I play these games for the entertainment value, not for the typical aribitrary mechanisms that many MMOs use to slow down progress. I only care about levels because they are required to access new content, so the less restrictive it is, the more fun I will have.
Edit: Seems to me, you are looking for a good Asian grinder and there are plenty of them out there.
On this one I have to agree with Axehilt- WoW does have an enormous variety of quests, moreso than any other MMO I've played. The problem is, almost the entirety of them are set up for soloing exclusively and you can find similar mechanics done to a much better degree in single player games. If you're looking for a single player experience while leveling with a great variety then WoW does this extremely well. If you're into socializing, grouping, or taking in the sights/lore then WoW is absolutely abysmal.
Anyone who calls WOW a weak grouping game probably hasn't played since Dungeon Finder.
And the sights/lore comment seems really off to me too. I think only EQ beats it in terms of lore (even then, I sorta doubt EQ lets you interact so directly with the characters as I do in WOW. Do you fight alongside the major characters, or do they just sit there as static questgivers?) Sights is partially a comment on their visual tech, which is fair, but honestly they do a great job of putting you in a variety of interesting situations (see my big list: all that stuff is visually realized.)
The social comment is accurate, if overstated. Millions of players enjoy their WOW guilds, so even though I think WOW's overall social featureset makes it less suitable to really great social interactions it's still plenty social (or it wouldn't do so well.) TBH, since they added the real friends thing I've socialized considerably more since it's the real life people I know. I even xferred servers when I noticed they were clumping primarily on one server!
Sadly I have played since dungeon finder. I played all the way up until the same week Blizz was to implement the account name to forum Real ID fiasco that alienated a large portion of their playerbase because Activision/Blizzard wanted to make a cash grab at a Steam/Facebook style abomination. Three quarters of the guild quit the game then and there. The sheer attitude that was passed off despite numerous forum and popular website outcries made SOE look like a bunch of candystripers.
To get back to your post, the dungeonfinder made grouping easier and I would say that it would have been a perfect addition to the game if it hadn't been for cross-server queues. The entire game started going downhill for me once WoW initiated battlegroups. The server community became more distant, more anonymous, and more rude and inconsiderate. Just more proof that the less a player needs a certain community the worse those players act and the worse off that community becomes.
As far as the lore goes, they have been rewriting the lore they stole from Warhammer ad nauseum since TBC- and please don't get me started on anything thing Knaak started writing their books. If I was in my teens and grew up on reality tv then perhaps my standards would be low enough to find WoW's revisionist lore captivating.
So, to go back to the first line, WoW is only the most elementary of grouping in a game as well as the shallowest. I think League of Legends or even Team Fortress 2 has more meaningul groups. But that's just my opinion, and I've realized over several posts that you and I do not see eye-to-eye on what constitutes a proper MMORPG. From what I've seen, you value a game that is simply a game, with constant floods of shinies and always focusing you on the activities the devs want you to do. Constant diversions so that you never realize how shallow it really is.
I, on the other hand, prefer a game that is difficult on every level- not because of poor design but because that is the population that is desired (in a nutshell, I want Myst while you seem to want something more like Resident Evil)- I seek a game where rewards are few, far between, and require quite a bit of effort to achieve- especially if that brings me together with likeminded players regardless of whether they are in my guild/clan/whatever. I understand not all players want this, but as I've said over and over not all games are for all people, and when you try to please them all you only get a shallow, half-assed experience.
You have as much right to a game you like as I do, and the reason many companies make games for the instant gratification crowd rather than the old schoolers has nothing to do with what is popular- it's because they are faster, easier, and cheaper to develop for and that's not a good thing, it's game producers insulting you.
Those watered-down minigames are nice diversions - for the few minutes they last. But they're all one-shot quests, most you can't return to once they're done. They break up the monotony, but they hardly elevate WoW's questing to anything special. 99% of the quests are still the same "Kill 20 wolves" or "Collect 30 goose feet" stuff.
Are you suggesting it's preferable to play a game where all you do is craft and kill monsters?
And please, before you state that 99% of quests are "kill x mobs" you might want to actually look at the ratio of quests in Wowhead. Perhaps 60% of the quests are kill x mobs, with 40% being the unique types of things I listed. And while that's not an ideal mix, it's leaps and bounds above what any other MMORPG out there is doing.
I'm suggesting nothing of the sort, and nothing in my post even hints at that. I don't know where you got that idea. Probably from the same place you get the idea that 40% of WoW's quests are "unique types of things."
I'm looking at Wowhead right now. Starting at the beginning of their list of quests (Abyssal Depths, since they go in alphabetical order), I see the following quests: Gather 6 things, gather 1 thing, kill 30 things, kill 1 thing and use a thing on it, kill 1 thing, click on 5 things, talk to a guy, gather 12 things, kill 7 things, kill 8 things, kill 8 things, take a thing to a guy, fight in a battle (vague, but this one may actually be something out of the ordinary!), kill 8 things, take a thing to a guy, gather 12 things, kill 8 things, kill an unspecified number of things until something happens... So we're looking at maybe one out of every 10 or 20 quests being non-standard. That's a long way from 40%.
