Sell Me On WoW!

[myrdden]

I don't think I've ever played any game as much as I've played WoW. Usually when I get a game, I'll play it heavily for a few weeks before growing tired of it and shelving it. With WoW, however, I've played it nearly every day since it came out in November, and I still haven't even started to grow bored with it yet.

I agree. This is my first MMO experience I have been enjoying it immensely. I play it way too much...

Glad I'm not the only person who noticed that. Seriously, why is it that jackass players gravitate so heavily towards night elves?

This isn't just a problem with World of Warcraft, either: In Warcraft 3, Night Elf players had a reputation of being sore losers. I remember that one popular acronym in the WC3 player community was NEWB, which aside from being an abbreviation for newbie also stood for Night Elf Whiners Brigade.

Must be the server you are on. I've had no problems with the Night Elves on my server. I've had a few bad groups, but generally everyone seems pretty good.

 

[der_kluge]

My wife is going to be gone for a little over a week later this month, so I thought I might have to get this to occupy my time.

I'd want on a role-playing server. Are there any that aren't terribly overcrowded?

 

[Ruined]

Hey die_kluge. Just a heads up if you have some friends that already play, you may be able to get a trial copy of the game to test out. Mine came with a 10-day trial - you give the card with the code and your install disks to a friend and they can try it out for that period. At end of trial, you have to get your own copy, etc., but it's a great way to try it out. A friend of mine used mine, loved it. Unfortunately, his wife hated it. I hope I'm still in good graces.

I can't speak for the RP servers from experience (I play on Thunderlord PvP with some RL friends), but they did just open up a new group of servers, two of which are RP. Shadow Council and Scarlet Crusade are brand new, and they seem to be Low population most times I look.

(of course, I stress finding a cool group to help out with those pesky Elite quests if you stay in for the long haul. These EN World guys might be just what you need.)

 

[Aristotle]

WoW sells itself, in my opinion. It is a solid game with a ton of quests that all feel like someone took the time to actually write them rather than allowing a computer to generate random "kill X of Y" type quests. You can solo through the game with virtually any class (although a few classes are better for solo than others), and it's typically easy to find groups to assist you with particularly hard (Elite) quests or instances without needing to feel obligated to hang out with them all night after the fact. The game incorporates levity. It doesn't take itself to seriously. Low level play is fun with interesting and menacing looking enemies unlike the rabbits, worms, and insects that knock you around in other games. And characters advance fairly quickly. Rewards come relatively quickly (You'll likely hit 6th level or higher in your first sitting), so you constantly feel like you are acheiving something. By far the best game, MMO or otherwise, I've ever spent money on.

They have had some issues with server stability, but that has slowly gotten better. I'm told it takes a long time to get answers from logged service tickets, but I've never had to do one.


There are a couple of new RP Servers (which, in my experience, are more about providing a haven for mature players than about total immersion) with fairly low population. My main character is on Earthen Ring, which is a RP server with a medium population in peek hours. I've been nothing but happy with the server and those that share it with me.

 

[WayneLigon]

I've had the game for two weeks, after hearing a number of good things about it. My only previous MMORPG experience was the Asheron's Call 1 beta and City of Heroes. I really do love COH but I was wanting something fantasy-based, didn't want to do AC 2, Ultima or EQ 2. One of the people in the gaming group has been playing WOW since Beta and was very impressed with it.

I'm on the Feathermoon RP server, with a lvl12 Night Elf Druid, a 14th Human Rogue, a 10th Undead Warlock, and just started a Human Warrior last night to see how warriors worked.

So far I'm enjoying it.

• The interface is pretty intuitive and nicely laid out.
• There is lag, though I've only died once because of it. Usually it seems to catch me when I'm looting a body or crafting an item. Sometimes I'm in a queue to get on the server, though that usually only lasts a few minutes.
• I've read some of the forums and online guides but by no means all of them. They seem to be pretty informative.

I like....

