Thinking of trying WoW.

[John Funk]

I spent 2 years on it and I'll tell you there's better things to do in life. If you have a family, focus on them. The only remotely interesting thing in WoW is raiding, and that's a huge time sink. With a half-decent guild, I'm talking like 20 hours a week. If you're not raiding, you're just stagnating and doing dailies everyday. And if you're raiding inconsistently, you're not getting anywhere either. It's not worth it to give it a chance to get between you and your family. You need to be able to alt+f4 at any time and not feel like a douchebag for ditching a bunch of people in your group, and WoW is tricky in that it sometimes will make it hard on you.

tl;dr: Family first.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. I raid two nights a week for two and a half hours at a time. I log in maybe a little before raid and do dailies. We're working on learning Nef and Cho'Gall right now.

OP: Give it a try. It's a great game, and despite what nostalgia-blinded folks say, it's better now than it's ever been.

Also, I really get the feeling people have never played a game with actual grind if they think WoW is "grind-y."

I personally prefer quicker progression. The guild I played with has been 13/13H for a long, long time. Anything less than that wouldn't be fun to me. And that much time investment for me just isn't practical or even worth it anymore.

Okay, so because *your* guild is 13/13H and it isn't fun to *you* progressing any slower, and consequently you warn of having to raid 20 hours per week when it's obvious that this is just *your* preference...

...you don't see the logical collapse here?

I raid with a very small, tight-knit family-style guild. We make progress at our own rate, and still feel like we're getting through content. We raid 5 hours a week, tops. I'm perfectly fine with that.

Don't pretend like your experience is the benchmark for everyone.

 

[-Ulven-]

Well if you want to try an MMO you can wait for Guild Wars 2. Or try out wow, maybe watch some friends play more end game stuff. Just so you know what you're going into.

 

[Bags159]

If you don't have any good friends to play with I can't endorse WoW. Every time my friends quit I would wind up quitting too. With friends it's fairly enjoyable.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

I personally never fell to the infamous wow addiction. I've been playing it for a while, and often it can be a real grind, and an utterly boring and repetitious game. That said, there's really no reason not to download the free trial, if you find it to be as boring as I've just described in the first 10 levels, there's a decent chance you will find the rest of the game just as mind numbing.

 

[gbemery]

dont do it! try crack, its safer and less addictive than wow.

Hi, my name is Greg. I have been WoW free for about 6 months. It's a hard day to day struggle I have my good days and bad, but I'm steadfast in my goal to live a WoW free life again. In fact last week I'll admit it. I had a moment of weakness. I wanted to play WoW so bad...but instead I called up my sponsor. He told me of this wonderful place with trees, animals, fresh air and REAL people. I thought for sure he was talking about some alliance territory, but then he told me this wonderful paradise was called the real world. I asked him rather skeptically "Why the hell would I want to watch a stupid reality show on MTV?" He just sighed told me to shut up, go outside and I would be fine. So I went outside...and you know what? It was great. The sun, the air, the grass, the allergies...so much immersion, and I didn't have to pay someone $14.99 US a month to go to this world or kill endless amounts of boars. The greatest challenge I found though was social interactions. I was dumbfounded as to what to do when I saw all these people. I wanted to talk to them but no one had a giant exclamation mark above their head. But then it happened....people just started talking to me on their own accord...it was amazing. I love this new free world with its immersion and interactivity. Now I don't want to give away any spoilers but...my sponsor even told me of this other achievement called

Spoiler

"sex"

...not sure what it is yet but he told me it was an activity where people pair up, I assume to level quicker, and he told me they even form large groups...probably for raids I thought. I wonder what my Gear Score will need to be to join in? If it's too small will people just laugh at me and not let me join? Oh sorry there I go relapsing some...anyway I think I like this "new" world more than WoW so I'm going to do everything I can to stay on the wagon this time. Plus I heard we're suppose to get a new expansion pact today similar to WoW's Cataclysm....oooo it's so exciting...thank you everyone for your time and support. Thank you.

 

[mip0]

A world of clicking? No, don't worry about that. The few players who for some reason want it to be a world of clicking have to go to the options and changed it to that. It's not a world of clicking, even by default.

