World of Warcraft

[Infiltrator]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this title in the Heretics section. I for one am about to get the Euro GB verison of it.

Prior to that I had quite a history with it though, been there since the beggining of the Closed beta, then made a mistake - got a US version so I can continue playing with my friends. It was fine all up the point where raids were introduced (big time sinks that required 5 hours of play once a week). Since it was a US version and people playing it were primarily from the US, raids had to start when most people had time for them... meaning 3 am my time :p

So I decided to do this.

Lately, however I realized that when I'm done with my exams Heroes won't be enough for me, and I got nothing else to play.. so I'm getting the right wow version this time, and starting fresh.. with a Rogue, just like I was in the Closed beta, just like I was in the US

I just can't be anything else but a rogue, even though I tried most other classes. Ganking people from stealth while they are drinking.. just too tempting. Some of my friends are on the Lightning's Blade server, Horde.. so I'll once again be a NE Rogue I guess (although I'll roll female this time)

Anyway sorry for writing my boring wow story (I guess the point is - don't get US if you are from EU and viceversa) but if you got one feel free to share

[theLuckyDragon]

I liked the story in Warcraft III, the way the orcs were rehabilitated ("it was a disease spread by an insane god bent on world domination. we're innocent actually!"). But MMORPGs like World of Warcraft simply take too much time. And I really wouldn't like paying money to have my day to day life taken away from me.

[DaemianLucifer]

Although I loved WCII and the story of WCIII the graphics and gampelay in WCIII simply dont appeal to me.Also,I hate online games that I cant quit whenever I want.That coupled with the negative things I heard of the story,and a quick glance of the game at my friends I decided not to go for this one.

[cornellian]

A wise decision, I spent long hours in the game -once you get a grip, it is hard to let it go...

I had an undead warlock Lucretia, around level 40-45 and was having fun, until I persuaded myself to quit it.. I'm not a powergamer anyway despite the crowd of MMORPGs mostly are, and playing with people half-mad about xp takes out a lot of the fun factor after a while...

[asandir]

just do not have the time, i suspect i would enjoy it if i did, but we'll never know

[Metathron]

Although I loved WCII and the story of WCIII the graphics and gampelay in WCIII simply dont appeal to me.

I wasn't taken by WCIII the first time I played it either, then I tackled it a year later and simply adored it. The gameplay of most Blizzard games is simply, undisputably top notch.

[opening_gambit]

I played WoW for 1 year. I had a lvl 60 rouge with about 6 epics. I got into a great guild. one of the best on the server. I have experience in the subject.

NEVER EVER PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT

I won't go into detail but a synopsis of my experience is that it is a game that is extremely hard to give up and requires massive amounts of gameplay. Success is based on how long you play for not the skill or inteligence you have. I got to a point where i was sooo tired i played it for 24 hours a week as well as school. It ruined my social life and I tried to quit when i was level 45 it was sucessful until after the summer holidays where my freinds who are not as strong willed as me drove me back. I am now in the same situation where i havn't played it for a month. I have lost myself and most of my freinds to WoW maybe your experience won't be the same but its best not doing it in the first place in my humble opinion

[ThunderTitan]

MMORPG's are boring IMHO. Never managed to get past lvl 30+ in Lineage 2, and that was on a 5x Exp server.

[ClownRoyal]

I found World of Warcraft to be a generally bad game. Not bad in the general gameplay of how you did quests and leveled and distributed talent points, etc., but in the community component. As with almost all online games, you have to put up with the 90% of the internet that is 12-16 year old kids (or older people who act 12-16), but in WoW that is amplified due to the necessity of being in a guild if you want to do anything when you get to level 55+. Then once you reach level 60, you have no choice but to find a guild to join, or start a new character.

I even had friends IRL who played on the same servers as I did, but we just never seemed to be in the same places as far as quests/leveling. It either ended up being them helping me, or me helping them, with no real "reward" for the time invested other than the satisfaction of helping a friend. If you get the "luck" to join a guild large enough to put together 40-man raids, you get sucked into guild politics. You are locked in to a schedule of raiding for weeks on end just to get equipment, the only way of making your little avatar better after level 60.

I actually lived that life for a year, quit for 6 months, played for 2 more, and then quit for good. Being a college student, I just didn't have the free time to go to class, study/do homework, socialize with friends, go out to places and events I wanted to go to, and then come back and "work" in a 3-5 hour raid for 3-4 nights a week.

The game could be played by a robot in a raid environment. There was very little adaptation. My roommate was a mage in our guild and he would literally read a book while we raided. All he did was shoot off a spell every 3-5 seconds. Warriors required more attention (I was one), but the sequence for tanking was the same for most fights, excluding scripted events and major boss fights.

All in all, World of Warcraft is a peerlessly fun game for the first 30 levels, good for the next 10, decent for the 10 after that, and then pretty awful for the last 10. I also dislike how it sucks in friends of mine and keeps them hooked on playing, vying for that next piece of imaginary armor. Two of my friends regularly have to go home early to prepare for their guild raids, despite the rest of us trying to convince them to just skip it. They act as if we asked them to skip work to go drinking or something.

