Is Warlords of Draenor worth getting back into WOW?

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

So, I used to love Wow, I got into it during the Wrath of the Lich King days and had a lot of fun tanking as a frost Death knight... Then Cataclysm came along and they basically removed my play style taking away the Death Knights unique ability to tank with all three trees and moving all the tank abilities to the blood tree and too away duel wielding tanking. I started tanking as blood but it never felt the same...

I dropped out of it during Cataclysm after reaching max level. And mists of Pandaria didn't look appealing at all but Warlords of Draenor looks like a return to form from what I've seen. A way to work the cool old story hooks from the old Warcraft 1 2 and 3 days(like the first two expansions) plus I can boost another character to level 90 from what I hear, trying to level up another character was too tedious for me in the past. I can make my level 70 warlock a 90!


On the other hand I was pretty darn addicted to the game and no matter how you spin it the game is designed to be a time sink... I do have a lot more on my plate these days and may only get one or two days a week to play. Is it worth it to play an MMO with such limited time?

 

[Nomanslander]

I started playing World of Warcraft back when the game first came out, and I stopped a little bit after TBC; I stopped playing because the game just wasn't the same for me. So I have no fucking clue what the game is about anymore now. So as for your question of whether or not the game is worth getting back into? I'd say yes! Because the way I see it the game won't be anything of how I remember it, since so much has changed. And it would be worth getting back into it because it's practically a new game. But then again the game for me will never be like how it was back in vanilla...

Never again.
Never again..
Never again...

 

[Aussie502]

Considering WoD isn't even out yet, it's hard to tell. Although I would say if you wanted to get back into WoW, start now. MoP is a great expansion imo, much better than Cataclysm. By the time you get through MoPs leveling content, WoD should be almost be ready to be released so you won't have to wait long.

 

[Jandau]

I came back to WoW earlier this year. I played up until the end of TBC and skipped Wrath and Cata. While it was nice to see the old places again, I honestly didn't enjoy it enough to stay. The fact that the game is essentially in a huge rut due to the stupidly long content drought since the release of Siege of Orgrimmar isn't helping matters. I quit after a few months, having leveled a few chars and done some LFR and Flex.

As for WoD, it doesn't look bad on paper. I've been keeping up with the game since even though I don't intend to play it anymore I still like to hear about it. Plenty of cool stuff in there, but I'm worried that they're rushing it. And that's the core of the problem - what the hell have they been doing for the past year? WoD is being rushed out in a matter of months (features like capital cities being cut and such) and there haven't been any content patches since Siege, so was the entire dev team having a big wanking contest for a few months there?

In general, I just don't have faith in the WoW dev team anymore. Blizz in general isn't what it used to be, with D3 being a joke on release and only with Reaper of Souls becoming a decent game (not great, just decent). The fact that they allowed the 14 month content gap with Siege is pathetic and overall, I don't trust them to deliver anymore. So no, I won't be playing it.

However, if you haven't played in a long time, feel free to drop in. At the very least, it'll tickle your nostalgia bone and give you a couple of months of fun. And maybe you end up liking it and stick around.

 

[Fireaxe]

Considering WoD isn't even out yet, it's hard to tell. Although I would say if you wanted to get back into WoW, start now. MoP is a great expansion imo, much better than Cataclysm. By the time you get through MoPs leveling content, WoD should be almost be ready to be released so you won't have to wait long.

Cataclysm was pretty good actually, MoP just doesn't take the training wheels off.

 

[Starbird]

Considering WoD isn't even out yet, it's hard to tell. Although I would say if you wanted to get back into WoW, start now. MoP is a great expansion imo, much better than Cataclysm. By the time you get through MoPs leveling content, WoD should be almost be ready to be released so you won't have to wait long.

Cataclysm was pretty good actually, MoP just doesn't take the training wheels off.

MOP leveling got quite difficult towards the end. Townlong Steppes Mantid area...gah.

