Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 ... I come to wonder, there are so many things you can do in this game, much more than an average game out in the market.  If you hate crafting do something else.  If you hate PVP do PVE.  If you hate so many things, I suddenly wonder, is there a game out there you would like.

Last but not the least, WoW should not dominate your life.  There are so many things you need to allocate your time to, you could live happily with or without WoW.

 

Two points that made it. See above text.

As for the OP: he said he bought basic Wow and TBC for .... 50 dollars.

I wonder where ? -  as this is about 25% ABOVE the official price since 12 months....

I think Pappy was right on that this is a long thoughtful writing of someone who didn't play it seriously at all (free download I guess) and forget even his level 46.

As luck would have it, Zorndorf, I still have my invoice.  As luck also has it, I have a scanner.  So you're out of luck if your intention was to call me a liar.  Or are you going to call this a miserable forgery?

(Needless to say, these are Canadian dollars.)

So it's $45.14, and not $50 as I said. Okay, my mistake. Since I went there by public transit specifically for the purpose of buying the game, and that I do not own a monthly pass, I could add the costs it took me to get there and back, which would push it past the $50 mark. But I won't, because I trust that you're not pathetic enough to make a case over $4.86. We're not exactly talking about the mayor's expenditures, are we?

And as a matter of fact, you're presuming a lot with that "it's above the price, therefore it's not true" logic.  What if I got screwed off?  Apparently this never entered your mind.  Nor did the obvious reality of TAXES on top of the purchase price.  Maybe these don't count in Blizzardland, but in the real world, they do.

And if I may add, an Australian friend of mine reports that he paid his copy of WoW Battlechest $60 (Australian dollars), and that was the lowest price he could find.  Anyone who knows anything about gaming in Australia knows how much of a ripoff the prices are down there. But I'm not even sure you bothered to check my nationality before posting your reply.

I'm tired of your insinuations and accusations.  Say I don't know enough of the game to comment, fine.  But now you're accusing me of lying as to how I got to play the game.

I demand an apology right here and now.

Seems to me that Vetarnias was the smart one out of the 11.5 million and left early realising what the rest of the game was like. There is little difference between level 1-46 and level 1-80 just that the numbers are bigger, the rewards shinier and it takes longer to get there. You still pressing the same buttons instead of rank 2 of an ability you now use rank 6 or whatever instead. I've levelled multiple characters on various realms into the late 70's.

My analysis:

Unless it makes Blizzard a profit they don't care what you do, maybe Vetarnias saw through Blizzard's propaganda machine. They employ an entire team of people just to keep their forums from overflowing with negativity, threads get locked and deleted faster than you can say..whoops too late! They are already working on the next expansion, which would leave potential new players like Vetarnias even further behind. Of course it wouldn't surprise anyone if they did the same 30% nerf to xp that they did before lich king came out. It's not outside the realm of possiblity that at Blizzcon 2009 we will all hear rumours of "Emerald Dream" or whatever, new hero class, level to 90 and probably another crafting profession.

Oh and..

PvP is broken.
Shamans and hunters are broken.
Rogues are the forgotten class.
Everyone is a DK.
Everyone is from DK.
Swe?
Loads of bots.
Unbalanced realms.
Can still make chars on FULL realms. Why?
No one goes on recommended realms.
Too many PvP brackets.
Northrend too different from Outlands and vice versa.
Too many realms.
Too soon until the next expansion is out which makes everything you just done over the last months redundant.
Too many battlegroups.
Why kill Thrall?
Why kill that elf no one knows name of?
Motorbikes.
D.I.S.C.O.
Not enough anti-scamming features.
No world PUG dungeons.

The end.

Allright im jumping in here to put my experiances too. since theres already 12pages of yes and no heh. Heres my wall of text.

I had: 66dk, 49war(banned), 53warlock(banned), 37druid, 39rouge(banned), 39mage

(was one of the unlucky players that got punched in the face i guess u might say )

And just like the Poster that started this thread i too have grown waaaay too tired of wow. But thats me. I see a treadmill and i dont want to use time running that baby. I played for 2 years (off n on) cause of my friends. That was Thee only reason i played, not content if i wanted content id just hop skip and jump over to Eq2 where my heart is. But then again thats me and i love looking at more advanced stuff. Im an indi game designer also beta tester, just to throw that out there. ive played most of the games on the game list here too many to even recall.

But the thing here to remember is Wow is a very "Simple" game. there are 3 talent trees per class. Your stats go up as you level u never have to set any. The gear u need is easily bought (in lowlvls) and then all u have to do to get T7 is raid. raid. raid. raid. raid. If you want pvp gear then get honour and marks (soon i guess marks are gonna be gone anyways) (pluss duel speccing has been added into the game) so no wonder there are 12mill+ players. All you have to do is read the tactics on wowwiki and make sure u know when and what the boss is going to do (pretty obvious when: Onyxia starts to inhale)

And i saw someone here mention they Upped the graphics. No. They fixed the shading. And i know every wowplayer here will come up with some reason or arguement which then throws a blanket over the treadmill. But even with the blanket on it its still a damned treadmill underneath. And to those that say that it isnt is in a state of denial. I completly agree with what the OP said when he said its not a mmo but a single player game with lots of people simutainiously playing.

And the class "Balance" is a disgrace. Make a dk and your already pretty damned high up in the food chain. I mean give a class 2 silences, a perma pet (unholy) and a gargoyle (unholy) a second life as a ghoul when u die! (UNHOLY) or a flying sword (blood) rune tap (i get it up over 50-60% of my hp) hp pr hit (blood aura) your pretty damned unfair in the eyes of... well hell every class thats not a hero class. Or remember the retri paladins?  (which also was the best class Pretbc til warlock upped it and left them behind around the time Tbc came out. (i guess those two classes are wows favorite since they just switch between which kicks ass and which kicks ass in second place. Go retri wotlk) I miss Pretbc)

So after some weeks ago i quit. Completly. I just couldnt take the treadmill anymore and im glad that the OP has too i raise this cola bottle in your honour

Well to those who read the start and went the "You didnt level to 80 you havent seen the content" i play on my friends 80 pala sometimes and my other friends 80 hunter. Tbh ive seen enough. Atleast enough to judge it by its cover. And to the person that also said  "I never want to see another game with... Stunlock" I completly agree with you. Stunlock is The most annoying peice of crap ive ever fought. Allthough now with a DK theyre just free kills. This was my rant and thank you for the mass floodage of hate and/or trolling from a 14yr old wow fan boi. In advance.

Originally posted by Zorndorf    

.... supported by people who compare in their signature .... the 11.500.000 "subscriptions to a game" with fans of ... Hitler.

