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Feelin like I really missed out on WoW ;/

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  • AbdullaDooAbdullaDoo Member Posts: 60

    The WoW that a number of us experienced also benefited significantly from the fact that in late vanilla through the first year or so of TBC there was (1) a significant stream of new players that assured that there were people around to do content with over the course of play and (2) WoW was the first MMO experience for a great many of these players such that one wasn't walking into a situation where he or she felt like the only person who didn't know anybody and had to fight an uphill battle to get help or find a place where one fit in.   

     

    Might as well throw in (3) during that time many players were experiencing raids and competitive PVP for the first time together.  There is something to be said for learning together and feeling a mutual sense of accomplishment rather than constantly feeling one has to prove onself to everybody around him.

     

    Those conditions can never really be duplicated, so even if you picked it up today you can never really recapture the feeling of what WoW was like during the period so many fell in love with it.

     

     

  • MMORPDEATHMMORPDEATH Member Posts: 414

    Wow was the most polished of the new breed of MMOs: Guild Wars, WOW, EQ2, SWG. It wasnt groundbreaking at all in and of itself, you could find elements of it in prior MMOs and MMOs of its own generation.

    Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice.

  • DeathofsageDeathofsage Member UncommonPosts: 1,102

    Originally posted by MMORPDEATH

    Wow was the most polished of the new breed of MMOs: Guild Wars, WOW, EQ2, SWG. It wasnt groundbreaking at all in and of itself, you could find elements of it in prior MMOs and MMOs of its own generation.

    Of course, just introducing high quality, big budget polish, and a real advertising budget... well that's innovation.

    Even years later, yeah I see ads for other mmo's all over the internet, but WoW's the only one I see on TV besides commercials for games launching, and not even all of those. I know that Chuck Norris doesn't like to call it hunting, but it's been awhile since I've seen a RIFT ad.

    What others have said is true. Your first mmo is just... it's just special. I played WoW for 2 years, and came out of it with one good friend but have no great memorable moments from that game, but I can tell you 2 dozen great memories from my first mmo, FFXI.

    Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
    12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by Man1ac
    I'm mainly a PvE dude when it comes to MMOs. I was only 15 when WoW came out, I was a year too young for a bank to issue me a credit card, and my mum didn't trust the internet to let me use hers, plus at that age a £9 p/m sub was quite hefty to my pocket money lol. So I resorted to playing GW. I had some really good times in GW, I had the odd few months where I got sick of the game but then started playing again after a month or 2.
    I played the game for about 3 years, had my own moments of fun with farming, chest running, happy times f-ing up the odd mission with my Guild. I tried WoW in 2008, but I'm the type of guy who can't really get into an MMO a couple of years after release, I dunno why, I just feel behind everyone else.
    I was just thinking, WoW is regarded as a groundbreaking MMO, so popular, very well polished, a few very well reviewed expansions and my friends who have played WoW said they've had some awesome times playing the game. I'm currently wating on GW2 which looks pretty damn good in the previews, but just recently I've just had this feeling that if only I got to play WoW since release I would've still been playing the game to date and had even more fun than GW due to the sheer size of Raids and content, I mean they can be upto 40 people right? Wow.
     

    Well, I sympathize, sorta.

    WoW is more or less unique among MMOs in that it resets after each expansion. Most MMO's that I have played - an expansion just builds on top of the rest of the game. WoW though, basically resets the gear level (by making all the gear in the next expansion vastly more powerful), the game curve (by making the mobs more powerful, and the gear more powerful for stuff from the new expansion), and a slight level bump to make sure the old content is not desirable in pretty much every way.

    So, if you really feel like you missed out, just pick it up when MoP comes out - sure, you'll need to level up (which you could do now if you really wanted to), but once that expansion hits, ~everyone~ will hit the ground more or less reset on an equal playing field once again past L85.

    All of that being said - what you describe with GW - happens no matter what MMO/Game you play. You play it long enough you get tired for a bit, take breaks, come back, etc. For me, it mostly boils down to where my friends are playing at the time.

