Can you really say “flaunts casual-focus” about WoW’s early part? Going through that stage, I felt there was a certain ambivalence on the part of the developers: plenty of quests, and enough opportunities for exploration. I would call it neither particularly casual nor hardcore.

When it comes to casual focus in MMORPGs, it’s more along the lines of requiring very little time investment per session, and keeping the activities simple enough as to not overwhelm a casual player (e.g. not requiring players to build full teams to make any progress at all). Quests and opportunities for exploration aren’t on the same level, because you can always quit mid-activity and do these things later, and they don’t have any difficult prerequisites to attempt.

(Then again, there is the “ELITE” content throughout the game… but that is optional, and the groups are very temporary.)

So, yeah, I could say WoW flaunts a casual-focus. It was one of the main things it did over its predecessors, and that’s why all the MMORPGs that seek to imitate it success are making it similarly braindead casual on the immediate level.

But you’re right, it changes later on. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but it might be easier to do that on a PvP server: it might be when you enter one of the contested zones (low twenties). Though the switch took place by the time you get to Stranglethorn Vale.

World of Warcraft flaunts casual-focus of the early game that actually misses the point of MMORPGs (which are more about getting the individual invested in a virtual environment) but the game works because it eventually transitions into the very thing it pretends not to be.

The World of Warcraft “I’m On A Mount” parody of “I’m On A Boat” missed the point of the “I’m On A Boat” song, but it nonetheless works because it eventually transitions into being a similarly ridiculous flaunting of useless material possessions.

Even a shallow puddle can seem deep from the right perspective.

The original was a parody of the bragging and status symbols in hip hop.
The WoW video seems to be a genuine celebration of the mount.

Which is why it’s particularly annoying. It’s made by people who don’t understand what the original set out to do, or what it parodies.

It’s like my earlier caveat in this thread: committing an act (say, profanity) in an attempt to denounce it isn’t a stellar idea. Why? Because you get people like the WoW video copycats who don’t understand the parody aspect of it, much less whatever denunciation there is, and just take it at face value.

It’s why I’ve always been wary of parodies that are too perfect…

Also, singing the word “motherfucker” as background harmony is pretty funny.

I do play too many games.

And almost all the other guys just sing about how awesome they are, how many money they expend in accesories and how many chicks they screw.

@JustStop

Wives don’t dump guys that hit them until they get to the hospital and her family tells to guy to fuck off or he risk getting his ass kicked and/or going to jail. At least not wives that were atracted to dangerous men in the first place.

And I like the original video, at least. They try to be funny. And they are.

Hip-hop is as multi-faceted as any other genre, if not moreso. Unfortunately, the most popular hip-hop artists tend to be the most homogenized and extreme (just as the most popular country artists tend to be the most jingoistic and ignorant).

That being said, this video still sucks.