The/Another/A World of Warcraft Thread

[Dog Pants]

I've noticed a lot of 5punkers playing World of Warcraft on Xfire and brief flashes of discussion on the forums about it, but nobody seems to play it together. There's a bit of a stigma about the game here, but I think most of us have played (or still do play) it, so it strikes me as odd that it rarely gets talked about except to take the piss.

I don't plan on playing it again, it just doesn't have a team system that's condusive to me playing with a regular set of friends. Plus I'm already subscribed to two MMONGS and would like to keep some semblance of a life. But I think there's quite a few people here who might benefit from having a chat about it, kind of like Warcraft Anonymous. And of course there'll be the 'OMG it's shit!!!ONE!' (not nearly as much as every other forum though), so feel free to crack on with that too.

So, wow, discuss.

[friznit]

hehe, I was just writing the exact same post Mr Pants!

I think there's a silent underground WoW movement going on that noone will admit to. Anyway, I'll kick off:

Emerald Dream Server:

Friznit, lvl 66 loladin, Horde
Friznight, lvl 70 Emotank warrior, Horde

Member of Shadow Nemesis guild. We raid 4 times a week, mostly Karazhan and ZA but just starting out on 25 man stuff for the first time (Tempest Keep and Gruul's Layer).

If any horde people want to switch servers and join a raid guild, I can give a good reference

[spoodie]

There's a bit of a stigma about the game here
.....
So, Magical Gaaay Fairy Land, discuss.

orly

I'm sure this word felcher doesn't really help.
Yesterday I thought about giving it another go but I played some Titan Quest instead, which is similar.

[FatherJack]

I hadn't played for two years, almost to the day, but having tried almost every other MMO out there, decided to go back for a while.

Just started some Alliance characters on Sylvanas - which is a nearly full PVP server - so good for auctions, play at lunchtimes with people at work who all have L70 characters, they give me nice stuff and make things dead for me.

Have a few on Earthern Ring, a medium RP server but don't have time to play them much.

I have the BC expansion.

[Dog Pants]

orly

I'm sure this word felcher doesn't really help.

I did consider suggesting changing it to say World of Warcraft instead, but I take it as a joke that I doubt anyone is actually bothered by. I don't like 'WoW' though, sounds too fanboy.

[spoodie]

I did consider suggesting changing it to say World of Warcraft instead, but I take it as a joke that I doubt anyone is actually bothered by. I don't like 'WoW' though, sounds too fanboy.

Entering "WoW" and have it say "World of Warcraft" would be a good way of utilising the word felcher, rather than just for comedic value.

I've just changed it, if it's a problem we can change it back.

[Lateralus]

Seems reasonable enough, if we're trying to encourage a non-derogatory discussion of the game.

I've never tried it, but since it is quite so popular and so regularly cloned (by all accounts), it must have something going for it. As a non-wow player, what is it that's so appealing about the game to some and so off-putting to others?

[Gunslinger42]

*has never played World of Warcraft, probably never will*

Eh, from everything I've heard, read and seen in videos etc, it just doesn't seem like an MMONG I'd like. CoH has loads of funny/amusing stuff and EVE has more serious gameplay and bucket loads of depth, so between the two they seem to have everything I want entirely covered. Unless theres something World of Wordfilter'D can offer that I've somehow not heard about yet.

[Hehulk]

Please add salt to taste with this, as I've not played serously in almost 3 years now, but it's really big appeal for me was how easy everything was. It's instant gratification, new toys every few hours (Not always really big stuff, but you usually do upgrade something) and easy to get into groups with others at random. I remeber getting frustrated if it took more than 5 minutes to form a group to go raiding instance zones, where as anyone in eve will at least 5 mins to form up a gang there is really quite fast, by and large.

It's also quite easy to run on crappy machines, due in part to it's age, but I never had issues when beta testing the US version running it on an 800MHz duron with 512mb of RAM and a geforce 4 MX440 so on modern machines it should fly on maximium everything.

That said, as far as I played (level 35 ish, iirc), it had all the dept of a sandpit, which is what drew me into eve so fast. That, and the PVP in world of warcraft is shit.

[Baliame]

Baliame, Bloodscalp, Level 70 orc warcock.
I'm a full epic bastard so I probably won't migrate just to play with 5punkers.

[friznit]

There's two levels to WoW: levelling your character to 70, and then everything that happens after that.

The levelling is generally shallow, simple, often grindy and ultimately boring - plenty of the quests follow the old routine of "go collect 1000 bear arses but not all bears have arses". It does have what Hehulk mentioned though: easily accessible instant gratification. Compared to other MMOs, WoW doesn't do anything particularly special, but what it does do it does really well. Most players consider the 1-69 'grind' as a learning experience. But Blizzard have recently made levelling quicker and easier because...