    WoW absolutely did not start out with everything that the game offers now. When it first came out in 2004 - it was basically an EQ1 clone with cartoony graphics, it had no raids, no sanctioned PVP, a handful of player instances, and a whole lot of class imbalances. A lot of people think that WoW was always this huge polished gem of a game - it has evolved and grown, Blizzard has done very well in re-investing in their product and keeping it alive (and more or less growing). MoP I am sure will shake things up again as they continue to try to refine (or oversimplify, depending on your point of view) their mechanics, add even more features to the game (most of which are "borrowed" from other games), and try to keep their players interested in staying in Azeroth, rather than trying out other games.

  • DeathofsageDeathofsage Member UncommonPosts: 1,102

    Also, it's really really awesome that people have had a nice thread about WoW.

    I've always said it's not a bad game, it's just that when you're done with it, there's practically nowhere else to go where you can expect all the benefits of big budget, but feel like you're in a different game.

    I had moderate hope for TOR (I'm just not a huge SW fan, sue me), high-high-in-the-sky hopes for XIV at launch, high hopes for RIFT, and I have high hopes for TERA, the changed to XIV, and TSW.

    Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
    12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.

  • DreadbladeDreadblade Member Posts: 384

    Funny thing is, it is still better then 90% of the crap that has come after it.

    image

  • DeathofsageDeathofsage Member UncommonPosts: 1,102

    Originally posted by Ridelynn

     

    Well, I sympathize, sorta.

    WoW is more or less unique among MMOs in that it resets after each expansion. Most MMO's that I have played - an expansion just builds on top of the rest of the game. WoW though, basically resets the gear level (by making all the gear in the next expansion vastly more powerful), the game curve (by making the mobs more powerful, and the gear more powerful for stuff from the new expansion), and a slight level bump to make sure the old content is not desirable in pretty much every way.

    To be fair, it's not standard practice for WoW that the game curve is made harder, that's just something they did for Cataclysm. In actuality, it's just that they reset players making them weak again. My Disc priest had insane crit and good haste (I favored crit / I really wish I could remember numbers, but I can't) leaving Wrath, and went into cata around 10% on each. That felt like the best time to quit for me because I just couldn't do the climb again knowing that it was all going to be reset.

    Fresh 90 content may be as easy as T7 (recycled Naxx) or as "hard"/harder than T11. Noone should go into MoP expecting anything other than their stats will go to crap again, and if anything, I can kind of see it regressing back to easier gameplay for two reasons


    • The combined attraction of mmo's that came out, and cataclysm's "difficulty" cost them a decent chunk of players.

    • The Cataclysm healing model, so I'm told from friends still playing, didn't work because tank damage quickly went back to life-or-death situations. I'm told that T11 was triagey, but content since then has felt more like spam heal.

    Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
    12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.

  • dannydeucedannydeuce Member Posts: 310

    The forumettes will always bash the game, but truth be told I simply loved Vanilla WoW.  I quit the summer after it was released due to my rl being to much...distorted.  It was pretty amazing from my jaded memory and really enjoyed the 6-8 months or whatever I played.  I never went back because I really didn't feel the need to, but that game world back then was truely a sight to be seen at the time for my eyes.  

    I'm with you though, I can never really enjoy a game as much as I can if I play from the start.  I share the feeling of being behind and I don't like it.  I don't really enjoy exploring a world explored.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by tixylix

    I don't blame WoW for how the genre has gone, the leap between games like EQ and WoW was like the leap from Quake to Half-Life. It's all the MMOs that are trying to be WoW that piss me off, you know SOE envy Blizzard and they've ruined most of their MMOs trying to make them into WoW.