 

[ionveau]

I spent 2 years on it and I'll tell you there's better things to do in life. If you have a family, focus on them. The only remotely interesting thing in WoW is raiding, and that's a huge time sink. With a half-decent guild, I'm talking like 20 hours a week. If you're not raiding, you're just stagnating and doing dailies everyday. And if you're raiding inconsistently, you're not getting anywhere either. It's not worth it to give it a chance to get between you and your family. You need to be able to alt+f4 at any time and not feel like a douchebag for ditching a bunch of people in your group, and WoW is tricky in that it sometimes will make it hard on you.

tl;dr: Family first.

This couldn't be farther from the truth. I raid two nights a week for two and a half hours at a time. I log in maybe a little before raid and do dailies. We're working on learning Nef and Cho'Gall right now.

OP: Give it a try. It's a great game, and despite what nostalgia-blinded folks say, it's better now than it's ever been.

Also, I really get the feeling people have never played a game with actual grind if they think WoW is "grind-y."

What you just said is exactly the reason that i stopped you ether do raids PvP or just sit in town all day, You know how in other RPGs you can make items by farming mobs etc? well in wow you submit yourself to a guild or just stay around doing nothing.


And ya the guilds on WoW are very "LIKE MINDED" if you know what i mean

 

[danhere]

Okay, so because *your* guild is 13/13H and it isn't fun to *you* progressing any slower, and consequently you warn of having to raid 20 hours per week when it's obvious that this is just *your* preference...

...you don't see the logical collapse here?

I raid with a very small, tight-knit family-style guild. We make progress at our own rate, and still feel like we're getting through content. We raid 5 hours a week, tops. I'm perfectly fine with that.

Don't pretend like your experience is the benchmark for everyone.

It was just a personal testimonial. I don't really think it's any less valid. Some people get very competitive in MMOs. I'd personally not even risk it, 'cause "going casual" does not appeal to me. If the OP can get competitive, it's probably not worth his time either.

 

[Inkidu]

Also, I really get the feeling people have never played a game with actual grind if they think WoW is "grind-y."

That's kind of like saying people who haven't had a root canal with a an ice pick don't know what a root canal is even though they've had one with a dental drill.

Grinds are archaic mechanics. Believe me I've played every Final Fantasy game that's not a MMO. Grinds in any form suck. The world is better off without them.

 

[RanD00M]

If you want to do it, then do it. Don't make some random people on the internet tell you what to do or not do.

 

[razerdoh]

dont do it! try crack, its safer and less addictive than wow.

Hi, my name is Greg. I have been WoW free for about 6 months. It's a hard day to day struggle I have my good days and bad, but I'm steadfast in my goal to live a WoW free life again. In fact last week I'll admit it. I had a moment of weakness. I wanted to play WoW so bad...but instead I called up my sponsor. He told me of this wonderful place with trees, animals, fresh air and REAL people. I thought for sure he was talking about some alliance territory, but then he told me this wonderful paradise was called the real world. I asked him rather skeptically "Why the hell would I want to watch a stupid reality show on MTV?" He just sighed told me to shut up, go outside and I would be fine. So I went outside...and you know what? It was great. The sun, the air, the grass, the allergies...so much immersion, and I didn't have to pay someone $14.99 US a month to go to this world or kill endless amounts of boars. The greatest challenge I found though was social interactions. I was dumbfounded as to what to do when I saw all these people. I wanted to talk to them but no one had a giant exclamation mark above their head. But then it happened....people just started talking to me on their own accord...it was amazing. I love this new free world with its immersion and interactivity. Now I don't want to give away any spoilers but...my sponsor even told me of this other achievement called

Spoiler

"sex"

...not sure what it is yet but he told me it was an activity where people pair up, I assume to level quicker, and he told me they even form large groups...probably for raids I thought. I wonder what my Gear Score will need to be to join in? If it's too small will people just laugh at me and not let me join? Oh sorry there I go relapsing some...anyway I think I like this "new" world more than WoW so I'm going to do everything I can to stay on the wagon this time. Plus I heard we're suppose to get a new expansion pact today similar to WoW's Cataclysm....oooo it's so exciting...thank you everyone for your time and support. Thank you.

