Tell me why I should play World of Warcraft.

[Agent Foxtrot]

I just dropped one of my courses this semester, so I find myself having more time to goof off. I did the Final Fantasy XI thing for over a year, but grew tired of the redundant questing and camping, not to mention wasting hours looking for a party so I could XP. I haven't really heard anything bad about World of Warcraft, but I haven't really heard anything good that's been more constructive than, "It's so much fun!" or "The graphics will blow you away!"

Can anyone tell me what's really so great about WoW that I should try it? What are the negative aspects of the game?

Thanks.

Adam

[Lute Skywatcher]

I did the Final Fantasy XI thing for over a year, but grew tired of the redundant questing and camping, not to mention wasting hours looking for a party so I could XP.WoW has the same thing once you get to level 60.

[Agent Foxtrot]

WoW has the same thing once you get to level 60.Yeah, it seems that people recommend the game based on their initial reaction of it. Same with the GameFAQs player reviews, which all seem to start off with, "So I created a gnome mage, and..."

Adam

[Fringe]

The game is great. Except it's an MMORPG. So it has all the same pitfalls that every MMORPG faces. It becomes boring and redundant.

[Agent Foxtrot]

*BUMP* - I know more than two dopers play WoW.

Adam

[Teine]

Good:
1) Quest-based system in a large world - this can mean that you're running around a lot, but you get to see a lot of the world and you're not often left with no direction.
2) Can be played solo - The quest system in particular means that if you just want to play by yourself you can still get all the way to lvl 60 (max at the moment).
3) Good variety of classes and abilities - you should be able to find a character and you like to play with.
4) Diablo II-like equipment system - this could be good or bad depending, but it can be really cool to see that really rare piece of gear drop or to set yourself a goal of getting a particular piece.
5) Instances (dungeons) with stories - No real need to fight with other people over killing particular monsters, you can go in and have just you and your party going through the quests. I really like the stories associated with most of the dungeons, too.
6) Chance to play online with friends across the country - May not apply to some, but for me it means that I get to play with people I can't see more than once a year or so.

Bad:
1) MMORPG - there are idiots, there can be drama, if you don't have a group of friends who play it can be difficult to consistently find other people to play with.
2) End-game is much less quest based, more groups required - You can still do quests at lvl 60, but most of the stuff available requires getting together with groups of at least 5, or as many as 40. At this point, you're best off if you have a guild, or if you like playing multiple characters.
3) A *lot* of people play - You can run into queues to get onto servers at peak times, and all of the chances associated with Bad Point #1 are increased.
4) Time-sink - WoW can easily eat almost all your free time if you don't pay attention.
5) $15/month - You gotta pay to play.

*shrug* It's a game like any other. If you like the good stuff, you can put up with the bad stuff. If not, you're not going to like it.

[Lute Skywatcher]

MMORPG - there are idiots, there can be drama, if you don't have a group of friends who play it can be difficult to consistently find other people to play with.And when you do, you have a pretty good chance of ending up with a Leeroy Jenkins (http://www.killsometime.com/Video/video.asp?ID=456).

Agent Foxtrot: check out this thread from February (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=356737).

[Silentgoldfish]

Well, I played for a month then stopped for uni. I tried it again a year later (so last month) and stopped about an hour in. The problems (some of which are inherent to any MMOG I guess)

- boring gameplay: you have to run everywhere with no real shortcuts, fighting consists of clicking on a bad guy and waiting, while using your powers by pressing 1-9 on the keyboard, if they're available. They've got cooldowns measured in anything from seconds to minutes so you can spend a lot of time just sitting there, or a lot of time just running from place to place.

- no way to change the world, in even minor ways: I suppose intrinsic to MMOG's but kinda bugs me as I play games for story, and it's kind of hard to feel like you're making any difference to anyone when you see a quest reset for the next player as soon as you're finished it.

- equipment over skill: if someone else has better equipment than you then it doesn't really matter who's better at playing most of the time.

- time sink: you can't play on your own time, you either let down your party or get your character killed if you have to stop suddenly for outside reasons. Similiarly, no pausing.

- my friend has let it take over his life: he treats it like a job and has schedules to keep with other people he won't break for real world stuff over. He also does stuff like gets other people to play his character for him as "he's put too much time into him to retire him while he's busy with other things. In the end he's got a flashy character that can be deleted in seconds if someone at Blizzard slips up, and a lot of time wasted either way. It's rather pathetic and a warning to me of the kind of time you have to put in to these games once you get to the higher levels.

Maybe these are reasons why MMOG's aren't really for me personally at the stage they're in right now, but they're all stuff I've gotten from WoW.

Oh, I almost forgot: LAG. Having my game experience depend entirely on how good a connection I can get with their server. Plus there's no way to replay for nostalgia down the line if they discontinue the game.

