World of Wacraft
May 7, 2009
World of Warcraft has been a phenomenon among the video game industry for several years now but the most recent expansion has left some players, myself included, behind.
It is common for new games to have new hardware requirements; this enables the game to have crisp clear graphics, better game play and other features that will enhance the gaming experience. But with the creation of VISTA, the creators of WOW either forgot about, or did not care about, one group of gamers: We who play on our Laptops and are stuck with VISTA.
The new expansion, Wraith of the Lich King (WotLK), requires 2 gigabytes of RAM to operate if you run VISTA. For gamers that run off of their desktop computers, this is fine because most desktops today either have, or can upgrade to, that amount. The same can not be said for those of us who are Laptops are only able to hold a max of 1 gig of RAM.
We are forced to grind terminally at level 70 and watch other toons pass up by. What is even more frustrating is that Microsoft is rumored to be discontinuing VISTA. . . . too little too late.
I wonder what this means for those who have established accounts and by extension communities in the online world. Does that mean that that person who has an online personality loses the friendships they have established and acquired in the world of the online game? Is technology just another form of elitism, dividing the haves from the have nots to yet another iteration: the digital age? Sad to say that the future seems as bleak and divided on lines of economics as the past. What happens to the promise of the prospect of the future freeing us from historic bonds?