Motivation

[rowyn]

Lut: "Hey, look at my character now." He's playing World of Warcraft again.
Me "Awwww, you're a little kitty!" Not a miniature panther, but a housecat. The effect wore off even as I spoke. "So could you run around as a little kitty all the time if you wanted to?"
Lut: "No."
Me: "Darn."
Me: "... 'cause you know I might actually play WoW for a little while if I could." I have technically played two or three hours of WoW, on a trial account. I did not enjoy it.
Lut: "Well, if you're a druid ... "
Me: "You can't be a little kitty, only one of the big war-cat-things."
Lut: "True."
Me: "Bear in mind I did play Perfect World for three or four weeks just so I could run around as a fox."

Sadly, this actually is one of the reasons I've never been interested in WoW -- I've never liked the way the character avatars looked. Large parts of the world are lovely. The people are ... meh. At best.

And I am apparently shallow.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Heh. That reminds me how I wished I could play a Gnoll ... or maybe a High Elf (NOT a Blood Elf, technically speaking) ... or any number of things. The World of Warcraft canon has LOTS of what I'd see as great character options, even if the differences from one race to the next might be purely "superficial." Ultimately, it's a video game. A good part of the draw is all the pretty colorful stuff and the fluff -- i.e., "superficial" stuff. If they already have the models, it would've been great to run around as (some other character model), even if said character wouldn't be able to sport all the armor models. I remember how there was a thing with a quest where you'd get a wand that would let you put on a Moonkin disguise, and there were a few players who'd take that quest just to get the wand (be sure to do it before it "goes grey"!) and then never turn in for the reward ... so they could keep the Moonkin wand.

I think there was another quest that involved using a cloak that could disguise the user as a panther, but that had a limited time and massive cooldown, so it didn't offer the prospect of perpetually going around looking like a cat. ;)

And then there were times when I'd collect a bunch of low-level attire with lousy stats simply because I liked the look of the costume.

Sometimes it's just nice to have my "avatar" have a little more distinctive look. Sure, there'll be someone on the server with the same idea, but the more options, the less chance I'll just blend in with all the other broad-shouldered goofs in patchwork gears and funny little capes dashing and hopping about in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

(I find it amusing that the old April Fool's joke about Pandaren becoming a new playable race finally came TRUE. Now if only they'd do that with the old April Fool's bit about the bard class -- with a Guitar-Hero-like interface for playing "buff" songs to help the party -- I might be tempted to play again for a while. ;)

[rowyn]

Guitar-hero-style bardic buffs would be pretty fun! Hee! :D

I remember in Everquest, druids got a spell that turned themselves in wolves, and then at higher levels, the whole party into wolves. Wolfpack! We used to all run around as wolves and people would be really surprised to see me casting cleric spells. n_n