World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things

Over at Gamasutra they have an article about the lessons WoW is teaching players. The writter compares WoW to the lessons learned in Street Fighter. His main complaint is that players who spend more time have better loot and thus are better than someone who doesn't, regardless of skill.

Investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill. If you invest more time than someone else, you "deserve" rewards. People who invest less time "do not deserve" rewards. This is an absurd lesson that has no connection to anything I do in the real world. The user interface artist we have at work can create 10 times more value than an artist of average skill, even if the lesser artist works way, way more hours. The same is true of our star programmer. The very idea that time > skill is alien.

Personnally I think if you want a game where actual skill matters, you should play Guild Wars. Most MMORPG's are designed to waste your time, and that's why we play :)