• How you can take various forms of transport, some free some not, to get to far-away places.
• The death thing, already mentioned. A good thing. I've only gotten frustrated once with XP debt on COH and that was wiped out in a couple of hours of street sweeping. This is somewhat better, though. I've only had one person die in a bad place, with enemies that wouldn't be wandering off soon, but I managed to get out of that.
• The crafting thing is nice and lets you really build up some money in a short period of time depending on what you have. The human rogue has skinning and leatherworkling. Following in the trail of people that don't have skinning, she can amass a fair amount of leather in a short period of time, go back and buy the other things she needs the sell the completed product back for a nice profit. Enchanting... seems like it will take quite some time to build up any real ability, since it depends on you finding minor magical items. Going to try mining/smithing next.
• It's a really pretty game. Nice sound effects. Interesting PC's and quests, though not really all that different from COH. Most at my level are the basic 'take this to x' and 'kill x creatures' but there are others, like 'retrieve this thing' and some other variations.

Some things I don't like as much:

• There is no way to run even a little faster. This makes some travel really boring.
• You cannot buy a horse until 40th level, though I think a druid gets travel forms before then. I have no idea how fast they really are, yet.
• I cannot jump over most common farm fences or railings, even though they are only waist-high.
• I still get stuck when rounding some corners, or when I try to jump certain jumpable items. This has happened on every game of this type I've ever played. Someone really needs to prevent this. COH has a /stuck command that can unstick you from the scenery. I don't know if WOW has the same thing though I would suppose it would. THis is different from being really stuck, though.
• Some things could be explained a little better. The druid gets a bear shape at 10th level. How do you get that bear shape ability? Apparently you have to automagically divine that you must go not to just a druid trainer but to one particular druid trainer and do a couple of special quests. Not one single thing tells you that this might be different from all the other abilities you've gotten up to this point. There is a rogue quest that requires you to stealth up to a guy and pickpocket him. After seeing the words 'special pickpocket quest' once, I put that together and realized why I've gutted this guy like seven times and not found a packing list on his corpse like every single other thing I've been sent to retrieve. Both of those incidents were particularly frustrating.
• I could also do with a larger or more expandable map inset that shows me exactly where 'Person I'm Suppossed to Meet' is. That feature kinda-sorta exists but it just shows the general location.
• I want more avatar customization. COH has forever spoiled me on this. There is at least enough variation that not everyone looks exactly the same but there is a lot of similarity. I'd like to be able to customize my height and body type, and there needs to be like two or three times the number of hairstyles for both sexes. The art style used is... just a tad too exaggerated for my taste, esp. with male avatars. I want a human male rogue to have a slender lithe body style, not looking like he could choke a bull to death.

 

[Thanee]

The interface is pretty intuitive and nicely laid out.

And besides... there are user-made mods out there, which enhance the interface nicely for those who like that kind of stuff. Highly customizable.

I'm still running the game in standard setup, which works fine for me, tho.

About the quests... you just need to take your time to read them (and the notes you can read, which you receive as a quest item). It really makes the simple setup of killing these or finding that move into the background, if you know why you are doing it. And there are some really fun quests, like protecting someone, whom you find deep inside an orc cave, while you have to move back to the nearby city, conveniently right through the middle of the camp full of orcs. There are also special quests for all classes, which often lead you to new abilities.

There is no way to run even a little faster. This makes some travel really boring.

There is, quite a bit actually... A (night elf?) hunter, for example, can run pretty fast, a druid can transform into a large cat and run faster, a rogue can sprint for a short while every 5 minutes (there are also speed potions), mages can teleport and dimension door, so to say, high levels get mounts to ride.

The jumping is a bit dumb, agreed. Would like it to be some more reasonable, too.
Also, the avatars could be more variable, yeah. They are ok, but there could be a lot more.


Anyways...

The game is just great... Buy it! Play it! Now!

Bye
Thanee

P.S. I think on the german servers there are more Horde than Alliance.