Yet again you miss the point entirely, lots of people supporting X != X being good. Only you could miscontrue what I've quoted. Somehow the words on the screen that you read get jumbled in your brain and a completely different type of comprehension develops. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JF03i7NfIU

Maybe I should misquote you too:

Originally posted by Zorndorf

"....and indeed a good example of HOW far Wow has gone off these days."

Zorndorf, your attitude is starting to get on my nerves.

I played WoW during the same period as Vetarnias, as we tried out the game together. I myself got to level 78, and I've tried the so-called "high-end content". I can say that despite finding the game fun, I still agree with everything he's said, and have since stopped playing out of sheer boredom. I can only imagine that you'll bring up that I stopped before the endgame, but the fact is, I saw basically everything that game had to offer in regards to gameplay. I played all the Battlegrounds, I went through hi end dungeons, I even had an epic flying mount to see all of this "seamless" world (It isn't seamless. Those pretty pictures? Loading screens.), yet his gripes about the game are still accurate.

Furthermore, during this time, I was in contact with Vetarnias. We were playing the game at the same time (albeit at different paces) and we often formed parties despite not being anywhere near each other, just to share experiences. Because of this, he's aware of much more of the game than you may initially think, so your argument of not seeing 95% of the game is just ridiculous.

In closing, I'd like to point out that "being able to craft your own motorbike and helicopter" aren't usually desirable features in a fantasy MMO, and that in this particular MMO, those were things that few players achieved anyway.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Orthedos

 ... I come to wonder, there are so many things you can do in this game, much more than an average game out in the market.  If you hate crafting do something else.  If you hate PVP do PVE.  If you hate so many things, I suddenly wonder, is there a game out there you would like.

Last but not the least, WoW should not dominate your life.  There are so many things you need to allocate your time to, you could live happily with or without WoW.

 

Two points that made it. See above text.

As for the OP: he said he bought basic Wow and TBC for .... 50 dollars.

I wonder where ? -  as this is about 25% ABOVE the official price since 12 months....

I think Pappy was right on that this is a long thoughtful writing of someone who didn't play it seriously at all (free download I guess) and forget even his level 46.

As luck would have it, Zorndorf, I still have my invoice.  As luck also has it, I have a scanner.  So you're out of luck if your intention was to call me a liar.  Or are you going to call this a miserable forgery?

 

(Needless to say, these are Canadian dollars.)

So it's $45.14, and not $50 as I said. Okay, my mistake. Since I went there by public transit specifically for the purpose of buying the game, and that I do not own a monthly pass, I could add the costs it took me to get there and back, which would push it past the $50 mark. But I won't, because I trust that you're not pathetic enough to make a case over $4.86. We're not exactly talking about the mayor's expenditures, are we?

And as a matter of fact, you're presuming a lot with that "it's above the price, therefore it's not true" logic.  What if I got screwed off?  Apparently this never entered your mind.  Nor did the obvious reality of TAXES on top of the purchase price.  Maybe these don't count in Blizzardland, but in the real world, they do.

And if I may add, an Australian friend of mine reports that he paid his copy of WoW Battlechest $60 (Australian dollars), and that was the lowest price he could find.  Anyone who knows anything about gaming in Australia knows how much of a ripoff the prices are down there. But I'm not even sure you bothered to check my nationality before posting your reply.

I'm tired of your insinuations and accusations.  Say I don't know enough of the game to comment, fine.  But now you're accusing me of lying as to how I got to play the game.

I demand an apology right here and now.

 

"Needless these are WHAT ???? Canadian dollars"

So I was right you could'nt possibly have paid 50 .... dollars (you didn't mention US).

1 US dollars equals 1.25 Can dollars

So I was right the price you mentioned was 25 % off.

Never mind that I posted my reply, along with a copy of my invoice, as a direct rebuttal of your assertion that I played the game on a free account.  Now that I've proved that I did not, poof, it's like that accusation was never made in the first place.  The Great Zorndorfo's famous disappearing act.  Can't nail the guy on this, we'll nail him on something else.

So now you're still accusing me of lying for not making it clear that I was talking in Canadian dollars?

It would appear that it is what you are doing, since you're nitpicking on points of exchange rates and whatnot.  No mention of taxes either, which are essential to the amount being discussed because, well, you can't get around them.  Also, no mention of other factors besides the actual exchange rate, such as the consumer price index, which might affect the actual amount in relation to ordinary expenditures, but I really don't know enough about this to easily make the comparison between the US and Canada in this regard.  So maybe it's being a much larger expense for a Canadian to buy the game, even with the exchange rate aforementioned, but I couldn't be able to assess it.  Nice to see that you presume that you can.

I think that anyone who bothers to take a look at my profile will know that I'm Canadian, and that in all likelihood when I'm talking about money, I'm in fact talking about Canadian money.   The only time when I'm talking in US currency is when I describe monthly subscription rates, as the amount itself is fixed in US currency and even appears in both currencies on my credit card bill.  (And if you really want to know, my credit card bill for December indicates $18.59 Canadian dollars.)

Like it or not, my reality is in Canadian dollars. If I'm giving you my monthly rent or my weekly salary, I'm not going to bother converting them into US dollars for your convenience. So I say that I paid over $45 for WoW, not to mention other expenses related to that (including possibly extra fees to my Internet bill, because there is a premium past a certain point), I think I'm being clear enough. And now you're blaming me because I didn't say that was in Canadian dollars? 

Not to mention that while the exchange rates fluctuate, the prices do not.  It's a notorious fact around here that certain consumer goods (such as books, the most flagrant example) are not lowered in price when the Canadian dollar is high -- in other words, Canadians get ripped off.  We could have been having this little chat at near-parity, before the crisis struck last year.  What would you have said then? The dollar was higher, but prices weren't lower.  Would have been $45 then.

All that's missing from your post is the usual snide remark at "Monopoly Money", "Mickey Mouse Currency", whatever. Not that you care about that anyway, you're in Europe enjoying your common currency, so it's not as though the US dollar were the currency you're using on a regular basis.

And if I may ask, WHAT'S YOUR POINT ANYWAY?  It's like you think I'm part of some conspiracy to make the game seem more expensive than it is.  If that's the case, we're really talking about paranoia here.

You did NOT do AV
You did NOT do Strand
You did NOT do Wintergrasp
You did NOT do Arena

You did NOT do hi end dungeons where the roles of each class and trees are brought to the game experience

You did NOT do Raids

You did NOT see ANY content of WotLK, nor Outland.

You don't even know what is a personal flying mount and roam the skies over a SEAMLESS world.

You didn't see 95% ot the game. Period. NO problem !!!!

In fact you ONLY spaw HATE threads on a Wow (!!!!) forum.

And you ONLY argue with people who DID do the content and you STILL want to be be recognised as an authority.

.... supported by people who compare in their signature .... the 11.500.000 "subscription to a game" people with fans of ... Hitler.

