To WoW or Not to WoW?

[ffs-dontcare]

As an avid WoW player myself, I have this to say:

Wait until Cataclysm comes out.

Get the expansions and have fun.

It does get better as you level up. There's ten classes for me to play and I've only leveled one of them (Mage) to 80. And even then, once you get to 80, the game turns into a whole new ballpark on a different planet in another galaxy. Just because you turn level 80, doesn't mean the fun stops there.

I know how you feel, but I recommend looking up how to create your own private realm instead for just you and your friends.

That's illegal. Also, a private realm is nowhere near the same as the official realms. The mechanics are different. And so many glaring bugs to deal with.

 

[Simmo8591]

I have been in your position before, I loved guild wars and still play it from time to time (just to do some droks runs and Ab.
for me aside from the cost aspect I found Wow to be really time consuming, if you arent prepared to sink in the hours you wont get into a good guild and will find it hard to get a decent Pug for the end game stuff, also i worry that the game is so far advanced that the early bits wont be very fun (but that's just my opinion on that bit, no flaming please)

for me the winner with GW is that after a month of not playing i can log on and still compete at my level because while my gear may not be as flashy as the newest armour, it has the same stats so doesn't put me at a disadvantage to other players.

i realize i haven't actually expressed an opinion on whether to wow or not.... I would say pay for a month and see how it goes, get a character up to a decent level (not sure what that is these days but lets say 30) and see how it goes. if you dont like youve only spent a few quid(dollars?) and GW will always be there if u want to go back

 

[reg42]

Only start playing if you have friends who play, it's crap otherwise.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

Care to explain WHY he should ignore me? What are you getting at? When I say "I had plenty of good, fun experiences" I'm saying I really enjoyed the game. Yes, WoW is a good game, hence why I was addicted to it for 4 or 5 years.

Yes, you got addicted to it. You're saying it like it's a fact, and he will get addicted if he plays it. It's bullshit.

..it sucks up your free hours like a black hole. How many times have you waited around to find a group to do a heroic, or worse yet, a raid? How many times during a dungeon or raid has someone left causing at least a 20 minute or up to an hour wait? This happens all the time, unless you're in a decently large guild which is not something a newbie is going to jump into right away.

It sucked up your time like a blackhole, because you were addicted to it. Again, you're saying it like he doesn't have a choice. It's possible to play WoW for an hour and then come off, y'know?

As for the questions you asked, I do something else whilst I'm waiting. Generally, if I'm on WoW, I don't have any plans in real life so I watch TV, listen to music or go on the Xbox when I'm waiting for a dungeon/raid, or when we get wiped. I don't start up WoW, and then get sucked into it and can't come off. I start it up when I want to play it, and I stop playing when I want to. I don't give a shit if that's in the middle of a dungeon, raid or BG. It's a video game, I play it when I want to.

If you're just mad about my loner comment, the point isn't to say all WoW players are loners. I'm just trying to save his soul... well, social life. If he goes out with friends, WoW can bring that to a halt. If he has a girlfriend, WoW can make her leave him. And if he has no social life and wants one, WoW will make that nearly impossible. Because it's all you do. Some few people can keep it to a bare minimum, but usually they don't "get into it" and never reach end game anyway.

You must have little control over your social life, and the examples you provided don't apply to everyone, just you and people like you.

If he wants to play for the questing and leveling going solo so he doesn't just waste his time, great. But if he really gets into it, hits max, and starts doing the end game content, then he's hooked and what I said about his social life WILL come to pass. Your friends will be WoW friends.

No, it won't. What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop saying everything as a fact. This happened to you. That doesn't mean it'll happen to everyone.

 

[dasUnbekannte]

Wolfram01's a little touchy.
WoW isn't something you should play if you want to be an ultimate socialite or anything but if you've got time to burn ANYWAY and a spare $15 laying around, why not? In my opinion it's the best MMO on the market - I've played 9 different MMOs. It's had the most time to get polished and thus, it is sparkly clean, bugs in WoW are almost exciting because they're so rare.

How many times have you waited around to find a group to do a heroic, or worse yet, a raid? How many times during a dungeon or raid has someone left causing at least a 20 minute or up to an hour wait? This happens all the time,

The Dungeon Finder actually fixed this for me. Joooooiiin usssss

 

[Ranorak]

Fantastic game, been playing since a few months after release and still love it.

Especially now the leveling from 1-70 goes like a rocket on speed.
The new dungeon finder tool makes sure you can easily find a group for even low level instances.
And the lowering for a mount from level 40 to 20 is also a big help.

 

[Alarien]

Wait till Cataclysm comes out.

The starting areas and "old world" quests are being totally redone so they match "modern" gaming sensibilities as opposed to the Everquest masochism WoW was based on.

