World of Warcraft is without a doubt the biggest MMO on the planet. There aren’t any other MMOs that can brag the player base, the depth of lore, the passion from players or the insane amount of content that WoW can. That’s why, many years ago, it was one of the first PC games to gain mainstream attention due to it being incredibly addictive and hard to put down for early adopters of the game. WoW offered up an MMO experience like never before where you felt like you constantly had goals within reach that would surely only take another half an hour or so to reach. However, they did not and you found yourself constantly telling yourself this with every goal met. Soon you found yourself having played the game all day or all night.
World of Warcraft may have seen some massive competition over recent years from titles such as Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, WildStar, Guild Wars 2, Terra, Rift and many more. But there’s no doubting that if you want the complete MMO experience, you pay the $15 a month for a WoW Subscription. But why is World of Warcraft the most addictive game of all time? What makes this game take hundreds, to thousands of hours out of people’s lives like no other game can? Let’s try and answer that!
The Sheer Amount Of Content
World of Warcraft was introduced in late 2004 and therefore has had nearly 11 years to perfect it’s gameplay, add in new features, but more importantly, expand upon the incredibly large universe with new storylines, new quests, new expansions, new places to visit, new classes, new dungeons, new races, new mounts, new pets and so much more. You’d do well to find a game that compete with World of Warcraft when it comes to sheer quantity of content in an MMO.
As aforementioned, having over 10 years on the game allows Blizzard to introduce so much more content than any other MMO. For example, there have been five expansions with a sixth coming out next year. With each of these expansions brings new content in nearly every area of WoW, almost like a whole new game’s worth of content each time.
The Lore
World of Warcraft is without a doubt the game with the most passionate fans on it’s side. The game contains some really quite incredible backstories to nearly every main character you meet and storyline you undertake. Therefore, players love to try and read more about the content and go and look for characters and monsters and more within the game to feel accomplished.
On top of this there’s been a lot of literature based around the World of Warcraft universe that expands upon the lore even more, opening serious fans up to a deeper level of story and engagement than really any other game.
That “Just One More Quest” Feeling
Having had over ten years to develop the game, Blizzard have perfected the placement of their quests. What they’ll do is have you struggle to find any quests, think about maybe coming off the game and then present you with three or four exclamation marks above NPC’s heads to entice you to just get those quests done and THEN you’ll come off.
However, once you’ve completed those quests, one of the NPCs you’ve already engaged with will have another quest for you which will take you to another town which you tell yourself you’ll come off after. However, when you get to the town you see another few quests hanging around and the problem arises again. It’s a simple formula that can really grab you and easily take away hours of your day without even having noticed it.
Giving You Something New At Just The Right Time
What all great games do is keep giving you new content and abilities and skills and gameplay mechanics as you progress through the game. WoW manages to do this perfectly. For example, when you hit Level 10, you can start doing dungeons, when you hit Level 15 you can get your first Mount, when you hit Level 30 your mount gets faster, when you hit level 60, your mount can fly. Whilst achieving these you’ve also unlocked raids and more dungeons and side quests and the ability to buy new mounts and get new gear. It’s all very addictive and makes you feel like you’ve constantly got a bigger objective to work towards which is, as aforementioned, something all great games do.
Looting
Something that Blizzard are good at is loot-based games. Loot is essentially the idea that you can collect weapon, armour and other items from completing quests, killing monsters or earning achievements. Diablo 3 is probably the best game in the world for this and is probably why it’s the biggest selling PC game of all time. However, World of Warcraft has an incredibly strong loot system too.
WoW seems like a nerd’s game due to the fantasy universe and the many different-looking weapons and armour you can buy, earn and find whilst travelling throughout Azeroth. That feeling of seeing some new boots or a new sword you could earn from killing 15 Enraged Deer is undeniably one of the reasons World of Warcraft is so addictive.