For the most part, I found the non-standard quests only slightly less boring than the typical stuff. The most common type is where usinge some sort artillery to kill a large number of mobs. They all play basically the same, so they're hardly "unique activities." Even worse, some are simply impossible to fail. There's zero challenge - you don't even have to try. The Katamari ripoff quest was probably the most tedious of these special quests: roll over a thousand gnomes that endlessly respawn and don't fight back. I failed it once only because I got up to go to the bathroom and let my ball roll into the ocean. If I'd pointed it onto a better path, I probably would have beaten it without having to be at my keyboard.
If you're into that sort of thing, more power to you. Play WoW and enjoy it - I won't fault you for it. But i found it to be more of the same old crap. The non-standard quests are too weak and too few to be of any real use in breaking up the monotony. I'd rather see a game with a different style of questing or leveling.
To get back to your post, the dungeonfinder made grouping easier and I would say that it would have been a perfect addition to the game if it hadn't been for cross-server queues. The entire game started going downhill for me once WoW initiated battlegroups. The server community became more distant, more anonymous, and more rude and inconsiderate. Just more proof that the less a player needs a certain community the worse those players act and the worse off that community becomes.
As far as the lore goes, they have been rewriting the lore they stole from Warhammer ad nauseum since TBC- and please don't get me started on anything thing Knaak started writing their books. If I was in my teens and grew up on reality tv then perhaps my standards would be low enough to find WoW's revisionist lore captivating.
So, to go back to the first line, WoW is only the most elementary of grouping in a game as well as the shallowest. I think League of Legends or even Team Fortress 2 has more meaningul groups. But that's just my opinion, and I've realized over several posts that you and I do not see eye-to-eye on what constitutes a proper MMORPG. From what I've seen, you value a game that is simply a game, with constant floods of shinies and always focusing you on the activities the devs want you to do. Constant diversions so that you never realize how shallow it really is.
I, on the other hand, prefer a game that is difficult on every level- not because of poor design but because that is the population that is desired (in a nutshell, I want Myst while you seem to want something more like Resident Evil)- I seek a game where rewards are few, far between, and require quite a bit of effort to achieve- especially if that brings me together with likeminded players regardless of whether they are in my guild/clan/whatever. I understand not all players want this, but as I've said over and over not all games are for all people, and when you try to please them all you only get a shallow, half-assed experience.
You have as much right to a game you like as I do, and the reason many companies make games for the instant gratification crowd rather than the old schoolers has nothing to do with what is popular- it's because they are faster, easier, and cheaper to develop for and that's not a good thing, it's game producers insulting you.
I partially agree with the xserver comment, mostly from the standpoint of the missed opportunity for letting players actually socialize with those xserver groupmates. There've been plenty of players I would've friended and ran stuff with again if that was possible.
As for lore, I'm only comparing it with the market (what else is there to compare with?) Perhaps you'd like to name games apart from EQ where lore is handled better than in WOW? Be sure to mention games where you interact with characters as closely as you get to in WOW. Honestly apart from maybe GW1 I don't see any game fitting that bill. If you're criticizing MMORPGs in general of having poor stories, sure maybe there's some truth to that, but I'm speaking more in comparison to the rest of the MMORPG market.
As for my tastes in MMORPGs, it's nonsense to say the devs decide my activities. They can't force me to subscribe. If I'm playing a game, it's because the activities are fun. It's because I want those activities.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As for lore, I'm only comparing it with the market (what else is there to compare with?) Perhaps you'd like to name games apart from EQ where lore is handled better than in WOW? Be sure to mention games where you interact with characters as closely as you get to in WOW. Honestly apart from maybe GW1 I don't see any game fitting that bill. If you're criticizing MMORPGs in general of having poor stories, sure maybe there's some truth to that, but I'm speaking more in comparison to the rest of the MMORPG market.
Let me preface this by saying I haven't read all of Tolkien's books, nor have I read the Warcraft novels or comics, but LoTRO and Warhammer (upon release) all had better storylines. I'd wager Age of Conan as well, but I haven't played. EQ2 which I only played briefly had more interesting and realistic questlines when I started my troll defiler.
WoW's lore is a mess- it's all over the place and with some of the mounts, pets, and other "Easter Eggs" (in which I mean the innumerable real life references) they kill any possibility of immersion. But then it seems that was never the goal- WoW is a game that's made for first time MMO-ers, console/arcade enthusiasts, and children. Activision/Blizzard caters to these players very well, but I don't value what they provide and they completely disappoint in the aspects of MMORPGs that I find fulfilling.
@ the OP: if you want to spend days and weeks just grinding away - killing 10's of thousands of Mobs - for hours upon hours each day only gain a single level then you need to look into the F2P games.
Although definitely not by any grind. In fact, I would prefer to not get ANY xp from killing mobs. Or at least only very little. Rather by doing long entertaining questlines.
My personal "ideal MMO" wouldnt have any xp at all. You would have a number of linked worlds. You cant enter more powerful worlds before you havent reached a certain amount of power in the current world.
