To WoW or Not to WoW?

[Daveman]

I said earlier today that I play games for two reasons; either they're fun or they're a challenge. WoW fulfills neither of these so I stopped halfway through my free trial period having got to level 11. Bearing in mind that I didn't enjoy it free I deduced that paying for it wasn't for me...

 

[Jay D Gee]

for the sake of you, your family and your pets don't do it.

 

[Sir_Tor]

If you just got to lv 12 you will find that the rest of the 68 levels consists of the same stuff in different envieroments. Kill a monster complete quests repeat until bored.

 

[Alarien]

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.

I understand where you were going with this, as I did do all those quests, and they were all goddawful, but were they really "punish the player" compared to EQ?

I would argue that even the things you mentioned were significant attempts to improve and simplify things that EQ did in a much, much more harsh way.

Look at questing. At least you could finish a quest in WoW in a few minutes, or even an hour or two on the long side. In EQ, you would luck out if you would finish a "quest" (which were very rare things actually, there were almost no quests in the original Everquest) in anything less than weeks. Even leaving aside the original "epic" quest of Soulfire, what about things like the Aegis of Life, which required DAYS of faction grinding to get to the right faction with the Clerics of Nife and then required a successful kill/loot on Lord Grimrot, who was a 3 hour spawn with placeholders and you had to kill both a live and a dead version? I had 60 hours at that camp and still didn't finish it.

And in WoW, corpse recoverys were just a run, which you could use a spirit healer to negate. What about late night CR's with your corpse deep in some dungeon and you were naked?

I would argue that WoW's early quests were all major steps away from the EQ mindset. I do agree, though, that they just continued to get easier and easier, if more and more "grind-y" in Burning Crusade, an expansion that caused me to finally quit the game, it was so bad.

 

[Barry93]

Well, I've been wondering about playing WoW again, but I'm not sure.

On one hand, I feel that I did shortchange the game a bit, being that I only got to level 12 before I called it quits, and in an 80 level game, thats quite short. Also, I may have judged the game too much by its early content, and not have waited to see what opened up later.

On other hand, I'm torn about giving them $15 dollars a month or the game. I mean, I stopped playing once already. I have a lot of other games I play regularly for consoles and PC, and if the game couldn't hook me in the first 13 levels, why should I believe it will at level 20 or 25? Also, $15 a month compared to the $0 a month for my personal fav. Guild Wars.




I just don't know. Give it another go, or save $15 a month?

Only go back if your willing to get to level 80 so you can do end game raids. The first 20 levels are incredibly boring as you have no cool spells or mount. Questing won't really become fun until you reach Outland (level 58). But in my opinion it's worth the grindfest; once your 80, you'll be flying dragons, kill demons, iron giants, and the scourge that are 10 times the size of your character, and saving the world from complete oblivion. And who knows, you may even fight this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv_b1-bsN5o&feature=fvst

 

[Sjakie]

leveling in WoW is boring nowadays, unless you have a group or a friend or 2 to do it with.

PS if you cant stand whiney or lazy players, dont play WoW

 

[The Madman]

If you just got to lv 12 you will find that the rest of the 68 levels consists of the same stuff in different envieroments. Kill a monster complete quests repeat until bored.

I know, I hate that about Dragon Age too... no wait, I meant Final Fantasy. Or was it Mass Effect? Nah, which game were we talking about? The one where you kill monsters and complete quests in order to level up as you progress through a series of varied environments?

The Witcher? Neverwinter Nights? Baldur's Gate? Chrono Trigger? Unreal Tournament? No, in that one you don't level up...

On wait, that's right, World of Warcraft is the one which *also* fits that incredibly vague description just like every rpg ever made and nearly every other game as well.

Anyway, don't bash it till you've tried it. I'd say try out a couple different starting areas if you really found whichever you were playing to be so boring. Class doesn't really become a factor until around level 20, but no reason not to pick a starting zone with a neat ambiance you enjoy. Reading the quest text (gasp) and knowing a bit about the Warcraft setting also helps make things more enjoyable. First time I walked into Stormwind and saw statues of all the heroes from Warcraft 2 was extremely cool for example! Also the human starting area's Defias storyline is pretty neat, culminating in most players first 'instance' experience to take out the leader of the organization.

