Wow wad such an epic game for me while I played it. I played through vanilla and tbc extensively and I loved it. I came back to the game for each expansion after that to try out. Everything about the game back in the days was epic. An you're right the world is massive and you can play tons of alts without repeating content.
II think I have all characters leveled up except for the latest one - the monk. And I found it very extremely enjoyable. I have also never tried the horde. I can imagine I've missed on a lot of quests by not playing the horde.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Originally posted by kDeviL I've played MMOs for over 10 years now.. yet for some reason I couldn't get past level 18 in WoW, Doesn't make much sense I guess but I dunno... I've never been so bored in an MMO.
Yes, that Hogger can be a real pain to get past.........
Entertaining read. But I do disagree with your statement, which you repeat over and over again at the end. "Wow is the last of its kind". I Have been playing MMOs since early everquest 1. And I do feel that players are starting to want the industry back to making games that move away from cashshops, F2P and the like.
I think its fine for games to allow their customers to try the game for free, but I for one would much rather just pay a subscription and then have everyone be on equal footing. And I think, maybe hope, that we will see this type of payment model rise again. And with that perhaps games that think long term rather than cash grab. And therefore I believe we may see another "wow" size game or 2 in the future.
Originally posted by wowclones You shouldn't even be allowed to review WOW. This is an insult to the mmo industry, no one wants a review 8 years later. You played Neverwinter before WOW, sad. No excuse as there is a free trial. I can imagine you are a stubborn person in real life. Stop calling yourself an mmo player[mod edit]
I really didn't want to respond to this but think I have to. First off, it's NOT a review. It's merely impressions of a first-time player.
Secondly, I have played more MMOs than you can even imagine. That I neglected WoW isn't a crime. I had other things to do like, I don't know, raising my daughter and going through a life-threatening disease. But, gee, maybe you're right and I should have gotten to it faster. * rolls eyes *
For the record? I'm not stubborn either.
sorry SBF, but your first comment disproves the last.
The game didn't change as much as it's players did.
People used to do things for the sake of it, Tarren mill vs southshore being one, people blame blizzard for that disappearing - you can still do it right now. But players will only play the "systems" for "rewards" that generally have a used by date of a couple of months
Theres videos of vanilla players on my computer of 40 paladins vs 40 shamans, just too see who would win.
World bosses used to generate world PVP fights, but in MoP those same world bosses more often get killed without contest.
The fun left the game when the players decided they wanted rewards and shinies, rather then enjoying and creating there own fun. Blizzard just started supporting the players desires by adding in guild levels and battlegrounds because thats what people wanted and its a tangible system that sees metrics of use.
The old days were truly rose coloured goggles - but not for the reasons others seem to think.
100%
my favorite thing to do was get one friend (2-3 tops) and go do old raids. there is no point to it really, but it's all i really did in WoW towards the end.
i started playing about 4-5 months before BC came out and did not start taking long breaks until halfway through Wotlk.
i haven't played much since Cata came out though. like maybe 1 month a year. i bought Mop and played for 2 hours. i question if i will even buy the last expansion.
and by the way SBF, the last expansion will focus on Sargeras. anyone who has followed Warcraft long enough knows that like an instinct. Most of the plotlines directly involving his minions lay within the wastes of Outland. he is the ultimate enemy. he will be the final raid boss. the last of the last. maybe we will even see hell?
(edited to nerd out a few lines on sargeras.)
Sargeras was created by the titans to serve as their great warrior and protector of the universe (the worlds they crafted). so for eons, Sargeras challenged, defeated, and imprisoned any dark, chaotic beings spawned from the cosmos (demons and the like). He was their angel of death, so to speak. That is, until eons of loneliness drove him insane, and rightly so, surrounded by devils and evil spirits all the time.
so, Sargeras, who now had power over all the evil beings he conquered, and insane from depression, released the masses of demons and dubbed them 'the Burning Legion', his new army. They gladly served him, considering it was his desire to undo all of the worlds fashioned by the Titans, the gods who left him alone to do their dirty work for them.
sure, 'the drow' was an awesome hero in wc3, but in no way deserves the ultimate end-game spotlight over the Lord of the Burning Legion.