I'm wondering on whom I should call Godwin.

Good company you have....and indeed a good example of HOW far Wow hate has gone off these days.

WoW hate... you're fanning it with posts like these, nitpicking on whether the guy bought the game and in which currency he bought it.  And by all means, go on spouting about the unstoppable juggernaut, just proving you want a landscape completely empty of any game that would or could compete with your beloved WoW.  Most people who don't care for WoW would gladly shrug and be on their way to whatever they're playing.  But people like you are making the case that they shouldn't even have a choice in the first place.

Have fun in Wow.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Murdyll

Zorndorf, your attitude is starting to get on my nerves.

I played WoW during the same period as Vetarnias, as we tried out the game together. I myself got to level 78, and I've tried the so-called "high-end content". I can say that despite finding the game fun, I still agree with everything he's said, and have since stopped playing out of sheer boredom. I can only imagine that you'll bring up that I stopped before the endgame, but the fact is, I saw basically everything that game had to offer in regards to gameplay. I played all the Battlegrounds, I went through hi end dungeons, I even had an epic flying mount to see all of this "seamless" world (It isn't seamless. Those pretty pictures? Loading screens.), yet his gripes about the game are still accurate.

Furthermore, during this time, I was in contact with Vetarnias. We were playing the game at the same time (albeit at different paces) and we often formed parties despite not being anywhere near each other, just to share experiences. Because of this, he's aware of much more of the game than you may initially think, so your argument of not seeing 95% of the game is just ridiculous.

In closing, I'd like to point out that "being able to craft your own motorbike and helicopter" aren't usually desirable features in a fantasy MMO, and that in this particular MMO, those were things that few players achieved anyway.

What a joke.
 

Suddenly OP Vetarnias sees that his arguments FAIL because of admitting he only was a very low level class.

Now a "ONE post vergin" comes along who says ... "we tried the game together".

What a joke. And you still want to be believable this .... on a forum where 100 people are logged in at the moment. Kindergarden.

We communicate outside this forum. Hence my knowledge of it. Nothing "kindergarten" about it.

Formed parties ? you two? in what content context? with a difference of 30 levels??

I never said there was a content context. I specifically stated that we played seperately, while in a party. This allowed easy communication with the party chat channel. This also explains more about WoW being a single player experience, in a multiplayer world.

Loading screens ?????? in flying over the seamless world ??????

You Sir don't know anything about Wow flying over the seamless worlds of Outland and Northrend. NO loading screens in sight when you fly....

Why do you need to try and prove that I've never played WoW, just to defend your own twisted arguments? Can you fly from Outland to Northrend? No. Because that's a SEAM. Sure they're in different planes of existence, but you can't fly between Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, OR Northrend without seeing a loading screen. That's not a seamless world.

Also guys: reread the last sentence of this guy: IF you had ever played ANYTHING in Wow, you knew exactly these things can be done in Wow lore (hell even Warhammer lore has dwarf helicopters).

Gnomes are .... ok got the picture now ?

I didn't specify any particular game when I said "fantasy". WoW lore may definitely allow for such ridiculous additions, but in a game where pop culture references are everywhere (yes, Haris Pilton), how are we to take it seriously? You really shouldn't talk like that last sentence of mine completely throws off everything I've said.

So conclusion: this comical duo didn't even enter Wow after level 46. I am quite convinced

Of course I am starting to get on your nerves, as SHOULD be, in showing the hoax of it all.

Your immaturity is showing. I can easily link you to screenshots and the like of my character in WoW, but you're so convinced it's a hoax that you're going to claim that they're photoshopped anyway. I just believe you've got no way to defend your precious game anymore, and have to resort to calling out other people's experiences.

 

zorndorf, while I admire your passion for the game, your arrogance and vindictiveness while posting is really unnecessary. if you weren't so bound on finding a fault in these people you would be able to read what they are saying. you can be in a party with someone and be doing things in different parts of the world at the same time. for instance, the OP could be in a party with his friend, the friend is questing in outland, while the OP is questing in felwood. its perfectly feasible. secondly, they never said anything about the engineering mounts being against warcraft lore, they just said that not many people manage to get them. 

please read the other posts properly before replying to them. as things stand you are making yourself look like a complete fool and giving the other wow players a very bad name.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Murdyll

 

 

In the original post you , Mr first post (second post as of now),  made a gigantic error that is so BIG every active Wow player would see it.

I am not giving it away, l'll let other Wow fans have the fun to find it.

Only one starting hint - as you were playing with that other Mr lvl 46 - the game started for you on Nov 13th right ? (see the proof of purchase).

Well you just made an epic error in your first post Mr first post .... :)),

 

Are you trying to say that I couldn't have gotten to level 78 on November the 13th, or that Vetarnias and I were not playing at the same time? He started around a month after me due to trouble finding a copy of the game. If it is in fact the former, then I should point out that I did not get to level 78 ON the 13th... Though I'm still trying to figure out what you're accusing me of.

Anyway, let these "unhackable stats" remove any doubt:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thaurissan&n=Murdyll

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thaurissan&n=Vetarnian

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Murdyll

Are you trying to say that I couldn't have gotten to level 78 on November the 13th, or that Vetarnias and I were not playing at the same time? He started around a month after me due to trouble finding a copy of the game. If it is in fact the former, then I should point out that I did not get to level 78 ON the 13th... Though I'm still trying to figure out what you're accusing me of.

Anyway, let these "unhackable stats" remove any doubt:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thaurissan&n=Murdyll

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thaurissan&n=Vetarnian

 

 

 

No.

Not good Try again.

Gigantic Error  in your first post is still there.

And look : you already posted 3(!) times now on this forum , as a newbie, why you learn pretty fast.

So you didn't start together ? mmm. Because .... the OP .... "couldn't find a copy of the game ????"

He searched for a month to find a copy of ... Wow.

nice.

Or is it perhaps the dates on the armory didn't match the story you guys are telling us.

Or should I say "guy".

This OP theory is more and more looking like a joke if you ask me.

First made some "heavy conclusions of end game" without even reaching 90% of the game, then a merry go round why you can judge a game without even seeing things.

Now the rescue angel , playing together 30 levels apart and not in the same lands.

Pity that rescue angel stopped JUST before the nasty questions end game and made a gigantic error in his first post.

 

Christ, man. You really are hung up about this. I never said we started the game together. In fact, Vetarnias didn't even start looking for a copy until I had been playing for a few weeks... Why is it so hard to understand, and why, just why the HELL does it mean anything at all? I've played the game to 78. My character data is there. I agree with the OP's points. If you can't seem to wrap your narrow mind around that, then you can just go on defending your boring-ass game, but it falls on deaf ears.

Read all of the original post, well written and I understand everything that the poster is saying and agree with alot of it.

