WoW: Could 11 Million People be Wrong?

[Rolf]

I'm no pro gamer, but two years for level 80? Ouch.
Also, I understand that you got to 80, then had to get epics to enter the likes of Naxx/Ulduar etc, but had you been doing professions that helped your character, you could've made some yourself. If you were plate for example, Blacksmithing + Mining are your friends. You could've made weapons and gear for yourself.

I guess it completely depends on what you view to be a grind, and what you view to be an enjoyable challenge. I do agree though, questing on your own is pretty bland, which is why I make sure I only play with friends. Starting a guild, to watch it grow with friends, is a great experience.

At the end of the day though, the people who play WoW, do it because they enjoy the game. Therefore, they personally can not be wrong. Likewise, those that have played WoW, and have decided it simply isn't for them, can not be wrong. It's all personal preference.[/quote]

I got to add something i forgot to write the first time. One of the reasons i used this long is because i started playing WoW when the school wanted to find out if it was possible to be educated in online games. Every student got their on WoW acount and we played at our own free time. At that time i did not have a conectione home so i could only play in the breakes at school. And playing only 15-30 min for a year did not help me level.
Then i began at high school and the school drom had a good internet conection. Then i could play much more but i had more homework to do. I went form playing 15-30 min to play 5-6 hours. And i got to level 70 pretty quick. When wrath came out i leveled easy to level 80. So what i am trying to say is that i don't completly suck at the game. i just have not much time to play usually

 

[Instant K4rma]

I play WoW, 80 rogue, and I love this game. =)

 

[karpiel]

WoW at its release was something much more refined than its predecessors, and often genuinely new. It was easy to pick up and was paired to a wonderful aesthetic that really seemed to "get" the way games ought to look. There was a certain something that it had which compelled me to play more. If I had to put my finger on it, it was the sensation of progression, but also a freudian thrill in discovering something new every night when I'd log on to play. Classes have never been completely balanced, but I am of the opinion that it's an impossible goal, and that sacrificing balance for the sake of greater gameplay variety certainly made me get more enjoyment from the game. I consider the whole issue to be ancilliary to what made the game good.

These days, I can't get into it quite as much, partly from being jaded, but things certainly weren't helped by Blizzard. They've spent the last five years treating the game as a series of mechanics which can somehow be perfected into the ideal experience, at the expense of maintaining the sort of magic which made the game so compelling and different at its inception, and were the real basis of its appeal.

 

[Skeleon]

WoW: Could 11 Million People be Wrong?

Considering that millions of people are drug addicts, yes, millions of people can be wrong.

 

[CouchCommando]

could 11 million people be wrong?, all I can say is.....people wore flares man.

 

[emh204]

I have to say compared to other MMOs WoW is boring. I had a 2 week free trial i stoped after 1 because i was tired of the grind and being forced to do quest. The latest MMO that held my attention for a long time was Warhammer Online (or WAR) I liked it cause thanks to the PvP acualy meaning something it killed alot of the repetative grind. Unfortunatly it seamed the higher i got in rank the less people there where I wish everyone would come bake to make it fun agean and theat will have to happen for me to renew my account. Still my dream is one day WoW will die and the players its bine hogging will spread out and repopulate other MMOs ya that will be the day. That is enough typing for now once you read this then you can disagree with me also forgive any spelling errors.

 

[Zer_]

**Snipped for the sake of wall-o-text.***

Although I do agree that the old pre-BC levelling content is extremely dated, all the new quests that came with Wrath of the Lich King are fantastically done. Blizzard raises the bar on MMORPG questing with each new expansion. Wrath of the Lich King blows any other MMO out of the water when it comes to questing. I would even go as far as saying that the Wrath Gate quest followed by the Attack on the Undercity was one of my most memorable moments in recent gaming history.

In Pre-Wrath (and in all other MMORPGs) completing quests had no real impact on the world around you. You just went through, did some menial task for an NPC and then moved on. Many Post-Wrath quest chains have a visible impact on the area.