I also agree leveling has become too fast in MMO-s. In Cataclysm I leveled an alt as fast as in Diablo 2. I really had trouble getting all the quests done in a zone before I outleveled it. Gaining two levels per instance meant I had to skip the zone I was previously in every time I ran one.
It seemed so rushed and unfinished somehow. No time to rest and smell the roses because doing that you get 10000 exp per rose and all your quests become gray, hehe.
you have to pay to turn off xp gain in WoW, but you can turn off xps in EQ2 for free. Don't know why WoW hasn't gone the EQ2 route.
Most WoW players want to experience the content once or twice, and this time around in Cataclysm the content is really, really good, but after that, they just want to get to max level where the group content is.
I'm not sure what people mean by 'wow is a solo game' because at max level where everyone is or wants to be, you can't solo any of the content, heroics or raids.
My wife and I are sitting here thinking about what game to play, why because every game levels too damn fast now. We miss the FFXI days, or DAOC in it s early days. I had a real connection with my chars in those games and really miss the communities that came with most of those games. We recently tried Aion, only to leave for Cata:( We ve decided to go back to Aion because it takes time and some challenge to progress. This is coming from 2 of the more casual players you ll meet. So to sum it up, I hope more games will come out in the future where I don t get 4-5 levels in a day, doing next to nothing:)
Have you tried playing DDO ? ( Dungeon and Dragons) It's free to play and a good one at that. It's a slow leveling game. You have only 20 levels but each level consists of 4 "ranks" so essentially it's 80 levels. Save for a few bonus xp spots here and there within a quest, you don't get any xp till you complete a quest.
It's free to play, pay to play without grind...you can play till endgame for free, but there is a serious grind involved. Purchase a few adventure packs here and there helps with that grind a lot....or just pay a normal sub and get everything.
I can afford the 50 cents a day it costs me to play and I get dozens of quests ( adventures ) to choose from at any given point. I've never had to repeat a quest and i've never ran out of new ones to do. Since all of the quests are instanced, they are all unique and able to provide varied content that can't be done in a persistant world.
There are plenty of open explore zones as well..a couple dozen of them in fact, but they are instanced for each party too. No..I don't like the grind and thankfully, DDO doesn't give me one.
If you are a loot junkie...then I guess you have to grind for the uber stuff, but that's how all mmo's are. Play for the adventure and you avoid the grind.
I restarted Fallen Earth recently. I had a level 35 character from launch, but I started over since a lot had changed. I don't even know what level I am now. Must be pretty low since I haven't travelled very far. But the whole time it has been a blast.
I could have leveled a lot faster, but I'm pausing a lot to read the text and poke around off the beaten path. Also getting all the AP quests as I go this time, so I'm ending up doing a lot of quests that are quite easy with lower relative rewards. AND twinking myself a bit with my respecced crafting alt. That's been my main game for a few weeks and I've had a lot of vacation to burn, so its been dozens of hours. But there is a big variety of things on my agenda beyond leveling.
On the other extreme, I also leveled a character from 1 to 20 in Guild Wars over the weekend because it runs on my laptop and the girlfriend wanted me to watch TV with her. That took about 5 hours. True: GW is about journey to far off places and story line and learning powers rather than leveling, but it did loose some motivation when I got max level, armor, and weps.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
As for lore, I'm only comparing it with the market (what else is there to compare with?) Perhaps you'd like to name games apart from EQ where lore is handled better than in WOW? Be sure to mention games where you interact with characters as closely as you get to in WOW. Honestly apart from maybe GW1 I don't see any game fitting that bill. If you're criticizing MMORPGs in general of having poor stories, sure maybe there's some truth to that, but I'm speaking more in comparison to the rest of the MMORPG market.
Let me preface this by saying I haven't read all of Tolkien's books, nor have I read the Warcraft novels or comics, but LoTRO and Warhammer (upon release) all had better storylines. I'd wager Age of Conan as well, but I haven't played. EQ2 which I only played briefly had more interesting and realistic questlines when I started my troll defiler.
WoW's lore is a mess- it's all over the place and with some of the mounts, pets, and other "Easter Eggs" (in which I mean the innumerable real life references) they kill any possibility of immersion. But then it seems that was never the goal- WoW is a game that's made for first time MMO-ers, console/arcade enthusiasts, and children. Activision/Blizzard caters to these players very well, but I don't value what they provide and they completely disappoint in the aspects of MMORPGs that I find fulfilling.
Oh you're getting caught up on pets as lore-breaking. I see. So the tongue in cheek things that most players enjoy you don't, because you want a serious-face game. Got it. That's fair critique of the lore, sure.
Still, I do feel it's a bit of a stretch to claim WAR's lore is better than what's presented in WOW. And lore was barely present in AoC in terms of what I acutally experienced. Certainly neither game had me interacting with major characters on a consistent basis (and certainly nowhere near the types of stuff you do in Cataclysm). LOTRO is a little closer, since some of the major characters actually do show up in cutscenes, and I could see where someone might feel that has better lore.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Or someone is looking for a fun experience leveling their character. If playing the game is a "hamster grinding wheel," for any length of time, I'm not going to play it. Games are meant to be fun. If a game isn't fun, it's not worth playing.
