I’ve become somewhat fascinated with an argument of late. Not the metaphysical, or philosophical – nothing in the league of “The Irresistible Force and The Immovable Object”, or similar. No, I’ve become morbidly fascinated with ‘EQ2 vs. WoW’, as conducted via the Reader Review pages at www.mmorpg.com, although many of the essential characteristics of the ‘debate’ are quite similar.

First a little background: ostensibly, the two big Christmas MMORPG offerings this year are Blizzard’s Warcraft 3-based cartoon fantasy romp ‘World of Warcraft’, and the long awaited sequel to Sony Online Entertainment’s rampant success ‘Everquest’. Both are, to the casual observer, quite similar sorts of beast; swords and sorcery, fighting monsters and so on, but are executed in significantly different styles; graphically, and in gameplay.

I must confess to being somewhat ambivalent on the debate myself. I played, and quite liked, Warcraft 3, but can’t really see it working as an online experience, (or certainly not the sort I’m used to). On the other hand, I also played Everquest for a significant amount of my life, although not all of that time was enjoyable – much of it was dull, frustrating, pointless, and actually emotionally damaging at times.

My point, (and I do try to have one), is that I don’t feel that strongly either way. If I had to pick one, (and I generally do), I’d probably go with Everquest 2, purely on the basis that I’d quite like to see what happened to the virtual world I used to know after 500 years of catastrophe – nostalgia coupled with wanderlust; the yearning to poke around in a new and mostly unfamiliar, world. Personal reasons, rather than anything objective.

But it’s not a passion. I don’t have zeal. In short, I’m not a ‘fanboi’.

But these people are:

MMORPG.com - World of Warcraft Reader Ratings

MMORPG.com - Everquest 2 Reader Ratings

Frankly, I’m appalled, astounded and quite fascinated by the sheer level of ferocity involved in these two quite meaningless ‘Review’ boards. Clearly the object of the pages themselves; to allow a place for readers to give their own opinions of the ups and downs of the two titles in question seems to have been utterly subverted by all but a hapless ignored few, and the thing has degenerated in to a war of monumentally trivial significance. Never, in the field of human conflict, have so many flamed so fiercely, for so little. Only the trolls win in a war like that.

I particularly enjoy the paramilitary precision with which each camp seems to conduct raids on the other’s review list – almost as if they were actually anything to do with Blizzard/SOE themselves. I’m sure Blizzard/SOE have big enough marketing departments to fight their own corner, without needing to rely on ‘r0xx0rd3wd’ the Board Vigilante, of Ignorance, TX, for help.

On a side note, this system – the list of reader reviews, is always going to fail due to unsatisfactory answers to two key questions:

Who are you?

And

Why do I care what you think?

(Feel free to ask those two questions of me, here…hopefully, over time, you might even find some answers…)

Fanboi n. Term of internet message board slang, usually derogatory, used to describe someone who maintains a position of absolute adoration for a development team, publisher, or similar, to the point of wrathful and enraged defence of them against anyone who may be guilty of suggesting that their object of devotion might not be perfect in every way. Extreme cases also include Trolling of rival or ‘enemy’ products, goods or services on message boards belonging to them.

Troll n. Term of internet message board slang, derogatory, used to describe someone who visits and posts negative statements on a message board, purely to generate an outraged response of any kind. (Troll v. The act of carrying out such message board posts. Trolling)

Flame n. Term of internet slang, used to describe a particularly harsh rebuttal or dismissal of a previously posted opinion. This rebuttal usually contains a spiteful or vindictive insult as well as an attempt to discredit both the previous poster and his/her post. A typical flame makes no attempt to recognise and/or address the opinion. (Flame v. The act of carrying out such a post.)