WOD looks interesting. It's a big departure from what MOP and Cata did and I'll give it a go.

 

[Verlander]

Got a soft spot in my heart for the game, and it's a testament to it's quality and the quality of the community that it's lasted these ten years... but I won't restart it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

WoD is being rushed out in a matter of months (features like capital cities being cut and such) and there haven't been any content patches since Siege, so was the entire dev team having a big wanking contest for a few months there?

They apparently hired on another 80 full time team members with WoD, and a large portion of its development time was spent getting them up to speed. Their desire is for yearly expansions going forward and shorter content gaps, and they needed to hire to do that, so there was an inevitable hump to get over.

So, I used to love Wow, I got into it during the Wrath of the Lich King days and had a lot of fun tanking as a frost Death knight... Then Cataclysm came along and they basically removed my play style taking away the Death Knights unique ability to tank with all three trees and moving all the tank abilities to the blood tree and too away duel wielding tanking. I started tanking as blood but it never felt the same...

I dropped out of it during Cataclysm after reaching max level. And mists of Pandaria didn't look appealing at all but Warlords of Draenor looks like a return to form from what I've seen. A way to work the cool old story hooks from the old Warcraft 1 2 and 3 days(like the first two expansions) plus I can boost another character to level 90 from what I hear, trying to level up another character was too tedious for me in the past. I can make my level 70 warlock a 90!

MoP was a solid expansion. I derided it when it first appeared and lore wise I still think it was a misstep to move from infamous lore villains to...Pandas...but in terms of content and play balancing it's easily the 2nd best expansion behind WOTLK.

I hear you on the DK thing, I was also annoyed when Druids could no longer have a fully functional bear and cat form in a single spec, but to be fair it was wildly OP. As were WOTLK era Death Knights.

You COULD character boost your 70, but it's worth it to experience the MoP content. It was well put together.

On the other hand I was pretty darn addicted to the game and no matter how you spin it the game is designed to be a time sink... I do have a lot more on my plate these days and may only get one or two days a week to play. Is it worth it to play an MMO with such limited time?

WoW or GW2 are the only MMOs I'd consider playing with limited time at my disposal. The first has an absolute wealth of solo and casual content, the latter has no sub fee and is a relatively decent game.

Like you, I have a lot on my plate, but I've been enjoying my time with WoW (came back again a few months ago, hadn't played since WOTLK).

I know a *bit* about Draenor if you're curious about particular game play elements.

 

[Jandau]

WoD is being rushed out in a matter of months (features like capital cities being cut and such) and there haven't been any content patches since Siege, so was the entire dev team having a big wanking contest for a few months there?

They apparently hired on another 80 full time team members with WoD, and a large portion of its development time was spent getting them up to speed. Their desire is for yearly expansions going forward and shorter content gaps, and they needed to hire to do that, so there was an inevitable hump to get over.

Yeah, I heard about them wanting to do yearly X-packs, and if they can manage it, I have even less desire to go back to WoW, since that means that the raids and content we'd normally be getting as content patches are now going to be full-priced releases. And I'm not down with giving them THAT much money. If they dropped the sub, I'd be willing to pay for yearly expansions, but not both.

 

[Starbird]

They apparently hired on another 80 full time team members with WoD, and a large portion of its development time was spent getting them up to speed. Their desire is for yearly expansions going forward and shorter content gaps, and they needed to hire to do that, so there was an inevitable hump to get over.

To be fair...that's almost exactly what they said before Cata .

I'm actually contemplating doing a total fresh start in WOD. Haven't started from scratch since Wrath, and the idea is oddly appealing.

 

[Ryotknife]

I hear you on the DK thing, I was also annoyed when Druids could no longer have a fully functional bear and cat form in a single spec, but to be fair it was wildly OP. As were WOTLK era Death Knights.

.

Not sure how it was OP , ferals could do that for close to a decade and they were one of the most underpowered specs in pve and pvp, at least till the end of wotlk which is where i stopped.