But so many players have accepted that part of the game will be boring, and so many designers have stopped trying. Some games, like WoW, try to make this as painless as possible by constantly shortening the process (what is it now, +20% experience from levels 1-80 out of 85? With another +30% possible from heirlooms and guild bonuses?). Other games won't even admit that it's a problem. But not very many have even bothered to make it more fun. It's a lousy system, with top-heavy games having the bulk of their content at the end and leveling - actually progressing and improving your character -being something to suffer through.
I hope more games will come out in the future where I don t get 4-5 levels in a day, doing next to nothing:)
I can totally relate to this one. One thing that I have been doing is going through the f2p circut and various free trials that dont require any cash up front. What I found was a bunch of diferent ideas in each that were interesting. One sugestions is to check out lotro. It is mainly pve with a bunch of content that 2 folks can easiy do. The virtues and traits help space it out a bit. The trophy gf and I enjoy it as a lazy weekend thing.
If your looking for something not so sword and board then perhaps Fallen Earth might be more to your taste. I found the comunity to be a refreshing swich from chat channels that are riddled with banter that wouldd get a person arrested in most rl situations.
My wife and I are sitting here thinking about what game to play, why because every game levels too damn fast now. We miss the FFXI days, or DAOC in it s early days. I had a real connection with my chars in those games and really miss the communities that came with most of those games. We recently tried Aion, only to leave for Cata:( We ve decided to go back to Aion because it takes time and some challenge to progress. This is coming from 2 of the more casual players you ll meet. So to sum it up, I hope more games will come out in the future where I don t get 4-5 levels in a day, doing next to nothing:)
Amen!
DAoC was a gring, but it was something of a fun grind in its leveling. Every 10 (or was it more) levels you would be able to wear a new set of armor, if you were able to find all the pieces. Even that provided some incentive to continue leveling and by the time you just about had the full set, you'd be a couple levels away from advancing to the next set found in another dungeon; there was always something right around the corner.
Then there was the journey, as you put it. I loved my cleric - Amus. That's the only character in an MMO I can say I ever had a connection wtih. Other games may have been fun but I can't recall a single name or class I played. This would probably be due to the same situation you're describing with leveling too fast and not being able to enjoy the journey to the top.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here about the state of WoW's questing post Cata. Recently I was over at a buddies place whom still plays WoW and has since vanilla. I was watching him take his Goblin shaman (formerly Tauren shaman but what won't Blizzard do for more money) through the under water "seahorse capturing" zone Axehilt mentioned very briefly in his homage to WoW's uber questing. Now I will admit I didn't see him capture the sea horse but, ( and I will be sure to ask how exciting it was later) what I did see was more of the same Kill this # of crabs/fishmen/turtles/anything else down there as well as the typical delivery quests or go find what's his face! At one point he did become a fishman and was given three buttons to spam while swimming around slaughtering even more fishmen (Joy!!). Please explain what I missed about this great expansion that has shifted the very foundations of WoW?
PS - The Day Deathwing Came - Lvl 40ish quest was actually fairly entertaining although incredibly easy!
Honestly it surprises me that so many people are angry about leveling quickly. Maybe if you feel that way you should examine why you level. Most people seem to quest these days as a way of earning xp to gain levels to unlock higher level quests. So it seems odd that people are upset about the pacing, if you quest soley to gain level. Some people feel they must do every quest no matter what, regardless of level or xp. Thats fine too, but I enjoy being able to choose which way I progress thrrough the game with a myriad of options. If your one of these players, what does it matter if you go back and do the quest for no xp or reward? Your doing it for the quest. For the op, he says it doesnt give him a since of connection to the game to level quickly. I can respect that. But what I might suggest, especially since we are talking about CATA and WoW in general, is that there are other methods of charater enhancment in the game beyond levling that may fulfill your wish. You can grind reputaion for instance. This can be done through questing or raiding. Since you ran tto max level so quickly there should still be many other quests available for you to do in other zones, and now you getthe added benefit of extra gold as your reward. You could also try raiding to work on obtaining a set of armor which is much ore difficult than leveling. My point is, in WoW, the game just kinda starts when you hit max level. But if your die hard carebear, the xp shouldnt matter. The quest are still there waiting, and many of them have now evolved beyond the kill 10 rat thing.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here about the state of WoW's questing post Cata. Recently I was over at a buddies place whom still plays WoW and has since vanilla. I was watching him take his Goblin shaman (formerly Tauren shaman but what won't Blizzard do for more money) through the under water "seahorse capturing" zone Axehilt mentioned very briefly in his homage to WoW's uber questing. Now I will admit I didn't see him capture the sea horse but, ( and I will be sure to ask how exciting it was later) what I did see was more of the same Kill this # of crabs/fishmen/turtles/anything else down there as well as the typical delivery quests or go find what's his face! At one point he did become a fishman and was given three buttons to spam while swimming around slaughtering even more fishmen (Joy!!). Please explain what I missed about this great expansion that has shifted the very foundations of WoW?
