Should I play World of Warcraft?

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Hello. I just got an email offer for another 10 free days of playing World of Warcraft. I played for 10 days a year or 2 back, and while I definitely had fun, I felt at the time a little burned out on gaming and never went back to it after the initial 10 days. I'm feeling a bit reinvigorated and in the mood for a new RPG. Should I play Warcraft?

Just looking for advice from fellow RPG players. I'm big into lore, the world, NPC dialog, and all that nerdy stuff. I'm a big fan of Bethesda RPGs and love that sort of fantasy world. I don't remember much of the lore from WoW, but is it any good? Can you get fully immersed in the game world?

The beginning of the game seemed a bit "grind-y" to me. Do the quests get more interesting as you level up? Are there interesting sights to see, places (and reasons) to explore? Again, I love Elder Scrolls and that sort of thing, but I am first and foremost a huge fan of RPG gaming in general.

I may just wait for Elder Scrolls online, not sure.

Any advice/opinions/suggestions/whatever , feel free. Thanks.
 
No.

First of all, WoW isn't an RPG, it's a MMORPG. I know that's just stating the obvious, but you keep mentioning how you're in the mood for an RPG.

A lot of people obviously like WoW. After all, it's the biggest MMORPG of them all, right? I had a free 30 day trial a few years back, and I could only shake my head and wonder what people saw in that game. Unless you just really like grinding, or are there for the social aspect of it, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
 
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I don't really like grinding. I like large open-worlds with lots of lore, crafting, quests, and that sort of thing. Not crazy about the social aspect either, but eh, it might be fun. The grinding though is gonna be tough to deal with. I'm completely anti-grind.

Thanks for your input. I think I'm just gonna give the 10 days a shot and see if it grabs me in that time.
 
I played it when it first came out, and loved it. For a while.

The WoW of today is very much NOT the WoW of yesteryear, for better or worse. I fired the game up about 6 months ago again after years, and only played for a couple days before i uninstalled. The game has been nerfed big time, I didnt like how easy they had made it. For instance, as a Hunter you used to have to learn the Train Pet skill at level 10. Then you go and hunt down the animal you want to train, train it, and you have a pet that helps you out.

I fired up a new Hunter, and I already had a lion pet in the "new wow". That encapsulates pretty much my experience w/ the new game - it was just too damn easy. Areas that I had remember being at least marginally pulse-pounding and dangerous were now a cakewalk, even at relatively low level. Anonymous ways to join anonymous people for any instance eliminates the need for you to talk to anyone, really for any reason. I'm a solo player for the most part, still, it just makes the game kinda lonely for an MMO.

Now granted, I had previously came, saw, and kicked ass in the game for a year when it came out, and had burned thru a good portion of content. Yes, i had made a few characters and was bored of all the basic content. But in my new game, I also made a Blood Elf, which was all new material to me ( i quit before burning crusade) and I still found that the first ten levels or so of Blood Elf were boring as hell.

IMO WoW is a boring, homogenized game that has had any significant challenge nerfed in order to give a broad spectrum of housewives and casual gamers access to something that was once the realm of somewhat hardcore MMO gamers.

In my opinion, you'd be better served by Lord of the Rings Online, which has been nerfed also since it's went F2P, but in the end is a far better and more challenging title w/ a ton of really good crafting and stuff tacked on if youre into that sort of thing too.
 
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I just went though this question. Apparently I got it wrong before so I'll reply differently...

Yes. Go, play it. You'll love it and it will become the only game you play.
 
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WoW does have lots of lore, quests & crafting. Just remember that playing an MMORPG is a much different experience than a regular CRPG. The latest expansion Mists of Pandaria (MoP), unfortunately, makes the game a huge grindfest for reputation with various factions. And while I mentioned there are loads of quests, none of them really require any problem solving. They usually devolve into either kill x number of some creature or find a specific item (the general location of which is marked on your map BTW) and get it.