 

[Josh Horton]

I wouldn't recommend it, I hit level 70 in a week and was bored with it. A week after I quit my account was hacked because my little brother got some keyloggers on my computer, so I really didn't care lol, I did take the account back just to delete all of the guys characters that had 1000's of gold just to show him I don't like being hacked

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

dont do it! try crack, its safer and less addictive than wow.

Don't do it... Just don't. You'll just lose your social life and gain weight. Do heroin or something, just not Wow

It's like smoking... It's dangerous for your health. Don't start if you can avoid it. Amirite?

First of all dont listen to anything these guys have said. Yes you will get addicted but it is ridiculous to even compare a video game to drugs or drug addiction.

Also if you aren't an idiot about your time you won't become fat and it will not effect your social life.

If you want to try it then try it. But remember it is expensive and after awhile it'll stop being fun and start being effort.

Whatever you do ignore the over dramatization of it's "side effects".

 

[pwnsore]

Better idea: The MMO's you said you have tried are not, IMO, the prime examples of the MMO genre. I would try LOTRO or DDO first. They are very similar to WOW and are free. If you are enjoying yourself, you can stick with the free game, or you can upgrade to WOW. I personally have played all 3, and find that until the level cap, the differences between them are slim to none. Since I have not had the patience to come anywhere near level cap in any of them, I prefer LOTRO, since its effing LOTR. Hells yea.

 

[axle 19]

If you have friends to play with then I say definitely go for it. I played WoW for two months before I got bored of solo questing at level 82. I recently got back into it and am enjoying the shit out of my level 85 shammy. If you have friends to quest and dungeon with and can find a guild to join then yeah WoW can be a pretty fun experience all the way through to endgame content and while there is some grind it never gets to the point where it is aggravating or difficult to go through.

 

[coolkirb]

I play it ocassionally it is addictive, but I eventually just get annoyed with it and the grinding then I stop for a year, and then about a year latter it calls me back.

 

[Hatchet90]

Don't listen to these people telling you to not try it. As long was you don't have an addictive personality and you have self control, you should be fine. It's a fun way to connect with friends and is a fun game in itself.

 

[Valiance]

Try the 10 days trial, if you liked it, then buy the whole game with it's 3 expansion packs.

Minus the three months I get for free, how much would all that cost?

Even if you buy it digitally from the Blizz store, it's just under 90 dollars.

Sort of a lot to throw at when you can buy guild wars and all the expansions for like, not even 20 on steam. However, I get the point is to play with your friends, but realize that the game has no level-scaling system like, say, city of heroes, so they will either need to roll new characters to level with you, or you'll have to play catch-up to some of their alts.

I strongly suggest you try a trial of RIFT or wait for TERA/GW2/TOR/whatever. WoW isn't a terribly bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it isn't a terribly good one either. It's one of the MMOs where you can really just solo until level cap, but ask yourself what you're looking for out of an MMO? Is it just the RPG part? Then play a decent RPG. Is it the storyline or lore? Is it the multiplayer? Considering that most of these games boil down to combat, you should consider other alternatives, like Bloodline Champions or some MOBA games for the PvP/arena-style fix, or torchlight/darkspore/ARPG for the hack'n'slash combat. If you're looking for a single-player WoW with no achievement or friendship achievements with mediocre combat, try spore or dungeon lords.

WoW has improved a lot, but most new players won't really be impressed by the improvements because they seem obvious and as if it should have been like that the past 7 years or so (ie: if you want to do a battleground, press 'h', if you want to do a dungeon, press 'i', queuing/matchmaking systems for groups, much quicker/responsive hp/mana regen, more and funner abilities to use at low levels, better more entertaining quest design, improved visuals/artwork/models/animations, etc.). The thing is, even with all of these revamps, WoW is still a dated design, a vestige of the old-style of MMO, and maybe that's exactly what you're looking for. The thing is, not all MMOs are created equal, and it's tough to know what you want when you say you want to play "an MMO." PvE? PvP? Skill based? Gear based? Class based? Coop? Faction-dividing? Dungeons? Quests? Grinding?