Chapter 34437: The End of WoW

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This last chapter isn't entirely humor in the sense of the previous chapters, but a serious outlook on the problems of WoW. The final chapter of this story should not be read unless you are looking for a somewhat educated response to the many complaints about this game, and it's many shortcomings.

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"One more well-timed jump... There!" Old Man Peterson said, as he and his companion, Somewhat Younger Akerson reached the top of the Ironforge Airport.

"Wow, Old Man Peterson, you finally did it! You've done everything in WoW there is to do!" Akerson said.

"Yeah, it only took me a five digit long length of hours, countless stress, and cost me my job and social life." Old Man Peterson growled. "What a waste."

"Damn, you've gotten pretty bitter over the years Old Man Peterson, why is that?" Akerson asked.

"Well, you see kid, when you reach the same level of total hours clocked as I have, you begin to see what is wrong with the world. That, or if you actually had common sense to begin with and avoided playing this game all together." Old Man Peterson explained.

"But, WoW is fun!" Akerson yelled in almost disbelief, but piped down when he realized that the GM's would hear him and ban them both for being in an exploit area.

"Is it, Somewhat Younger Akerson?" Old Man Peterson began, "You spend the first couple of hundred hours levelling, doing quests, and so forth. Those were the glory days. The fear of the opposite faction killing you and camping your corpse for several hours. The sheer adrenaline of watching your group wipe and the aftermath of finger pointing and cussing. Tedious hours grinding for experience and mount money. Realizing that you picked a gimp class and have to start over from Day 1."

"Come on, those days weren't that bad!" Akerson said.

"You're right, they weren't... at least compared to the end game." Old Man Peterson continued, "Upon reaching level 60, many things are open to you. Even more tedious hours grinding for epic mount money. Finding your way into one of your server's three top faction clans. Spending even more hours raking up DKP so that you can get one item that has cool purple lettering and looks somewhat decent on your character depending whether or not the epic set models are even complete yet."

"Well, at least you have clanmates to help you out." Akerson said.

"Well, maybe in PvP, but when it comes to PvE and epic sets, you are at competition with your class. If you are in one of the top clans, chances are you will be kissing the ass of your clan leaders and officers just to stay in the guild." Old Man Peterson replied.

Our 'heroes' continue near the edge of the airport mountain, looking down upon the wetlands and watching as the horde exploited the ships to avoid the guards at Menethil Harbor, while the Alliance yelled and bitched about it instead of actually desiring to fight.

"See, PvP is another thing. For one, people take their pride in their faction to literally. They use stereotypes of another faction to get their point across on the forums and such. All Alliance are twelve year olds who are obsessed with Lord of the Rings characters. All Horde are hardcore gaming geeks who listen to heavy metal music and are obsessed with Undead. People join the Alliance because they want numbers and quantity. People join the Horde because they want, 'offensive' racial abilities and thus, quality." Old Man Peterson said.

"But they do realize it's just a game right?" Akerson asked, causing Old Man Peterson to laugh.

"Please. Most of them have devoted so much time that they forget where they are... an online community where it is far easier to sound and look like a tough guy than they can ever hope to be in real life. They post on a forum where cookie cutter phrases such as 'Cry more noob' or 'Learn to play' are the norm. They use this forum to spam their inside jokes and phrases in YTMND format, enraging the members of that community who are more interested in listening to racial slurs for colored people being accused of taking a pink guy's bicycle." Old Man Peterson continued.

"It's not all bad, there can be some cool people on WoW!" Akerson said. "Besides, it's Blizzard, what can go wrong?"

"Plenty can go wrong. Unlike their previous games, where most balance issues were addressed at the same time per patch, Blizzard seems to have taken a new approach where they merely upgrade or tweak one class at a time. Since patches are usually seperated by months, it takes forever for some issues to be addressed. Look at casters, specifically mages. They were considered overpowered in beta, but since they haven't been touched in a significant way since beta, the other classes slowly began to become more powerful than them." Old Man Peterson explained.

"Even worse is that caster itemization hasn't been addressed, so that even if mages, priests, or warlocks are buffed, they won't be able to go toe to toe with melee as well as they should." Old man Peterson added.

"Itemization wha?" Akerson said.

