It can be if you are a healer or a tank. Tanks are just like they sound. High armor high hit point characters that are in charge of keeping the mob’s (mob=individual creature in WoW Speak) aggro (attention). Healers with high lag means that heals won’t get to the tank in time. Tanks with high lag mean you may lose aggro, then the tank will head for high DPD (damage per second) characters who are generally low on armor.
You can download WoW at no cost and try it free for 2 weeks. If you do that then look into the Quartz Castbar which, as you cast a spell, replaces Blizzard’s graphical bar and includes a latency meter. I could go on, but might as well try it then look for more info on Quartz and other addons.
That’s maybe what I like best about WoW. There are so many addons that you can customize the game infinitely. This appeals to me as a complete dorkus. But at the same time you can also play just fine using the default Blizzard setup. Though at some point you will all need an aggro meter such as Omen or KTH(?). This helps keep the DPS classes from taking aggro from the tank and causing a wipe. Even with Omen I still do this occasionally.
Oh, and be sure you have a diverse group. Each 5 man party needs one tank and one healer. From there you can mix and match DPS as you like. Also, make sure everyone picks up First Aid right away. It’s very handy to have.
My guild is an RP guild on an RP server. RP may not be easy to find but it’s out there.
What I do love about WoW is that it takes FAR less time to get something done than EQ ever did. I played EQ for five years, and have played WoW for about two and a half years and the difference is amazing. I have a lot of fun with my various characters, which is what a game should be–fun.
And that’s a handy segue into tradeskills. There are two types of tradeskills in WoW: primary and secondary. You are restricted to 2 primary tradeskills, but you can take all three of the secondary tradeskills at the same time.
Primary tradeskills are divided into two groups: crafting and gathering.
Crafting tradeskills are blacksmithing, leatherworking, alchemy, jewelcrafting, engineering, tailoring, and enchanting.
Gathering tradeskills are mining (gathers materials for blacksmithing, jewelcrafting and engineering), herbalism (gathers materials for alchemy) and skinning (gathers materials for leatherworking). There are some gatherable materials that can be used with tradeskills other than the associated ones listed here, but they’re minor and uncommon (leather can be used in some tailoring patterns, for example). Tailoring is done with cloth that you get when you kill humanoid mobs. Enchanting is mostly done with arcane materials that you gather by disenchanting magic items. Mining is possibly the most lucrative tradeskill. You can auction ores for jewelcrafters to prospect, you can auction metal bars for blacksmiths and engineers to use, you can auction some jewels for enchanters to use.
The secondary tradeskills are fishing, first aid and cooking. They’re pretty self-explanatory. Fishing can give you material to take your cooking all the way to the maximum, as well as some fish being alchemy ingredients. Cooking gives you food to restore your hit points and in some special recipes, increase attributes, change your form and restore mana as well as hit points. First aid is first aid…you can make bandages and anti-venom, and more importantly use them. Only someone who has first aid can use bandages (on themselves or other characters).
max group size is 5, I cant tell you how much that sucks when you have 7 real life friends who want to do stuff, you can form a raid but its not the same.
get VOICE CHAT…get voice chat and get a head set with mic, nothing is more annoying than that one guy with the fixed mic on his desk broadcasting his every sound and a constant hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
to the group
for groups of 5 or less I highly recommend Skype, its free and very very good quality…just remembered the game has built in voice chat now…not sure of quality though.
keep your toons at or very very close to the same lvl (honestly within 3-5 lvls makes little difference at lower lvls, at higher lvls it can by much greater.
IMO- play Eve Online instead.
-There you don’t have the issue of some people levelling up faster than others.
-Much better roleplaying than wow.
-Players are more mature than in wow, in general.
-Much more complex game, with more to offer than just mindless grinding (killing NPCs).
Obviously I’m not a fan of wow, but thats my opinion anyway.
The in-game chat is [sub]quiet[/sub]. The quality isn’t bad, probably about the same as the average TS server, but you will have to turn the base volume up to a somewhat ridiculous level, and turn all other sounds down to compensate. I can’t tell you how much this sucks when
you have WinAmp in the background at 7% volume and it’s still too loud
the raid leader is one of the quietest of the bunch, and
I still haven’t discovered a way to turn down the ready check noise, which is loud at normal volume
And don’t forget to set up push-to-talk. Forgetting it can lead to amusing moments involving players’ kids at times (Daddy, why does that guy die so much?), but more often is just a nuisance.