Let me explain something about the Wrath Gate. Within the Dragonblight zone you do several short quest chains that have you supplying the army, and bolstering their numbers. You help clear a path to the Wrath Gate until finally you are told to proceed to the Wrath Gate and assist them with whatever tasks they need doing. After a few small quests near the Wrath Gate itself the battle begins and you're treated with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoVLtC4Jpv4&fmt=18. My jaw dropped at the video. Before the battle could finish Putress betrays the Sylvannas and the Horde (Arthas thinks it was Sylvannas' doing, but that is not so). Entire legions are wiped out by a plague that you helped create earlier on. Weakened, Arthas retreats and the video concludes with Alextrasza; the Life Binder purging the area and cleaning the mess up.

When the video ends you cut back to your character and you see the forces of the Wrath Gate fleeing, their screams can be heard. Looking onto the middle of the battlefield you see Alexstrasza herself ready to give you a quest to return to Warsong Hold where you are to report the failed attack on the Wrath Gate and the death of Saurfang in combat. Afterwards you are told to proceed to Thrall himself since he is in need of your services. This is where The Battle for the Undercity begins. The Alliance think that the Horde and the Forsaken have betrayed their truce (A shaky truce where no real large engagements between Horde and Alliance occur so they may both focus on the invasion of Northrend). Jaina Proudmoore interrupts your meeting with Thrall, Sylvannas and yourself. She comes to tell Thrall that King Varian Wrynn intends to wage all out war on The Undercity and the Horde.

Thrall declares the issue a matter of internal security and immediately acts to quell the betrayal and bring justice to both Varimathras, and Putress. You then find yourself in front of The Undercity where you prepare for battle. At this stage other players may do the same quest alongside yourself. The amount of XP awarded by The Battle for the Undercity is rather large. You fight alongside Thrall and Sylvannas to retake The Undercity... King Wrynn himself comes to find Varimathras slain by the hands of your war party. A heated argument between Thrall and Wrynn ensues, but you are interrupted by Jaina. She teleports Wrynn and his forces away and as a result prevents an all out war between the Alliance and the Horde. After the entire fiasco is dealt with you can return to The Undercity to find Varimathras no longer standing next to Sylvannas; a nice touch indeed.

Never in the history of gaming has there been such a fantastically crafted series of quests. Many naysayers also say that WoW kills the lore, and I say FAH to them. To me experiencing the Wrath Gate first hand within WoW is so much better then what an RTS could've offered. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

 

[Cortheya]

As someone on another forum said, don't WoW people feel a bit ripped off?
You pay every month to pay.
Then a new expansion comes out, and you have to pay for that too.

Other MMOs like EVE introduce expansions for Free.


Not that I would ever touch an MMO anyway.

They regularly release major content patches

 

[Mr. Tibbles]

After having spent a fair deal of time in Azeroth, I've come to one conclusion: World of Warcraft is a mediocre game.

Class balance has NEVER been entirely sound. As of now, there are nearly double the number of Paladins and Death Knights on any given server in comparison to every other class. Since its release, this "Flavor of the Month" phenomenon has been constant. At least for me, this takes away from the feeling of picking a class to genuinely bond and become committed to as you delve deeper into everything they have to offer.

Tied into my first point, leveling has become less of a journey and more of a task. No longer is it a monumental achievement to reach 80, but rather you just "join the group", literally. What sense is there in restricting so much content and enjoyment from the player until they've shelled out roughly 8 - 12 days of their lives? Of course, money is the answer, but isn't that a bittersweet realization? 8 days equates to 192 hours, which translates into $1392 at minimum wage. I'm not poor nor do I needlessly tighten my belt, but that's a fair chunk of change to be charged just to get to the real game. And what's the deal with gear? Does it really make sense to base so much of your total experience on whether you've obtained a certain status based on hours played?

Probably the largest grief I have with the entire way things are set up is in how much drudgery there is to go through in comparison to the moments that really make the game worth playing. Kill 10 boars. Kill 10 magi. Bring me 8 Cheetah livers. Bring me a bunch of pages to a manual I happened to loose because I can't afford paperclips... Come on! So much of what Blizzard has in the game is bland. Sure, there are those truly great times when you conquer a new dungeon or drop a boss after having spent the day planning a raid, but are those moments really worth it?