Umm, this statement is just plain wrong. There are no similarities that can even remotely be pointed to between Everquest and WoW. Everquest never had grind quest mechanics, but was instead entirely based on a grind camp mechanic. Yes, Everquest was a lot more masochistic. It was harder. It was also alot more memorable and fun.

EQ was tweaked later to be a lot more like WoW, rather than the other way around. When WoW came out, it resembled no other MMO's, not even EQ2, which is why it was more succesful out of the box. That said, I still think of EQ as twice the game that WoW was.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Wait till Cataclysm comes out.

The starting areas and "old world" quests are being totally redone so they match "modern" gaming sensibilities as opposed to the Everquest masochism WoW was based on.

Umm, this statement is just plain wrong. There are no similarities that can even remotely be pointed to between Everquest and WoW. Everquest never had grind quest mechanics, but was instead entirely based on a grind camp mechanic. Yes, Everquest was a lot more masochistic. It was harder. It was also alot more memorable and fun.

EQ was tweaked later to be a lot more like WoW, rather than the other way around. When WoW came out, it resembled no other MMO's, not even EQ2, which is why it was more succesful out of the box. That said, I still think of EQ as twice the game that WoW was.

Let me clarify: I didn't mean that old WoW was camp/grind like old EQ. I meant that old WoW had the "punish the player" mentality like EQ that went back all the way to Gygax era DnD. And if you don't agree with me then you never made obligatory corpse hop run from menethil to ironforge at level 10 when you started as a night elf. Or the ridiculous silithid egg gathering quest in the barrens that required running multiple times from the top to the bottom. Or the godforsaken water totem quest chain. Or the awful rogue pickpocket and poison quests. None of the quests in BC forward have that kind of harshness or stunt your gameplay abilities until you complete them.

 

[Composer]

to poor too WoW

 

[Cody211282]

I recommend you not to do it. I wasted a few years in WoW and while I had plenty of good, fun experiences, I also have spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours doing basically nothing. Stick to games you can just pick up and play, and also quick save and quit. Then again, if you're a completely hopeless loner with zero desire to have any sort of social life, and have no need for income maybe you should just jump in and live in the virtual world...

Ignore people like this..

As for playing WoW, the monthly fee really isn't much for what you're getting. It's £8 for a game that is guaranteed to last you a month. It's £40 now for a game that lasts under a week. As much as I love Guild Wars too, there isn't much to do in PvE except grind for the nicest looking weapons/armour that don't improve anything other than your looks, and some of the cheaper armour sets look better. It does have good PvP though.

Try and get a friend to play with you, if not, try and get to 20 at least. It does pick up a bit there.

He was stating an opinion just like you did, he can easily say to ignore you for no reason as well, and really WoW was as grindtastic as anyother MMO Ive ever tried, worse then most really

 

[MR T3D]

do you have lots of free time?
do you have 15$/month to spare?
do you have a desire to remain chaste?
then you want WoW!

 

[GamDev]

I say "to Wow".

Wow, is one of the best games ever i think... little details that make it immense and addictive. I think i should start playing again because lets face it... its fecking awesomee!!! But i thought i might as well wait for Cataclysm now! WOW FTW!

 

[GamDev]

Hmmmm... interesting point. It is better with Friends... but it is still massively enjoyable by yourslef!

 

[Wolfram23]

Um you seem to miss where I say it "can bring it to a halt" it "can make your gf leave" the point is some of these things have happened to me, but also to some of my friends, and also to thousands upon thousands of others who's stories I've read and heard (Ok I've personally read of dozens but it's not like 11 million subscribers are telling their WoW life stories). But thanks for pointing out the obvious that it doesn't happen to everybody, but I'm pretty sure I covered that too with the whole playing solo taking your time leveling etc etc. And if you really play WoW, just check your friends list or guild list and tell me how many people seem to be on all the time? Or just everyday for a few hours? I'll bet at least 25% if not more, because the game is as addicting as a game can be.

Care to explain WHY he should ignore me? What are you getting at? When I say "I had plenty of good, fun experiences" I'm saying I really enjoyed the game. Yes, WoW is a good game, hence why I was addicted to it for 4 or 5 years.

Yes, you got addicted to it. You're saying it like it's a fact, and he will get addicted if he plays it. It's bullshit.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that's what happened to me and that's what happens to a lot of other people. There's a difference between saying it's what DOES happen and what CAN happen.

..it sucks up your free hours like a black hole. How many times have you waited around to find a group to do a heroic, or worse yet, a raid? How many times during a dungeon or raid has someone left causing at least a 20 minute or up to an hour wait? This happens all the time, unless you're in a decently large guild which is not something a newbie is going to jump into right away.

It sucked up your time like a blackhole, because you were addicted to it. Again, you're saying it like he doesn't have a choice. It's possible to play WoW for an hour and then come off, y'know?