[Lute Skywatcher]

there's no way to replay for nostalgia down the line if they discontinue the game.They have, what, a couple million subscribers? I don't think that's gonna happen short of total equipment failure that cannot be restored.

[Silentgoldfish]

They have, what, a couple million subscribers? I don't think that's gonna happen short of total equipment failure that cannot be restored.

I'm talking down the line. I like to replay Monkey Island from time to time and it's over 15 years old now. I just don't like the idea of not having the game at my disposal.

Like I said, these are just reasons why I don't like the game, I'm not stating things as fact.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Oh, I understand. That's the main reason that it took me 14 years (counting the original NWN on AOL) to get into an MMOG.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Apparantly Blizzard is paranoid. Here's what they say whenever someone cancels their subscription: We at Blizzard are extremely proud of the experience available in World of Warcraft and we are sorry to hear that another company has lured you away with their gaudy baubles and promises.

[Silentgoldfish]

I will give them credit -- when I came back after a year my characters were still there. Also, as I only played for an hour they never billed me for my brief return.

[Jenny Haniver]

Can anyone tell me what's really so great about WoW that I should try it? What are the negative aspects of the game?



It depends on how you feel about Chuck Norris.

[lisacurl]

Well, I'm fairly new to WoW, as I've only been playing since Christmas, and I'm still in the blush of new love. My main is only a level 33. It's my first experience with a MMORPG, and I really feel that the good outweighs the bad. Sure, there are jerks in chat, especially in the major cities, but you can put them on ignore, or turn off chat altogether. I've only had one really bad experience with assholes in a party just abandoning me in a crowd of MOBs once they'd gotten what they needed. I'm on a medium pop server set to Pacific time, and I've only found it difficult to find a party for questing at odd hours. Maybe it will get more difficult as I get higher in rank, I don't know. My husband also plays and we've both gotten involved with guilds, so between his guild and mine, we can usually find people to party with if need be, although I've really lucked out with some fantastic pick-up groups. I'm also really into the economy of the game, so I am probably more interested than most in mining and blacksmithing to create objects for sale in the Auction House, and in, well, AH speculation in general. Sometimes I just like to run around and help lower level players in the spirit of my selfless warrior character. Heh. Sometimes I like to discover new areas of the "world" and open new flight paths for my characters. (Admittedly this is easier for me on a PvE server.) I haven't done any battlegrounds yet, but I'll probably go to Warsong Gulch during the next double honor weekend, probably with some of my guildies.

I suppose for me, WoW has been a good match in terms of my finding the mythology of the universe interesting and the game to be fairly immersive. The choices you have in character creation are immense. In addition to Alliance and Horde, there are the different races and classes, plus the different paths within the character builds you can choose. My husband's main is a feral Druid, which I vaguely understand to be different from a standard Druid, but in what way I won't be clear on until I play a Druid character myself. I think that's really cool.

I'm a 39 year old married female, no kids, by the way, if that matters. I'm usually the one in chat answering the juvenile cries of "Your mother!" with "I AM your mother, YOUNG MAN!"

[Jayn_Newell]

My husband's main is a feral Druid, which I vaguely understand to be different from a standard Druid, but in what way I won't be clear on until I play a Druid character myself. I think that's really cool.

To expand on that, any class which can heal will be expected to heal. This goes especially for priests and druids, as they're the best main healers, especially when specced that way (paladins and shamans heal as well, but they function better as support, although they can also dish out a lot of HP when geared and specced for it). As a result, druids are often expected to be restoration specced.

Feral is probably the most popular choice--it focuses on improving bear and cat form, and is a great way to go to level, as once you're low on health you can pop out to heal with all the mana you didn't use to fight. Unfortunately, to get good gear end-game, you'll be competing with rogues, while balance and resto druids won't.

I have a 60 druid, 30/21 feral/restoration, which I enjoy. It's not the best feral build around, but I get Heart of the Wild, which helps me in ALL situations (Mana in caster form, health in bear, attack power in cat), and I'd much rather have that than Innervate or some of the other high-end resto talents, which I consider fairly weak. I also get Nature's Swiftness in the resto tree, which is very nice for when I'm healing (which is what druids will be doing more often than not in groups). The only downside of my build is I need two seperate sets of armor, one for each playstyle.

Jenny--I don't know about you, but if I never hear another Chuck Norris joke it'll be far too soon.

[Who_me?]

I've played Wow since release. The only thing I don't like about it now is that I don't have enough time to level my alts. The small guild I was in, suddenly ended up getting popular and much larger. My level 60 Shadow Priest was suddenly important as an Instance healer, thus I respecced to Holy/Disc. Now, we've got most of the Molten Core on farm status and hopefully will get to Rag for the first time this week.