People that play WoW for the first time, even after all these years, and find themselves entertained enough to start a subscription to the game, bring a smile to my face.
Soo jealous. I really miss the camaraderie and sense of wonder and exploration from WoW days of old. I arrived at the WoW party right on time and after years of on again off again, realized that it had become stale for me.
I think part of why I cant settle on any of the current ftp titles is because I am looking for that sense of excitement and wonder and just not finding it. Or at least not to the length and extent that I did with WoW.
I hope you have a great time in WoW and continue to enjoy your experience throughout all of the content new and old. Thanks for the enjoyable article!
Since Wow was one of my first mmo's I would still recommend it to anyone starting out but at least now they can play a bit for free to see if they like it. Also since the Battlechest can be had for dirt they can get a lot of content for a small investment. After that though all I can say is stick with it as long as it's fun but once it becomes just a grind & you really don't feel like playing don't there's plenty of other games out there to download & play.
I think most everyone missed the point that you are not an MMORPG virgin and this isn't your first MMO... thus you are already seeing the game through filtered eyes. Comparing it to others... judging it...
What most seem to fail to realize is that for some, this was their first... they had nothing to compare it too because they never played one ever before... in fact, may never have played a video game before. There was no comparisons going on... no judgements... just pure discovery. Today it's about judging it... is it worthy of my money, my time, what sort of end game does it have, which class is OP, how do I do the most DPS... what's the best gear... etc. NONE OF THESE things entered our minds as we entered into WOW for the first time. It was never about getting to max level the quickest... finding a raiding guild... heck you were awed just by the 5 man dungeons... and wondered if you'd ever find your way through them.
You can't be a noob if you'd played an MMO before... it's the term we toss at those that are clueless about everything... the true MMO virgin.
I still say you can't play an old game that has been morphed to death and call it playing the old game for the first time. WoW 1.0 doesn't exist except on private servers. Everything is tuned to the latest expansion... the talents, the gear, everything. With each expansion release, the game morphs yet again. Which is why nothing but end game matters any more in WoW. If you're not into end game, there's really nothing there unless you like doing dailies ad nauseum. What used to be the real gem in the game... the leveling, was whisked aside for instant gratification... might as well just turn it into one huge cash shop and let people buy the best of the best, because that is all the investment they really want out of this game.
I'm sure you found your noob WoW experience fun and all but you would have been blown away by the game back in its glory days. It was much funner when the game wasn't built for quicky players when it had skill trees to completely customize your character to be anything you wanted it to be and had what is now considered to be overpowering abilities... you had more than just 9 powers to use and many of the builds had you filling specific rolls in parties like hunters being crowd control and rogues being pure dps, we had paladins that would tank bosses while the druid in bear form would tank large crowds of enemies. The dungeons required actual stratagy and players had to work their way into them by gathering gear and doing work... now it's just a joke you can enter any dungeon at any time using green drops you got from outside monsters and you can tank and spank your way through any dungeon with little or no stratagy, you don't even really need job rolls to do it either...
No they killed the glory of WoW and they will never get it back.
Originally posted by wowclones You shouldn't even be allowed to review WOW. This is an insult to the mmo industry, no one wants a review 8 years later. You played Neverwinter before WOW, sad. No excuse as there is a free trial. I can imagine you are a stubborn person in real life. Stop calling yourself an mmo player, because you are not.[mod edit]
Excuse me but who the hell do you think you are?
You have to have played wow to be an MMO player?
I have played far, far more MMOs then your average WoW player. Been in the scene for near 10 years and you know what? I too have never played WOW. There has always been a better looking game to me, no offense but I just never saw the appeal.
