Welcome to an exclusive club restricted to all of humanity except for the elite few with an opinion. Welcome to the ultimate MMORPG discussion chamber. Welcome to the Viper Room. Before you run away screaming that you hate snakes, let me tell you that the viper room isn’t a room filled with deadly reptiles, so take it easy, Mr. Jones; you’re safe. The Viper Room is actually a theoretical room in which my friends and I sit while discussing all things MMO related.
Today’s post is a follow up to the first Viper Room discussion: found here. In that first installment, Padawan Tonsoop and I talked about the issue with Ilum PvP in SWTOR. To summarize for the lazy readers: TL;DR – Zergs suck and small scale PvP rocks. Now I’m going to try and explain why zergs suck.
Zergs suck and I’ll tell you why…
Many years ago, my uncle was zerged. He entered a shed in search of some pool equipment and unknowingly upset a yellow jacket nest. The horde of angry wasps proceeded to pepper his arms, legs, neck, back and head in a fiery attempt to force him from their home. It worked. He ran, screaming like a fishwife, and dove into the nearby pool. A few bold buzzers with backside bayonets decided to hold on to his over-sized fro for the swim and injected his skull with a bit more of their pain serum. A few tears, a couple hundred swears and 37 stings later, and my uncle could tell you that zergs suck. He could also tell you that pool sheds are considered collateral damage when making a bombing run on an aggressive colony of terrorist insects. He could also tell you that the fire marshal can fine you for covering a pool shed in gasoline and setting it ablaze, but they’ll usually only give you a warning when they see your war beaten, bubble wrap textured skin.
One time ants zerged a Republic, I mean termite, colony:
The remaining termites now believe zergs suck. Note the poor guy at 1:23 about ready to cry when the Imps, I mean ants, decide to rip his home out from over him! Then, at 2:26, see the sad choke point battle there at the entrance to the Republic, I mean termite, base.
You know who else hates zergs? Doomed to an icy grave, because there wasn’t enough room on the lifeboats for the entire horde of passengers, Leo DiCaprio and the other 1500 ice cube corpses floating around the Titanic hate zergs, that’s who.
Zergs: Crashing computers and generating lag since 1998!
I hate zergs and I’ll actually tell you why now:
1. Zergs cause lag. Some game engines handle the zerg better than others, but they all have the tendency to cause lag at some point in time. In SWTOR, in Ilum, the zerg doesn’t just generate lag, it summons it like a magnitude 9 earthquake summons a tsunami. No, wait, it summons it harder than that… it summons it like my once rotund, old college roommate used to summon a meatball sub and side of fries at the local Sheetz. Yeah, that’s how hard Ilum lags!
2. Zergs reduce individual skill contribution. A few good players can really make a difference in determining whether a warzone will be a win or loss. Those same skilled players get lost in the masses in a zerg. Where’s the incentive to improve if it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of open world PvP?
3. Zergs trivialize any intended challenge. If some activity, whether it be PvP or PvE, is meant to be somewhat challenging for a group of 8 players, and a group of 24 players can zerg it for the same rewards, why would the team of 8 ever not just join the zerg? The zerg should never, ever be rewarded. If anything it should be penalized.
Final Thoughts
I listed 3 main reasons that zergs aren’t fun, but I’m sure people can come up with many more. If you have any reasons why you hate the zerg or, perhaps, why you like the zerg, leave a comment and let me know. That’s it for the second installment of Rumblings from the Viper Room. Who knows what we’ll talk about next! Thanks for reading MMOverflow.
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