PS - The Day Deathwing Came - Lvl 40ish quest was actually fairly entertaining although incredibly easy!
Well it's easy to criticize WOW quests in isolation, but until you mention a game with superior solo PVE that criticism doesn't really mean much.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Honestly it surprises me that so many people are angry about leveling quickly. Maybe if you feel that way you should examine why you level. Most people seem to quest these days as a way of earning xp to gain levels to unlock higher level quests. So it seems odd that people are upset about the pacing, if you quest soley to gain level. Some people feel they must do every quest no matter what, regardless of level or xp. Thats fine too, but I enjoy being able to choose which way I progress thrrough the game with a myriad of options. If your one of these players, what does it matter if you go back and do the quest for no xp or reward? Your doing it for the quest. For the op, he says it doesnt give him a since of connection to the game to level quickly. I can respect that. But what I might suggest, especially since we are talking about CATA and WoW in general, is that there are other methods of charater enhancment in the game beyond levling that may fulfill your wish. You can grind reputaion for instance. This can be done through questing or raiding. Since you ran tto max level so quickly there should still be many other quests available for you to do in other zones, and now you getthe added benefit of extra gold as your reward. You could also try raiding to work on obtaining a set of armor which is much ore difficult than leveling. My point is, in WoW, the game just kinda starts when you hit max level. But if your die hard carebear, the xp shouldnt matter. The quest are still there waiting, and many of them have now evolved beyond the kill 10 rat thing.
I'm exaggerating a lot but how would you feel if you got 10 levels for doing 5 simple quests in WoW? Would you be happy you are now closer to the end game where the 'real' fun begins? or would you feel sad you have just skipped few hours of content?
I could be wrong on this but I believe if you slow leveling pace down enough, like (again exaggerating a lot) 1 lvl per month, you could experience 'the end game' all the time. Running Scarlet Monstary for a month to gear up for next dungeon (f.ex Uldaman) and doing quests and grinding repu to get good gear for it.. you'd have content for years to play, your character would improve week after week and you wouldn't have to grind same instances over and over again.
Honestly it surprises me that so many people are angry about leveling quickly. Maybe if you feel that way you should examine why you level. Most people seem to quest these days as a way of earning xp to gain levels to unlock higher level quests. So it seems odd that people are upset about the pacing, if you quest soley to gain level. Some people feel they must do every quest no matter what, regardless of level or xp. Thats fine too, but I enjoy being able to choose which way I progress thrrough the game with a myriad of options. If your one of these players, what does it matter if you go back and do the quest for no xp or reward? Your doing it for the quest.
For the op, he says it doesnt give him a since of connection to the game to level quickly. I can respect that. But what I might suggest, especially since we are talking about CATA and WoW in general, is that there are other methods of charater enhancment in the game beyond levling that may fulfill your wish. You can grind reputaion for instance. This can be done through questing or raiding. Since you ran to max level so quickly there should still be many other quests available for you to do in other zones, and now you getthe added benefit of extra gold as your reward. You could also try raiding to work on obtaining a set of armor which is much ore difficult than leveling. My point is, in WoW, the game just kinda starts when you hit max level. But if your die hard carebear, the xp shouldnt matter. The quest are still there waiting, and many of them have now evolved beyond the kill 10 rat thing.
Good suggestions, but it might just be that WoW isn't the game for him. WoW includes many brief types of play for many types of players- but no matter what type of gameplay it is if one doesn't enjoy it then to that player it is a grind. The OP stated he is a casual player, but that's open to interpretation because there are so many different views on what being a casual player even is. If he isn't interested in grinding heroics or raids, battlegrounds or arena then endgame WoW has very little to offer as far as MMO gameplay.
Anyway, not coming in to just WoW bash because that accomplishes nothing but I will say that regarding two of your suggestions- I've seen absolutely no benefit to grinding reps in WoW aside from maybe some starter gear at cap and crafting recipes. It's a horribly shallow use of reputations. Hodir rep was a step in the right direction but they half-assed it then nerfed it to hell. IMO rep should be handled more like Velious' dwarf/giant/dragon mechanic. As far as attempting to collect older tier sets- if WoW had a set up like appearance tabs in LoTRO then I could see it being worth it. As it is, those things just take up bankspace.
So how much of a challenge is leveling in WoW when there are 4 of you grouped up?.. Does the 4 person actually get a chance to HIT the mob before it's dead? Then these questlines I keep hearing about and phasing.. What if ya'll don't always play together at the same time.. Are there problems in grouping? Really.. on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being horrible) how group friendly and "CHALLENGING" is WoW in leveling 1-80?..
Comments
I don't want be rude at all but consider other ways of entertaiment like going to opera or theatre. It's great way to relax!
I play these games for the entertainment value, not for the typical aribitrary mechanisms that many MMOs use to slow down progress. I only care about levels because they are required to access new content, so the less restrictive it is, the more fun I will have.