One thing I'll say for WoW... it has atmosphere. In spades.
I've played just about every major (and a few minor) MMO releases including and since EQ back in '99. For me, nothing will replace EQ for that sense of "I can't believe I'm seeing this" factor and that sense of danger (trains to the Blackburrow/Halas zone line --- from either side, traveling from Qeynos to Freeport without a port or a SoW, etc). But for overall atmosphere, WoW is the king in my book. Accessible and atmospheric is why WoW has managed to take my money off and on from 2004 through last month (when I unsubbed again), and I'm sure it's what will bring me back again someday. I just haven't found a game --- even/especially a f2p game --- that has captured my attention like WoW did.
I too tried WoW very late (december 2012, I figured : hey let's give it a look before it dies, just in case), but unlike you, I was bored out of my mind long before hitting max level. My experience of it was a long string of pointless and uninspired fetch/kill 20 quests, with boring travel through bland decor in-between quest objectives. I was playing the trial version, but I quit long before reaching the end of the trial content.
Oh also the combat system wasn't fun to me, and as you said, the graphics are crap.
There are F2P games out there that held my interest far longer than that, and i'm not even talking about the best ones.
In my opinion, WoW was simply there at the right time and then stayed popular because it had the largest playerbase (herd behavior).
There will be ALWAYS players that are new to wow. Children grow up and find interest in online gaming. Older need break from job and rest ... so they discover games. Wow or any other.
I agree that WoW is by large and far still the king of MMOs and I do miss playing it a lot. I often find myself playing on my Lv. 20 Trial Account character, and by often I mean at least once a week. However, Rift and other MMOs that are free and almost as good are fun enough to scratch that itch for me.
I recently started playing Rift and I am blown away by how good it is. It's not WoW, I still miss WoW, its graphics, fun art style and overall quirky humor. I also would not have paid to play Rift; why pay $15 to play a WoW clone when I can pay the same for the real thing? Now that Rift is free though, there is really no reason to not play that instead.
As a responsible adult, husband and soon to be father I can't afford to spend $15 a month on a game I can't play more than a few hours a week. Paying makes me feel guilty for not playing. Plus this day and age I can get a completely brand new game off Steam for the same $15.
I realize WoW won't go F2P anytime soon; but man, if it ever did I'd be back in a heartbeat! I wouldn't be spending tons of money on it, but they could do a model similar to GW where you have to buy expansions every few months, or just live off the vanity stuff. I don't see myself spending $15 a month for it ever again, but I can see myself spending $10 here and there sporadically every few months.
Funny enough; I continue to get the comic books, almost religiously as they come out. The latest one, The Dark Riders is EXCELLENT.
I love WoW, started playing with my husband around Cata and have been going strong ever since! We were late-bloomers to this game as well, I sometimes wish we had seen BC or Vanilla when it was new, but hey we are absolutely enjoying the game now and we have gotten to see 2 expansions new!
I really love the quest line you have written about above, the Forsaken was so much fun to run through! I have done it twice now because it is my favorite (well that and the Worgen one!)
What I love about WoW is the endless amount of things to do in the world at every minutes; pvp, rated pvp, raids, dungeons, dailies, farming, looking for amazing transmogs, working on my loremaster title and so on and so on! I think this is a game with a lot of life left in it and will be around for years to come!
My wife and I just started playing WoW this past week after been away the week BC came out. Here is what I have found....
1. My server is mostly dead and past level 20 there is no one to play with,
2. My raid and PvP gear are all garbage and doing PvP is pointless till I spend a few months gearing up.
3. Because the population is so low the few people selling stuff are selling at prices I have never seen in the game and because my server is low population its hard to sell items on the AH to get the gold I need.
4. The gear treadmill looks allot worse when you are 2 years out of date.
Will play till EQN or ESO comes out but with the above stuff I wont be sticking around WoW long.