I am not a power gamer, not even close, I did manage to get a character to level 70 while that was still the cap but  did not have anywhere near the time available to do the "Endgame" raids and such at the time.

There is alot, really alot to do in WoW, I have played off and on since release, casually, have had alot of fun. When I get tired of it I cancel my account until I feel the urge to play again.

Some people love WoW, some hate it. It is a very successful game and I feel that Blizzard is a top notch maker of computer games, so much so that when their "mystery mmo" comes out in a couple years I will almost certainly give it a try.

If you are not getting a fun experience out of WoW, dont play it, there are other games and other things to do, try and not get too bent out of shape about a computer game.

I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to this.

Murdyll and I have been playing games together since 2007.  He's Australian, I'm Canadian.  Some person with admin status at this site could probably confirm this by checking our IP addresses.  As I do believe that instant teleportation hasn't been invented yet, it is very unlikely for a single person (as you seem to imply) to be able to post on two accounts, within minutes, from two locations at separate ends of the globe.

You can see that we have been gaming together since 2007 by looking at this old forum of ours from the time we were playing Puzzle Pirates, right here: http://theblackflame.freeforums.org/ .  You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that I have changed the last letter of my moniker (though my WoW character is indeed named Vetarnian), while Murdyll has retained his.

Or are you in fact going to say that this conspiracy has been dating back to 2007, long before I ever picked up World of Warcraft?

What Murdyll also tried tactfully to avoid saying when he wrote that I "couldn't find a copy of the game" was that I was practically broke when Murdyll and his friends started playing in October, and couldn't afford to pay for a copy of the game until November.  I work on a freelance basis, so my revenue is not steady. I trust that I do not have to post my bank transcripts to defend myself on this point.

I cringed when I saw what Murdyll wrote because I knew exactly what you'd say, that WoW is so omnipresent that it's probably even included in Red Cross packages these days.  But ask yourself this: If Murdyll had been my alt, why didn't I just write that I had levelled to 78 in my original post, instead of sticking to a measly 46? Unless of course you're assuming that I've just stolen this Murdyll's identity to create another account here....

In fact, I'm chatting with Murdyll as I'm typing this, and he is bringing my attention to a screenshot of his.  It's small, but you can clearly see both our names in it.  Some conspiracy that must be, right?.

Murdyll could afford an epic flying mount because I gave him the money to buy it, over 2000 gold of my own.  Before you go off saying I'm a filthy gold buyer, I actually ground for hours to accumulate that sum.  How?  During the Christmas holidays (aka Winter Veil), eggs and gingerbread cookies were in high demand to complete a seasonal quest.  So I went outside of Silvermoon City and killed dragonhawk hatchlings for hours and hours and hours.  The small eggs usually sold at 1 gold apiece.  That gives you an idea of how long that took, but I did it honestly. No bot, no gold buying.  And since I had no real use for this kind of money at level 46, I donated it all to Murdyll, and he apparently had someone else to help him buy the epic mount as well.

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by templarga

See here is the MMO elitist attitude I am talking about. "WOW is a disgrace to the genre"; "WOW fanbois....aren't so smart"; "worst community ever". And WOW players are like fascists, insects and lemmings.  Well, there's also the MMO elitists who reach the endgame first, scorn lower players for taking their time (as happened to a friend) or just for being low-level, then start establishing a level- or gear-based pecking order.  Guilds are their first venue for doing so -- and WoW has plenty of them, too.

So what did WOW do to you? How is it a disgrace to the genre? It is still an MMO and it is still a game and trust me, your opinion matters no more than anyone elses. As a matter of fact, if you talk to most of the industry types, they will applaud WOW for making the genre more mainstream and bringing in more players. And more money, which in the end is all that matters to them.  Popularity does not necessarily make a game good (nor does it necessarily make a game bad).  But there are serious questions out there being asked about the repercussions of WoW on the industry.

Seriously, it is time that you chill out and realize its just a game. <Insert name of guild> recruits level-80 healers for Naxx and other endgame epics.  Raids are 6:30-9:30 server time Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. To apply, PST with stats, DPS and experience.

Just a game allright.

 

If you played Everquest you would feel that WoW is very easy. I did enjoy the original game but with the expansions they have made it too easy for my taste. I enjoyed the challenging dungeons of the beginnign. WOTLK has made raiding so trivial and easy that it isn't even interesting or worth doing.

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by Pappy13

Originally posted by Vetarnias

Originally posted by Pappy13

Good question.  I think it's my general inclination to start playing a game at launch instead of picking it up in midstream.  Before PotBS and Shadowbane, I was playing (and please don't laugh) Puzzle Pirates in mid-2007; the pirate theme appealed to me and that is why I started playing Pirates of the Burning Sea when it was released, despite the serious misgivings I had about it just by reading the developers' FAQ's (red circles, you-are-your-ship, a 45-minute map, etc.).  Shadowbane I did try out because (1) it was free and (2) because it was a stopgap between Puzzle Pirates and PotBS.  I don't much care for futuristic stuff, so I never even thought of trying Tabula Rasa which came out at around that time (rightly so, as it turned out).

As I said, I think the reason why I did not give WoW any serious consideration is because it was an old game.  I don't care about graphics, really; if anything, an older game just means it's more likely to run well on my computer.  But what concerns me is the political struggle taking place in MMO's, and when that had 3 years to cement before I ever got on board, there isn't much space for a newcomer to help shape or change it. I think that was inspired by my experience in Puzzle Pirates, which was an old game too, 3 years old or something like that.  Worse than that, the PP server I was on (Hunter Ocean) was just over one year old at the time and the political map on it was already stagnant: One very large alliance, a smaller alliance (with just one large island) and nothing in between except loser flags (official word for alliance) that would never go anywhere. To the server's credit, the ocean's population got tired of it and ended up crippling the large alliance, but that was after I left.  And then, how much did that change? Small alliance became large alliance, large alliance became small alliance (with many going dormant), but the loser flags were still loser flags.  All I saw while I was there was the stagnation of a political game in which our little crew in a loser flag could have no say. 

Shadowbane?  Same thing.  In fact, I did write an account of it at the time, which you can read here if you're interested: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1795877#1795877

It's also why I never bothered with EVE Online:  In a nutshell: it's the Goons and BoB -- and even the latter is uncertain now.  That's the political game after five years.  Two alliances that can't stand one another but leave everybody else behind.  

I also learned a few things from playing PotBS, AoC and WAR: Faction imbalance still matters even with fixed allegiances (try playing in a faction named "France" and see for yourself), instancing is meaningless (all of those games had that problem), and map resets might keep a game dynamic but it changes nothing if the same guys always end up on top anyway.

