I don't get what you people see in WoW. Could somebody explain?

[rumdumconundrum]

All of my friends who play MMO's have repeatedly told me that, "Oh my god, World of Warcraft is the best thing ever! They have swords and magic and pets and mounts and sexy elves and trolls and goblins and cowpeople" etc, etc.

So I remembered I picked up a copy of the Warcraft Battle chest which came with a free 7 day pass to WoW. I installed it, played it, and I realized something at the end of the trial.

Good GOD this game was dull. The missions were repetitive, the combat was dull, the skills restrictive, and success was far too dependent on gear instead of skill. Also, having roughly 25 different active abilities and buffs was getting a bit ridiculous.

So, I ask you, what do you people see in this game? Why do you enjoy it?

edit: stupid enter key. This is what I get for filling in the captcha first.

 

[piinyouri]

Playing Neverwinter with a couple of my friends has made me realize something.

When you have your friends with you, anything can be fun.

I personally think that's the biggest draw of World of Warcraft, it's popularity.

If you pick it up (even with the largely reduced numbers of players nowadays) you can almost bet at least one of your friends will have it.

I tried the trial some years ago myself playing solo and I didn't get very far, though that had more to do with you literally cannot play by yourself.

That said, WoW does have some really great world building. architecture and lore. It;s just a shame there's no real incentive to explore.

 

[Caiphus]

It's popular, it's easy to get into, it's pretty well polished compared to other MMOs, and there's frankly a ton to do.

MMOs also have a certain gravity to them. You sort of want to play the one which everyone else is playing. Which is why arguably better MMOs like Rift struggle, WoW just pulls all the players back in.

Also

Good GOD this game was dull. The missions were repetitive, the combat was dull, the skills restrictive, and success was far too dependent on gear instead of skill. Also, having roughly 25 different active abilities and buffs was getting a bit ridiculous.

This is true of pretty much any MMO you will find. If you can't put up with this bullshit, then hotbar MMOs are not, and will not be for you until the market changes.

Anyway, I haven't played WoW in years now, but it certainly chewed up a good three years of my life. Met some pretty decent people through it though. I still keep in touch with some of them.

 

[Karoshi]

Good GOD this game was dull. The missions were repetitive, the combat was dull, the skills restrictive, and success was far too dependent on gear instead of skill. Also, having roughly 25 different active abilities and buffs was getting a bit ridiculous.

After having played 4-5 F2P MMOs where you spend the next 20-30 levels grinding the same mobs with the 3-4 skills that you were given... WoW's complexity was a breath of fresh air. The skills are varied and can be very fun, the PvP is fast-paced and responsive. The beginning drags, but even so levelling new characters was one of my favourite pass-times.

What sold WoW for me was the gigantic world, varied environments and the fluidity of animations, as well as the Horde/Alliance dynamic. There isn't a single MMO who got a world as big as WoW and neither did any of the other MMOs manage to make good character animations which feel as responsive as in WoW.

As for success dependant on skill... No, at least not in PvP. Honestly, a good player can make some amazing feats even with shitty gear, even if there are limits.

 

[Miyenne]

For me, it was the people that kept me playing for years.

Yes the game was kinda dull and repetitive, but I met some fantastic people playing it that I am still friends with now. When did the came come out? 2004. So nine years later I still have these friends I talk to. They've come to visit me from across the country, I've gone across the continent to visit them. I sat on the phone all night with one friend after I had a bad breakup, another friend called me when he was at an all time low and I talked him down the whole bus ride home from work.

It's the people that make it interesting. I don't regret losing myself in that game because of the friends I made, they're people I can count on even if we don't live in the same country.

I have them on my Facebook, and yet I'm the type of person who only has 40 Facebook friends and the tightest security (ha!) that Facebook offers. I talk to them all almost daily still, and we keep up with each others lives.

It's the people.

And maybe the sense of accomplishment of being one of the best at something, even if it is just a game.

 

[DazZ.]

I think games like Nethack are boring spreadsheet simulators more boring than an actual job, but they're fun to a lot of people.

How is Nethack a spreadsheet? It's just standard RPG affair with permadeath.

 

[Yopaz]

It's not for you, don't ask other people to rationalize what they like to your tastes.

I think games like Nethack and Dwarf Fortress are boring spreadsheet simulators more boring than an actual job, but they're fun to a lot of people.

Yeah, pretty much this. I really like taco, why do I like it? It tastes good.

There's not always a rational reason to like something. I happen to enjoy some movies that have generally received terrible reviews or dislike some popular high rated movies. Why do I dislike what millions say is good? Why do I sometimes like what millions think is good while my friend doesn't? Why do these threads pop up despite that the answer always stays the same?

 

[Substitute Troll]

You have to realize, when WoW came out, it was fucking revolutionary. You think WoW is dull? Try playing Everquest. Anyway, the people who loved it in 2004 flocked to it, it became big. Since no other MMOs were as good as WoW, people didn't leave. So they formed guilds and friendships and social networks within the game. And now, almost 10 years later, people are so attached to their network that they don't want to leave. The game itself has plenty of outdated designs and mechanisms. They tried to fix some of that by making the quests more fun in Cataclysm. If you want to try it again, try playing a worgen or a goblin. They made the starting zones for those back in Cata, and they're miles better than the original races. They have phasing, interesting characters and a good story (for the worgen one atleast). They've also tried to make the skill progression better, so overall the game is less dull than it used to be.

