World of Warcraft what do you like about it and why?

[Sellon88]

I made A WOW account to see for myself why it's so popular and so far I'm not enjoying it. Granted I have a free to play account and as far as I know i'm not in the main game yet (I'm a level 7 priest}.

So I want to know what you like about WOW and WHY because the games not selling me.

(EDIT) As of now i'm sticking it until level 20. I'm informing you of this to focus greater on the quality of the game.

 

[Jandau]

No idea, at least not anymore. I used to play back in the Vanilla and Burning Crusade days and loved the game. Skipped a few expansions, and then came back a few months ago. The game in its current state is gutted. Leveling is reduced to a trivial waste of time, pretty much all pre-raid content is laughably easy and pointless, the plot of earlier expansions goes nowhere as only the current content is relevant, and the current expansion is just utterly unfocused and silly. Basically, it's a shadow of its former glory and I cancelled my account. Might come back for the next expansion, if I hear good things about it, maybe sub for a month during summer for nostalgia, but as a primary source of entertainment, WoW just isn't doing it for me, not like it used to...

 

[Roofstone]

The story. The lore. Gameplay. The world, characters, quests, dungeons. Roleplay community.

World of Warcraft is the game world in which I myself can lose myself for hours, just roleplaying on my dear pandaren mage. It is a world where I can fling fireballs and freeze people from the inside out. Take on monsters a thousand times my size and win!

World of Warcraft is a world in which I can do on epic adventures or just stay at home working on my tailoring. A world in which I can spend hours just walking around meeting new people. Or I can be a hero unlike any other, helping everyone from royalty to the small peasant.

It is a world where I can spend hours manipulating the economy or just browse the auction house for fluffy pets to take care of.

World of Warcraft is a world in which I can do whatever I want.

World of Warcraft is a game that will never, ever, ever, get boring. That is why I love it.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Mostly exploring the rich world. It may not be graphically modern but I just love the creativity and atmosphere Blizzard put into the game. And the music, damn, that music.

World of Warcraft is a game that will never, ever, ever, get boring. That is why I love it.

Weeell to be fair, I love WoW, but it ain't no EVE Online.

 

[Radeonx]

I love raiding. I'm still in a progression guild, and bunkering down at the release of a tier and spending hours together trying to push our way through it is incredibly fun. Unfortunately, I hardly play outside of the raiding aspect of it, so I can't really give insight other than at a pseudo hardcore level.

 

[FoxKitsune]

Although I haven't played in a long time, when I did it was for YEARS. I played with friends on a PVE server initially, but it was the Roleplay servers that got me hooked. It's just such a vast, beautiful setting that it just seemed wrong not to take advantage of that. On the `Normal` servers it seemed like most zones were just part of the grind. On the RP servers, they were all part of the world.

 

[laggyteabag]

I do love the lore (especially anything to do with the Undead and the Lich King, a great example of this is pretty much everything to do with Stratholme). World of Warcraft is also a huge game, with multiple continents and many different environments to explore. However past that, the game is dead to me. My interest in the game has dwindled considerably, and I just don't enjoy the game anywhere near as much as I did, and any passing spark of interest does not warrant spending £9 to play it, especially now that the Scroll of Resurrection has been phased out. Pandaria to me seemed laughable, and whilst the new expansion does look fairly interesting (as well as introducing some well needed character model updates), it seems like they are just recycling content from the Burning Crusade expansion. Having played Rift and Guild Wars 2, the combat is Warcraft definitely feels dated, and the questing feels dry and boring, especially going from the revamped 1-60 Cataclysm quests, and then hitting what feels like a complete downgrade when you enter the Burning Crusade zones.

I do see what is appealing about Warcraft, and I do check up on the lore from time to time, but other than that I find nothing interesting about the game itself anymore.

 

[Scratch17]

I used to play WoW on and off for a while. The raids are really fun, and a good guild that develops together makes the experience of raiding that much better. There was also a bit of friendly rivalry between my now room mate and myself with mount gathering. He's still pissed that I have the Reins of the Raven Lord after my 20th run, and he was running it nearly daily for 3 years.

But I believe there's a lot of different stuff to keep different people busy. Some people play the auction house with their professions, some people raid the whole time, some people grind for mounts, some people RP. Granted, a good guild plays a large factor in my level of enjoyment in the game.

I quit after I began realising that it became a second job. Coming home after classes and sitting down to grind dailies for another 2 hours on my own really sucked the fun out of the game for me. I have fond memories of the game and the people who made it fun for me, but I have no intention of going back any time soon.