Then there's the community. It's become increasingly difficult to find decent guilds that aren't plagued with "12 year old syndrome". In general, people tend to be rude, obnoxious, and impatient. You can always argue that this varies depending on any given server, level bracket, etc. but this is what I've experienced more often than not.

In summary, the game is severely imbalanced from patch to patch, time consuming and "expensive", and has one of the worst communities who's only rival would be pug's on Xbox Live. With all this, I guess you still get to wear your epixs in Ironforge though...

*applauds*

 

[Vicarious]

http://www.eldergame.com/2009/07/08/the-warcraft-live-teams-b-squad/

Good blog on the B-team of dev's that WoW is currently in the hands of, and why the game has gone downhill so fast.

 

[scorch 13]

After having spent a fair deal of time in Azeroth, I've come to one conclusion: World of Warcraft is a mediocre game.

Class balance has NEVER been entirely sound. As of now, there are nearly double the number of Paladins and Death Knights on any given server in comparison to every other class. Since its release, this "Flavor of the Month" phenomenon has been constant. At least for me, this takes away from the feeling of picking a class to genuinely bond and become committed to as you delve deeper into everything they have to offer.

Tied into my first point, leveling has become less of a journey and more of a task. No longer is it a monumental achievement to reach 80, but rather you just "join the group", literally. What sense is there in restricting so much content and enjoyment from the player until they've shelled out roughly 8 - 12 days of their lives? Of course, money is the answer, but isn't that a bittersweet realization? 8 days equates to 192 hours, which translates into $1392 at minimum wage. I'm not poor nor do I needlessly tighten my belt, but that's a fair chunk of change to be charged just to get to the real game. And what's the deal with gear? Does it really make sense to base so much of your total experience on whether you've obtained a certain status based on hours played?

Probably the largest grief I have with the entire way things are set up is in how much drudgery there is to go through in comparison to the moments that really make the game worth playing. Kill 10 boars. Kill 10 magi. Bring me 8 Cheetah livers. Bring me a bunch of pages to a manual I happened to loose because I can't afford paperclips... Come on! So much of what Blizzard has in the game is bland. Sure, there are those truly great times when you conquer a new dungeon or drop a boss after having spent the day planning a raid, but are those moments really worth it?

Then there's the community. It's become increasingly difficult to find decent guilds that aren't plagued with "12 year old syndrome". In general, people tend to be rude, obnoxious, and impatient. You can always argue that this varies depending on any given server, level bracket, etc. but this is what I've experienced more often than not.

In summary, the game is severely imbalanced from patch to patch, time consuming and "expensive", and has one of the worst communities who's only rival would be pug's on Xbox Live. With all this, I guess you still get to wear your epixs in Ironforge though...

good thread i havent played the game before because i want to keep my money and my soul and personally from what i've seen and heard i dont want to end up 30 and living in my mothers basement.

 

[Veylon]

Wrong? Sure. But so what? Blizzard is a company, and like any other company needs to make money. It doesn't matter if WoW is a good (by whose standards?) game or not, only whether it continues to bring in monthly subscriptions.

Bland? Maybe it is, but excitement implies difficulty, implies that failure is lurking around every corner. Dying a whole lot trying to reach some objective certainly appeals to some segment of the audience, but not to most people. Most people will just take their minor successes and be content. Especially if they can only play a limited amount of time.

 

[Silva]

In response to the thread title, I should only ask a question in return:

Could almost 6.3 billion people be right?

Answer: damn right they can. After all, they are the people who don't play World of Warcraft. And if you really apply your thinking to that perspective, then you've got to realise, there are almost certainly a lot more people turning down WoW than there are playing it.

I agree with the OP. After really looking at everything technically about the game, it seems mediocre. The graphics: functional, but unoriginal and beaten by most games released thereafter. The sound: so-so. The gameplay: addictive, but is being a level higher really a reward, and is it really worth losing your job? That cancels and averages out the score on that front as well.

That leaves lastability, perhaps the true strength of the game, which is virtually unparallelled, but this is also hit by the other factor, the fact that you pay monthly to play the game. So every front evens out to the average, 5/10 score. As you said, mediocre.

With that said, it's no surprise that rich people enjoy it.