At 70 the game changes completely. Once questing and levelling are over, there's a huge amount of game content to explore, from instanced dungeons (5 man) to harder instanced dungeons (so called heroics) all the way up to extremely challenging 25 man raids. These require a lot of coordination, not a little skill, and correct gear to attempt properly. The teamwork and leadership can be reminiscent of Eve fleets at times, albeit you are reacting to an NPC environment so it's not quite in the same league.

Ultimately, WoW is like chewing gum. It tastes nice for a while and can be enjoyable to chew on, but ultimately it's pretty pointless. That said, what computer game isn't?

[Lateralus]

Nice little summary there Friz, thanks.

Since I'd never played a MMONG until COH about 6 weeks ago, I was always under the vague impression that once you hit the max level, it was just pretty much posing with your maxed-out character until you started a new one. Now, I know that a large part of COH is hanging about Atlas, posing hard, but I also have been given the impression that there are other things to go and do too which are fun too, and more game content just for level 50.

As you say, all games are ultimately pointless in that they have no tangible achievements beyond the game themselves (not an argument to start now, but all being gamers we're likely to largely disagree with that line of reasoning anyway) but I suppose the difference with EVE/WOW/COH etc is that by having some form of levelling and continuous goals, they try to create a point to playing them, which is why I guess they can be addictive for some people.

Teef, for example, has no persistent characters or levelling, and in that regard could be seen as being more pointless than a MMONG, but then I want a game to be a recreational and social activity, not a job or hobby that I have to do. I never let gaming take priority over other things that I do, and I'd hate to start thinking "well I could go to the pub tonight, but I don't want to miss out on a raid", whereas you never have that danger with Teef (for example) because if you built dispensers or not on one night, it won't effect your game the following night in any way.

I'm sure I started writing this with some kind of point in mind, but I fear that it may be lost in all the words.

[Baliame]

"well I could go to the pub tonight, but I don't want to miss out on a raid"

That is what I wouldn't do. I'm in a high end but rather flexible guild, only requirement is 1 raid a week, and they are quite tolerant for real life stuff.

[Joose]

I tend to use WoW as my filler MMO. I play it in between other things, when the other 5punkers drift away from the current vogue but have yet to latch on to a new one (like between the CoH fads). Largely because its the only MMO ive played so far that I actually enjoy playing by my self.

Of course, that could be because its not really all that massively multiplayer, but thats an argument for a different thread. One I may start up after ive peeled the potatoes...

[FatherJack]

Incidentally, I was able to get it quite cheaply.

The base game (on DVD, finally) was about £8 from Amazon, which gives you 30 days on top of a 10-day trial and Burning Crusade was £10 in Tesco (although curiously it was £25 in another Tesco one M6 junction away). A 60-day timecard was around £18, also from Amazon.

I played it in (public) beta, and for probably about six months after, reaching L30 with a dwarf hunter, then gave it away to a friend (with another six months still prepaid) who has been playing it ever since. Now, two years later, I'm back to see how it compares having played a lot of other examples of the game type in-between.

It's not got the fanciest graphics and lags like a bastard at times when you're on a busy server, but it does seem to do most things right - largely by virtue of the fact they have copied the best examples of how to do things. Nothing in it is original and I'm told Everquest is probably it's biggest "inspiration" - I'd only played FFXI before, so I don't know, but some of the best bits in that appear in WoW - the universal auction houses being one that stands out, which wasn't present at launch.

It's probably the worst culprit in the genre in the arseless bears category, to borrow Friz's example, but it all evens out in the end with the rewards you get. I find this aspect a kind of a relaxing "my brain hurts" minigame, a bit like mining in Eve - where even though you're guaranteed something in each roid, it still takes a long time to have enough to be useful.

It could really use a sidekick system like CoH has, it's possible to boost people through levels by killing all the monsters for them, but almost impossible to adventure together as equals unless your levels are close. Your high-level friend can gain faction reputation if they grab the same quests, but quest-sharing is non-existent, although viewable with mods. The large number of mods around are quite interesting in themselves, if you like to tinker with UIs and such.

One virtue is that you do get quite a lot to do, at least early on there are quite a few new things you can learn each level and figuring out how they work together is quite fun. You can skip between at least two similar-level questing areas with ease, and up to four with a high-level buddy to help you get access to them. Instances are (as in all games) a bit of a lottery without friends to play with.

The crafting works probably better than any game in the field as it's incredibly simple to pick up, but takes a long time to master - becoming a master farmer in LoTRO is far too easy in comparison, and the systems in Eve, CoH, Tabula Rasa and Hellgate are such that I never really figured them out.

I like having a proper inventory and since people on my server seem to dish out 12-slot bags to anyone around now - it's not as frustrating as when I played before. They've also added weather effects since the last time I was there, as well as the two new races and areas in the expansion - having ten races with eight starting areas, as well as seven classes to explore is a boon for people like me who like to create multiple low-level characters.