In the year or so since I played and dropped Shadowbane, I have come to realize that playing a game on release day makes no difference, because every major guild and alliance got their start five years and seven games ago, and you simply can't catch up with them; in fact, you and your handful of online friends won't even be left alone.  Stroll over to the Darkfall forums and take a look at this thread, for instance. You don't like being in a large guild where you're on the bottom rung of the latter?  Tough luck.  To be entirely honest, it's the type of thing that will probably lead to my quitting MMO's altogether if it becomes too severe.  It makes me laugh when I see all those Darkfall wishful thinkers hoping it will be the next pre-Trammel UO.  It can't be -- not in the era of überguilds and mega-alliances.

I started playing WoW because some friends had picked it up. I was rather indifferent to it, true (but not the "did not want to like/play" thing of Zorndorf), but I was by no means one of the WoW haters you see foaming at the mouth every now and then (and Darkfall seems to have turned into a magnet for such types).  But the problem with WoW is that it rarely if ever reminds me of an MMO. At best it's the same thing I'd get playing a single-person RPG on multiplayer mode; at worst it just feels like a single-player game.

WoW manages to avoid all those problems regarding RvR -- simply by making that aspect of the game practically meaningless (apart from faction imbalances which affect your potential to be attacked on a PvP server).  I want RvR, but here it can't have any impact.  Territories can't switch sides, you can't take castles and towns on the open world, you can do, well, nothing except go into an instance for PvP.  The world stays the same whatever the player does, because the next player must also be able to do it.

Still, when a complaint gets repeated often enough, maybe that indicates something, perhaps nothing more than personal preferences or indeed that there is a demographic out there for a non-WoW game.  But I think that what annoys people such as myself is the obstinate insistence by some members of these boards that WoW is the beginning and end of the MMO field (exemplified by all that whining over the LOTRO expansion winning best MMO of 2008 even though it's just one meaningless internet poll -- as though WotLK winning it would have made it more legitimate), coupled with some tyranny-of-the-majority insistence on subscriber figures, stressing upon features such as flying mounts that really have nothing to do with my complaints (to go back to that car analogy, if I'm complaining about engine performance, don't talk to me about the Italian leather seats), and the desire to appropriate the failure of every other MMO out there as some kind of superfluous vindication of WoW and its design choices. Not blaming you here, but just in this thread there is plenty of evidence of that.

As for game reviewers: I tend to stay clear of 90% of them (which percentage would also describe their average game rating).  The word "majority" here also irks me, but I'll stop here lest I pull a Godwin or its equivalent around here, a Britney.

I tend to reach a point where every game tends to become tiresome, even though I still like the game. Perhaps it's why I really like short match-style games or SimCity-type simulations where you can retire whenever you want instead of long and epic campaigns which I'll never get around to finishing. Recent case: Mount & Blade, which is a great game (which however could do with more political depth) but which you could drop at any moment if you so felt like it. 

As far as MMO's are concerned, though: Not sure, and I think my earlier explanation on why I didn't go to WoW directly might provide you with a good answer.  Part of this has to do with my belief that I prefer so-called "sandbox" games instead of a superficial world like WoW's (no matter how well it is rendered); but the premise of a sandbox MMO is that much of what ensues is left to the players, and if the players are pricks (and that Darkfall community in particular is worrisome), no matter how good the game is, it's going to be ruined by its players.

So I've reached the point where I want to see a game where player actions matter upon the world in a way they never will in WoW, but at the same time I see that those players whose actions matter most are rushing to take actions at the expense of everybody else and even against the long-term interest of the game (ganking in Shadowbane and PotBS, for starters; I'm not even discussing Darkfall, whose makers actually think this is a brilliant idea to facilitate it).

I don't think much of Penny Arcade, its juvenile prattle and violent or gross humour. However, they summarized exactly what I think is wrong with WoW in this strip.  More of the same? Check.  Inane questing instead of taking advantage of new worlds to innovate? Check.  WoW is in such a dominant position that, like Penny Arcade, it doesn't even need to innovate anymore.  Problem is, if I'm to do inane questing until boredom ensues, I think I'll do it in a single-player game where it's clear enough that I'm the hero of the thing instead of being as much of a hero as the next guy, meaning my actions have no impact whatsoever (not to mention the $15).  And if I want multiplayer, if said single-player game is enabled for it (I wish Mount & Blade were, for starters), I'll probably play it that way, as I did with Baldur's Gate II way, way back then.

So you see my dilemma.  I'm stuck with wanting depth in a world, which as far as MMO's are concerned must come in the form of a sandbox.  But I'm not expecting the sandbox world, no matter how well it is designed, to actually work because of the already-organized hardcore leeters who roam around every new sandbox game and quickly rise to dominate it (Darkfall).  Which means that the ideal MMO for me would be one where prospective players would have to fill a 20-page questionnaire just to make sure that they're chivalric fools like myself -- and even then I'm expecting the hardcore to try to cheat their way in.  But nobody would fund a game where I'd be playing with carbon copies of myself; hell, *I* wouldn't.

So that's why I'm jaded.  I know that my ideal MMO couldn't exist and wouldn't even work. But I'm still dissatisfied with almost everything out there.  Sure, I'd take the world of this and the character build of that,  the guild options of that one, and the trading system of that other one.  But I can't see one MMO game, in its totality, satisfying me at this time or indeed ever.

Thank you for the link.  If there is one thing WoW can be thanked for, it's to have brought new players to the field of MMO's. The question now is whether those players will be willing to try something different or just stay with WoW or, by extension, anything Blizzard does.  If all those players do is stay with WoW (with perhaps occasional toe-dipping in other games that resemble it), it will bring absolutely nothing to the MMO field.

Already, every other MMO's success is invariably measured against it, such as Pirates of the Burning Sea, which when it started out had NOTHING to do with WoW and did not try to outdo it, much less "kill" it.  However, what are the mainstream media saying when they talk about PotBS *at all*?  "Struggling against the World of Warcraft behemoth", something like that.  (I'm pretty sure I posted links to such articles elsewhere, maybe in the PotBS section.)

But PotBS was an exception because it was made by a small studio that had its own idea for a game (not saying it was successful, because it wasn't).  When one MMO with an oversized subscriber base is used to measure the success of every other MMO (and you can be sure that every bean counter at creatively bankrupt places like EA or SOE use that comparison), it does have an impact on the industry.  No matter how many times you tell those bean counters of the stubbornness of WoW players who either won't know of other MMO games or won't care if they do, It affects what type of MMO games are being made. Sure, EVE is successful, but ever heard about it being referred as anything else than "niche"?

For better or worse, the WoW demographic is affecting the fate of an entire industry. Let's just hope they don't take pride in wearing blinders when walking through the MMO field.