As for the questions you asked, I do something else whilst I'm waiting. Generally, if I'm on WoW, I don't have any plans in real life so I watch TV, listen to music or go on the Xbox when I'm waiting for a dungeon/raid, or when we get wiped. I don't start up WoW, and then get sucked into it and can't come off. I start it up when I want to play it, and I stop playing when I want to. I don't give a shit if that's in the middle of a dungeon, raid or BG. It's a video game, I play it when I want to.

Just like you, without having "real life" plans I'd just log into WoW because there's not much else to do, or at least nothing I'd rather do with my spare time. You don't think pretty much everybody "does something else" when waiting?? Hello get a clue. And I didn't say anything about not being able to quit. If nothing's going on and I've wasted an hour or two trying to get a group going and can't, then I too would quit and go do something else. But that's still an hour or two absolutely wasted, I might as well have spent it staring at a wall for all the good having music or a tv on did me.

Also, grinding: this is fun? Time well spent? I and pretty much EVERYBODY who played in BC did dailies, particularily to get their epic flyers. I myself did them to the point of getting the Hypogryph from Cenarion Expedition. So every day if I had an hour and twenty minutes to spare I could log on and do all the dailies. Every day I could. And that is very common. Well, it was since money isn't as hard to come by in WotLK. In fact gaining money in WotLK was probably the most fun I had in that game in years, by simply buying out tons of Saronite ore from farmers and spend an hour or two crafting the savage, blessed, and tempered gear as well as weapons and such. I spent a lot of time doing that to the point of having an average of 3.3k gold income a day. (netting around 2k). Yea it was fun and I was only burning a fraction of the time I would spend trying to get groups together or doing dailies but still, complete waste of time, really.

If you're just mad about my loner comment, the point isn't to say all WoW players are loners. I'm just trying to save his soul... well, social life. If he goes out with friends, WoW can bring that to a halt. If he has a girlfriend, WoW can make her leave him. And if he has no social life and wants one, WoW will make that nearly impossible. Because it's all you do. Some few people can keep it to a bare minimum, but usually they don't "get into it" and never reach end game anyway.

You must have little control over your social life, and the examples you provided don't apply to everyone, just you and people like you.

Again, I said it CAN happen not that it always does "like it's a fact". Learn some reading comprehension please. Maybe you're spending too much time in WoW and not enough reading books or doing your English homework hmm?

If he wants to play for the questing and leveling going solo so he doesn't just waste his time, great. But if he really gets into it, hits max, and starts doing the end game content, then he's hooked and what I said about his social life WILL come to pass. Your friends will be WoW friends.

No, it won't. What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop saying everything as a fact. This happened to you. That doesn't mean it'll happen to everyone.

Ok I'll give you that, there's some max levels who just play occasionally. But that doesn't detract in anyway from my point: WoW is among the most addictive games you can possibly play. This very website has an article on video game addiction and states that very thing (MMOs in general as the most addictive). My post is a warning for someone who's looking at really getting into the game. These are things than can happen and do happen to a ton of players. And I wouldn't have posted any of this if you weren't such an ignorant ass, but now I think I've made my point. Refute as much as you want but my opinion stands and is well based in truth. Good day.

 

[Twad]

That's your fault for not giving it a chance. The first 20 levels are boring as hell if you don't have friends or anybody to play with.
Once you get to level 20, your class and spec actually start to stick out, and you can see what you're going to be doing in group settings, as well as actually learn your class. And then there's instances...

I'd give it another try. Pay for a month, see if you are still interested after gaining some levels...

The problem here being that you PAY for those boring first 20 levels, why should you? A game is expected/supposed to be fun from the beggining until you finally beat it.

To OP - I wouldnt play again, its just a time and money sink. Use the same time and money to do something else with your friends instead.

 

[Davrel]

The negative impacts of playing WoW (no social life etc.) only come about if you lack self control and/or are prone to addiction.

I play WoW; but only after I get whatever else I need to be doing done.
Also NEVER choose WoW over a night out with friends, unless you're ill or have $/£0 in which case you shouldn't be playing anyway.

 

[LockeDown]

You've already got plenty of people here with good advice for you. I'll leave some of my own:

It's not really fair to judge an MMO on what amounts to less than 1/8th of the game's actual content. Most of the pull to WoW comes from the end-game, be it PvP or Raiding, and there's where the bulk of the content to be enjoyed lies.

As a rule of thumb, I always try to give a new MMO (I'm always looking for the equivalent of "WoW for people who can't afford WoW") until at least 2/3 of the maximum level cap before I decide whether or not to abandon it. That is, of course, unless the level of customization is so offensively detailed and "nit-picky" that it turns me off nigh immediately (like Anarchy Online, or EVE).