I just quit playing World of Warcraft. I really enjoyed the game the two months I played it, it's a nicely put together MMOG. But I get bored of games once I learn how they work, and I have other things to do with the time, so it was time to quit.

I went out in style. I gave away all my herbs to the first nice person who offered to help me and all my money to my guild. Then I went home, to Thunder Bluff, launched a bunch of fireworks, and jumped off the highest cliff with nothing but my guild tabbard to clothe me.

Two things interested me in WoW. One was the auction system. I like virtual economics, so I cooked up a bunch of code to dump auction prices from the game, put prices in a database and analyzed them. Lots of interesting inefficiencies in the marketplace, but I don't have the time to conduct a really proper economic analysis.

The other interesting thing is player vs. player combat. WoW was designed from the start to really feature PvP. Alas, the game as launched today doesn't really do it right. If they get the battlegrounds and honor system right it could be a truly new thing.

culturegames
  2005-02-26 03:06 Z