Yupper this is a problem, there are so many wow server some a dead. Blizzard being the company that it is would rather keep them open than force established players to move, however they do offer a few things to combat this. Like free transfers to less pop servers than you are on and cross realm zones, battlegrounds and lfr's.
Seriously I tryed copy and paste a list of current servers and it bugs my browser the list is so big lol.
Anyway many servers are packed, you just need to do a little homework sometimes:
Also Im willing to bet if your put a ticket into blizz about your situation there is a STRONG chance they will give you and your wife a free server transfer, they have dome similar things for me in the past.
Originally posted by Xepo From what I see in the comments I am sure the article was well written. I for one attempted to read it, but lost interest after the first 2 paragraphs. WoW is for many ancient history and for good reason. After you zoom by to max level you hit the grindmill of either dailys or raids. PvP is sooooooooo gear focused you spend most your time not even enjoying the fights because all you keep hoping for is the day you finally get the high end gear to be able to enjoy it.
Yes, pvp is very gear-focused, but unlike many other games you can get your toon geared out in full Malevolent gear in a matter of a week or two. I played Aion before WoW and it would seriously take months to get into the "good gear." It can be frustrating sometimes, especially with alts - but I think it is worth it. On top of that 5.3 just changed pvp so that every level 90 has 65% pvp resilience whether they are geared or not, which makes pvp much more fun and more balanced.
As to your comment that wow is ancient history, I would have to disagree! I have talked to many people in game who are starting for the first time, new players are joining up every day and millions of people still find enjoyment in this game.
Comments
II think I have all characters leveled up except for the latest one - the monk. And I found it very extremely enjoyable. I have also never tried the horde. I can imagine I've missed on a lot of quests by not playing the horde.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yes, that Hogger can be a real pain to get past.........
Entertaining read. But I do disagree with your statement, which you repeat over and over again at the end. "Wow is the last of its kind". I Have been playing MMOs since early everquest 1. And I do feel that players are starting to want the industry back to making games that move away from cashshops, F2P and the like.
I think its fine for games to allow their customers to try the game for free, but I for one would much rather just pay a subscription and then have everyone be on equal footing. And I think, maybe hope, that we will see this type of payment model rise again. And with that perhaps games that think long term rather than cash grab. And therefore I believe we may see another "wow" size game or 2 in the future.
sorry SBF, but your first comment disproves the last.
100%
my favorite thing to do was get one friend (2-3 tops) and go do old raids. there is no point to it really, but it's all i really did in WoW towards the end.
i started playing about 4-5 months before BC came out and did not start taking long breaks until halfway through Wotlk.
i haven't played much since Cata came out though. like maybe 1 month a year. i bought Mop and played for 2 hours. i question if i will even buy the last expansion.
and by the way SBF, the last expansion will focus on Sargeras. anyone who has followed Warcraft long enough knows that like an instinct. Most of the plotlines directly involving his minions lay within the wastes of Outland. he is the ultimate enemy. he will be the final raid boss. the last of the last. maybe we will even see hell?
(edited to nerd out a few lines on sargeras.)
Sargeras was created by the titans to serve as their great warrior and protector of the universe (the worlds they crafted). so for eons, Sargeras challenged, defeated, and imprisoned any dark, chaotic beings spawned from the cosmos (demons and the like). He was their angel of death, so to speak. That is, until eons of loneliness drove him insane, and rightly so, surrounded by devils and evil spirits all the time.
so, Sargeras, who now had power over all the evil beings he conquered, and insane from depression, released the masses of demons and dubbed them 'the Burning Legion', his new army. They gladly served him, considering it was his desire to undo all of the worlds fashioned by the Titans, the gods who left him alone to do their dirty work for them.
sure, 'the drow' was an awesome hero in wc3, but in no way deserves the ultimate end-game spotlight over the Lord of the Burning Legion.
I disagree with this article - "WoW clone" is an insult, not a complement.
I provide SWTOR as good example.
