MMOs kill your brain

When you compare the most popular games in the top gaming genres you can see a trend emerging. For FPS there is Counter-Strike, for RTS there is Starcraft, and for RPGs there are the old school Baldur's Gate and games like Planescape Torment. Can you see it? All these games either have a lot of skill, depth or both. When we reach the MMO category what do we have...World of Warcraft! So can we categorize the MMO genre as the ultimate n00b genre? To be good at MMOs above all you need time; time to raid, time to farm, time to do whatever mundane tasks you need to do. The top guilds in WoW get there through a good knowledge of the game; its classes and such, as well as being organized and committed. There isn't a huge amount of depth and certainly not much skill involved. (Controversial?)

Its sad to see that MMOs seem only to take off other MMOs rather then get better through analyzing the classic games of the other genres. Imagine if PvP took half the skill a good game of CS:S did. Imagine if quests and NPCs had half the depth of what the classic RPGs had. Imagine if raiding strategies were half as deep and complex as Starcraft strategies. MMOs have become a cliche: grinding to the level cap, then grinding mundane tasks at the cap just to keep up with everyone else, and then gear grinding. Being the leading figure in the genre WoW should take the initiative and begin to take from other genres rather then just continually flattering their own cliche.

Disclaimer: This post was written minutes before Chappo had to go and be baffled by the Archimedian(?) War. It thus might contain some traces of being rushed and ranty.