Edit: Seems to me, you are looking for a good Asian grinder and there are plenty of them out there.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Sadly I have played since dungeon finder. I played all the way up until the same week Blizz was to implement the account name to forum Real ID fiasco that alienated a large portion of their playerbase because Activision/Blizzard wanted to make a cash grab at a Steam/Facebook style abomination. Three quarters of the guild quit the game then and there. The sheer attitude that was passed off despite numerous forum and popular website outcries made SOE look like a bunch of candystripers.
To get back to your post, the dungeonfinder made grouping easier and I would say that it would have been a perfect addition to the game if it hadn't been for cross-server queues. The entire game started going downhill for me once WoW initiated battlegroups. The server community became more distant, more anonymous, and more rude and inconsiderate. Just more proof that the less a player needs a certain community the worse those players act and the worse off that community becomes.
As far as the lore goes, they have been rewriting the lore they stole from Warhammer ad nauseum since TBC- and please don't get me started on anything thing Knaak started writing their books. If I was in my teens and grew up on reality tv then perhaps my standards would be low enough to find WoW's revisionist lore captivating.
So, to go back to the first line, WoW is only the most elementary of grouping in a game as well as the shallowest. I think League of Legends or even Team Fortress 2 has more meaningul groups. But that's just my opinion, and I've realized over several posts that you and I do not see eye-to-eye on what constitutes a proper MMORPG. From what I've seen, you value a game that is simply a game, with constant floods of shinies and always focusing you on the activities the devs want you to do. Constant diversions so that you never realize how shallow it really is.
I, on the other hand, prefer a game that is difficult on every level- not because of poor design but because that is the population that is desired (in a nutshell, I want Myst while you seem to want something more like Resident Evil)- I seek a game where rewards are few, far between, and require quite a bit of effort to achieve- especially if that brings me together with likeminded players regardless of whether they are in my guild/clan/whatever. I understand not all players want this, but as I've said over and over not all games are for all people, and when you try to please them all you only get a shallow, half-assed experience.
You have as much right to a game you like as I do, and the reason many companies make games for the instant gratification crowd rather than the old schoolers has nothing to do with what is popular- it's because they are faster, easier, and cheaper to develop for and that's not a good thing, it's game producers insulting you.
I'm suggesting nothing of the sort, and nothing in my post even hints at that. I don't know where you got that idea. Probably from the same place you get the idea that 40% of WoW's quests are "unique types of things."
I'm looking at Wowhead right now. Starting at the beginning of their list of quests (Abyssal Depths, since they go in alphabetical order), I see the following quests: Gather 6 things, gather 1 thing, kill 30 things, kill 1 thing and use a thing on it, kill 1 thing, click on 5 things, talk to a guy, gather 12 things, kill 7 things, kill 8 things, kill 8 things, take a thing to a guy, fight in a battle (vague, but this one may actually be something out of the ordinary!), kill 8 things, take a thing to a guy, gather 12 things, kill 8 things, kill an unspecified number of things until something happens... So we're looking at maybe one out of every 10 or 20 quests being non-standard. That's a long way from 40%.
For the most part, I found the non-standard quests only slightly less boring than the typical stuff. The most common type is where usinge some sort artillery to kill a large number of mobs. They all play basically the same, so they're hardly "unique activities." Even worse, some are simply impossible to fail. There's zero challenge - you don't even have to try. The Katamari ripoff quest was probably the most tedious of these special quests: roll over a thousand gnomes that endlessly respawn and don't fight back. I failed it once only because I got up to go to the bathroom and let my ball roll into the ocean. If I'd pointed it onto a better path, I probably would have beaten it without having to be at my keyboard.
If you're into that sort of thing, more power to you. Play WoW and enjoy it - I won't fault you for it. But i found it to be more of the same old crap. The non-standard quests are too weak and too few to be of any real use in breaking up the monotony. I'd rather see a game with a different style of questing or leveling.
I partially agree with the xserver comment, mostly from the standpoint of the missed opportunity for letting players actually socialize with those xserver groupmates. There've been plenty of players I would've friended and ran stuff with again if that was possible.
As for lore, I'm only comparing it with the market (what else is there to compare with?) Perhaps you'd like to name games apart from EQ where lore is handled better than in WOW? Be sure to mention games where you interact with characters as closely as you get to in WOW. Honestly apart from maybe GW1 I don't see any game fitting that bill. If you're criticizing MMORPGs in general of having poor stories, sure maybe there's some truth to that, but I'm speaking more in comparison to the rest of the MMORPG market.
As for my tastes in MMORPGs, it's nonsense to say the devs decide my activities. They can't force me to subscribe. If I'm playing a game, it's because the activities are fun. It's because I want those activities.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Let me preface this by saying I haven't read all of Tolkien's books, nor have I read the Warcraft novels or comics, but LoTRO and Warhammer (upon release) all had better storylines. I'd wager Age of Conan as well, but I haven't played. EQ2 which I only played briefly had more interesting and realistic questlines when I started my troll defiler.
WoW's lore is a mess- it's all over the place and with some of the mounts, pets, and other "Easter Eggs" (in which I mean the innumerable real life references) they kill any possibility of immersion. But then it seems that was never the goal- WoW is a game that's made for first time MMO-ers, console/arcade enthusiasts, and children. Activision/Blizzard caters to these players very well, but I don't value what they provide and they completely disappoint in the aspects of MMORPGs that I find fulfilling.