Ideally, everything will include a blend of the two.  (I'm not sure if you're referring to Blow's comments or the paladin builds.)  The twinking thing was obvious and annoying because those who were penalized were precisely low-level players trying to level up instead of those arrested-development twink alts.  And the economy, my main point of interest, was woefully inadequate and just turning into a giant grind.

Same as above: If you hear about it often enough, maybe there's something true to it.  Also there's a truism I never quite forgot: "If every class complains that it is underpowered, congratulations, you made a balanced game."  But I still hear about those paladins and death knights outfighting everyone...

The problem is, this is a game, not a real-life process where you would study for several years just to become a lawyer or a cardiologist.  Despite my propensity to get bored in games (or even novels), I like long-term goals, but in the case of WoW is was mostly a matter of being bored at level 46, not seeing anything different for the 34 levels ahead, and in fact not seeing anything remotely interesting in the end game itself. At no point in all this did I see anything, neither the journey, nor the destination, to motivate me to keep going.

I did retrieve my own impressions of levelling up in Pirates of the Burning Sea, in case you want to find out if there are any parallels with WoW.

 

 

 This is what your initial review should have been.  Excellently written and all your own ideas, not simply a rehash of all what has been said already.  Welcome to the forums.

After reading through this and your PoTBS impressions, I think I understand where your problem lies and it's not really with the game.  What you have lacked is a good set of folks with which to play these games.  Let me give you a little background on me which I think will make it more clear what I mean.

I started playing Enemy Territory (FPS) about a year or so before the release of WoW with a couple of real life friends.  Gradually we expanded our group and had maybe about 10 to 15 players that were playing fairly regularly, we had what we called Friday Night Madness sessions where everyone would show up to play on Friday nights.  It was a blast.  We would all trash talk on Ventrilo and I do believe that the comradarie with those guys was better than playing the game.  The game was only the instrument we used to have fun, it was not necessarily the source of the fun.

When WoW was released a few of us decided to give it a try and we were instantly hooked as we had become a little burned out on ET.  We convinced a few other of the guys that were in our ET guild to join us and the rest is history.  We almost NEVER did pugs.  We always ran with each other and helped each other.  Whenever we were online we were in ventrilo.  Someone would say they need to go do an instance and several people would offer to go.  We were doing the instances not because they were on our TODO list, but because we were playing with friends and it was an absolute blast of a time.  Whenever my buddies weren't on I would quest on my own occasionally going with a pug or maybe some guys outside my guild that I had become friends with as part of playing the game.

For me, WoW was the perfect MMO because it was simply a fun game to play.  We couldn't have cared less about our gear or raiding or any of that.  I didn't have one toon that I leveled up, I leveled up 7 at the same time, all at various levels so that anytime someone needed to go in an instance I would take the toon that best fit the role and the level of the instance. Now 4 years later most of us have moved on and I find my time in the game very limited.  Most of them just burned out on the game and a few others graduated to end game and are hard core raiders and such.  I never really cared that much for raiding although I did enjoy a couple months of running thru Kara which is pretty much raiding lite.

You see, people don't understand that there is more than one way to play an MMO.  Most people consider raiding, acquiring gear, leveling up etc to be the whole purpose of the game.  It's not.  The purpose of the game is to have fun with friends.  THAT'S what an MMO is, Massive Multiplayer Online.  The RPG part is secondary in nature to the MMO part and for me WoW does that better than any other MMO I have ever played.  I'm over simplifying it, but I think you get the point I'm trying to make.  Now many people accuse me of being casual, but I was playing up to 40 or 50 hours a week when the game was initially out, so I don't really see what's so casual about that.  Yes, my view towards the game might be casual in nature, but I don't really see any reason to make setting goals for myself and grinding towards achieving those goals a priority.  That's a pointless excercise compared to just having fun which is what I'm striving for.  It is a game afterall isn't it?  Isn't the point of playing games to have fun?

Now there will be people that say the point of playing a game is to win or to be challenged.  I'll change that slightly and say the point should be competing, not winning.  You should get enjoyment from the thrill of the competition and not be so concerned with winning or losing.  Many people have forgotten this.  As soon as you start trying to determine what build, piece of gear or whatever is the "best", you have missed the bigger picture completely and you are setting yourself up for NEVER being fully happy with the results.

One last thing and then I'm done.  My views toward WoW don't end with WoW or even with video games in general, these are my views toward life.  I used to play softball with a bunch of buddies.  We never cared whether we won or lost, it was just getting together to play that was the best part.  Some people will tell you however that it's more fun to win than to lose, I'll counter that by saying it's more fun to have played and lost then not to have played at all.

I did not bother quoting the whole thing to save space but Pappy13 is so correct. People play games to have fun. The only reason you should play WOW is if you find it enjoyable and you should not play it if you don't. It really is that simple.

However, it seems so many people think WOW (or any game for that matter) must be played a certain way. MMO's are up to the player to decide how to play. That is why when people say something like "WOW is all about gear, or raids, etc..." many of us take exception. At the end of the day, WOW is what you get out of it. If all you want to do is raid, then that is what you get out of the game. I get a lot more out of the game though. As I have mentioned before, I really found a renewed appreciation and enjoyment of the game when my wife started playing.

No matter what the subscription numbers are, people keep playing because they have fun. It really as simple as that.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Murdyll

Christ, man. You really are hung up about this. I never said we started the game together. In fact, Vetarnias didn't even start looking for a copy until I had been playing for a few weeks... Why is it so hard to understand, and why, just why the HELL does it mean anything at all? I've played the game to 78. My character data is there. I agree with the OP's points. If you can't seem to wrap your narrow mind around that, then you can just go on defending your boring-ass game, but it falls on deaf ears.

 

Because  I DO NOT believe in newly accounts being created to help the OP out of his misery.

The man has ZERO credence with his "analysis"  without even reaching the mid game.

And you Sir MUST be a hell of a player in having had a level 78 EPIC flying mount after playing for 2 months.

So OR you were having LOTS of fun to gather it all ...  starting at zero playing day and night.

OR some other version of your story needs (again) to be changed.

I guess you can change your version a third time.

But the OP stays out for not having done anything beyond level 46. No matter how hard you try to back him up.

Zorn you are being quite ridiculous, AND your making those of us who DID play wow hardcore look bad so stop.

Out of 17 pages the only person whos opinion I respect on the wow forums is pappy. Even though his and I opinions differ greatly at times, he does know what he is talking about usually.

It doesn't matter if the one guy got to 78. It doesn't matter that the other guy only reached 46. This is one of WoW's epic flaws. It sucks utter ass unless you can reach a cap.

I own 4 level 80, 5 level 70-80 and jesus christ who knows how many 1-60.

Do you know how many of those characters I found "fun" to level?

Answer : 1

The first character which was a mage. Even back then many many years ago, I found it mundane and boring as hell just to get that mage to 60 but I was playing with friends which made it fun.

