Just got finished reading thru the "20 Worst NES Games People Actually Played" list. Whilst reading the section devoted (here I use the term "devoted" in the least affectionate sense) to Hydlide, I realized striking similarities to World of Warcraft.

In order to illustrate this, I have slightly edited this portion of the article; most proper nouns and a few non-proper ones (such as "A button") have been changed, but the rest left the same. The changed ones have been underlined.

Quote:

World of Warcraft combines a terrible fighting system with nauseatingly slow level advancement to create a game that is damn near unplayable. ... You play as a custom character who wanders around aimlessly looking for items that might aid him in his stupid quest. To engage enemies in combat, simply walk into them while holding down the mouse button and eventually one of you will die. You can avoid damage by attacking an enemy from behind but when your enemy is a homogeneous blue blob, it's kind of hard to tell which fucking side is the back. When you start off the game, the aforementioned blobs are pretty much the only enemy that you can safely fight; you'll have to get your character to at least Level 3 before you even think about killing anything else. The problem is that you'll have to kill an absolutely ridiculous amount of baddies to advance your level, like ONE HUNDRED. It's actually closer to ninety by my count, but that's still way too many guys to have to kill for your first level advancement. ... Also, you can't continue when you die. This is a fucking pain in the ass, because you can and will die suddenly in battle. Thus, if you haven't saved, you will be forced to start over. ... If World of Warcraft had been a turn-based RPG, I wouldn't view this as a problem. Unfortunately, World of Warcraft is played in real time and you shouldn't have to save obsessively in a game like this. Of course, you shouldn't have ever played this game to begin with, so let's pretend it never existed. Repress! REPRESS!!!

See?

Wow, responses to this were WAY more heated and in-depth than I expected. Now, allow me to clarify my position a little.

Yes, I have played World of Warcraft. Not to the extent that most people do (i.e. getting to level 85 and then quitting due to addiction and/or things coming up IRL), but I have played it. To be fair, it is certainly not as terrible as Hydlide, and at least the combat has a variety of options, even if the animation is repetitive and the game requires relatively little input from the player. I tried RuneScape once, and I think that was worse than WoW. I even played Dungeon Runners when that was still, if you'll pardon the expression, running. And even though that game was similar to WoW to the point of basically being a satire, it was still much more fun to me; mostly because you weren't severely handicapped if you went into a dungeon alone, and the game took its gameplay a lot more serious than the characters and items (Cardboard Shotgun of the Elephant?).

I also enjoyed DR more because it was both free and relatively obscure, so the only people playing were people genuinely searching for a good MMO. Sadly, both of those factors eventually led to its demise; RIP, Dungeon Runners.

Getting to the main point, I enjoy RPGs that are user-friendly, immersive, fleshed out, customizable, and allow for role-playing (because what does RPG stand for?) For this reason, I typically shy away from JRPGs, aside from the ones I find to be worthy of my time; sadly, none come to mind aside from the earlier (Gold and Silver) Pokemon games. Now, what series hits every checkmark on my little semi-list above? The Elder Scrolls.

Now, to compare and contrast.

User-friendliness

World of Warcraft does have a relatively simple control scheme, which uses the mouse almost exclusively. However, the HUD is cluttered with icons, dials and buttons; most of which do not have functions that are readily apparent to the untrained eye. In my opinion, clicking on a location to move to it is unintuitive (a downside I also dislike in some point-and-click adventure games). I do not have intimate knowledge of the class system, but when it takes the better part of a sentence to describe who your character is and what he does, it comes off as overly complex.

Morrowind, on the other hand, uses the mouse for aiming and item usage, and to bring up the menu. It controls more like a first-person (or third-person) shooter, though shooting is much less focused on. Some keys have various functions, but most are at least somewhat intuitive (J to bring up the Journal, + and - to select spells). Meanwhile, the flexible class system, while handy for experienced players who want a change of pace, is somewhat daunting to newcomers, as are the huge number of skills and spells.

Oblivion has much more intuitive controls, and streamlined weapons and skills; however, in doing this, it sacrifices some of the nuances that Morrowind had; the differences between axes and blunt weaponry, the reach of a long blade versus the speed of a short blade, the balance of medium armor, and so on. Enough fanboy ranting on this topic.