That change alone destroys any and all desire i had to play my druid if i came back. And feral was my main spec.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Not sure how it was OP , ferals could do that for close to a decade and they were one of the most underpowered specs in pve and pvp, at least till the end of wotlk which is where i stopped.

That change alone destroys any and all desire i had to play my druid if i came back. And feral was my main spec.

Ferals were underpowered in Vanilla, overpowered at the beginning of BC and then over-nerfed, and then hilariously OP all throughout WOTLK. I played a feral exclusively during that expansion, and while I have a generally high opinion of my abilities I like to think I can admit when a class I'm playing is over-tuned. Being able to snap from MT to top 10 DPS in my raid without even changing spec or gear was over the top, never mind trying to balance around that in PvP.

Blizzard wants their tanking, healing and DPS fairly well delineated. I can see people complaining that this takes some of the character away from certain classes, because it does. But I understand the desire for it from a play balance perspective as well. It's one of those situations where no matter which way you go, a body of people are going to be unhappy.

 

[Ryotknife]

Not sure how it was OP , ferals could do that for close to a decade and they were one of the most underpowered specs in pve and pvp, at least till the end of wotlk which is where i stopped.

That change alone destroys any and all desire i had to play my druid if i came back. And feral was my main spec.

Ferals were underpowered in Vanilla, overpowered at the beginning of BC

im guessing you are talking about the first few weeks? Ferals scaled well with levels, but scaled like crap with gear (which is the opposite of warriors who scale like crap with levels and become gods with gear). Even by the end of the first raid (karazhan, T4) ferals went from top dps spec to near the bottom before the nerfs went through. Feral dps became worthless by the beginning of T5 and their only niche in raiding was as an offtank (ie, tanks for a bit of the fight, then becomes a crappy dps). Even that niche became worthless by T6 and ferals ceased to exist.

The same thing happened in vanilla. Ferals were great, overpowered even, pre level 60, but once you hit the max level they were worthless in raids and a free kill to everyone in pvp.

In pvp, even in season 1 ferals were one of the worst specs. out of 12+ million players, there were around 5 feral gladiators. To this day i can still name 3 of them. Deep, Plato, Hafu. And i cant even remember the birthdays of my family.

and then over-nerfed, and then hilariously OP all throughout WOTLK. I played a feral exclusively during that expansion, and while I have a generally high opinion of my abilities I like to think I can admit when a class I'm playing is over-tuned. Being able to snap from MT to top 10 DPS in my raid without even changing spec or gear was over the top, never mind trying to balance around that in PvP.

Blizzard wants their tanking, healing and DPS fairly well delineated. I can see people complaining that this takes some of the character away from certain classes, because it does. But I understand the desire for it from a play balance perspective as well. It's one of those situations where no matter which way you go, a body of people are going to be unhappy.

Other than....Freya, i do not recall a single time when feral was considered overpowered in pve in wotlk (because they could dps the boss and aoe the crapton of adds without moving).

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/627228-Best-Tanking-Class-in-WotLK

Warrior - 44%
paladins - 35%
druids - 7%
dks - 12.55%

feral pve dps wasnt bad, but melee dps slots in wotlk were scarce and they were worse than their melee counterparts. Balance, although having worse dps, was more viable due to its utility and being ranged. Feral dps was the least viable pve role for druids.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/534914-/55886296

I mainly pve as feral in BC, and it was a lot of fun as an Off Tank/dps until we started tier 6 raids when I had to switch to a warlock. BC feral in pvp was the most fun ive ever had, despite the spec being poor in arenas (still a blast in bgs though). In Wotlk, my (and most of the guild's) ferals were sidelined for pve other than the very beginning of WotLK when rogues and warriors were terrible. Keep in mind, our guild leader was an avid feral himself, so its not like he hated ferals, but even he switched to a prot pally because they were better.