Every character I have made since then spanning 2 accounts (3 if you count my wifes account) have been a serious and  mind numbing pain in my ass.

As I have already stated, even though his OP is mostly opinion based on his state of the game, even a WoW player of my caliber was forced to agree with him.

Everything he said at least in my mind as well is pretty much spot on. Even in the later stages of the game. WoW is a level based, gear based treadmill of epic fail. Nothing is going to change that.

The BG's, they are nothing more than minor upgrades of one another. Here I will explain.

Warsong - Capture the flag, relatively small battle area, using a "Unreal Tourney" style map.

AB - Capture the resources, slightly larger map, using a "Unreal 2" style map.

AV - Assault map, objective based with reinforcement counter, basically a "Day of Defeat" map on a larger scale.

This were the BG's of old back in Pre-TBC. So what did blizzard do to expand on this for level 60-70.

Eye of the Storm - Capture the flag + Capture the resources where resources are objectives. Meaning you capture objectives like in AV but they have a reverse counter like in AB. With the flag adding extra points upon capturing. Map size is comparable to AB.

NICE! They gave us a medium AB sized maps with elements from all 3 of the previous BG's. Kinda Meh because it was nothing new really. Pretty in colors not so fun in something new.

Arena Battle - 2v2 3v3 or 5v5 PvP Gladiator Style, very small map sizes. This is like a forge Halo death match. Hell I will even give it a Mad Max and the Thunderdome description. Where instead of 1 man enter 1 man leave it is 10 man enter and lets pray to god 1 of our man leave. Arena is what it is, small maps designed for very close quarter combat, pitting one imbalanced class up against another imbalanced class. It is fun for a while, but it is also a gear grinding treadmill.

Which brings of to WotLK.

Yes Wintergrasp, Blizzard's last ditch effort to make players PvP in a world PvP capacity. Then we have Ancients, No different from AV , AB or Warsong except that you get to drive a tank. (Will say tanks are very cool) but this in no way excuses Blizzards lazy approach to the games newest expansion.

Seriously we could sit here for days and I could go back and forth with you all day about WoW, it's +'s and its -'s but there is really no need.

WoW's biggest flaw where this level 46 is concerned is, that it SHOULD be fun from the get go. It should be something you love to play from 1-80. Truth is though they have long forgot about classic. LONG AGO. It is dry and boring and desolate. Hell I commend him for even getting to 46. Most people do not even make it that far. This is a design flaw in wow. Instead of making the game better for anyone new who might start, they just keep stacking dominoes on top of each other at the top. Which will one day come crashing down.

Truth is WoW doesn't start now until 80. Everything you do in WoW up to 80 is pretty much pointless.

Example, we will take Kara, why the hell would you do Kara anymore?

Answer is : You wouldn't. Why do you need badges? Why do you need Tier 4 tokens? You don't. It is so relatively easy to level from 60-70 and hit Northrend that doing ANYTHING inside of Outland aside from quest or grinding is pointless. Everything in every dungeon in outland is garbage compared to what your going to get in Naxx. So blizzard effectively made level 1-70 pointless and useless and just a big time sink you MUST wade through to get to end game northrend. GG blizzard.

The OP was right, in my opinion, his post is an opinion, and everything you been blasting him with is an opinion. So all of this is kinda pointless, almost as pointless as wow.

Some love the treadmill, some have grown tired of it. It doesn't matter about anything else in between.

PS. For the record, flying mounts suck ass, and the new dragons look like a flying penis. (proto-drakes are cool)  So he wasn't  missing anything by not getting one. Only thing I see people use them for is to mount up and run away from my ret paladin.

I understand that wow really gets going at level 80, to say that the other stuff is obseleet isn't really true. take kara for example, sure its not as common now a days but people still run it, either for the achievement, just for fun, or like me, for the enchanting formulae that drops there. I haven't done much of the PvP but yes it is quite repetitive, but thats not the point. the point of the battlegrounds is for people to beat on others. the objectives are there purely to decide a winner so the battles don't go on forever. many players go in there just to kill other people and couldn't care less about capturing the flags, etc.

You guys really shouldn't waste time arguing with Zorndorf.  He's the champion fanboi of WoW.  Anything about his precious is just going to end up getting "LOLZ 11.5 million says so"

Originally posted by Malvolentia

You guys really shouldn't waste time arguing with Zorndorf.  He's the champion fanboi of WoW.  Anything about his precious is just going to end up getting "LOLZ 11.5 million says so"

This I would gladly do.  But at this stage, I cannot as it's more and more turning into a point of principle.

I only pay occasional interest to the WoW forum section because, well, I don't play that game anymore, and I don't have that same passion for talking about it as for, say, Pirates of the Burning Sea, for which I'm still a regular member of the woodstove league on the MMORPG forums despite stopping playing that game in June. 

PotBS is really a case of wasted potential and makes for endless punditry, whereas WoW, I readily admit, is not for me.  The problem with WoW lies in the fact that it's pretty much unassailable according to its supporters because, as you pointed out, it's so popular, compounded by the impact WoW has on the industry.  It's tilting at windmills, really -- and this from someone who built his life around futility.

But whenever I come around here to read the WoW section of this site, I always seem to bump into a post of Zorndorf's that makes me shiver by all its appeals to the majority, paranoia, and sheer condescension.  I'm getting the impression of a guy who pretty much gets the run of the WoW forum because he supports the game and therefore must be one of the good guys.

A few people posted in this thread about how he should just stop because he is making a fool of himself and, by extension, of WoW fans here.  But based on his actions, there's nothing new to that.

Just consider this thread and the responses Zorndorf posted in it -- as well as the prevalence of the word "vomit".  Even lukewarm isn't positive enough when WoW is being discussed.

And while Zorndorf is keen on accusing "WoW haters" of trolling, he has shown perfectly willing to do some trolling of his own in other game sections -- and this from someone who never thought much of Warhammer Online.  Other games affected: Age of Conan and, of late, Darkfall.

On top of that, he talks of "WoW hate" while being the first to fan it thanks to posts such as this one. His response to the LOTRO expansion winning a meaningless internet poll here fits in this part, as would this other little post which I will quote directly for the edification of MMORPG readers:

Could you STOP SPAM our Wow threads with hate?

I for one am NOT interested in your views on which game you like more. The shine of AOC was never even there and your behaviour of attacking people who want to post why they love NOT to play Wow does NOT suite me either.

Spam it in the general discussions, like all those other 600 Wow haters.

Why do you even visit these forum but to spit on the game I like to play.

This is a typical Zorndorf comment:  Note the "our" when referring to the WoW section of the MMORPG forums, when he's already made it clear that he doesn't trust the MMORPG site, as exemplified by that slight against WOTLK in favour of LOTRO. He wants to confine WoW hate to the general section.  He denies others even the slightest ground for liking a game that isn't WoW.  And there's probably one "not" too many in the latter part of that third sentence.