    +1

    Best statement on this thread.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by Deathofsage

    Originally posted by Ridelynn

     
    Well, I sympathize, sorta.
    WoW is more or less unique among MMOs in that it resets after each expansion. Most MMO's that I have played - an expansion just builds on top of the rest of the game. WoW though, basically resets the gear level (by making all the gear in the next expansion vastly more powerful), the game curve (by making the mobs more powerful, and the gear more powerful for stuff from the new expansion), and a slight level bump to make sure the old content is not desirable in pretty much every way.


    To be fair, it's not standard practice for WoW that the game curve is made harder, that's just something they did for Cataclysm. In actuality, it's just that they reset players making them weak again. My Disc priest had insane crit and good haste (I favored crit / I really wish I could remember numbers, but I can't) leaving Wrath, and went into cata around 10% on each. That felt like the best time to quit for me because I just couldn't do the climb again knowing that it was all going to be reset.
    Fresh 90 content may be as easy as T7 (recycled Naxx) or as "hard"/harder than T11. Noone should go into MoP expecting anything other than their stats will go to crap again, and if anything, I can kind of see it regressing back to easier gameplay for two reasons

    No, it's completely fair.

    Think about the jump from Vanilla to TBC
    From TBC to WotLK

    Even if you had endgame gear in the previous expansion, it got replaced with generic greens in a matter of 1-2 levels. That is what I mean by the curve getting ramped up - the mobs hit harder and had more life, but the gear had more stats to compensate - the net sum was zero, but it forced everyone to pretty well start on the same plateau again with the release of each expansion, regardless of what gear they had coming in. That pretty well made the previous expansions totally obsolete.

    As far as difficulty - that's a different matter, I intentionally stayed clear of the difficulty factor because that's pretty subjective. I'd say that it's been getting "easier" as each expansion comes out - more convenience features are added. Sure, some of the encounters are more complicated, but there are more mods and tools to deal with them.

  • InSpectreInSpectre Member UncommonPosts: 42

    Originally posted by Man1ac

    I'm mainly a PvE dude when it comes to MMOs. I was only 15 when WoW came out, I was a year too young for a bank to issue me a credit card, and my mum didn't trust the internet to let me use hers, plus at that age a £9 p/m sub was quite hefty to my pocket money lol. So I resorted to playing GW. I had some really good times in GW, I had the odd few months where I got sick of the game but then started playing again after a month or 2.

    I played the game for about 3 years, had my own moments of fun with farming, chest running, happy times f-ing up the odd mission with my Guild. I tried WoW in 2008, but I'm the type of guy who can't really get into an MMO a couple of years after release, I dunno why, I just feel behind everyone else.

    I was just thinking, WoW is regarded as a groundbreaking MMO, so popular, very well polished, a few very well reviewed expansions and my friends who have played WoW said they've had some awesome times playing the game. I'm currently wating on GW2 which looks pretty damn good in the previews, but just recently I've just had this feeling that if only I got to play WoW since release I would've still been playing the game to date and had even more fun than GW due to the sheer size of Raids and content, I mean they can be upto 40 people right? Wow.

     

    The 40 man raids back in the day we're pretty awesome. I was lucky joining with a server first guild back at launch and there was nothing else like it at the time.

    It took me years to get a friend of mine to come around and play Warcraft as he kept playing Guild Wars. He now has 10 max level characters on one server.

     

  • KholeKhole Member CommonPosts: 136

    Originally posted by Ridelynn

     




    Originally posted by Deathofsage





    Originally posted by Ridelynn






     




    Well, I sympathize, sorta.

    WoW is more or less unique among MMOs in that it resets after each expansion. Most MMO's that I have played - an expansion just builds on top of the rest of the game. WoW though, basically resets the gear level (by making all the gear in the next expansion vastly more powerful), the game curve (by making the mobs more powerful, and the gear more powerful for stuff from the new expansion), and a slight level bump to make sure the old content is not desirable in pretty much every way.






    To be fair, it's not standard practice for WoW that the game curve is made harder, that's just something they did for Cataclysm. In actuality, it's just that they reset players making them weak again. My Disc priest had insane crit and good haste (I favored crit / I really wish I could remember numbers, but I can't) leaving Wrath, and went into cata around 10% on each. That felt like the best time to quit for me because I just couldn't do the climb again knowing that it was all going to be reset.