Blizzard promised a game fun for casual, single players, as well as one that was fun for the "hardcore" gamers, and they sort of delivered. The only problem is the casual, solo players get left out of the development cycle in the later half of the game.

[Infiltrator]

I haven't played for more then half a year, but now that summer is about to start, I will have a LOT more free time and I think that beach, wow, and going out can fit now.Blizzard promises some high lvl instances like dunemaul, that will involve 5-10 ppl.And thats what I want, I'm a PVPer, but not a BG grinder, disabling people from doing quests and forcing them to pvp is my idea of a good time

[ClownRoyal]

I haven't played for more then half a year, but now that summer is about to start, I will have a LOT more free time and I think that beach, wow, and going out can fit now.Blizzard promises some high lvl instances like dunemaul, that will involve 5-10 ppl.And thats what I want, I'm a PVPer, but not a BG grinder, disabling people from doing quests and forcing them to pvp is my idea of a good time

I guess if you already like WoW PvP, then you'll be happy. I found PvP to either be too boring or too frustrating. That means I either plowed through people and it was just like killing mobs, or it was impossible to kill some people. This goes back to the raiding and such. People who raid and earn Tier 2 gear will far outclass someone in the "Tier 0.5" armor you can get in small-group play. Thus you spend longer in the battlegrounds grinding it out for PvP rank.

That's also a negative to me, because you will always have those people who devote every waking moment to WoW, and while they are doing that and PvPing 6 hours a day, it's impossible for a person who actually goes out and does other things to reach high enough PvP rank to get comparable/competitive gear. Then battlegrounds at level 60 come down to how many people on your team have run the end-game instances more, or if you're lucky to have some people who are Warlord/High-Warlord (or Marshal/High-Marshal) on your side.

Stronger armor itself wouldn't be too bad, until you go against warriors with 70+ DPS 2-handed swords, casters with trinkets that allow them to 1-2 shot kill you, and healers who have such large mana pools, high hit points, and defense that you can't kill them before one of their friends comes along and wastes you. That's a major flaw in the game to me, is that equipment is such a defining part of the character, and the barrier to entry for the raid epics is really high. Then it comes down to how much of a job you can make WoW, instead of how intelligently you divided your talent points or how well you play.

[Infiltrator]

I think I'll be fine if I get T1, most gulids have Mc on farm status nowdays anyway (I left when killing magmadar was an accomplishment) and I can prolly get enough gear in a lot less time. AQ is of no intrest to me as the armor looks like crap and I wouldn't wear it if it gave me +20 energy.

[Daxtreme]

I played WoW too.

Omg... Ok well I have many feedbacks regarding WoW.

First : This game proved to be AWESOME when leveling. I simply LOVED my leveling times. From level 1 to 59, I was playing and enjoying this game so much! The quests are awesome; the instances are fun and even if you're a casual gamer you'll like it! I helped my bro, I helped his friends, I helped my friends, they helped me and we had a great deal of fun doing some low-level instances (Black Fathom Deeps is the one I liked the most).

Also the fact that you know nothing of this huge, incredible world. You talk about level 60s as gods (At the game's beginnings, around february 2005) and you explore, explore, explore endlessly, and eventually meet the other faction.

This game was awesome.

But... but...but....but....

BUT

Level 60 is junk. This game is real junk once you're 60. I couldn't play it anymore, I couldn't ENDURE it anymore. After running MC for MONTHS, BWL for WEEKS, and having exactly 18 epics altogether (inclucing 2-3 pairs of pants, and 2 pairs of gloves and 3 armors) I couldn't do instance anymore.

That's what we call : a game's overplay. Our guild was always a casual guild. Other guilds were at BWL when we were at MC, and other guilds we're (at the end) at AQ when we were finishing BWL. But even after getting 8/8 tiers 1, 4/8 Tier 2 I decided to stop as when you count your **GUILD POINTS** you count them in time, not in actual points.

A normal raid gave say 4 DKP. That's many hours passed in front of your CPU, pressing the button "2" endlessly (Shadow bolt for me) and casting some useless spells. I had a headache of doing too much nothing. Hours of this, while you look at your DKPs raising slowly, and then suddenly drop because you earned one item. One item is say 10 DKP. That's 10 hours of WoW! 10 hours of being with your guild (players you don't even know) and getting points.

Raids were also every day of the week, and after this they said : Well we gotta farm for Temporary potion buffs so you gotta farm too ! If you farm you get DKPs! So all the other warlocks out-DKP'd me because they were doing this endlessly, farming. I had to go to school. I'm not some random loser.

I also noticed my friends being more distant.

Finally my bro said : I give up WoW. Priests suck. I want to play Shadow, but Holy is for MC, and BWL. That sucks I want to melt faces. PvP sucks.

Yea that is. Teh Blizzard's concept of PvP is time, not talent. That's the problem. People that were the highest ranks often weren't good at all. They were either farmers or people with no life. 2 or 3 didn't even speak english/french/spanish, and they were playing on USEast server. When I say 2 or 3 I talk about the most l33t people. The ones with the highest PvP rankings. The ones people WANTED to be. They'd pay to become a Grand Marshal in PvP.