 

[Spatula]

-Blizzard's claim that the game is soloable from level 1 to level 60 is just not true. Even with my Rogue, one of the most soloable classes in the game, I'm getting more and more quests that I need help with.

You can solo from 1 to 60, but you'll have to pass up certain quests, all instances, and probably have to do some grinding to make up the lost xp. But it's certainly possible if you want to do so.

 

[Spatula]

I'm on the Feathermoon RP server, with a lvl12 Night Elf Druid, a 14th Human Rogue, a 10th Undead Warlock, and just started a Human Warrior last night to see how warriors worked.

Are you in the ENworld guild on Feathermoon?

There is no way to run even a little faster. This makes some travel really boring.

Depends on the class, as mentioned by Thanee. Hunters get Aspect of Cheetah (+30% boost) at 20th and Aspect of the Pack (+30% boost to the party) at 40th, Shamen get Ghost Wolf at 20th (+40%), Druids get cheetah form at 30th (+40%) and can use talent points to make their cat form faster, and Paladins and Warlocks get "free" mounts at 40th. Everyone else needs to buy mounts (+60%) at 40, and again at 60 (+100%). There's also rogue / druid in cat form Sprint, and mages' Blink, but those are short-term boosts (along with swiftness potions and the like).

I cannot jump over most common farm fences or railings, even though they are only waist-high.

You can if you time the jump right.

Some things could be explained a little better. The druid gets a bear shape at 10th level. How do you get that bear shape ability? Apparently you have to automagically divine that you must go not to just a druid trainer but to one particular druid trainer and do a couple of special quests.

You have to go to trainers every even-numbered level for training anyway, which is why the class-specific quests always start there. You hit level 10, you go to the trainer to learn new abilities, and hey! he/she has a quest for you. The trainers that don't have the special class quest will give you a quest to go talk to the one that does.

There is a rogue quest that requires you to stealth up to a guy and pickpocket him. After seeing the words 'special pickpocket quest' once, I put that together and realized why I've gutted this guy like seven times and not found a packing list on his corpse like every single other thing I've been sent to retrieve. Both of those incidents were particularly frustrating.

Always read the quest description....

I could also do with a larger or more expandable map inset that shows me exactly where 'Person I'm Suppossed to Meet' is. That feature kinda-sorta exists but it just shows the general location.

Finding quest NPCs in general could be a LOT better. I love those quests that require you to talk to person X in big city Y, without any clue as to where in the city that person might be.

 

[Thanee]

Oh, and there is an enchantment for boots, which increases your run speed, too.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Arc]

I've played the game at its worst: Alliance Paladin on Blackrock (the most crowded PvP server, and with a rare Horde majority), and dear lord, I keep coming back to it. Despite hour long queues to get into the game, despite frequent attacks from Horde PvP gankers, despite having a quasi-language barrier in place (half the server is Australian), despite the occasional bits of horrible lag... I keep going back. It's just that good.

I've kinda lightened up my play recently, since school's gotten a bit tougher, and my girlfriend gets a bit unhappy when I choose videogames over her, but I know I'm going to keep my subscription for a while.

In all honesty, the game is the best MMO out there. The classes are fairly close to balanced (not perfect, but better than most), the sheer quantity of content is amazing (even though the Alliance gets a little bit more), and the PvP, while occasionally frustrating, is the most thrilling experiance I've had playing a game in a long time. It may seem like I'm highlighting the downsides, but the good bits have already been talked about, and I agree with every word.

One last bit: Casual gamers are actually rewarded by XP bonuses, so they can keep up with the truly hardcore. For every few hours spent in an Inn or major City, whether logged in or not, a certain amount of "Rest XP" is gained. When you log back in, enemies you kill while in the "Rested" state provide double the XP, so that you get something similar to a UO "Power Hour" when you don't play for a bit. It won't make you level faster than someone who plays constantly, but it helps keep you from getting left in the dust.