 

[kaiiboraka]

I've grown up playing all of Blizzard's games, and WoW was no different. I have played through every expansion, and have honestly loved every minute of it. Much of the reason I play is because of how much I love the universe. It's also like... like a cozy retreat, a place that is always familiar, that I can always get something out of.
A lot of finicky diehards and purists will tell you WoW is ruined, and others will ***** about graphics and grinding and blah blah, but honestly it's seriously a lot better than people give it credit for. In recent years, after Cataclysm most notably, Blizzard went back and started revamping low-level zones and quests to make the overall experience way more fun and engaging. I really wish I could explain or show to you just how far the game has come as mechanics were introduced and changed and eliminated and upgraded and streamlined over the years. It's such a wonderful game, and I implore you to stick with it. If you can manage, find someone to play it with you. Even on the starter edition there's still TONS to enjoy, with loads of replayability to try out the different classes, to see which mechanics you enjoy playing most, and the races all have really interesting starting zones.
Like... what can I say that'll convince you to not stop? Because you shouldn't, because you won't regret it, and it'll only get better. If you're willing to test the waters a bit more, and are perhaps a little daring and don't mind dropping some dollars on it, you could purchase the full game+Mists of Pandaria+pre-purchase Warlords of Draenor. Now lemme 'splain why: there is SOOO much content to be had and enjoyed in this game. Pandaren are an awesome race, the monk class is super cool, and if you purchase Warlords of Draenor (which requires you have everything else), you'll get a FREE level 90 character boost. This'll let you see and try out content from any expansion released thus far, and it'll let you make a death knight class and... dhsuogk;sfgsd
Glob.
WoW is so much fun.
Go find a friend to play with you.
Go buy it.
Go try it more.
You won't regret it.
I promise.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

This is a really hard question for me.

I recently got back into WoW having not played for years and I really am not sure why I play it.

Maybe it is just the endless and mindless nature of it and its just a form of escapism?

I'm not really sure to be honest, but it is in no way an emotional rollercoaster or thrillride of action or any of the standard draws of games.

Maybe it's just the constant progression? There is always more to do/accomplish and you push to get it, with incentives along the way to keep you interested - like leveling up and what that entails.

 

[Zeterai]

I made A WOW account to see for myself why it's so popular and so far I'm not enjoying it. Granted I have a free to play account and as far as I know i'm not in the main game yet (I'm a level 7 priest}.

So I want to know what you like about WOW and WHY because the games not selling me.

If you don't like the game, then just quit. Really, if you don't like it, then people saying what they find good about the game won't change your opinion. Just quit the game. You can experience most of what you'll be expecting by playing to level 20, doing a PvP battleground and doing a dungeon.

Personally, I play WoW for the gameplay, story, questing and dungeons. I can't tell you why I like them though, they're good in my opinion? That's about it.

At the very most, play it to level 20. If you still don't like it then, seriously quit.

Is $30.28 good price for 2 months of gametime?

No it isn't.

Yes it is. 15$/mo is the near-universal standard for subscription based MMOs.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

Lagrely the story and world is what drew me in initially since I've been a fan since WC2: Tides of Darkness.

That said, I know many people aren't in it for that. As such I'll try to give you some reasons I've gleaned from playing both it, and other MMOs. Rift and Wildstar in particular. Both do certain things better than WoW does, but there's also the flipside where WoW does some things better than they do.

I think the biggest thing WoW does better than the other two right now is questing. I don't much mind the grind and the few quest types. That happens in every MMO. The trick that designers have to learn, I feel, is how do you make me CARE enough to complete the grind and thus the quests? The countless weird little quests that reward you with story-related things or moments of humor kept me going and kept me interested. Things like The Day Deathwing Came, the Rhea's Egg questline, even the little one-off quest in Hillsbrad Foothills for the Forsaken where they turn things on their head and have YOU become the quest-giver to various NPCs that represent stereotypes of WoW and MMO players in general. The starting chains for the Goblin, Worgen, and even to an extent the Pandaren are interesting as well. Though frankly I think they did a better job selling me on the experience of the first two over the Pandaren.

There's also the aspect of friends. Despite quitting for over a year I still find there's players around who are STILL playing and it's good to see them. It's good to be able to catch up and hang out with them when I can. Sadly those people are becoming far too few for me so odds are when Wildstar launches I'll be moving from Azeroth to Nexus. The basic thing is just that MMOs are better with people to share it with. Guild Wars 2 is probably the only MMO I know of that has a questing experience that can truly satisfy solo players

Ultimately I think it's a matter of you're seeing what you expect to see. The MMO market right now suffers from a lot of that. I've seen it in the Wildstar beta a lot. People come in and instead of walking in with the mindset of wanting to have fun and just trying to lose themselves in the universe and story, they come in utterly jaded and impatient and frustrated with everything. Everything is a clone of WoW, or ESO did it better, or this, or that, and where's the VA work for every quest like there was in TOR? Why is PvP just capture the flag again? What kind of lazy philistines made this game?! Ugh! You people sicken my highly-evolved (read: picky and unable to be pleased) palate!