The problem i have with the separating the trees is that neither cat nor bear form was designed to be a standalone product. Each form is roughly 1/3 of the class, with roughly 1/3 of the abilities. Bear form will always be a pale imitation of warrior and cat form is a pale imitation of rogue. Which is fine if each form is merely one part of the spec/class. Feral was designed to be a jack of all trades. It would be like removing all of frost mages snares and slows, or affliction warlocks damage over time. It completely negates the reason that spec exists.

Then again, separating the tree is a less grievous offense than what they did to shapeshifting.

Ive played as many classes over the years in wow, but other than ret, feral is perhaps the one blizzard actively messed up the most. Everytime they try to make feral better, they make it significantly worse. It is sad that as a feral i was more fearful of "buffs" to my class than nerfs. At least enh shamans were in the state they were in through neglect.

Seriously, who thought that giving a spec designed around sticking to people and having a high sustained damage should be given burst?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

im guessing you are talking about the first few weeks?

Yep. I priested all throughout BC, but I had a couple of feral Druids in my regular group, and they were completely off the hook for the first month or so of the expansion. I can't even remember why, I just remember there was a nerf, and the main feral in the guild sadly admitting it was warranted.

Other than....Freya, i do not recall a single time when feral was considered overpowered in pve in wotlk (because they could dps the boss and aoe the crapton of adds without moving).

To be fair here, I stopped playing WOTLK and WoW entirely around a week or two after Ulduar launched. Just straight burn out...raiding Naxx with a guild I did not like or enjoy the company of just to get cracks at 25m gear was a mistake, in retrospect.

Now, I might have been raiding with maroons, but I felt very much like an unfair class during my time raiding. I was comparable if not outright superior as a main tank to the dedicated tanks, and could switch on a dime to above average DPS in my tanking gear. It was silly. There wasn't another class that could do that outside of DKs, which were in a stupid state, and even the DKs were happy to admit that.

Whatever happened after that as the game moved through TotC and ICC I'm ignorant of.

Ive played as many classes over the years in wow, but other than ret, feral is perhaps the one blizzard actively messed up the most. Everytime they try to make feral better, they make it significantly worse. It is sad that as a feral i was more fearful of "buffs" to my class than nerfs. At least enh shamans were in the state they were in through neglect.

Feral losing the ability to be both an active cat and bear is why I decided to come back to WoW as a priest and not a Druid. I'm VERY sad about it, because I really loved my feral Druid, but I wasn't surprised. My guess is they want Guardian Druids to be on par with other tanks, and Feral Cats to be on par with other DPS, and thus lose the "jack of all trades" aspect. I just think the spec lost a lot of personality in the process.

 

[happyninja42]

No I don't think it's worth going back for WoD. I can assure you that all the reasons you stopped playing are still there.

I personally loved the cinematic for WoD, as Grom Hellscream is one of my favorite characters, and his death scene from Warcraft 3 was the conversion moment for me to start playing WoW in the first place back in the Beta days. I even stopped playing WC 3 after the Orc campaign, because fuck the Night Elves, there's no way their campaign could top what I just saw.

I'm pissed that they seem to be trying to turn the Hellscream family into an ongoing villain farm, first with Garrosh, and now by retconning Grom into being a new badguy. Which....highly...annoys me. His heroic sacrifice was so badass, and now, while his new battle with the demon lord is just as badass, it's opening him up to be a new evil overlord. And I dislike that, greatly.

But I won't ever pick up the game again, because the game itself is still the same thing, and there isn't anything they can really do, other than make a brand new game that isn't WoW, to make it be different.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

No I don't think it's worth going back for WoD. I can assure you that all the reasons you stopped playing are still there.

I personally loved the cinematic for WoD, as Grom Hellscream is one of my favorite characters, and his death scene from Warcraft 3 was the conversion moment for me to start playing WoW in the first place back in the Beta days. I even stopped playing WC 3 after the Orc campaign, because fuck the Night Elves, there's no way their campaign could top what I just saw.