@ the OP: if you want to spend days and weeks just grinding away - killing 10's of thousands of Mobs - for hours upon hours each day only gain a single level then you need to look into the F2P games.
Teh.
I too prefer slower leveling.
Although definitely not by any grind. In fact, I would prefer to not get ANY xp from killing mobs. Or at least only very little. Rather by doing long entertaining questlines.
My personal "ideal MMO" wouldnt have any xp at all. You would have a number of linked worlds. You cant enter more powerful worlds before you havent reached a certain amount of power in the current world.
I also agree leveling has become too fast in MMO-s. In Cataclysm I leveled an alt as fast as in Diablo 2. I really had trouble getting all the quests done in a zone before I outleveled it. Gaining two levels per instance meant I had to skip the zone I was previously in every time I ran one.
It seemed so rushed and unfinished somehow. No time to rest and smell the roses because doing that you get 10000 exp per rose and all your quests become gray, hehe.
you have to pay to turn off xp gain in WoW, but you can turn off xps in EQ2 for free. Don't know why WoW hasn't gone the EQ2 route.
Most WoW players want to experience the content once or twice, and this time around in Cataclysm the content is really, really good, but after that, they just want to get to max level where the group content is.
I'm not sure what people mean by 'wow is a solo game' because at max level where everyone is or wants to be, you can't solo any of the content, heroics or raids.
Lot's of misinformation about wow on this forum.
Have you tried playing DDO ? ( Dungeon and Dragons) It's free to play and a good one at that. It's a slow leveling game. You have only 20 levels but each level consists of 4 "ranks" so essentially it's 80 levels. Save for a few bonus xp spots here and there within a quest, you don't get any xp till you complete a quest.
It's free to play, pay to play without grind...you can play till endgame for free, but there is a serious grind involved. Purchase a few adventure packs here and there helps with that grind a lot....or just pay a normal sub and get everything.
I see someone likes the hamster grinding wheel...
No...I pay the sub.
I can afford the 50 cents a day it costs me to play and I get dozens of quests ( adventures ) to choose from at any given point. I've never had to repeat a quest and i've never ran out of new ones to do. Since all of the quests are instanced, they are all unique and able to provide varied content that can't be done in a persistant world.
There are plenty of open explore zones as well..a couple dozen of them in fact, but they are instanced for each party too. No..I don't like the grind and thankfully, DDO doesn't give me one.
If you are a loot junkie...then I guess you have to grind for the uber stuff, but that's how all mmo's are. Play for the adventure and you avoid the grind.
Give www.dark-wind.com a shot. Character development is slow, and you can become permanently crippled or dead.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
I agree with the - then make leveling fun - camp.
I restarted Fallen Earth recently. I had a level 35 character from launch, but I started over since a lot had changed. I don't even know what level I am now. Must be pretty low since I haven't travelled very far. But the whole time it has been a blast.
I could have leveled a lot faster, but I'm pausing a lot to read the text and poke around off the beaten path. Also getting all the AP quests as I go this time, so I'm ending up doing a lot of quests that are quite easy with lower relative rewards. AND twinking myself a bit with my respecced crafting alt. That's been my main game for a few weeks and I've had a lot of vacation to burn, so its been dozens of hours. But there is a big variety of things on my agenda beyond leveling.
On the other extreme, I also leveled a character from 1 to 20 in Guild Wars over the weekend because it runs on my laptop and the girlfriend wanted me to watch TV with her. That took about 5 hours. True: GW is about journey to far off places and story line and learning powers rather than leveling, but it did loose some motivation when I got max level, armor, and weps.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Oh you're getting caught up on pets as lore-breaking. I see. So the tongue in cheek things that most players enjoy you don't, because you want a serious-face game. Got it. That's fair critique of the lore, sure.
Still, I do feel it's a bit of a stretch to claim WAR's lore is better than what's presented in WOW. And lore was barely present in AoC in terms of what I acutally experienced. Certainly neither game had me interacting with major characters on a consistent basis (and certainly nowhere near the types of stuff you do in Cataclysm). LOTRO is a little closer, since some of the major characters actually do show up in cutscenes, and I could see where someone might feel that has better lore.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Or someone is looking for a fun experience leveling their character. If playing the game is a "hamster grinding wheel," for any length of time, I'm not going to play it. Games are meant to be fun. If a game isn't fun, it's not worth playing.
But so many players have accepted that part of the game will be boring, and so many designers have stopped trying. Some games, like WoW, try to make this as painless as possible by constantly shortening the process (what is it now, +20% experience from levels 1-80 out of 85? With another +30% possible from heirlooms and guild bonuses?). Other games won't even admit that it's a problem. But not very many have even bothered to make it more fun. It's a lousy system, with top-heavy games having the bulk of their content at the end and leveling - actually progressing and improving your character -being something to suffer through.