I say give it a shot. Don't bother buying any of the expansions or paying for more than a month though, not unless you eventually decide you're starting to like the game. Till then no need waste any more money than necessary!

Oh, and yay for stereotypes!

Spoiler

 

[The Heik]

Well, I've been wondering about playing WoW again, but I'm not sure.

On one hand, I feel that I did shortchange the game a bit, being that I only got to level 12 before I called it quits, and in an 80 level game, thats quite short. Also, I may have judged the game too much by its early content, and not have waited to see what opened up later.

On other hand, I'm torn about giving them $15 dollars a month or the game. I mean, I stopped playing once already. I have a lot of other games I play regularly for consoles and PC, and if the game couldn't hook me in the first 13 levels, why should I believe it will at level 20 or 25? Also, $15 a month compared to the $0 a month for my personal fav. Guild Wars.



I just don't know. Give it another go, or save $15 a month?

Save the 15. If WoW doesn't catch you in the first few levels, then it won't for the rest of the game. Anyways, you need to put in some ridiculous time to get to the point where you can do the interesting stuff, which all amounts to grinding your testes together until you reach level 80. Too much work for too little reward at too high a price in my opinion.

 

[The Madman]

Am I the only one that actually *enjoys* leveling up new characters and exploring the environments rather than simply rushing through all the content so I can run raids with 24 people I don't give a shit about to kill a group of bosses I've already killed dozens of time before for a piece of gear that'll be outdated within a month if it isn't already?

It's perfectly possible to play wow and never enter a raid instance once while still enjoying yourself.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

On right, give DDO a try. Its free so why not?

 

[tofulove]

well with the last few patches, being a lowbie has gotten alot funner, dungeon finder system makes it alot easyer to find dungeons as a lowbie, get exp from pvp now, so you can level with out doing any quest grinding, what class did you play, perhaps you just picked a class you did not enjoy, i have a 80 prot pally 80 restro druid, 70 surv hunter pre wolk, 70 ele shaman pre wolk, and currently leveling my mage is 78 atm.

i say play around with the classes abit, to find one that appeals to you.

 

[NeonAnderson]

Well, I've been wondering about playing WoW again, but I'm not sure.

On one hand, I feel that I did shortchange the game a bit, being that I only got to level 12 before I called it quits, and in an 80 level game, thats quite short. Also, I may have judged the game too much by its early content, and not have waited to see what opened up later.

On other hand, I'm torn about giving them $15 dollars a month or the game. I mean, I stopped playing once already. I have a lot of other games I play regularly for consoles and PC, and if the game couldn't hook me in the first 13 levels, why should I believe it will at level 20 or 25? Also, $15 a month compared to the $0 a month for my personal fav. Guild Wars.




I just don't know. Give it another go, or save $15 a month?

Waste of time, though you have not seen all the content yet, by the time you reach level 40 you will have done EVERYTHING the game offers, what i mean by that is, the other 40 levels will have you doing the same thing over and over again. Oh and btw... level 85 cap is on its way in the new expansion.

Oh and yeah. Once you finally do reach level 60 you can do some of the high level stuff which are simply more time consuming (far more) and even more repetitive and more boring than the stuff you have been doing all the levels before it! i.e. high level dungeon raids, yipee!

I myself, played WoW at launch, when level cap was 60. Got to level 33 or so and was like man, this is so repetitive and so boring. I bought it together with 10 friends at launch, they already all reached level 60. The difference being i was not at all addicted to it as such I was still doing good in school, going out with friends etc... while some of them flunked that year (and even the same one/next one at lower level AGAIN!) no small part due to WoW and pretty much lost their social life.

Playing WoW without my friends lost all interest and the game itself had nothing to offer me, was just bland, repetitive and above all: boring, it probably would be more fun and more interesting to watch paint dry...