    Fresh 90 content may be as easy as T7 (recycled Naxx) or as "hard"/harder than T11. Noone should go into MoP expecting anything other than their stats will go to crap again, and if anything, I can kind of see it regressing back to easier gameplay for two reasons




     

    No, it's completely fair.

    Think about the jump from Vanilla to TBC

    From TBC to WotLK

    Even if you had endgame gear in the previous expansion, it got replaced with generic greens in a matter of 1-2 levels. That is what I mean by the curve getting ramped up - the mobs hit harder and had more life, but the gear had more stats to compensate - the net sum was zero, but it forced everyone to pretty well start on the same plateau again with the release of each expansion, regardless of what gear they had coming in. That pretty well made the previous expansions totally obsolete.

    As far as difficulty - that's a different matter, I intentionally stayed clear of the difficulty factor because that's pretty subjective. I'd say that it's been getting "easier" as each expansion comes out - more convenience features are added. Sure, some of the encounters are more complicated, but there are more mods and tools to deal with them.

    Not true. People were wearing t3 up into Serpent shrine cavern. 

  • lootdudelootdude Member UncommonPosts: 14

    i'll be back when pandaria is released, WoW is still the best mmo in my heart.

    Occupy VoT, Occupy ORG, GO GO GO

  • ShaunJ1380ShaunJ1380 Member Posts: 77

    Originally posted by lootdude

    i'll be back when pandaria is released, WoW is still the best mmo in my heart.

    This is how I feel. I try game after game, just trying to recapture the love for WoW, and when the game fails to do that, I think to myself, "I should just play WoW." and then I do.

    I have made peace with the fact that I might be playing WoW for years to come.

    To the OP. You didn't miss anything. You played a game and loved it. That's the experience we all are looking for. I'm glad you found it in GW.

     

     

  • Mors.MagneMors.Magne Member UncommonPosts: 1,549

    I remember playing WoW soon after it was released.

    It was amazing because most people hadn't seen anything like it - including me.

    I remember going to the pub at Goldshire - lots of people were sitting round those tables, role-playing darkelves.

    It was fascinating.

  • Mors.MagneMors.Magne Member UncommonPosts: 1,549

    Originally posted by ShaunJ1380

    Originally posted by lootdude

    i'll be back when pandaria is released, WoW is still the best mmo in my heart.

    This is how I feel. I try game after game, just trying to recapture the love for WoW, and when the game fails to do that, I think to myself, "I should just play WoW." and then I do.

    I have made peace with the fact that I might be playing WoW for years to come.

    To the OP. You didn't miss anything. You played a game and loved it. That's the experience we all are looking for. I'm glad you found it in GW.

     

     

     Me too. I like the small things in WoW, like the humor and collecting stuff.

  • ArkiniaArkinia Member Posts: 251

    Originally posted by fivoroth

    Originally posted by grimal

    WoW was really only groundbreaking in the amount of players it attracted.  Everything it did was borrowed from titles before it.  It was the first polished MMO to hit the scene and has become a sort of social phenomenom that I think is more akin to the booming social products of the web (Facebook, MySpace, etc) than a real MMO phenomenom (I say this because WoW didn't really bring anything new to the genre).

    If you are/were too young to experience WoW from the beginning, I would venture to say that what you REALLY missed out on was the MMOs before that (UO, EQ, etc) and how they really came out of nowhere and created this industry you see today.  Those titles, and ones like it are really the most significant...

    Edit: not meant as a Troll post, simply voicing an opinion.  I tried WoW a few months after it was released only because my MMO friends at the time pretty much universally agreed at the time that it was mediocre, at best.  When I tried it, I did appreciate the community size and the level of polish it brought.

    Before WoW all MMOs made you grind a lot. There were very few quests and in order to level up you had to camp monsters. It were indeed exciting times.

