn't think so. For all values of "MMORPG" I've ever come in contact with, there are loads of Kill X or Fetch Y. This is pretty okay, really. It's not okay in a regular CRPG, but in MMORPGs, there are other aspects than close-knit immersion. If you take time to read the quest texts and actually try and see a good reason for you to do whatever the inbred bastard asks, and also possess some sort of imagination, you can see that "Kill twelve wolfs and bring me their pelts" is an abstraction for "Go out in the wild. I want you to kill the finest wolf you can find, and I will reward you if you bring me its pelt for my new kilt." and friends who on an actual adventure rather than some haphazardly created group of tards running fifty yards from the base camp and begin flinging spells. Now, this concerns the actual core of MMORPGs and not the plot.

As far as "lore", "story elements" or "plot points" are concerned, World of Warcraft has lots. While you may have had to been there, early-to-mid-nineties, and played the original games and later Warcraft III, to see all of them, there is a rich world, full of conflicts - some on a more grande scale, some a bit more... pig farmish. Whichever you end up doing you are served tidbits of game world knowledge and history. You are thrown into age-old wartorn areas of the world and can visit battle fields and talk to heroes of the earlier wars. The world has character and depth and becomes increasingly more epic as you progress in the levels. The further you climb, the closer to canon-recent events you end up. However, its usually in the lower levels you deal with the more pressing matters. Some bad-ass sitting on his throne amassing an army isnt prio 1, the gnolls raiding the food supply to an outskirt village is. Even though the same gnolls raid the same caravan a year later when you level your next charachter, it still feels like you made a difference.

City of Heroes on the other hand, is a generic fucking city thats crawling with super heroes. Warcraft is an epic world, where heroes are abundant. City of Heroes has a special übersuperhero on every street corner, and you, as a lowly hero, have to deal with the street crime whereas the bigger fishermen deal with the bigger fish. I just find this incredibly stupid. Who would want to be a criminal in a city packed full of fucking crime-busting superheroes? With superpowers! The premise is retarded. Your baseball bat can't help you much here, really...

Winner: WoW.

Two: Mechanics
Now, while I can agree that WoW has become increasingly complex for no seemingly good reason lately, the addition of all sorts of different "ratings" (more specialized secondary stats which gives greater bonuses but at the cost of more specific uses - compare "spell critical strike rating" with "intellect" or "melee critical strike rating" with "agility") is nice, but sort of redundant. This works differently for different classes, of course. It only adds a quick moment of numbercrunching when I'm choosing between gear, but at least its a bit more than simply discarding the old piece without thought because the new one undoubtedly is better.

Other than equipment/gear versus different types of enhancements, not much separate them gameplay wise. City of Heroes has a class entirely dedicated to crowd control, World of Warcraft instead adds small elements of crowd control to each class. Some, as the warrior, can temporarily cause fear in an enemy, putting him out of the fight for a few seconds. Other, as the mage, can transform an enemy into a sheep with a much longer duration, and the option to "re-sheep" that enemy right before the spell wears off for renewed duration. Likewise, in City of Heroes, some classes have limited crowd control abilities. While I should say that City of Heroes may contain a slightly more focus on crowd control, crowd control in World of Warcraft is very important. If your "sheep" "breaks" at the wrong moment you could very well be looking at a full party wipe. I like this tension. It keeps me on my toes as a player who enjoy high damage output and some crowd control elements - for one of my characters, "stealing aggro" is central. For my other, "stealing aggro" is lethal. For me.

World of Warcrafts starts to shine in the boss battles however. Every boss has some special quirk, and a lot of bosses require special strategys to beat. Even if you know it and perform it, its not certain you win however, so its not all about a quick trip to the WoW-wiki for answers. Even tho some bosses are "tank and spank", there's always something more to it, and several have "phases" which require you to change tactics mid-fight.

I never really did task forces in City of Heroes, but I think I still can assume that World of Warcraft raid bosses have them beat by miles.

Winner: WoW.

Three: Graphics
Now, while I can agree that WoW looks like a comic book, I find the aestethics pleasing and true to the concept. City of Heroes looks fucking bland. Nuff' said.

Winner: WoW.

Four: Clientel
Now, while I can agree that WoW is played by twelve year olds (they usually play Alliance though, so I get to kill them - mature players choose Horde), who plays City of Heroes? Fat, greasy nerds with Cheet-O stains on their shirts. Also twelve year olds.

Winner: Nobody. People are stupid, and in MMORPGs you have to play with them. Sometimes your success in dependent on stupid people. So you die. And die again. Fuck you you fucking noobs, lern2play.

Five: Character creation and customization
Now, while I can agree that WoW absolutely blows donkey dick, I... no. I'm not even gonna try. Not even ten hairstyles and ten different skin colors could have measured up to City of Heroes character creation. Although the visuals for a super hero are important, there is no fucking excuse for Blizzard to make three sets of end-game equipment thats always "the best" for each class, causing every single mage to look the same. And then, for the PvP rewards (for the less hard-core), there's hardly even a color scheme change! People in the meanest gear will look alike, and its hella boring. While you can turn off display of your head piece, you cant do it for the worst equipment part - the frigging oversized and overdesigned shoulderpads. The only way to affect body mass is chosing gender and race. Gnomes should be tiny and tauren should be huge, fair, but at least add a little slide or something. Please?

Winner: CoH, by the biggest margin in this mortal kombat.


Six: Game modding
You can mod CoH?

Winner: WoW.

Please not above is written in spite, and with tounge firmly planted in cheek. I am no WoW zealot, but I wouldn't still be playing the game I trashed for over a year if I didn't find any appeal.