Today I was going through my usual entertainment (?) of reading the FoH boards while reading an old martial arts fiction story about a bunch of ex-thugs trying to go back to a life of exciting crime, I suddenly had an insight on the nature of EQ and WoW. EverQuest is like robbing a bank. It is a tough thing to do and is very demanding, and there's no guaranteed you'll get through it alive. But the payoff can be pretty good, and also everyone knows if you're the greatest bank robber in the world (ala EQ uberguilds). Great robbers (guilds) come and go and you always have to be on your guard to stay ahead of the pack.
Now moving to WoW. WoW is like money laundering. Based on WoW's numbers at least 90% of the people who play WoW never thought about being a bank robber (played a MMORPG seriously before). Some may hit it big, some may not, but either way life is easy and good. The 10% that came from an ex-hardcore MMORPG find themselves quickly fading into obscurity. The payoff may be good, but no one knows who you are anymore since money launderng isn't something you brag about even within your own crime circles especially when the rest of the world is doing it too, and life isn't as exciting as before. To make things worse, their previous skills as bank robbers do not transfer into the business of money laundering, on top of the fact that they were never good bank robbers in the first place. Indeed just about every 'great' EQ guild that moved onto WoW ended up fading into obscurity except FoH, which is popular but certainly not anywhere on the top of WoW.
After being used to the easy life, the ex-hardcore guys find it daunting to go back to the life of bank-robbing for questionable payoff. Indeed when confronted why these ex-great players complain all day about how WoW sucks and have nothing to do but don't got back to EQ which certainly has more than enough things to do (no one can possibly dispute that as EQ sits with 10 expansions of content), you invariably get responses that indicate people aren't as hardcore as they used to be. The notion of being the center of the crime world and all its glory is no match to the easy life. Indeed there is no reason to believe these guys would even be successful bank robbers (a majority of FoH forum posters were never anyone important in EQ or WoW), so why risk the easy payoff for the hard stuff? So all we get is some guys talked about 'back in their days' they were robbing banks (unsuccessfully) uphills in the snow bothways and now the newer wimpy money laundering (WoW) guys don't know what it's like to be truly hardcore.
And then you got Vanguard, which would be as hardcore as strapping some dynamite on yourself and blow yourself up.
Now moving to WoW. WoW is like money laundering. Based on WoW's numbers at least 90% of the people who play WoW never thought about being a bank robber (played a MMORPG seriously before). Some may hit it big, some may not, but either way life is easy and good. The 10% that came from an ex-hardcore MMORPG find themselves quickly fading into obscurity. The payoff may be good, but no one knows who you are anymore since money launderng isn't something you brag about even within your own crime circles especially when the rest of the world is doing it too, and life isn't as exciting as before. To make things worse, their previous skills as bank robbers do not transfer into the business of money laundering, on top of the fact that they were never good bank robbers in the first place. Indeed just about every 'great' EQ guild that moved onto WoW ended up fading into obscurity except FoH, which is popular but certainly not anywhere on the top of WoW.
After being used to the easy life, the ex-hardcore guys find it daunting to go back to the life of bank-robbing for questionable payoff. Indeed when confronted why these ex-great players complain all day about how WoW sucks and have nothing to do but don't got back to EQ which certainly has more than enough things to do (no one can possibly dispute that as EQ sits with 10 expansions of content), you invariably get responses that indicate people aren't as hardcore as they used to be. The notion of being the center of the crime world and all its glory is no match to the easy life. Indeed there is no reason to believe these guys would even be successful bank robbers (a majority of FoH forum posters were never anyone important in EQ or WoW), so why risk the easy payoff for the hard stuff? So all we get is some guys talked about 'back in their days' they were robbing banks (unsuccessfully) uphills in the snow bothways and now the newer wimpy money laundering (WoW) guys don't know what it's like to be truly hardcore.
And then you got Vanguard, which would be as hardcore as strapping some dynamite on yourself and blow yourself up.
