Okay, so I don't really hate fishing. It's just that I've never found it to be all that much fun. In fact, I haven't tried to fish since 1991. In my experience, the act of fishing has been made up of long, mind-numbingly boring stretches of time, broken up by brief frantic moments of failure (assuming I even get a fish to bite). And no, we're NOT talking about my history with the ladies...
Having said that, I'm constantly amazed at the idea that including fishing as a profession/hobby/waste of time in an MMO sounds like good, clean fun. Let's take into account that moments feel like dog years when you're sitting in front of your monitor waiting for something to happen (like watching Windows XP boot). Now, let's take an action such as fishing, and do it on the computer. Can you see where I'm going with this? If it's boring in real life, it's really going to suck in a game.
To make matters worse, my experience with fishing in MMOs also involves a healthy dose of misery. For example, back when I was playing EverQuest, I was in the process of passing a guy who was fishing in order to acquire food. Considering how boring that would be for me, I took pity on him and decided to offer him some money so he could buy himself some food, therefore relieving him of the awful task of fishing. Instead of thanks, I was rewarded with a curt "Fuck off." How's that for gratitude? I guess some people just don't know how to have a good time...
Years later, I decided to give World of Warcaft a try. Of course, they *had* to have fishing, too, apparently since it's such a laugh riot to do it. This time, though, I had a plan. I figured that I would just ignore it and concentrate on the rest of the game's content. Wrong. I made the fatal mistake of choosing Alchemy as one of my professions, and sure enough, I raised my skill to the point where I learned a recipe that required a FISH to make the potion. The dreaded Oily Blackmouth fish. Unfortunately, since I'd ignored fishing up to that point, I had to first level up my Fishing SkillzTM before I could even attempt to catch the damn fish. This, of course, took forever, so by the time I could attempt to catch the fish, my character level had advanced to the point where the potion I wanted to create was practically useless (deep cleansing breath).
Finally, I reached the height of my fishing phobia last night while playing Lord of the Rings Online (you'll notice that I no longer play WoW... the bastards). I came across a quest in Forochel, a high-level area, in which a fisherman asked me to catch 10 fish, suspiciously called Oily Fish (cue conspiracy theorists). Since my decision to ignore fishing in WoW worked out so well, I had decided to stick with that plan. So when I got this quest, my Fishing SkillzTM sucked AGAIN. So, for every 5 casts into the icy water I made, I caught weeds on 4 of them. So, not only do I have long bouts of boredem broken up by failure, I have A LOT of them.
To add injury to insult, I was sent to fish in an area teeming with wildlife, which hates Elves, apparently. During one doomed cast, I was ambushed by a Matron Ice Bear. In case you are unaware, while fishing, your weapons are stowed safely away in your inventory, so defending yourself is pretty much impossible. I'm guessing that the sight of an Elf frantically backpedalling while fruitlessly searching his bags for weapons was so comical, that the bear's cub, an Ice Bear Yearling, then decided to join in on the carnage. I barely escaped with a sliver of health left. At least they spared me the indignity of having to delete yet another weed from my backpack.
I just don't get it... Why on earth would any game company think this is fun? I can just see it now, in the next expansion, the designers will come out with a new profession called "Watching Grass Grow." If you stand around watching it grow, your skillz improve, enabling you to notice new and more exotic types of grass. That way, when you max out this amazing skill, you can have a title called, "Grass Gazer." I'm telling you, it'll be a big hit...
By Garret - Posted on 03 September 2008
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Okay, so I don't really hate fishing. It's just that I've never found it to be all that much fun. In fact, I haven't tried to fish since 1991. In my experience, the act of fishing has been made up of long, mind-numbingly boring stretches of time, broken up by brief frantic moments of failure (assuming I even get a fish to bite). And no, we're NOT talking about my history with the ladies...
Having said that, I'm constantly amazed at the idea that including fishing as a profession/hobby/waste of time in an MMO sounds like good, clean fun. Let's take into account that moments feel like dog years when you're sitting in front of your monitor waiting for something to happen (like watching Windows XP boot). Now, let's take an action such as fishing, and do it on the computer. Can you see where I'm going with this? If it's boring in real life, it's really going to suck in a game.
To make matters worse, my experience with fishing in MMOs also involves a healthy dose of misery. For example, back when I was playing EverQuest, I was in the process of passing a guy who was fishing in order to acquire food. Considering how boring that would be for me, I took pity on him and decided to offer him some money so he could buy himself some food, therefore relieving him of the awful task of fishing. Instead of thanks, I was rewarded with a curt "Fuck off." How's that for gratitude? I guess some people just don't know how to have a good time...
Years later, I decided to give World of Warcaft a try. Of course, they *had* to have fishing, too, apparently since it's such a laugh riot to do it. This time, though, I had a plan. I figured that I would just ignore it and concentrate on the rest of the game's content. Wrong. I made the fatal mistake of choosing Alchemy as one of my professions, and sure enough, I raised my skill to the point where I learned a recipe that required a FISH to make the potion. The dreaded Oily Blackmouth fish. Unfortunately, since I'd ignored fishing up to that point, I had to first level up my Fishing SkillzTM before I could even attempt to catch the damn fish. This, of course, took forever, so by the time I could attempt to catch the fish, my character level had advanced to the point where the potion I wanted to create was practically useless (deep cleansing breath).
Finally, I reached the height of my fishing phobia last night while playing Lord of the Rings Online (you'll notice that I no longer play WoW... the bastards). I came across a quest in Forochel, a high-level area, in which a fisherman asked me to catch 10 fish, suspiciously called Oily Fish (cue conspiracy theorists). Since my decision to ignore fishing in WoW worked out so well, I had decided to stick with that plan. So when I got this quest, my Fishing SkillzTM sucked AGAIN. So, for every 5 casts into the icy water I made, I caught weeds on 4 of them. So, not only do I have long bouts of boredem broken up by failure, I have A LOT of them.
To add injury to insult, I was sent to fish in an area teeming with wildlife, which hates Elves, apparently. During one doomed cast, I was ambushed by a Matron Ice Bear. In case you are unaware, while fishing, your weapons are stowed safely away in your inventory, so defending yourself is pretty much impossible. I'm guessing that the sight of an Elf frantically backpedalling while fruitlessly searching his bags for weapons was so comical, that the bear's cub, an Ice Bear Yearling, then decided to join in on the carnage. I barely escaped with a sliver of health left. At least they spared me the indignity of having to delete yet another weed from my backpack.
I just don't get it... Why on earth would any game company think this is fun? I can just see it now, in the next expansion, the designers will come out with a new profession called "Watching Grass Grow." If you stand around watching it grow, your skillz improve, enabling you to notice new and more exotic types of grass. That way, when you max out this amazing skill, you can have a title called, "Grass Gazer." I'm telling you, it'll be a big hit...