Drunken Warhammer Ranting

So I'm drunk, angry, have not written a rant in a while, and my raid was just canceled because we could not get enough people. These things combined provide an excellent opportunity for me to bitch about how much I fucking hate Warhammer Online.

What an MMO is:
Perhaps the best starting point is a definition of what an MMO is. An MMO is a context in which one can be better than others. In the same way, all "games", in some sense, are contexts in which to be better than others: contexts of competition which strives for "better". Chess as a context, othello as a context, D&D as a context, Guitar Hero as a context, are all contexts maintained by their ability to afford an individual an access to "better". In WoW, as with all MMOs, for example, the context provides an opportunity for being better than other players. One does what is required to amass gear so affording themselves opportunitites to amass even better gear. The end, of course, not being the acquisition of better gear but rather the acquisition of bragging rights, a degree of being "better", the opporutnity to lord one's accomplishments over the less accomplished.

This is what an MMO is, what games are.

Warhammer Online is just another MMO
Warhammer Online, as with all MMOs, is simply a new context for being better than other players, another contextual opportunity for bragging rights. As with World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online is simply little more than another context of carrots and sticks, hoops and rewards. The stick is quests and amassing pvp derived currency, the carrot is gear. The hoop is struggling to obtain PvP objectives, RvR accomplishments, and the reward is gear. Warhammer Online is fundamentally the same thing as WoW, as Dark Age of Camelot, as Asheron's Call, as Everquest: It is simply a new context in which to be better than other players. Any innovation which occurs in the Warhammer model is not indicative of some fundamental shift but rather a reinterpretation of the hoops through which one must jump to be better than other players. The fixation on PvP rather than PvE is not novel, is not new but rather is a new stick for a new carrot.

Why I hate Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online : Vanilla :: World of Warcraft : Chocolate. These games are not fundamentally different, as Vanilla and Chocolate are not fundamentally different. Rather, they are both twists on the same god damned thing; they are both context for being better than others each with their own sticks and carrots, hoops and rewards. Yet Warhammer proports to be something different. But it is NOT! Yes, Warhammer fixated on PvP moreso than PvE, but that fixation is little more than new paint on the WoW, Everquest, DOAC, Asheron's Call, MMO model of gameplay. It's THE SAME GOD DAMNED FUCKING THING ALL OVER AGAIN! It is not NEW but rather is a reinterpretation. It is chocolate to vanilla, ICE CREAM to ICE CREAM.

My Frustration
What is frustrating about Warhammer is that people who previously played WoW leave WoW for Warhammer. Which is fine. But their reasons for leaving make no god damned sense once one realizes that Warhammer is the same thing as WoW, it is ice cream just as WoW is ice cream, it is a context for "better" just as WoW is a context for better. It is the same god damned thing.

Yet, after accomplishing much in WoW players are compelled to leave WoW for Warhammer, to leave one set of sticks and carrots, hoops and rewards, to seek out a new set of hoops and rewards, to start over at the very beginning after having made accomplishments in WoW.

And that does not make any god damned sense.

We already have a context for defining "better", we already have ice cream. Why leave Chocolate for Vanilla? Why leave WoW for Warhammer? Once one recognizes that the games are fundamentally the same fucking thing whence the compulsion to switch? Why start over? After having made progress in WoW why leave? Why force one's self to jump throught a new set of hoops, to overcome new sticks for new carrots? Given that they are the same thing why not stick with the context with which one is already familiar?

Why leave Chocolate for Vanilla when one is still eating ice cream?! Why force one's self to start over rather than progress in the context one has already entered?

A Conclusion, I guess
Warhammer and WoW are not different any more than Chocolate and Vanilla are different. They are fundamentally the same thing. So, really, what's the point in starting over? Eventually that same problems manifest in WoW will manifest themselves in Warhammer. Just as one left WoW so, too, will one leave Warhammer one day. Once one recognizes this, once one accepts the fundamental truth that all MMOs are simply reintepreations of the same thing, why leave one for another? Why repeat history? Warhammer will eventually be just as boring as WoW given that they are the same damn thing. So if you're going to keep playing MMOs why change and not stick with WoW?

I can understand leaving the realm of MMOs for something else once one recognizes that all MMOs are fundamentally the same thing reinterpretated over the years. I can understand no longer consuming ice cream once one has one's fill of ice cream. But leaving WoW for Warhammer, leaving Chocolate for Vanilla? That is little more than short-sigted idiocy based upon some sort of moronic illusion that these things are somehow different when they are fundamentally the same thing.

If one is tired of Ice Cream stop eating Ice Cream. If one is tired of MMOs stop playing MMOs. But don't leave WoW for Warhammer, don't stop eating Chocolate to eat Vanilla.

That's just stupid.