But to become the highest rank, it is TIME you need to invest, not skills. Even if you suck, if you play alot you'll get to rank 14 (last rank, Grand Marshal / High Warlord).

Well afterall I should have done what a friend of mine did. He has 3 level 60s now, and plan on making another one. They all are geared fairly (though one is MC geared), but he still loves and plays the games. Because he UNDERSTOOD what's fun in WoW : Leveling, and random PvP.

Not the Battlegrounds bullshit, Random Encounters while leveling up. Group of Alliance VS Group of Horde, random levels, random gear, random circonstances. That's what's fun. But now that I found this game sucked, I couldn't even play a level 1. I'd vomit. After I stopped WoW I stopped playing computer games for 2 weeks. I had to meet people. Call back my friends.

Naturally they understood heh

I eventually played old games, such as Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 2, and the old Heroes of Might and Magic, from 1 to 4. Then I heard about the fifth and bought it 2 days after its release. Between that I played Warcraft3, and eventually made a whole map and released it.

But I never played that much again, because WoW takes up your time!

Anyways this isn't a topic about my life, but about WoW.

My opinion ? None. Do whatever you wish, but I suggest you don't play level 60 content. Leveling is damn fun in this huge world you don't know. Other faction Is always mean, and wants your death. That's the suspense.

After this huge post, I think you'll be able to decide

- Daxtreme

BTW : MC is Molten Core and is a 40-man raid instance that requires 40 players to play at the same time. Bosses drop 2-3 items, and there are a total of 8 in the whole instance. Not even 1 item for everybody. And it lasts HOURS.

BWL means Blackwing Lair and it is also a 40-man raid instance. Bosses are A LOT HARDER, but they drop better items. There are more, but the instance is longer and it requires a REALLY dedicated guild to make it through. Not even 1 item for half of the raid after HOURS of play.

[Genesis]

I take a totally different view of WoW. I don't give a rats ass about stats and armour sets - I just jump in for the RP. But even that looks under threat with the appearance with some pretty awful lore concerning blood Elves and Draenei...

*W00t we're SPACE PIRATES! LaZeRZ! pewpew.*

[ThunderTitan]

*W00t we're SPACE PIRATES AND relatives of Kil'jaden! LaZeRZ! pewpew.*

Yeah, that was great.

[asandir]

that was one heck of a post daxtreme, seems to be a common feeling of many players out there

[Genesis]

*W00t we're SPACE PIRATES AND relatives of Kil'jaden! LaZeRZ! pewpew.*

Yeah, that was great.

Don't forget the Draenei spaceship! Or the Blood Elves using arcane-e-vac yet again to suck the big weird spirit's powers.

*l0lzor! we iz now teh UBER PALIDANZ!!!!!111one*

[Orfinn]

Wow is for me scary, havent played it an never will, but have played Guild Wars that is just as bad, it focusing more on skills in playing than time, but the hours fly away also there. Its addicting, too addicting and ruins your sosial life totally! Even huge Massive Single player RPG like Oblivion are less time consuming. Also as someone mentioned early in this thread, neither I can stand crazy teenagers and teenage pretending adults playing in such games, they are annoying, they are like having their brains connected to the HD! Harsh and unfriendly words and behaviour everywhere, such as n00b, hardcore Woot OmG ROx!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MMORPG's ruins the meaning of normal gaming IMO. Such games also black marks other non massive games as bad for social life, yes some may but not to the extent MMORPG do, which are extreme!

[asandir]

nice change of av orfinn .... much more .... nordic

[St0rmB0lt]

I play now, but on the verge of quitting, i have full epics including several weapons but i am simply burned out. I liked raiding MC and BWL at first, but they are played out and i don't need anything out of there. I never liked AQ, but downing the twin emps and princess huhuran was great. Now my guild is in nax, where i could use loot. The encounters are challenging and some innovative, but i now struggle to sit still for a 4hour raid (or a 6 and a half hour raids on sundays!). Its frustrating because nearly all the founders of my guild, and all the early people in it that i bonded with and befriended are dropping like flies, so there is more pressure for me to attend raids.

WoW has never really hurt my social life, i always found time to hang out with friends, although i think my grades went down a bit. What WoW hurt for me was my enjoyment of other media. While playing WoW i made nearly no progress in any of my other games (which i'm having a great time with now), i have not voluntarily read a book for the last year, the only television programs i watch are islander/met games, and seinfeld and simpsons reruns which I watch to keep me awake while raiding, and the only movies i'v seen last year and a half are superman and x-men 3. WoW probally is hurting other game developers and such.

Now what i'm tempted to do is stop raiding, but if i do that what else am i supposed to do, pvp? boring and my gear is better than pvp gear anyway.

The only things that i can see i would regret about quitting wow, is upsetting my guild, and more importantly i am very interested on warcrafts plot. I have played every warcraft and i love the series so i want to see and experience the plot. But all the draenei bullshit makes me want to stop caring.

I still play wc3 to this day, warcraft should have stayed an RTS. Map makers have made WC3 one of the most fun games around still, and many inluding myself still enjoy ladder play ( but a lot of people are finally tiring of it).