One thing in the above people's defense, though, is that MMOs tend to have....well, Yahtzee pointed it out in Half-Life and other games as "choose your level of immersion". You can either just click click click and get the quests and do them rapidfire, not caring about how or why things are being done unless they bludgeon you over the head with it, OR you can take a moment, slow down, and actually READ the quest text. Either one works depending on the goals that you have for playing the game, but it's understandable to think that a game has no immersion when we're so used to having it forced on us in other genres where worlds are dripping with flavor and story and immersion and then a game decides that it's gonna put it in, and you can take it or leave it as you like.

EDIT: for those people who are curious, TotalBiscuit appears to agree with me about the one-off quest as he made a video showing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvF1o1ObPr0

Just if people are curious and want a bit of a laugh to start their day.

 

[Eddie the head]

The people. Lets put it this way the questing sucks, the story is god awful, the PvP is broken, and they have been systematically removing all the charm the game did have. But it's a grate way to dick around with your friends. Raiding Org with a few members of my guild is still some of the most fun I have ever had with a game. Sucks that we couldn't get Thrall though. Fucking Cataclysm.

 

[kklawm]

No idea, at least not anymore. I used to play back in the Vanilla and Burning Crusade days and loved the game. Skipped a few expansions, and then came back a few months ago. The game in its current state is gutted. Leveling is reduced to a trivial waste of time, pretty much all pre-raid content is laughably easy and pointless, the plot of earlier expansions goes nowhere as only the current content is relevant, and the current expansion is just utterly unfocused and silly. Basically, it's a shadow of its former glory and I cancelled my account. Might come back for the next expansion, if I hear good things about it, maybe sub for a month during summer for nostalgia, but as a primary source of entertainment, WoW just isn't doing it for me, not like it used to...

This so far is the most direct and on-point reason I've read so far on what is wrong with WoW. I'd only add that there's a lot more really obvious and obtrusive mechanics now that remove any choice beyond raiding (I'm referring to dailies, weeklies, gear islands, currency limits etc). Lots of rules that rail-road your experience from 'do what you want, oh you did that non stop for a week, here's a cookie' to 'do that until we tell you to stop, great, come back everyday for a month, oh you hit some arbitrary limit or we released a patch, what you just did is completely pointless'.

I quit my sub about three days ago, I don't plan to come back with Warlords. If you don't like raiding (playing a dungeon with 10-25 other strangers) then there's really nothing to do.

 

[dyre]

I played WoW for a few months (this was five or six years ago), and while it has certainly aged (new MMOs like FFXIV and Secret World put a major emphasis on team tactics, which is somewhat lacking in WoW. And obviously they look a lot better), it does have some things going for it.

- the lore's not bad. It's based on the existing Warcraft 3 lore, and imo it's like a slightly worse sequel in that regard, but it's a lot more interesting than all the generic Korean/Japanese MMOs put together. Secret World kicks the shit out of WoW in this regard though.
- there's a ton of content, thanks to the game being around for so long. Plenty of different places to go and different dungeons to raid
- there's a ton of endgame, team-based content, also in part thanks to the game being around for so long. A lot of newer MMOs sort of dry up when you get to the endgame
- there are probably people playing it today who have been part of the same guild/clan for years, so "this is where all my friends are" might be a major factor

I see no reason to start playing WoW but I don't really blame old WoW players for sticking with it. Though every so often I hear weird things about it like Blizzard starting to sell levels in the cash shop or something like that.

 

[antidonkey]

I enjoyed the world, the lore, and the exploration. Especially the exploration. Questing was a means of getting stronger so I could see what the other zones were like. After a while, well.....once I got to end game of BC, I got into raiding and loved it. I played the game from about 6 months before Burning Crusade up to around 1/2 way through Cata. After that, it just sorta lost it's spark. It no longer became fun and felt more like a chore. That's when I quit. I still have many fond memories of the game and those I played it with but I don't think there's anything that will ever get me to go back.

 

[Augustine]

Seems like its central appeal now is directed towards those who had been with it for years. Retention of loyal audience, so to speak. I got burned out around Burning Crusade.

Roleplay is quite developed in certain servers, though. I recall playing a Goblin secret agent posing as a Blood Elf princess... Oh those were good times indeed

 

[TakeyB0y2]

I actually play WoW quite a lot, but damn do I ever find the actual game itself BORING! I honestly only play it for RP, and I've got quite the RP community that I've wrapped myself in and love so much, and I'm having a lot of fun with the character I'm playing as. The actual game itself (questing, dungeoning, raiding, PvP, ect.) I pretty much NEVER do (and as such despite playing this character since November I've only managed to get it to level 75... Go me. :l ).