I do like that it's popular, meaning populous - like CoH you can make outrageous sums in the auction house, and similarly there are a lot of people around who will casually help you out - something sadly lacking from Guild Wars. Unfortunately it's a little too popular, meaning 5punkers are all spread out on different servers - the Guild Wars model of hot-swappable regional shards would have been welcome here. Having said that, the lower-level areas are way less busy than I remember them - with the roaming monsters correspondingly a lot more thinned-out too.

Being able to choose between PvP, PvE and RP realms is a great idea, which I'm surprised isn't used much elsewhere - you either have the ruthlessly PvP-only Eve with sometimes soul-crushing losses for failure, the one-side-only games like TR, HG and (mostly) LoTRO, but in most others you have the no-contact, no-fighting-except-in-designated-areas model. It's clearly the middle-of-the-road decision, based probably in part from people crying about ganking - but to my mind misses the point there, as you have always had the choice.

[Gunslinger42]

The idea that once you hit 70, thats it, game completed has always stuck in my mind and is another thing that I think I wouldn't like about World of Warcraft. Yeah, there might be special stuff to do when you hit level 70, but to me it just seems... pointless. More pointless than normal gaming even. I just have the impression that once you reach 70, the only thing left is the actual gameplay itself (and the actual gameplay of MMOs rarely ever interests me) - theres not really any goals to achieve or rewards to get. I mean there may be little things here and there, but nothing worthwhile. Like CoH, I haven't been on my level 50 for weeks now, I've just been arsing around on a new character. Theres still a load of stuff to get for my level 50, but ultimately I don't see the point, it's not going to give me a new power that helps me blast the next, harder set of baddies because there are non.

Which is one of the things I like about EVE, you'd have to spend hundreds of years to get to the point where you've basically done everything and got everything.

And I'm fully aware my impression of CoH/World of Warcraft once you've "won" are probably a bit off, and there may even be a few "BUT YOU CAN X AND Y" responses waiting for me and while, yeah thats true, usually X and Y aren't ... I don't know, significant enough compared to getting to that next major level milestone and getting the next big power or ship or something, which is what I like the most about MMOs

[Joose]

The idea that once you hit 70, thats it, game completed has always stuck in my mind and is another thing that I think I wouldn't like about World of Warcraft. Yeah, there might be special stuff to do when you hit level 70, but to me it just seems... pointless.

Whilst I can totally understand your point, and agree that the post level cap stuff doesnt really interest me, isnt using that as the reason you dont play a little like saying "I dont see the point in Half Life 2. Once you have finished it, theres nothing else to do"?

Surely with most games, getting from the beginning to the end in a fun manner is kinda the point. Just becuase its an MMO, and some other MMO's are not like that, why should WoW be any different?

Plus, all that being said, Ive played WoW shitloads, and never got a single character to anywhere near level cap, so its never really been a problem for me. I do have potentially terminal alt-itis in all MMO's ever though.

[Dog Pants]

I'm with Joose here. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with how 'Slinger feels, but I'm completely the opposite. I play the game for the story progression (I may make my own story up) and finding new things, environments, monsters etc. Case in point: I don't care particularly that I've had Dog Pants (my CoH character that is) for over a year and I'm still lvl35, and that several people have overtaken me with characters started months ago. I play the game to enjoy it either alone or with other 5punkers, to find new areas or bad guys that I've not seen before, or learn new stuff about the game. The levelling is just a by-product of that, not that it isn't satisfying.

It was exactly the same in wow for me. I played an Orc ranger up to about level 18, but had to start teaming up. The randoms were shit, so I started an undead warrior instead, and it was a completely different game. There was a lot more life in it before my trial ran out too - I hadn't even tried any Alliance characters, and I'm sure the encounters and environment would have been different again. Ultimately though there were no 5punkers to play with so I knew I'd always end up ditching my story at the same point every time. I actually did try to subscribe so I could have another month, but the process pissed me off by not making it easy enough to subscribe to the EU version.

[friznit]

Perhaps not surprisingly, the popularity of WoW is due in large part to that fact that there is so much to do after hitting the level cap. It is well recognised that 'the game changes at 70' and narf, it's only here when all the "new stuff allure" kicks off properly. I've got to hand it to Blizzard, for all their faults they sure now how to keep people addicted.

[Roman Totale]

Like CoH, I haven't been on my level 50 for weeks now, I've just been arsing around on a new character. Theres still a load of stuff to get for my level 50, but ultimately I don't see the point, it's not going to give me a new power that helps me blast the next, harder set of baddies because there are non.

To be fair though, how much of the game have you actually played through? If all you're doing is farming and power levelling, it's bound to get boring very quickly.

There's nothing wrong with either farming or power levelling, but you miss out on 90% of what a game has to offer.