World Of Warcraft

[Seil]

I like reading the Warcraft book series. I haven't kept up with them, but they're fun for if you're in an airport, and you've got nothing else to do. I playedf WoW for a bit, after the urging of some friends, but left after I had to catch the bill for the second month. I decided I didn't want to kill X for Y. But after reading a few of my choice webcomics recently, I've considered starting to play Wow again.

Help me.

[rpgdemon]

You can get a significantly feature-nerfed trial account for free, indefinitely, while you stay below level 20.

In all honesty, I'd just avoid WoW. I quit a few months ago, came back since they gave me some free time, and was like, "Yeah, no, I totally don't enjoy this." Going on WoW actually actively depressed me, for how much I disliked it.

[Amake]

I went back to WoW last week. It lasted all of four hours. It's just not the least bit entertaining or satisfying anymore. It might be more my attitude that has changed rather than any updates to the game, but either way if you ask me the game is a waste of time. Not even any time you spend playing it, just downloading patches for ten hours is the biggest waste of time I had in months. And I've spent thousands of dollars on this game so you'd think I have a vested interest.

[Pip Boy]

While it definitely still suffers from the same core problems as any basic MMORPG (long ass grind times just to continue the same rinse-wash-repeat stuff), it has gotten like 10 thousand times more user-friendly than it was a year ago. Lowered level requirements for mounts, dual talent specialization, flying mounts in azeroth, the Dungeon Finder and the numerous updates it has gone through since its addition to the game, Recruit-A-Friend perks, guild perks, and reduced exp requirements to level up in most level brackets have all helped to make the game significantly less of a slow dull bluuuuuuuh than it once was.

Don't get me wrong, its still pretty bad, but better than it was.

EDIT: I mean really, back when I started WoW we didn't have no newfangled Dungeon Finder to teleport us to dungeons or even fancy-pants flying mounts to take us there. We had to WALK to our dungeons! Uphill both ways! In the snow! With no shoes!

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

Don't get me wrong, its still pretty bad, but better than it was.

I don't know about that.

Some of the changes have really destroyed things that are kind of important in mmos. Like character customization/growth. The talent trees are so simplified now, and cross-builds no longer even possible, that they may as well not even give you talent trees. Just grant you powers on level up and give you a button to switch between tanking, dpsing, and soloing (or whatever three builds there are for each class).

Just as a for instance.

[Revising Ocelot]

Originally Posted by Krylo

I don't know about that.

Some of the changes have really destroyed things that are kind of important in mmos. Like character customization/growth. The talent trees are so simplified now, and cross-builds no longer even possible, that they may as well not even give you talent trees. Just grant you powers on level up and give you a button to switch between tanking, dpsing, and soloing (or whatever three builds there are for each class).

Just as a for instance.

There were a lot of possible variations but for the most part they were ignored; all raiders would simply go onto their website of choice, locate cookie cutter build for raiding, and spec that until the next patch. But I don't get what Earl says by "long-ass grind timers" - have you ever seen a Korean MMO before?

Stopped playing early this year because I did all the (admittedly much better than vanilla/tbc quests) quests and lost interest. And also because £11 a month is really stupid & stopped me buying other games.

[synkr0nized]

I'm still playing.

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by Revolving Ocelot

There were a lot of possible variations but for the most part they were ignored; all raiders would simply go onto their website of choice, locate cookie cutter build for raiding, and spec that until the next patch. But I don't get what Earl says by "long-ass grind timers" - have you ever seen a Korean MMO before?

Honestly, it's balls stupid. Why limit people to 1/4 of the levels, limiting their ability to raid or anything else? With a lot of people going to the F2P model, it's just a matter of time before Wow starts leaking even more. I dunno all of the problems with it, having not played myself but I'm sure that the combination of private servers, competition from F2P, and newer games is going to rock the giant.

Personally, I would rather play DnDO anyway.

Also, Ragnarok Online was a grindfest. EVIL,EVIL, grindfest, but it was more fun in comparison.

[Pip Boy]

Originally Posted by Krylo

The talent trees are so simplified now, and cross-builds no longer even possible, that they may as well not even give you talent trees.

I think that the new talents are a huge improvement over the old ones. Whereas in the old talents, a lot of specs were unplayable at most levels (arcane mages below 70, shadow priests below 50), leveling up in any spec is a much more smooth process than it was before because vital spec abilities can be given early on now without worry that people using a cross-spec will just take the best thing from each tree.

As for not having many choices for your spec, that really depends what class you play. Some specs still have a lot of choices to make in the new system, and even in the old system a lot of classes and specs had their talents pretty much limited to "pick these for PvE or pick these for PvP".

[Jagos]

But that ain't free.