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

[Cowabungaa]

Brilliant environmental design and atmosphere. That's the main reason I played WoW as long as I did. It wasn't just that I dug the art style, I adored Blizzard's attention to detail. Every era has little detailed touches all complimented with an absolutely gorgeous soundtrack. Thanks to all that I just loved exploring the world and its characters and story lines.

The gameplay is pretty solid as well. Not that complex but it works and it's pretty fluid, making for some awesome PvP.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

ever played warcraft 3?
that's the kinda world I expected to explore when it came out, for the time it was glorious.

 

[Terminate421]

The fun Battlefield styled team pvp can be fun, so long as I get on a team that actually feels like trying....

 

[80sboy]

Well back in the Vanilla days when I played it, I had fun socializing with other players, ganking, playing a game that I couldn't beat in a week, getting ganked, wasting time on side games like leveling up smithing, getting pissed off that I got ganked and trying to hunt down that player that ganked me to gank back, traveling in a seamless world that changed by landscape that gave me the sense of being there immersed in a real world, ganking the fuck out of that player mining and watching him call all his/her buddies to come gank me back, fooling around with the economy at AHs to see if I can find a loophole in the system to make lots of gold by buying and selling mats, getting ganked and camped by that person's I ganked posse and now calling my friends to come to my aid, hiding in enemy cities in stealth to fuck with lowbie enemy players, having that ganking feud turn to all out war in Tarren Mill and Southshore...

I had my reasons for liking it.

 

[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.

Note, calling the mods stupid is another offence they would gleefully pounce on you for.

But to answer your question yes they will jump on you about that, I received a warning for the very same offence, so I know from experience that they jump on any little thing they can get away with in regards to piracy because they are scared shitless of some company taking offence to their site.

And they consider it piracy because its a paid service that you are getting around by playing on emulated servers. I had a discussion about this with an admin and it ended with them pretty much going "lol dont break the rules" and refusing to reverse the decision.

And really no matter what the sites rules say all they really care about is piracy, you can look at this thread http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.409764-Poll-Cannabis-Taboo-Tell-me-what-you-think-even-if-you-know-nothing-about-it?page=1 and see they dont bother enforcing the rules regarding advocating other illegal activities.

Then let them pounce, if that's the sort of backwards way of moderating they want to practice. If it's really that bad, this forum won't be a place I want to be a member of any longer.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Because the endgame is so much better than leveling. PVP is a blast and doesn't require a time investment(an hour a week to max out if you want tyrannical). World events are fun (midsummer festival winters veil halloween stuff brewfest) raids can be fun if your into that kinda thing. Trolling in enemy space with friends and it turning into a giant mess of 3 v 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1... as guys come see whats with local defense spam. Doing professions, playing around on auction house, doing pokemon, grinding transmog sets.

I follow random newbie players and narrate their journey, usually draws a crowd. really theres so much to do but if you don't like the MMO style then you prolly won't like it.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I don't get it either. I played the free trial and couldn't get into it. I know someone who plays a lot of MMOs and says this is the worst. But hey. I just don't like them in general, I think. I like DCUO for obvious reasons, though.

 

[pixius]

It's a large, detailed and varied world become immersed in. It's fairly accessible for everyone to play though remains difficult enough for the vast majority of gamers when the end-game content is reached. There's always stuff to do if you look for it. Add in a guild or friends to play with and you have the answer to why I've played it for years at least. I recently gave up playing it altogether though because I became far to attached to my guildies and I preferred them to my real life friends.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Also, having roughly 25 different active abilities and buffs was getting a bit ridiculous.

And that's how I can tell you haven't actually played the game; or if you did, you've been sitting on this rant for a VERY long time. Blizzard has long-since streamlined the buff system to where there's really only a handful of buffs to ever worry about. Heck, the buff window even gives them their own slots, so you can just glance at it and know that you're missing the AP buff. Sure it can get confusing to remember which classes give which buffs, but that's more for a raid leader to worry about, as no content outside of raiding really needs all buffs covered.

Anyway, that said, WoW simply isn't for everyone. Firstly, it's an RPG; RPGs by their very nature tend to be more slow-paced. If you're coming from something like Halo or Modern Warfare, then yeah, WoW is going to seem like a slog. Also, it does help if friends are playing, too. And no, I don't just mean them goading you into playing and then ignoring you when you get in there until you've caught-up to them. I mean actually playing with you. Heck, it's why I spent 5 years playing mostly just WoW, because I befriended my guildmates and enjoyed playing with them, talking and joking on vent while we did whatever; and to this day we still hang out on the vent channel even though none of us are currently playing the game to any serious degree.

In short, it's a good game, but you have to be able to get into it, and not everyone is.

 

[Vareoth]

I liked playing this with my friends. I like the lore of the world and I actually read the bloody quests. The combat is flexible and plays well. I don't care for all the endgame grinding and have never done that.

You don't like it and that is fine, but that is how opinions work, you dig?

 

[Abomination]

I haven't played it in awhile and I actually miss it a lot.

It scratched a very special itch.

The thing it does is give you a way of progressing characters and you can actually feel the difference when you get that new piece of gear. The classes are different enough that each one feels unique while still keeping within the same mechanics as the whole game. Its success is also its success in that there are so many people playing the game, the community is just HUGE.

 

[Caiphus]

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.

Orf. Fuck me, I was eating breakfast when I saw that picture and it made me feel physically ill.