    So before WOW => no quests. After WoW => every MMO has quests. How's that for a genre changing thing? WoW also improved on a lot of features from other games. You don't need to reinvent the wheel to bring something to the genre.

     

    it's funny you say that, I don't recall ever doing a quest in Everquest, ever!

  • HomituHomitu Member UncommonPosts: 2,030

    Originally posted by Man1ac

    I'm mainly a PvE dude when it comes to MMOs. I was only 15 when WoW came out, I was a year too young for a bank to issue me a credit card, and my mum didn't trust the internet to let me use hers, plus at that age a £9 p/m sub was quite hefty to my pocket money lol. So I resorted to playing GW. I had some really good times in GW, I had the odd few months where I got sick of the game but then started playing again after a month or 2.

    I played the game for about 3 years, had my own moments of fun with farming, chest running, happy times f-ing up the odd mission with my Guild. I tried WoW in 2008, but I'm the type of guy who can't really get into an MMO a couple of years after release, I dunno why, I just feel behind everyone else.

    I was just thinking, WoW is regarded as a groundbreaking MMO, so popular, very well polished, a few very well reviewed expansions and my friends who have played WoW said they've had some awesome times playing the game. I'm currently wating on GW2 which looks pretty damn good in the previews, but just recently I've just had this feeling that if only I got to play WoW since release I would've still been playing the game to date and had even more fun than GW due to the sheer size of Raids and content, I mean they can be upto 40 people right? Wow.

     

    I wouldn't be so sure that you'd be more encouraged to continue playing today just because you had started to play earlier and that would somehow give you deeper appreciation for the game in its current state.  The opposite logic could ring just as true: if you had started playing earlier, you may have gotten burnt out sooner and wouldn't have played as deep into WoW's future as you had.  More than anything, I think your desire to play now is a function of your present enjoyment in the game.  Nothing else.

    Also, what portion of WoW's current players also played during vanilla?  Last I played (around the first two months of Cata), they generally seemed few and far between.  While many veterans undoubtedly do still play, many do not.  Even of those vetarans, I'd venture to say that a great majority if not all of them have taken extensive "breaks" from the game at one point or another, usually in the range of several months.

    I'm sure you hear great things about the old glory days, but that is almost certainly nostalgia talking.  Everyone speaks that way about everything they've ever done in their lives, both real and virtual.  Nolstalgia causes people to gaze upon the mundane with an air of fondness.  I do it too.  It's the reason I can still go back and play Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 6 and actually have fun.  In the absence of nostalgia, I'm certain the games would not live up to any of my modern day RPG standards, graphical limitations aside.  But because of nostalgia, I'm filled with fond, content reminiscence throughout the experience and actually enjoy it.

    In the same way, I'm sure some of your friends would get a thrill out of logging onto a classic WoW server to go on a bloodthirstly furbolg murder spree to grind Timbermaw rep, or to kite bosses back to Vael's room, or to wipe on Princess Huhuran at 1%; but not because any of that is fun in its own right, rather because it brings back fond, nostalgia-tinted memories.  

    Also, 40 man raids comprised of 20 decent players, 15 who clearly had no idea what they were doing, and 5 who were permanantly AFK would probably drive modern raid leaders insane.  The thing is, raids were able to succeed like that back then.  I can honestly admit to being a noob at the time.  I was probably terrible.  I spammed one button--rank 4 Healing Touch--almost exclusively.  I was a clicker.  And yet I was part of a guild that cleared the hardest content, had C'thun down before Naxx came out.  I'm positive my 2004 self would not have been able to duo heal 10 man hardmodes throughout WotlK.  

    On that note, I actually suspect GW2's chaotic large scale DEs will feel a lot like old school WoW raids.  It will be chaos.  It will be epicness on a grand scale.  Many players will probably be noobs but they will still succeed.  It will be a great game for players to start out in :)  I just hope there is ample challenging content for MMO veterans.  

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