However, if you don't have a massive group of friends that you feel the need to play with, and you don't like the mechanics of the game, don't bother. You're not missing anything. I miss it mostly because I played on a TBC Private server with global chat. Being able to talk to everyone on the server at once was awesome. I really don't miss having 405 bazillion skills though

 

[Rblade]

you have to get a bit invested in the world and the lore to enjoy the very first bit of content. low level grinding with a small set of skills is a bit boring

but the biggest draws are
-the huge amount of content, big skill sets for each class and race allowing for many tactics and styles.
-large number of collectibles gatherable by various methodes (not just drop grinding)
-huge fan base so an active end game scene in both PvE and PvP
-very very polished in every respect. It's constantly being balanced and through many many years everything has been tailored to make combat as interesting and fluid as possible
-I think the end game instances are very varied and even on 5 man level require coordination and timing to succesfully navigate. A difficult feat to achieve
-dungeon finder, as an example of blizzard listining to the fans and noticing that getting a group together is hard, so they made it easier. And then continuing to tweak the system to make it work better. I just always feel blizzard really cares for the players "feelings"
-Some might not agree but I find the huge world very diverse and beautifull, some places more then others. Especially considering the core game is from 2004

Some of these might have changed because I haven't played for some years (like since 2010 or something) but I've always enjoyed the many years I've hung out in azaroth.

 

[Substitute Troll]

snip

Protip bromigo, I would remove the bit about [Message Delivered, Deleted offence.] The mods around these parts will slap a warning on your account for endorsing piracy due to it.

They dont do much about all the other illegal stuff mentioned around here, but they jump on any mention of piracy like a fat kid on cake.

Seriously? No, the mods cannot be that stupid. I refuse to believe that.

First of all, playing on a private server is not piracy. I bought all the copies, I just didn't use their servers.
Secondly, playing on a private server has never been illegal. You could get your account banned, sure, but never illegal. Hosting one on the other hand...

And thirdly, why would they slap a warning on someone who mentions that they USED TO DO something? Like I said, it's not piracy. If anything, it's a breach in WoW's ToS, but it's not punishable. It's just a rule they made.

 

[DanielBrown]

I started when it was fairly new, back when I was 15 years old. It was the first MMO I had ever seen and it was all completely unique to me. Played it on and off for six years until I got fed up with the community and the constant changes to the classes(fucking loved my HoT druid). The main reason I stuck with it for so long, however, was due to all the friends I had gotten and the guild I felt responsible to keep playing with.

Out of all the MMOs out there it's definetly the most polished one, but the community is what makes an MMO to me. WoWs community only got worse over the years, especially after the Dungeon Finder tool came. People no longer cared about team work and if you weren't an expert on your class with the best gear avalible you weren't welcome.

Switched to LOTRO and have been happy ever since.

 

[Legion]

So I remembered I picked up a copy of the Warcraft Battle chest which came with a free 7 day pass to WoW. I installed it, played it, and I realized something at the end of the trial.

I am impressed you reached the end of the trial. I stopped playing after around three hours.

While I can see the appeal in MMO's, I also couldn't understand what was interesting about WOW, although from friends who have played it, it's mainly down to the social aspect making it enjoyable, none of them really played it without their select group of friends.

I thought it looked interesting, but I am not a fan of that kind of combat, nor "Go fetch ten X" quests.

 

[INVALIDUSERNAME]

It's fun, see. You just turn the game on and you get to uh...

...do dailies to farm for rep to get the gear from the rep to make the rep gear set to farm the hard mode dungeons to get the hard mode dungeon gear to run the LFR or 10 man raids to maybe do 25s or go to hard modes to get the best tier for the new patch to come out to introduce new dailies, factions, and tiers so that you can do the dailies to farm for rep to get the gear...

...oh you didn't even hit endgame?

You got out in time. It only gets worse.

 

[viranimus]

WoW is simple to grasp in ways, but at the same time what locks players to it can be seen on very deep and complex levels.

Various different meat hooks will "catch" different types of players.

Its fundamental core "hook" has always been its incredibly low barrier to entry in its incredibly low system requirements. Accessibility by more units means the potential for the possibility for more subscriptions.

MMO Kindergarten: As far as MMOs go, WoW has always favored streamlined concepts and processes. Less races, Less classes, Less system specs, Lower difficulty, and various other aspects mean that WoW is the type of game that is incredibly easy to start, pick up and learn, even without assistance. On top of that it is also incredibly easy for people to "guide" others, so in turn even someone on a low skill level can "guide" another player and that factor gives them the ability to act as indirect recruitment.

Instant gratification: Playing on the same addictive concepts that drive things such as alcoholism and gambling addiction, WoW by far and away makes instant gratification a major hook to gain players interest. That IG results in players feeling like they are being very productive with their time and drives them deeper in. Then over time (which ALL MMOs have to do this) the bar of gratification is progressively scaled back further and further making the time and effort required for further accomplishment greater.

Capitalization on population saturation: Focus on being the "most populated" mmo means more of any players "friends" will be playing wow. Once friends in an MMO are established and time allows such fostered friendships to become more tightly knit the harder it becomes for a player to abandon their surrogate family or their virtual social life. Such is one of the singular most insidious actions of MMOs because it essentially fosters addiction on a level most addictions could never hope to be on. For the addicted it satiates on core levels It hits within Maslows Hierarchy of needs to various degrees from the top of the pyramid down to create sensation of fulfillment on all but the bottom most layer "physiological" but the social layer creates its most powerful pull on the layers of love/belonging and safety through the psuedo interconnection one develops from their virtual friendships and collaborations.

So if you want to TL;DR the draw to WoW, it is all about sense of fulfillment in some measure or another. It accomplished this by virtue of superior accessibility, superior return on investment for players, Incredibly easy barriers of entry to becoming effective, and deviously effective manipulation of fulfillment of ones psychological needs through virtualized pseudo fulfillment.

 

[elvor0]

I don't understand why people /wouldn't/ like bacon, shall I make a thread about it?

Besides, you can do this with it:

Captcha: WHAT is your quest? Well now its to get some bacon, because that's made me damn hungry.