I can totally relate to this one. One thing that I have been doing is going through the f2p circut and various free trials that dont require any cash up front. What I found was a bunch of diferent ideas in each that were interesting. One sugestions is to check out lotro. It is mainly pve with a bunch of content that 2 folks can easiy do. The virtues and traits help space it out a bit. The trophy gf and I enjoy it as a lazy weekend thing.
If your looking for something not so sword and board then perhaps Fallen Earth might be more to your taste. I found the comunity to be a refreshing swich from chat channels that are riddled with banter that wouldd get a person arrested in most rl situations.
Amen!
DAoC was a gring, but it was something of a fun grind in its leveling. Every 10 (or was it more) levels you would be able to wear a new set of armor, if you were able to find all the pieces. Even that provided some incentive to continue leveling and by the time you just about had the full set, you'd be a couple levels away from advancing to the next set found in another dungeon; there was always something right around the corner.
Then there was the journey, as you put it. I loved my cleric - Amus. That's the only character in an MMO I can say I ever had a connection wtih. Other games may have been fun but I can't recall a single name or class I played. This would probably be due to the same situation you're describing with leveling too fast and not being able to enjoy the journey to the top.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here about the state of WoW's questing post Cata. Recently I was over at a buddies place whom still plays WoW and has since vanilla. I was watching him take his Goblin shaman (formerly Tauren shaman but what won't Blizzard do for more money) through the under water "seahorse capturing" zone Axehilt mentioned very briefly in his homage to WoW's uber questing. Now I will admit I didn't see him capture the sea horse but, ( and I will be sure to ask how exciting it was later) what I did see was more of the same Kill this # of crabs/fishmen/turtles/anything else down there as well as the typical delivery quests or go find what's his face! At one point he did become a fishman and was given three buttons to spam while swimming around slaughtering even more fishmen (Joy!!). Please explain what I missed about this great expansion that has shifted the very foundations of WoW?
PS - The Day Deathwing Came - Lvl 40ish quest was actually fairly entertaining although incredibly easy!
Honestly it surprises me that so many people are angry about leveling quickly. Maybe if you feel that way you should examine why you level. Most people seem to quest these days as a way of earning xp to gain levels to unlock higher level quests. So it seems odd that people are upset about the pacing, if you quest soley to gain level. Some people feel they must do every quest no matter what, regardless of level or xp. Thats fine too, but I enjoy being able to choose which way I progress thrrough the game with a myriad of options. If your one of these players, what does it matter if you go back and do the quest for no xp or reward? Your doing it for the quest. For the op, he says it doesnt give him a since of connection to the game to level quickly. I can respect that. But what I might suggest, especially since we are talking about CATA and WoW in general, is that there are other methods of charater enhancment in the game beyond levling that may fulfill your wish. You can grind reputaion for instance. This can be done through questing or raiding. Since you ran tto max level so quickly there should still be many other quests available for you to do in other zones, and now you getthe added benefit of extra gold as your reward. You could also try raiding to work on obtaining a set of armor which is much ore difficult than leveling. My point is, in WoW, the game just kinda starts when you hit max level. But if your die hard carebear, the xp shouldnt matter. The quest are still there waiting, and many of them have now evolved beyond the kill 10 rat thing.
Well it's easy to criticize WOW quests in isolation, but until you mention a game with superior solo PVE that criticism doesn't really mean much.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm exaggerating a lot but how would you feel if you got 10 levels for doing 5 simple quests in WoW? Would you be happy you are now closer to the end game where the 'real' fun begins? or would you feel sad you have just skipped few hours of content?
I could be wrong on this but I believe if you slow leveling pace down enough, like (again exaggerating a lot) 1 lvl per month, you could experience 'the end game' all the time. Running Scarlet Monstary for a month to gear up for next dungeon (f.ex Uldaman) and doing quests and grinding repu to get good gear for it.. you'd have content for years to play, your character would improve week after week and you wouldn't have to grind same instances over and over again.
Good suggestions, but it might just be that WoW isn't the game for him. WoW includes many brief types of play for many types of players- but no matter what type of gameplay it is if one doesn't enjoy it then to that player it is a grind. The OP stated he is a casual player, but that's open to interpretation because there are so many different views on what being a casual player even is. If he isn't interested in grinding heroics or raids, battlegrounds or arena then endgame WoW has very little to offer as far as MMO gameplay.
Anyway, not coming in to just WoW bash because that accomplishes nothing but I will say that regarding two of your suggestions- I've seen absolutely no benefit to grinding reps in WoW aside from maybe some starter gear at cap and crafting recipes. It's a horribly shallow use of reputations. Hodir rep was a step in the right direction but they half-assed it then nerfed it to hell. IMO rep should be handled more like Velious' dwarf/giant/dragon mechanic. As far as attempting to collect older tier sets- if WoW had a set up like appearance tabs in LoTRO then I could see it being worth it. As it is, those things just take up bankspace.
So how much of a challenge is leveling in WoW when there are 4 of you grouped up?.. Does the 4 person actually get a chance to HIT the mob before it's dead? Then these questlines I keep hearing about and phasing.. What if ya'll don't always play together at the same time.. Are there problems in grouping? Really.. on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being horrible) how group friendly and "CHALLENGING" is WoW in leveling 1-80?..