I did however get to borrow one of my friends account who had reached max level at the time i borrowed it, thus 70 in TBC, had epic gear and all, etc... and was my favorite class (warlock) anyway, i got to mess around on it and try some stuff, but couldn't really do much other than pvp as all the other content takes an abnormal amount of time to do, it really was not even worth it as they were boring and repetitive.

Anyone who thinks WoW is the best thing that ever happened to humanity should get help... seriously. Not just due to its addiction part, but simply because WTF it has nothing :S

Even Guild Wars is far better and far more fun and it isn't even a true mmo!

 

[Levitas1234]

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...

toll... whether you played wow or not you can't just judge every single person that plays wow as a loner with no social life/need for income

Wow doesn't get fun till 80 so don't expect to be hooked by level 25, unless you like grinding.

I am personally glad i quit wow because when i played wow i had no need for friends/income and was a loser. (wow doesn't make people into losers, losers play wow because they have nothing better to do)

I say give it another try if you like mmo's

 

[The Madman]

Am I the only one that actually *enjoys* leveling up new characters and exploring the environments rather than simply rushing through all the content so I can run raids with 24 people I don't give a shit about to kill a group of bosses I've already killed dozens of time before for a piece of gear that'll be outdated within a month if it isn't already?

It's perfectly possible to play wow and never enter a raid instance once while still enjoying yourself.

No, exploring is fun and all, but there's only so much to explore before youve seen it all and with WoW's zones being rather dull it's not the thing people priorities

I don't find WoW's zones dull at all. I love the detail Blizzard put into designing each area and how most all have their own unique style and overarching story through the quests that take place there. Plus Blizzard has a knack for hiding fun little things for folk like me to find, whether it be a minor quest, some fun little story tidbit, or a silly reference to something. It's fun! Plus although simplistic graphically, I love the colorful cartoony style Blizz uses in WoW. Very vibrant and alive when most games now are various shades of grey it seems.

And with three continents to explore plus a whole other world, each continent alone easily bigger than all but the absolutely largest game worlds out there, the sheer volume of content put most everything else to shame.

Then when eventually you've seen everything you wanted to see, do like me and just quit till the next expac. Who cares if I don't got uber leet gear when next I start playing again that gear will once again be outdated anyway?

 

[LordFisheh]

Personally, I'd wait for Cataclysm unless you really want to play it now. I play the game, and whenever I start a new character, I hate having to go through the original content that largely can't compare to the newer stuff, and rarely do.

As for those saying WoW eats your life, forces you to play it, gives Blizzard control of your mind, and so on - rubbish. I know many people in game, some in real life as well, and the vast majority of them are just normal people. While that pretty much invalidates the 'hopeless loner' comments, I'm going to take issue with them anyway. Personally, I'm very introverted, and you know what? I don't have a problem with that. The majority of people are far more outgoing than me, so they automatically become the ideal that we should all aspire to? All you're really saying is that is X is different from me, and so X is bad. Advanced, progressive thinking there.

 

[Alkestes]

Wow doesn't get fun till 80 so don't expect to be hooked by level 25, unless you like grinding.

I despise people who say that WoW doesn't get fun until 80. People all have their own types of fun. Maybe for you it wasn't fun until you hit 80. Personally, I had a blast. I read ALL of the quest text, I spent countless hours exploring and many more hunting Alliance <3. Sure, it took me a while longer to reach the level cap, but I had one hell of a fun time getting there.

 

[Con Carne]

I'd say, but a 1 or 2 month membership, play it for a while and see if it tickles your fancy. If you don't like it, you're only down 15-30$ as opposed to a recurring fee, until you remember to cancel your account.
Honestly the overall experience of WoW hasn't changed at all. Except maybe now you MIGHT enjoy it more because they've made it easier to, get your epic mounts and other mid-high lvl goodies.

 

[tofulove]

cataclysm is going to make it a hole lot better as a lowbie, there going to rework the hole game as well as all the zones 1-60, every thing from 1-60 is still for the most part vanilla wow.

but if ya got the money i say give it a go, can start pvping at 10, and doing dungeon runs at 13, made it a lot funner to level alts.

and you don't need to buy cataclysm to experience the changes coming up in cataclysm.