Then, we'll move on to Black Wing Lair... Damn it! I LIKED playing my alts, and now I never get time to... but I like high end gear too. I hate having to choose... ;)

[Sailboat]

Just to play devil's advocate here... ;)

WoW is the first online environment to suffer an unintended outbreak of in-game disease.

http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/09/plaguelands.html


It also became the first game community (as far as I know) in which virtual political "genocide"* spontaneously arose because of incentives provided by the game's design.

http://www.corpnews.com/node/108?PHPSESSID=687a2011b5e1feca4033c340ae4afee8

Neat, huh? :rolleyes:

* I know political genocide is a loaded term; I'm not trying to devalue the term's usesfulness in real-world situations, or anyone's suffering. I merely find it fascinating that the reasons given for the WoW vitural killings so closely parallels the reasons that seem to underlie so many real-world genocides...namely, greed for "land" (server load in this case) and the ability to take it from militarily weaker neighbors.

Sailboat

[lisacurl]

Call me a sicko, but I find the social dynamics of WoW, however perverse, utterly fascinating. I mean, we're not talking about Hutus slaughtering Tutsis here, for god's sake. Some high level players were pissed that Blizzard wasn't controlling the population on their server adequately and went vigilante. There is no indication on how effective their actions were, or how long the action continued, or indeed, if it was the actions of more than a few people. Not to mention that it was obviously a PvP server. You don't want to roll with the big boys, go carebear, you know what I mean? There wasn't a thing stopping any of those lower level players from rolling a character on another server if they felt they were being targeted on that one. I mean, it's just a friggin' game.

[lisacurl]

I hit post too quickly there. I wanted to make the point about what I feel is one of the more fascinating and morally problematical phenomena in MMORPGs, that of gold farming. I find that to be much more indicative of real world problems being brought into a virtual world. I've done some reading at Nick Yee's the Daedalus Project (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/), and found it quite interesting.

[Sailboat]

There wasn't a thing stopping any of those lower level players from rolling a character on another server if they felt they were being targeted on that one. I mean, it's just a friggin' game.

Nor was there a ting stopping the level 60s from starting over on a new server. Nor was there a chance they could have tried it if they too had been low-level. It was the existence of the power imbalance that enabled them to easily kill newcomers and it was their sense of territoriality that helped them feel entitled to try.

More to the point, I haven't seen any evidence that "blizzard failed to control the server population. There does seem to have been a slowdown; the cause was *assumed* to be population, but I never saw that confirmed. Meanwhile, that assumption was enough for the night riders to round up and kill them foreigners who is the source of our woes.

I find it fascinating too.

Sailboat

[Nava]

I'm a 39 year old married female, no kids, by the way, if that matters. I'm usually the one in chat answering the juvenile cries of "Your mother!" with "I AM your mother, YOUNG MAN!"

Cracked me up :D

38yo (plus one day), been playing since September. My brothers game me WoW as a parting gift when I got sent to Costa Rica. I was a GM/writer/editor in an English-language MUD for 8 years and I've been playing RPGs for almost 20 years, so they figured it would be a good way to fill the time between waking up and going to work, rainy weekends, etc.

EU version. So I can't play on US servers. That's bad. I'm actually _over here_ so I'd like to be able to play on a server that's _over here_.

EU version. So I have three languages to choose from (last month Blizz announced they'll finally add Spanish, YAY!). That's good. I speak one well, have slight notions of another, should be practicing the third... I went with #3 and play in a French RPG server. RPG because it means less SMS. You see, I'm the player who says "I am sorry but I did not understand what you just said, could you please speak either Common or Dwarf?" when someone spouts "LFG2RBRN, cmoncmon gogogo U n00bz!"

I'm an "explorer" kind of player, so to me being able to go to so many places is Good. Being able to make and discard tons of alts is also Good.

In those 8 years as GM/writer/editor, my main gripe was that our world wasn't as "coherent" as I would have liked. I wrote little things in my areas that connected them to others... I don't just mean physically, but ambassadors from other nations, mentions of other nations in books you found lying about, stuff like that. Other people put in areas that could have been in that world or anywhere else, they were completely "stand alone". So one of the things that had me grinning from ear to ear the first few weeks was all the ways in which WoW's places, people and stories are linked together. I don't grin that wide but I'm still smiling.

My main is a mere 47 (I did say compulsive alt-maker, didn't I?) so I haven't been there yet, but I understand that once you Win The Game (because in my view that's what getting to 60 is) things can become quite a grind. Just set your own targets; I see all these "guides" about "how to become a megaalchemist in 3 hours" but they all assume that 1) you are level 60, 2) you have somehow been able to get hold of all the components needed. To me, the time spent getting those components should be added to the 3 hours :p All my chars are leveling their trades as they go.