I'm pissed that they seem to be trying to turn the Hellscream family into an ongoing villain farm, first with Garrosh, and now by retconning Grom into being a new badguy. Which....highly...annoys me. His heroic sacrifice was so badass, and now, while his new battle with the demon lord is just as badass, it's opening him up to be a new evil overlord. And I dislike that, greatly.

But I won't ever pick up the game again, because the game itself is still the same thing, and there isn't anything they can really do, other than make a brand new game that isn't WoW, to make it be different.

Well, I'm curious to see how that plays out. I mean Grom is still Grom isn't he? I am curious how this Iron horde will react to the modern horde. It could very well end up with us getting alternate reality Grom on our side after he slaps down Garrosh and states that he won't kill any more of his own people.

 

[Twinrehz]

Can't be bothered to read other answers, so I'll just blurt out my own response:

It depends on why you quit WoW in the first place.

In my case, I quit because the only thing that was fun in the end was raiding, but getting into raids without achievements during the time when most of your guild is dead because everyone grew tired of WoW and are waiting for the next expansion, is a total batshit insane pain in the ass. Because you don't get a fucking invite if you can't show achievement, because everyone wants others to carry them through the raid, thinking that a single wipe means fail-raid, and starts leaving.

DID I HEAR YOU SAY LFR well go die in several fires at the same time because that's what that particular mode can do. It took ALL the fun out of raiding. Raids became nothing about tactics (but you can still wipe because people), and all about follow the leader, ***** and moan in raid chat, and receive loot. (DISCLAIMER: I stopped playing WoW during Cata, so if the LFR in MoP made things better, I don't CARE).

I was actually bitched at in raid-chat during my first LFR as tank that my gear was too bad, by a guy that had worse gear than me. It seems everyone checked THAT guy instead of me, and he was actually removed by vote from the raid, while I remained (as off-tank, a friend with decent gear was main tank), and kicked ass, because LFR IS GOD DAMN EASYMODE WHERE YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO SHIT seriously fuck that mode.

I tried as healer too, once. That was probably the most boring experience ever, since the other healers in the raid had such mad skillz that almost every single damn heal I used was basically redundant.

I have some bad feelings against the game now, sadly. For the most part it is because of the terrible community. I suppose I could find a different guild and raid with them, I even had a contact that wanted me in his guild for raiding, but I felt some sort of loyalty to my guild (which consists mostly of friends I know), and didn't want to just ditch them. I was kinda bored of WoW at that point anyway, the ending of Cataclysm was shockingly anti-climactic (ironically), and pandas just didn't seem like it would brighten the everpresent grinding and constant daily quests and stuff that needs to be done without actually offering any challenge.

Another reason was perhaps that my guildies quickly grew impatient if we had to try too many times on something, and would rather just quit than give it another try. I was usually in the minority of wanting to keep going forward after a certain point, and one of the raiders had a tendency of suddenly needing to go AFK for unspecified reasons (he is usually very private about his personal life. His decision on that, I won't question it, but when you make 9 others wait 10-20 minutes for your slow ass to show up again, it gets tedious and annoying. There's only so much you can do to amuse yourself while waiting in a raid).

I could go on, but I won't. But I could.


But I won't...

 

[Gxas]

WoW will always have the charm it had for you, in some aspects (unless you loved the insane broken-ness of vanilla, in which case, that won't come back). I, personally, love soloing old raids, and the idea that another 10 levels on my warrior means that I can kill Arthas by myself makes it that much more enticing to return.

There is something so much more epic about one character taking on these huge bosses, rather than 25 or 40 of them doing it, even if you're basically one-shotting them.

 

[AtomChicken]

WoW is over for me, despite the attempt at prolonging the game, but Draenor does seem very tempting.

 

[deth2munkies]

I think it's worth a couple months. I have a tendency of leaving through the middle of expansions, stay for the first & 2nd raid tier, then bugger off until the next expansion, and I'm back for now.