If the social aspect doesn't matter, however, then there are probably other games that would suit your fancy. I have played it since release with a couple of 3-6 month long breaks. I am playing currently because I enjoy the large group raids and teamwork involved. I do not enjoy the daily quest grinds for reputation as it makes the game feel like a job. While they recently made these a little more tolerable with the latest patch, they're still bad. So I'm not even sure how much longer I will stay in game.

I guess it sounds like it may not be a good fit for you, but a free trial is a free trial.
 
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Hello. I just got an email offer for another 10 free days of playing World of Warcraft. I played for 10 days a year or 2 back, and while I definitely had fun, I felt at the time a little burned out on gaming and never went back to it after the initial 10 days. I'm feeling a bit reinvigorated and in the mood for a new RPG. Should I play Warcraft?

Just looking for advice from fellow RPG players. I'm big into lore, the world, NPC dialog, and all that nerdy stuff. I'm a big fan of Bethesda RPGs and love that sort of fantasy world. I don't remember much of the lore from WoW, but is it any good? Can you get fully immersed in the game world?

The beginning of the game seemed a bit "grind-y" to me. Do the quests get more interesting as you level up? Are there interesting sights to see, places (and reasons) to explore? Again, I love Elder Scrolls and that sort of thing, but I am first and foremost a huge fan of RPG gaming in general.

I may just wait for Elder Scrolls online, not sure.

Any advice/opinions/suggestions/whatever , feel free. Thanks.

I also tried it once for a couple days. As JDR mentions, WoW really does not feel like a role playing game. I joined an RP PvP server and there was no RP at all on that server as far as I could tell. People were spamming the chat about trading overpowered gear and talking about current events and memes, etc.

The quests were not interesting IMO, and the NPCs and monsters all stand around waiting for each player to approach. There is not any kind of ecology or interaction between the NPCs. If you kill one of them they lie down for a while then respawn.

The way the game is designed, it seems people just want to collect overpowered loot and level up as fast as possible to reach the level cap. It's very different from the way I play RPGs. I don't care about loot or getting to a high level, I just want to play an interesting character, experience fun quests and challenging combat that consists of more than spamming hotkeys. I was invited to join a guild and then they kicked me out because they said I was leveling too slow :rolleyes:

It will be interesting to see how ESO turns out, as a lot of the folks who play the single player games are more into the lore and role playing, but as for WoW, I found it to be incredibly boring.
 
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Yeah don't be fooled by a server claiming to be RP. Bliz used to enforce RP, but the overwhelming success made it impossible shortly after release. But PvP servers are even worse in terms of doodz & powargamerz.

IN regard to ESO, I'm sure the best intentions are to set it apart from WoW. For better or worse, WoW continues to maintain its popularity and outshine the competition. Every company is always releasing the next "WoW killer", and I am confident ESO will be no different than the other competitors. That is, lots of players initially, but after the hype dies down, player numbers plummet and then it turn F2P but with the same MMO mechanics as WoW. I don't say this as a WoW fanboi, as I have even been disappointed after playing games that were offering something new (Age of Conan for one, that one really bummed me out because it could have been so cool-- because Funcom botched that one, I am not willing to shell out money for Secret World-- but in the end was a POS. A huge POS). Of course, you can't fault these companies for trying.
 
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I've been lured into WOW a few times, and each time I've played it for a shorter amount of time before quitting again.

First of all, it is worth noting that playing WOW without friends or at least people you have an interest hanging out with online is just a chore, and not worth doing. The reason why i started playing WOW in the first place was because I had friends playing it. And each time I've been lured back it has been because some friends of mine have been playing the game.

WOW has always been a rather easy game, even back before it had any expansions. The difference now is that what used to require work (grind?) is now handed to you on a silver platter, and you don't really have to put any real effort into it. So they just traded one bad thing (boring grind) with another (no sense of accomplishment).