"Look at it this way. If a warrior wants a significant increase in damage, they just need to find a single item, a weapon, to become high grade damage dealers. On the other hand, a caster will have to find an ENTIRE SET just to get the damage increase, and usually, the plus damage stat means a decrease in other stats anyways." Old Man Peterson said.

"Well then, nerf warriors!" Akerson suggested.

"That may seem like a plausible effect to just nerf a class that seems powerful in the face of unupgraded classes, but what about the classes that the warrior has to go toe to toe with and be challenged by? Now they will dominate warriors, and warriors will be calling for a nerfs on whatever class they are being dominated by." Old Man Peterson replied. "This game isn't balanced, it's more like a game of rock paper and scissors."

"I never thought of it that way, especially when I was on the forums complaining about Shamans being overpowered." Akerson said.

"Shamans bring up an interesting point. Blizzard doesn't seem to want to directly come out and say other classes are more powerful than the others, thus, overpowered. In the case of Shamans, they explained that 'Shamans are the only complete class'. However, read between the lines. If Shamans are the only complete class, that means the other classes are incomplete, and thus, underpowered, or possibly suggested that they may be overpowered in the face of Shamans. However, I have seen enough of WoW to determine that no class has a distinct advantage over Shamans. The closest are Paladins, which simply have the ability to not die for a while." Old Man Peterson said.

"Personally if you ask me, a 'jack of all trades' class for just one faction is a mistake which should have never made it past beta. However, to be fair to Shamans, people tend to overexaggerate their power, not realizing that all Shaman trees have greatly powerful abilities, the Shaman usually only goes down two trees." Old Man Peterson continued.

"Well, Old Man Peterson, I'm really inspired by all this. What made you so compelled to explain all this to me up here on this mountain?" Akerson asked.

"You will be the witness to my end, my friend." Old Man Peterson explained.

"WHAT? Are you going to... CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT?" Akerson yelled.

"Exactly. Between the long hours required to achieve anything in the relatively boring end game, the imbalances, the petty flaming, and most of all, the fact that I'm paying fifteen dollars of my hard earned money for this game, in which one of this stories reviewers so adequetly put it, that only masochists can truely enjoy, it's time to end it all." Old Man Peterson said.

Then, Old Man Peterson lifted a gun out of his armor, and aimed it at his head.

"NOOO! Are you sure you want to cancel your account?" Akerson said to his friend.

"Considering that the next patch is probably going to upgrade a class that isn't mine, and indirectly nerf my class... Hell, freakin, yes." Old Man Peterson said, then pulled the trigger.

A loud bang was heard, as Old Man Peterson's credit card information was blown out of his head and scattered all along the snow, staining the snow into a money green color. Old Man Peterson's corpse tumbled off the ledge, towards Menethil Harbor.

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Meanwhile, in Menethil Harbor...

"You noob horde! You guys are geeks in real life who listen to too much Marilyn Manson!" some alliance yelled. "Stop camping the ships!"

"LOL you stupid alliance I can't understand a word you are saying because cross faction communication is, thankfully, unusable! Go watch some more LotR you twelve year old!" the horde yelled back.

Suddenly, a bright red streak darted toward Menethil Harbor. The two battling factions stopped their laggy warfare and looked up.

It was Peterson's corpse, heading at maximum velocity towards the city. Before anyone could react, it impacted, causing a massive explosion and a sudden spam of yells...

"CRAP!"

"NERF!"

"KEK!"

"BUR!"

"KAAAAAHN!"

"Snake? SNAAAAAAKKKEE!"

"LEEERROOOY NNNJENKINS!"

"Ditka vs Nefarion! STARSHIP TROOPERS MUSIC!"

"COOL I WILL SPAM THE WOW FORUMS TO GET IT IN YTMND TOP 15!"

"Nelson Muntz HAHA!"

"NERF SHAMANS!"

"WORLD OF ROGUECRAFT!"

"MAGES NEED INVIS!"

"WARLOCKS ARE USELESS!"

"PALADINS TAKE FOREVER TO KILL SOMETHING!"

"EVERYONE HAS AIDS!"

"AIDS AIDS AIDS!"

"LEARN TO PLAY!"

"CRY MORE NOOB!"

"LEARN TO CRY!"

"PLAY MORE NOOB!"

"WHAT?"

The shockwave from the explosion pierced right into the core of the planet, causing the server to crash, FOREVER.

THE END