Some objectives other than "getting to 60": leveling up your trades. Doing all the quests in area XYZ. Getting the complete maps (hey, I just discovered Orgrimar! Uh, why is that big orc looking at me funny?... [now in ghost form] So, uh, no paladins in the Horde, I guess?). Enjoying the once-a-year content. Getting stuff from the Faire. Getting military grades. Doing stuff for your Guild; the guild to which my main belongs is formed by pretty mature players (of widely varying age), it's very laid back, with very little obligations... I've seen all kinds of Guilds, with all kinds of objectives, including some where you could get kicked out for missing a meeting.

Once I get to level 15 or so, my quest log tends to be full or almost full. This means I have 16-20 objectives calling me. 16-20 in each alt!

The worst things:
1) depending on where you want to play, you have to get one version or another. For example, to me a US version would have been more useful, at least while I'm Over Here. On the other hand, we have quite a few Quebecois in the French servers. Cracks me up when Blizzard says they "don't want overseas playing because that means more lag" - my apparent lag isn't really linked to my pingtime until the pingtime gets real high. Ironforge spam kills me a lot more than the Atlantic Ocean, thank you very much.

2) morons. Honey, those exist everywhere. Morons of different kinds flock together in different servers. You don't run into the same behaviors in a PvP server or a RPG server. Poke around for a bit until you find a server where the stuff you hear over General doesn't grate you raw within minutes of being there (the starting areas and the cities have dumber chat than other places)

3) grinding. People complain about end-game grinding, but I also see people who grind xp like crazy to get to that end-game as fast as possible, so I guess they like grinding. Me, when I get bored with a "get me 150 spider legs" quest, I just hop into another alt for a while.

[Jayn_Newell]

lisacurl, I wonder that you think of this bit of politics (http://jayn-newell.livejournal.com/81912.html). The whole thing still makes my head hurt when I think of it.

As far as the newbie ganking goes, they may have known it was population. The article mentions server queues and wait times, which ATM is something all servers are experiencing at peak hours--that is to say, the server becomes full and then anyone logging on has to wait for someone to log off to open up space. My own server usually has one of a half hour or so late at night. This has the potential of completely screwing up raids, since it's harder for people to log on on time, and if someone gets dropped they may wind up in queue (though the server saves your spot for about 5 minutes, something I've used to my advantage at times when I need to reboot or mess with add-ons), so I can certainly see why they'd want to discourage people rolling toons on their server if that was the case.

[E-Sabbath]

If it helps, there is a sizeable Doper contingent in City of Heroes/Villains. If you feel interested in that, I'm sure someone has a spare 14-day code.

[lisacurl]

lisacurl, I wonder that you think of this bit of politics (http://jayn-newell.livejournal.com/81912.html). The whole thing still makes my head hurt when I think of it.

As far as the newbie ganking goes, they may have known it was population. The article mentions server queues and wait times, which ATM is something all servers are experiencing at peak hours--that is to say, the server becomes full and then anyone logging on has to wait for someone to log off to open up space.

Thanks for confirming that on the newbie ganking. Server overpopulation is what causes queue and wait times, and that's controlled by Blizzard. There was a hue and outcry when they closed some servers to new accounts a while back, but it seemed to put a bandaid on the problem at least. I'm not by any means saying the high level players were right for doing what they did -- if in fact they did so, for more than one night, in an organized manner, with more than a few people participating -- as I said in my earlier post. Yeah, people can be colossal jerks in WoW. I've found that genuinely helpful and friendly people outnumber the jerks handily so far.

With regard to the incident you describe, I think it's certainly a really great example of level 60 hubris in the wild. They honestly thought they could declare amnesty for all Alliance visitors to Orgrimmar just because they wanted it that way, so Alliance could farm linen and they could get AQ that much quicker. Whoa. That's an amazing sense of entitlement and, hmm, what's the description I'm looking for here? Delusions of grandeur? Sense of control where in fact one has none? Sometimes I think that people forget that not everyone is playing the same game that they are. Some of us newbs who just started playing were only aware of the AQ war effort in the most tangential sense. Sure, I turned some stuff in, but only because I got cool stuff in return, not because I was going to open a new instance for a bunch of level 60s. I may appreciate it in six months time, but hell, I'm just getting a feel for things now.

[Gozu Tashoya]

Meh, I wrote out a moderately lengthy post enumerating the differences between FFXI and WoW, but then I remembered that some people have gone into this much more exhaustively than I (http://wow.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=21;mid=1101164200951355921;page=1).

That said, let me know if you have any FFXI-to-WoW culture-shock questions that aren't answered in the 15 pages of that other thread. :)