I'lle just say one thing:
People that play WoW for the first time, even after all these years, and find themselves entertained enough to start a subscription to the game, bring a smile to my face.
Good on you, Sir!
[mod edit]
Soo jealous. I really miss the camaraderie and sense of wonder and exploration from WoW days of old. I arrived at the WoW party right on time and after years of on again off again, realized that it had become stale for me.
I think part of why I cant settle on any of the current ftp titles is because I am looking for that sense of excitement and wonder and just not finding it. Or at least not to the length and extent that I did with WoW.
I hope you have a great time in WoW and continue to enjoy your experience throughout all of the content new and old. Thanks for the enjoyable article!
I think most everyone missed the point that you are not an MMORPG virgin and this isn't your first MMO... thus you are already seeing the game through filtered eyes. Comparing it to others... judging it...
What most seem to fail to realize is that for some, this was their first... they had nothing to compare it too because they never played one ever before... in fact, may never have played a video game before. There was no comparisons going on... no judgements... just pure discovery. Today it's about judging it... is it worthy of my money, my time, what sort of end game does it have, which class is OP, how do I do the most DPS... what's the best gear... etc. NONE OF THESE things entered our minds as we entered into WOW for the first time. It was never about getting to max level the quickest... finding a raiding guild... heck you were awed just by the 5 man dungeons... and wondered if you'd ever find your way through them.
You can't be a noob if you'd played an MMO before... it's the term we toss at those that are clueless about everything... the true MMO virgin.
I still say you can't play an old game that has been morphed to death and call it playing the old game for the first time. WoW 1.0 doesn't exist except on private servers. Everything is tuned to the latest expansion... the talents, the gear, everything. With each expansion release, the game morphs yet again. Which is why nothing but end game matters any more in WoW. If you're not into end game, there's really nothing there unless you like doing dailies ad nauseum. What used to be the real gem in the game... the leveling, was whisked aside for instant gratification... might as well just turn it into one huge cash shop and let people buy the best of the best, because that is all the investment they really want out of this game.
I'm sure you found your noob WoW experience fun and all but you would have been blown away by the game back in its glory days. It was much funner when the game wasn't built for quicky players when it had skill trees to completely customize your character to be anything you wanted it to be and had what is now considered to be overpowering abilities... you had more than just 9 powers to use and many of the builds had you filling specific rolls in parties like hunters being crowd control and rogues being pure dps, we had paladins that would tank bosses while the druid in bear form would tank large crowds of enemies. The dungeons required actual stratagy and players had to work their way into them by gathering gear and doing work... now it's just a joke you can enter any dungeon at any time using green drops you got from outside monsters and you can tank and spank your way through any dungeon with little or no stratagy, you don't even really need job rolls to do it either...
No they killed the glory of WoW and they will never get it back.
Excuse me but who the hell do you think you are?
You have to have played wow to be an MMO player?
I have played far, far more MMOs then your average WoW player. Been in the scene for near 10 years and you know what? I too have never played WOW. There has always been a better looking game to me, no offense but I just never saw the appeal.
Healing the world since 2005
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
One thing I'll say for WoW... it has atmosphere. In spades.
I've played just about every major (and a few minor) MMO releases including and since EQ back in '99. For me, nothing will replace EQ for that sense of "I can't believe I'm seeing this" factor and that sense of danger (trains to the Blackburrow/Halas zone line --- from either side, traveling from Qeynos to Freeport without a port or a SoW, etc). But for overall atmosphere, WoW is the king in my book. Accessible and atmospheric is why WoW has managed to take my money off and on from 2004 through last month (when I unsubbed again), and I'm sure it's what will bring me back again someday. I just haven't found a game --- even/especially a f2p game --- that has captured my attention like WoW did.
I've played SWTOR, and would not call it a WoW clone. Maybe they were trying to clone WoW. But if so, they certainly failed.
