Quote:Well, leaving aside a discussion of the apparently irresistible blandishments of the pre-60 WoW game for the unsophisticated gamer who can't recognize poison when he see it, I do wonder how WoW has succeeded in converting 6 million odd people to the pleasures of camping Frogluk's, or whatever it is they're actually doing. It is, honestly, a bit of a mystery to me.
Well, EQ was the most sucessfull MMORPG of the pre WoW era. So there must be a certain fascination with camping Frogluk ;)
The fascination is called "content progression". In EQ as well as WoW there is a hierarchy in high end content: one piece of content unlocks directly (specifc key) or indirectly (a certain level of itemization) access to another piece of content higher up the chain (UBRS, DM, Strat, Scholo -> MC, ZG, AQ20 -> BWL -> AQ40 -> Naxx) Each stage has higher requirements than the previous one. There is undeniably a special thrill when you reach the next level of content like killing an especially hard boss. That it was such a long way to get there makes the the victory so much more sweeter.
There wouldn't be anything special about Naxx if everyone who just dinged lvl 60 could walk in there and fight his way to Kel'thuzad. What makes it so fascinating is, that it's so very much of reach for most players yet; that you have to progress first from UBRS to AQ40 or at least BWL to have even have realistic chance with the encounters in Naxx. That's what makes progression content so appealing imo.