Immersion

World of Warcraft, to give credit where credit is due, does have a well thought-out world, with various races, creatures, and geographic regions. However, whatever thrill may come from exploration is dampened by two things; flying mounts, and other people. Just as omnipresent fast-traveling lessens the player's desire to explore in Oblivion (one of my few major complaints), the average player won't really care for taking the scenic route if he/she can just buzz over everything on a dragon's back. Also, the illusion of being in another world is shattered when there's a block of colored text scrolling down on the side of the screen, with various people asking for party members, offering to sell gold, and not realizing that their private chat of cybering with their boyfriend/girlfriend (or, worse, a total stranger, likely a trap) is not on a private channel. Also, if the option is not disabled, the distorted, compressed, crackly, whiny voice of a ten-year-old periodically reminds the user that they're not in Izmir or Capconia or whatever it's called now.

Morrowind's landscape is huge, varied, and mostly unsettled; true, most of the bigger towns have a dock or guild guide, but most travel will be done on foot (or by air, if you're a hell of a mage). Not only do most of the treasures and secrets lie off the beaten path, so do most of the land's most interesting features. Whether it's bubbling pools of lava and hot mud in the Ashlands and Molag Amur, watery swamps in the Ascadian Isles and Bitter Coast, or grassy fields in the West Gash Region, the land itself is a marvel. The dungeons are fascinating, too. The ancient machinery and steam-powered guardians in Dwarven ruins, along with the Dwemer writings scattered about, bring to mind the mystery of the Dwarves' disappearance (another story element, not really affecting gameplay but adding to the world). The giant insects, flying pterosaur-like Cliff Racers, and underwater monstrosities make Vvardenfell an almost totally alien landscape.

Oblivion, while immersive, is sadly far less likely to fill the player with wonderment, both due to the aforementioned fast-travel and due to the land's nearly bland familiarity. Forests, deer, wolves, and mountains are far more familiar (at least, to Americans and Canadians) than two-foot-long beetles and mushrooms the size of houses.

Customization

WoW does have modding capability; there are some servers where people can fly, kill each other in single hits, etc. But graphics modifications are not allowed (to the best of my knowledge).

Both Morrowind and Oblivion come with the Elder Scrolls Construction Set, the same tool the developers use to make the world of Tamriel come alive. Body mods, world mods, new spells, and other huge projects (Children of Morrowind, Tamriel Rebuilt) expand the modding community even further. TO put it simply, ANYTHING is possible with an Elder Scrolls game as far as addons go, and constantly active mod sites add to the official plug-ins and expansions.

Fleshed-outedness (is that a word?)

Someone, I think Syd (Syd, if I'm wrong, spareth my life), mentioned the disjointedness and/or lack of impact that WoW's cutscenes had, and the lack of effect on the story. I totally agree.

The advantage of a single-player game is that the story is infinitely malleable. In a game that millions of people play simultaneously, actions either have massive consequences or none at all. For example, in Morrowind, it is possible to kill Vivec (a major character, and actually a god to the Dark Elves). If this happens, you have two choices; "Persist in the doomed world you have created, or load a saved game to restore the balance." Yeah, I may have misquoted a bit, but that's the gist of it. If someone did this in a persistent environment, the game would be broken for everyone. This is why, in WoW, it is impossible to permanently kill anyone who is not a monster or a boss. In the Elder Scrolls games, you have choices, and consequences. Want to kill a guard in cold blood? Do it, and either die resisting arrest, flee with a huge price on your head, or pay your debt to society. Or, go to a Thieves Guild doyen and do it all over again.

Role-playing

In WoW, there do exist role-playing servers. I've not seen one for myself, but my friends tell me "yeah, there are, but they're full of people acting all weird" (a direct quote).

Morrowind and Oblivion provide a world full of possibility. Want to be a vampire? Become one, and actually be weak in sunlight, and thirsty for blood, but also enjoying the superhuman agility and resistance to ordinary weapons. Oh, and also enjoy the attacks and shunning of townsfolk in the later stages of the disease (hey, it's realistic). Much better than saying "I'm a vampire" in a chat box to no-one listening, eh? Much, much better than walking into people, running against them for a few seconds, and telling them (in your best Daniel Day-Lewis voice) "I drink your blood!" *

In conclusion; no, World of Warcraft is not as bad a game as Hydlide. One final point: both Morrowind and Oblivion are $19.99 each for the Game of the Year editions, which include all the expansions. Access to the thousands of various fanmade mods is free. The official plug-ins are free for Morrowind, and cheap (most less than $5) for Oblivion. Or you can pay $15 a month (plus $40 or so for each new expansion) to play WoW.

Greg the White wrote:

It's nice, but I'm still wondering why there are so few MMO shooter games. It seems like a Call of Duty/Battlefield style of MMO would be insanely popular. Maybe the technology is just too far off.

I agree, and this is why I tried Anarchy Online (disappointed, not really a shooter) and tried to find PlanetSide (couldn't).