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!

[Amake]

Now that you mention it, that's what makes it this completely bland experience. Nothing you do matters, either way you basically gain levels by walking down the street. In those four hours I fought and defeated three red-leveled wolves simultaneously using a Healing specced Druid without breaking a sweat, sold a couple of mid-level glyphs for close to 100 gold and gained a level by gathering herbs as I went. The biggest decision I faced was choosing between travel form (instant transformation, +40% ground speed), mounting up (1.5 second summon, +100% speed) or taking a hippogryph (+400% speed, flies from town to town, costs money) as my mode of transportation. The game world has become smaller, less significant and most of all less challenging with each update, and it's now reached a critical mass of boredom.

[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.

[Yrcrazypa]

Yeah, that was one thing that disappointed me when I came back to the game right before Cataclysm. The game didn't have a whole lot of customization to begin with, and that all went away when they forced you down one talent tree. I pretty much lasted just long enough to get two characters to 85 from 70 and 62 respectively, and then got bored from a lack of things to do. Raiding was all I didn't do, but I just don't have the time, or inclination to do it.

Also, unless you want to Tank or Heal, the queue times for the dungeons was a good 30 minutes or more, which is exactly the length of time for it to be too short to go off and do anything of consequence while waiting, but also too long to sit and wait for, unless you are really patient.

I would just avoid playing it unless you have the time to raid, and really like banging your head on your desk as you watch time and time again how people stay in the glowy shit that kills you, causing wipes.

[Azisien]

Don't play World of Warcraft it's fucking stupid.

[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.