I too tried WoW very late (december 2012, I figured : hey let's give it a look before it dies, just in case), but unlike you, I was bored out of my mind long before hitting max level. My experience of it was a long string of pointless and uninspired fetch/kill 20 quests, with boring travel through bland decor in-between quest objectives. I was playing the trial version, but I quit long before reaching the end of the trial content.
Oh also the combat system wasn't fun to me, and as you said, the graphics are crap.
There are F2P games out there that held my interest far longer than that, and i'm not even talking about the best ones.
In my opinion, WoW was simply there at the right time and then stayed popular because it had the largest playerbase (herd behavior).
I agree that WoW is by large and far still the king of MMOs and I do miss playing it a lot. I often find myself playing on my Lv. 20 Trial Account character, and by often I mean at least once a week. However, Rift and other MMOs that are free and almost as good are fun enough to scratch that itch for me.
I recently started playing Rift and I am blown away by how good it is. It's not WoW, I still miss WoW, its graphics, fun art style and overall quirky humor. I also would not have paid to play Rift; why pay $15 to play a WoW clone when I can pay the same for the real thing? Now that Rift is free though, there is really no reason to not play that instead.
As a responsible adult, husband and soon to be father I can't afford to spend $15 a month on a game I can't play more than a few hours a week. Paying makes me feel guilty for not playing. Plus this day and age I can get a completely brand new game off Steam for the same $15.
I realize WoW won't go F2P anytime soon; but man, if it ever did I'd be back in a heartbeat! I wouldn't be spending tons of money on it, but they could do a model similar to GW where you have to buy expansions every few months, or just live off the vanity stuff. I don't see myself spending $15 a month for it ever again, but I can see myself spending $10 here and there sporadically every few months.
Funny enough; I continue to get the comic books, almost religiously as they come out. The latest one, The Dark Riders is EXCELLENT.
I love WoW, started playing with my husband around Cata and have been going strong ever since! We were late-bloomers to this game as well, I sometimes wish we had seen BC or Vanilla when it was new, but hey we are absolutely enjoying the game now and we have gotten to see 2 expansions new!
I really love the quest line you have written about above, the Forsaken was so much fun to run through! I have done it twice now because it is my favorite (well that and the Worgen one!)
What I love about WoW is the endless amount of things to do in the world at every minutes; pvp, rated pvp, raids, dungeons, dailies, farming, looking for amazing transmogs, working on my loremaster title and so on and so on! I think this is a game with a lot of life left in it and will be around for years to come!
Yupper this is a problem, there are so many wow server some a dead. Blizzard being the company that it is would rather keep them open than force established players to move, however they do offer a few things to combat this. Like free transfers to less pop servers than you are on and cross realm zones, battlegrounds and lfr's.
Seriously I tryed copy and paste a list of current servers and it bugs my browser the list is so big lol.
Anyway many servers are packed, you just need to do a little homework sometimes:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/09/16/wow-rookie-how-to-choose-a-new-realm/
Also Im willing to bet if your put a ticket into blizz about your situation there is a STRONG chance they will give you and your wife a free server transfer, they have dome similar things for me in the past.
Yes, pvp is very gear-focused, but unlike many other games you can get your toon geared out in full Malevolent gear in a matter of a week or two. I played Aion before WoW and it would seriously take months to get into the "good gear." It can be frustrating sometimes, especially with alts - but I think it is worth it. On top of that 5.3 just changed pvp so that every level 90 has 65% pvp resilience whether they are geared or not, which makes pvp much more fun and more balanced.
As to your comment that wow is ancient history, I would have to disagree! I have talked to many people in game who are starting for the first time, new players are joining up every day and millions of people still find enjoyment in this game.
" While there are older and moderately successful MMOs out there including EverQuest 2..."
In case no one else have said so already:
EQ2 is only 19 days older, both games were released in November 2004...
Btw, nice to see that you enjoyed your WoW experience, the game is actually better than it's reputation, at least it's rep on this site.