 

[Altorin]

did you play it with your friends? did you get to the end where all the fun stuff is? if not, then you missed the point.

WoW is an incredibly easy game to shoot through. It's incredibly lax about how you choose to get to max level, and all of the major interesting content is at the end (the old interesting content being relegated to yesterday's news).

And if you're complaining about the quests NOW, you should have played it pre-cataclysm. Pre-cataclysm everything was much much worse in terms of questing. The quest designers just didn't have 10 years of experience in making quests to know what was fun. At least they do now.

The appeal of WoW is that it's an easy game that runs pretty flawlessly on old computers (even without all the bells and whistles, it still looks decent), is constantly growing (perhaps not fast enough for some but I digress), and all your friends play it (maybe not, but if they do, its a major appeal).

All that being said, I don't play WoW anymore. Haven't since the beginning of Cata.. had a falling out with an ex of mine that plays, and its really not worth the money to be constantly reminded of her. If not for her though, WoW is an entirely passable MMO, and is pretty much the best of its genre due to being out so long with such a huge fanbase. So far I'm finding Neverwinter to be better though, although it kind of looks like shit on my laptop.

 

[generals3]

Well, the great thing about WoW is it great averageness. WoW isn't actually great at anything, quests are repetitive, graphics are meh, game mechanics are not so special, BUT it doesn't fail anywhere. Many MMORPG's out there may outshine WoW in certain aspects but usually have big problems in other aspects. WoW is just a very well polished turd.

 

[Lunar Templar]

eh, I'm not a fan ether. Played it via the 'F2P' option a while back again, cause, eh, why not.

Still didn't do much for me. Well, past the Worgen starter zone (IE: everything before they dump you in knife ear country) anyway. I admittedly did like that whole section, past that? meh. lost interest.

 

[Mr F.]

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.

No, No you did not. You did not realise that.

I even say this as an ex fan who fucking hates the game.

You went in with preconceived notions. Not a chance in hell that you had any opinion on the active abilities after a 7 day free trial, not unless you powerlevel like a fucking god (But last I checked the free trial limits you to level 20, so again, not gonna happen). Hell, Last I checked trials were running at 10 days, not 7. Sorry.

And again, during the free trial you would have not realised much with regards to gear. Again, if you leveled rather quickly you could have jumped into one of the 10-19 battlegrounds which are dominated by... The high level people and the very few people who have the tiny bits of gear you can get at that level or the hierloom stuff, neither of which is a problem and neither of which you would have noticed.

If you are gonna attack a game, please do not lie. If you DID play a trial, you had already decided you disliked it. Regardless of that, you framed the question in such a way as to attack the fans that might be on the site (I do not get what YOU PEOPLE see...). Its called othering, its a key part of identity, you are self identifying as someone who dislikes WoW and simultaneously attacking those who do.

Why did I like WoW?

Its fun, at first, the world is engaging, at first, and the lore is interesting, until Cata happened. Its a glorified chatbox operating on Classical Condition and the Gamblers Fallacy. I used to fucking love it. Not so much these days. It destroyed MMO's for me, it is too easy to get addicted to a game when the game itself is designed to be utterly utterly addictive.

 

[suntt123]

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.

Did you join a guild? Were you playing with friends? I played alone and I thought it was boring too. My little bro joined a very active guild and did rated PvP. He wouldn't shut up about how he and his new companions would wreck face. I guess most of the fun is in planning, coordinating and playing with friends. Watching your plans come to fruition and saving each other's asses when you get in a pinch.

 

[Colt47]

Unfortunately, WoW does kind of suck compared to contemporary games. The reason it is still holding so many people is because the people who are playing have active social networks that they return to when coming back to the game. This is very important because otherwise the game is about as interactive as most free to play theme park RPGs out there. The game designers basically killed any sense of major accomplishment in the early game by turning all the early quests into localized chains of kill and fetch, which was largely done to speed run people to the higher levels where the community is sort of stuck at. Before Cataclysm, even though they boosted the experience gain there were still quests that spanned the entirety of Azeroth and had higher stakes.

 

[Goofguy]

It was fun when I played it back in the day due to the good times I had with the friends playing alongside me. It was entertaining and we had lots of laughs at our expense and other people. Is it a deep and enriching gaming experience? It wasn't necessarily for me, I just look back fondly at kiting a hydra back to the Crossroads, griefing an Alliance raid group in the Eastern Plaguelands, experiencing the lag fest that was the AQ world event and loads of other hilarious times with my buddies.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Add my name to the list of people who spent a few years completely lost in WoW. For me, it was all about raid progression and competitive pvp. My guild pushed most of our server firsts back when raid content was truly massive and unforgiving (and the online community wasn't holding everyone's hand with mods and guides), and my close-knit player group pushed server-high ratings in the first few seasons of arena.

Fell out of the game due to a combination of boredom and drama, and now I honestly think the genre (as constructed) is dead to me. The raids are all paint by numbers because people go so far as to clear them on test servers before they're even finished. The mods and guides ruin everything. The pvp communities are toxic and the builds/comps do most of the playing for you.

In general, none of these games have that compelling "wild west" feel to them anymore. They're all so tightly controlled, with convenience trumping all sense of exploration and adventure. I mean you seriously just log on, push a button, and get ported around to dungeons, pvp, quests, etc. Then you deploy your macros and present rotations until your brain shuts off. They've simply automated too much of the experience.