As far as the story goes, they have improved it quite a bit. Up until the end of the first expansion, most of the story and lore was either told through quest text or just through the world around you. With Wrath of the Lich King they introduced quests that put you more into the story itself, which was both refreshing and a bit, well, bland. Everyone was basically the chosen one (though many of the quests and such hinted at it before, now they stated it outright).

WOW is not the game you are looking for if you are just looking for a CRPG, there are many better games out there for that. But if you want a game that requires a large time investment, but that plays well with others (and not well at all without them), then it might be a game for you. Judging by what you have said in this thread, I don't think it is the game for you though.
 
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I enjoyed the Blood Elves starter area, but wasn't drawn in to any of the other content that was available to me. I've had people tell me I needed to put in more time to get to the good stuff, but frankly, that sounds less like a game to be. And that's the core issue. WoW isn't really a game. Its more of a hobby.
 
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Thanks for the input everyone.

I was going to give the 10 day trial a run but it seems I have to install 22 GB in order to access the game?! Probably not gonna install 22 GB just for what could end up being a 10 day run.

I will probably just forget about WoW and play something else.
 
WoW can be fun if you're in the right mood for it, and have good people to group up with. With MMOs the people you play with can make all the difference in making it a good experience. Grouping up with random strangers can make it horrible.

But there are so many MMOs available now, I think it's worth looking into all the other options out there. Just start browsing through a site like mmorpg.com and see what looks interesting and well-rated. A lot of stuff is free-to-play now or have free trials. WoW has a lot of content to explore but the gameplay itself becomes very repetitive and formulaic after a while.

Everquest II is a stronger game in my opinion - having more intricate gameplay options, lots of races and classes, better quest design, better crafting, deep lore, customizable housing and tons of content to play through. They have a free-to-play option now.

Guild Wars 2 is also very good but there isn't a free trial available as far as I know.
 
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Everquest II sounds like what I'm looking for. I will give that some serious consideration. Thanks for the tips.

22 GB is a lot for my measly old laptop which only has about 50 gigs left of space. Not only that, but my laptop likes to shut off for no reason, so trying to install 22 GB worth of data would take forever and be a huge headache probably. So I'm just going to avoid that :)

I will check out that site and see if any of the other RPGs are interesting to me. Thanks.

Edit - Myrkrel, many thanks for the Everquest II recommendation! I just watched the video on the website and it looks and sounds great! I am going to start my free account and give it a whirl. Why not right? I'll report back after some game time and share some of my thoughts with it. Cheers.
 
Fluent: No problem - glad to have helped! I hope you enjoy EQII. Thinking about it, I'm tempted to jump back in again - been away from it for a while due to a lack of free time and many other games distracting me.
 
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Dang! 22GB is a pretty hefty commitment for one game, even in the days of the terabyte drive

SWTOR wants something around 20.

Just checked it : With the latest Update its directory is now 21,4 GB big.
 
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Dang! 22GB is a pretty hefty commitment for one game, even in the days of the terabyte drive

Yep, and I hate it when you're required to install the entire game for a free trial rather than a demo. I was offered a trial for Diablo 3, but I passed due to the size of the download.
 
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That's one advantage EQ II and other SOE games have now - they can be sort of streamed / downloaded as you play, after an initial small download. Makes it easy to try them out without downloading a huge installer.
 
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So I've been trying to play Everquest II for the past hour or so. Does it usually take forever to load up before playing? Could be my ancient laptop isn't up to the task though. I'm afraid that's what it is. Looks like I'll have to wait until I purchase a new PC before playing this one.

The game also told me my version of Vista may cause "resource problems" and to download the latest service pack (which I think I did already). I dunno. Not looking good :(

Edit - Even at "Maximum Performance" setting, it's still slow. I just need to upgrade before trying to play any of these games.
 
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Sorry to hear you're having tech problems with it. Yeah, it is a fairly demanding game even though it came out in 2004, and can take a while to load up depending on your specs. That's one thing I'd say it falls short on - is the engine is not well optimized for lower-end machines.

What specs does your PC have (Video card, CPU, RAM)?
 
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