SHUT THE @#$% UP ABOUT WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

I could not have lead the life I have up to this point if I didn't have a very high tolerance for hearing the same things over and over. Aside from talking about videogames for a living, it's a given to thousands of people that I'm a good person to show various weird things to. If I can take people's thoughts on the plot of FF7, and two dozen links to the All Your Base video a day without ending up in a nut house, it's pretty safe to say that when I get sick to death of something, there's a problem.

In this case, what I'm sick to death of is people talking about World of WarCraft. More specifically, with how wide the variety of people who won't shut the heck up about the thing is getting. If I go to look at, say, Penny Arcade for example, I have no right to complain about any WoW related rantings I may come across. These are people who talk about videogames for a living, if a game is popular, they're going to talk about it. Fine. The same obviously goes for any sort of gaming news site. The subject can get a little tiring, but that's no big deal.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. If I enter any given forum where many people are talking. A chat room, an actual physical public place, some other multiplayer computer game, people won't shut up about it there either. OK... that's a bit of an unhealthy degree of exposure, but I can always avoid that by pursuing other interests. So when I can't stand the WoW talk anymore, I can do something else, like check on these here webcomics I poke at here and there, right?

Half of them have more or less stopped updating, with nothing on the main page but a couple messages from the creator about how far their character is getting. The other half have replaced their usual comic with something like this example from SLUGGY FRELLING FREELANCE. One of the last places I'd expect this sort of thing. Even newspaper comics go down this road. Foxtrot's been talking about the thing on and off for a good year now.

Even Something Awful, which can generally be counted on to only talk about things that are quite obscure, and for good reason, has started up an ENTIRE NEW SECTION just to talk about World of WarCraft every week!

The worst part is, it's not like there's really anything to SAY about World of WarCraft. Every single thing I have ever seen anyone say about it basically translates into one of these statements:

• "Some of the people who play this here MMORPG sure are idiots."
• "Female Night Elves dance like strippers."
• "I am not fully satisfied with the way these classes are balanced."

Let's examine each of these a little further, shall we?

"Some of the people who play this here MMORPG sure are idiots."
Well, that's a given isn't it? There are a great many idiots in the world, if you play a game where you come across a huge variety of other players capable of communicating with you, particularly such a popular game, you are bound to encounter your fair share. The only way I could possibly enjoy you pointing out this fact is if you accompany it with a really interesting example. Keep in mind here though that you need to live up to the standard set by a thousand tech support people regaling us with tales of people who thought their CD trays were coasters, and that their computer should work with no power. Also keep in mind that people who just started playing a game and have yet to work out the bases not only aren't funny, they aren't even idiots. They're just new to it.

"Female Night Elves dance like strippers."
Yes. Yes they do. This is an intentional feature of the game, which everyone who plays the game discovered for themselves when they first bought it, and which everyone else learned when people all over the place first mentioned it. When the game first came out. Over a year ago. It's well established by now. We don't need you to point it out.

"I am not fully satisfied with the way these classes are balanced."
This is the worst, and naturally, by far the most common. Once again, this statement goes without saying. It's also not amusing, even if you've never heard it before. It's griping, which nobody ever really wants to hear. Now, you could argue that griping can be amusing if you're clever about it. The sort of gripes people make about World of WarCraft though are the sort of things that don't even make sense to anyone who hasn't played the game. In fact, they'll go over your head even if you do play the game, unless you play it to the exclusion of all other activities, developing an unhealthy obsession. Even under those conditions however, I can't comprehend how anyone could honestly find stuff like (warning: this is a link to Something Awful, and thus may offend you) THIS amusing?

I should probably stop here for a minute just to stress that, under normal circumstances, I'm rather fond of every party I've mentioned in here, and freely admit my own unhealthy obsession with Blizzard's games, but enough is enough.

So, to reiterate my initial point, unless you are specifically paid to do otherwise, could you all PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy,

SHUT THE @#$% UP ABOUT WORLD OF WARCRAFT!

Thank you.

(Incessant ramblings about Disgaea and Katamari Damacy still OK, but getting a little played out.)