While doing this, he turns WoW into an unstoppable juggernaut.  Wouldn't players of other games be concerned?

I could go on and on, with more examples and more quotes, but the pattern is clear enough.  Now, far from me the idea of trying to censor him, but at one point I am wondering why the community hasn't stood up against the behaviour of this guy.  Yes, he supports your game, but he's also making fools of you because most of the people here remain silent while he does it.

In this thread alone, he:

• Accused me of not being able to comment on a game because I had only played for six weeks and up to level 46, having missed, according to him, "the game".  If you follow the links above, he once stated that to be a WoW player, you had to have played "six months to a year", but how long into the run of Warhammer Online did he post that trolling thread calling that game a laughingstock in the European Union? Early December.  Less than three months, with no indication of how long he actually played it before reaching that inevitable conclusion that it wasn't as good as WoW.
• Claimed I had already dismissed the game before playing it, which wasn't true (and what did he think of WAR, I wonder?)
• Said the "I" factor "in the title of this thread" was meaningless against the triumph of the will of 11.5 million players. But here's the thing: I never claimed to be talking for more people than myself, unlike those toting figures around.  What he has been doing is a classic case of the tyranny of the majority.
• Appealed once more to figures by citing Xfire (a favourite tactic of his, based on what I've seen).
• Wondered "HOW many of those Wow hating posters only played the game on a free server".
• Actually disputed that I had paid $50 for the game because it was too high by his standards, when the amount was nothing more than approximative in the first place, and as a result claimed that I had just played the game through a free download because there was no way anyone could have paid $50 for a copy of WoW Battlechest.
• Complained, when I actually produced my WoW Battlechest invoice to the sum of $45, that I had not revealed I was talking in Canadian dollars, and then proceeded to invoke exchange rates with the US dollar to say my price was too high, never mind that (1) I never claimed I was talking in US dollars in the first place; (2) my profile clearly indicates I'm Canadian; (3) exchange rates might fluctuate while prices won't, and that it has been documented for certain types of goods; (4) Zorn can't claim to be talking out of short-sightedness, and in fact probably does not care about the amount being in US dollars, shiny beads or beaver pelts, as he lives in Europe and probably paid for both game and subscription in Euros.
• Did the same for prices in Australian dollars by accusing me of "dribbling around the problem", directly implying the inferiority of both currencies.
• If you've read the three previous points, actually bickered for a difference of ten lousy dollars or so, as though it were part of some plot to make the game seem more expensive.
• Accused an Australian gamer with whom I've been playing for quite a while of (1) being an alt of mine; (2) never having levelled to 78 as he claimed; (3) just being a hoax generally because it was his first post.
• Said that the gamer had given himself away by saying something that only actual WoW players would be able to catch, as though there were 11.5 million World of Warcraft Magic Decoder Rings out there.
• Picked on said gamer for saying that I couldn't find a copy of WoW, whereas said gamer just wanted to avoid saying that I was in a dire financial situation at the time and could not afford to play until a month after said gamer and his friends started in the game.

Now why has he been allowed to bully his way across these forums unhindered? 

In a way, I pity him.  Especially since he stated in his thread that he was attending university around the time of my birth.  It's already tough for me to imagine a 50-year-old man behave like this; it's even tougher to see him squander all his energy on a damn game (any title, not just WoW) that nobody will remember 5 years after the servers have shut down. With the little time on this earth that we're given, I'd like to think I'd sooner spend time trying to leave a trace of my presence, contribute something to society, do anything except waste countless hours and days and months on a bunch of pixels that in the end mean nothing whatsoever.  The only people building their posterity out of games are those who make them, not those who play them, no matter how much of a sense of achievement those players might get.  In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, "glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever".  To the guys at Blizzard, you're just $15, and nothing more.

Yes, Zorndorf, I pity you, even though I'm perfectly aware that you couldn't care less.

Hi guys, my first post ever in this forum. I want to apologize for my (maybe, I guess ^^') bad english since it is not my first language. I also apologize if I'll write to much but who knows? Maybe I won't add many other posts after this :D

I have read the OP (open poster? hehe) first post and I spent a few hours of my life reading all the pages of this thread. I found many points of wiew very interesting, tough different. The discussion caught my interest that much as I decided to create my own account and throw in my two cents on the matter.

I played many online games. UO, DAoC, Lineage2, Ragnarok Online, City of Heroes, Eve, FFXI, Silk Road, I can lose my mind thinking about the other minor games... and I played each of these long enough to qualify myself as a veteran, or I do have friends that has shown me many things, or whom I've talked with about these games for days and days, discussing about differences, +s and -s of every game we played or were trying out.

I also played (and play right now) World of Warcraft, I have a level 80 Druid (Elsarin, Moonglade EU RP Realm) and other characters that I don't feel like listing here.

A friend of mine and I usually discuss specifically about WoW, and even tho he agrees with me when I say WoW is one of the best games around the mmorpg market, he personally dislikes it and quitted with the convinction he knows everything about WoW, after having hit just lvl 67 (when level cap was 70, during Burning Crusade expansion). When I was at level 67 I had pretty much his own knowledge of the game, and I can swear to you, Vetarnias, I would have thought exactly like him (or you) if I did not hit the level cap and tried end game content. I WAS like you and like him too, so I used to think alike as well.

I started a character during WoW open beta, then quitted, tried it again after a few months, did another account (wich is the one I still use, right now) and leveled up to 60 when 60 was the max level.

I quitted the game because it was like you described it, a grinding without end, a fight to earn your pieces of gear, or your pvp title. Back then it was a hard game. It was challenging, yes, even tho there were games that would require more time off you, and even more patience. I wiped with my party so many times in the first phases of the game and I lost count of the times I died during my lvl 60 runs. I did lot of pvp and earned my rank, yet I was never able to get the max ranking, wich would require an endless farming of the PvP battlegrounds someone else before me spoke about. Yet, I gained most fun not from endgame content, but from leveling. I am a Warcraft fan, as I played it since when I was a kid, and World of Warcraft gave me the chance to explore the lands of Azeroth and feel the lore not as a "god moving soldiers from the above" but actually partecipating, as a living character created by myself. The quests were cool, reading them and completing them would help me to sink even more in what seemed to me like an endless pot of lore.

Well, I think this is questionable, hehe, many dislike Warcraft lore, but what can I say? I'm a fan after all! I liked a lot everything about exploring new places and doing quests. Sure, there were the "gather 15 scorpion tail" and "gather 3 stacks of rat hides" quests, but many other were very nice ones, like when they gave you a riddle and you had to discover where to get the dwarf the materials he needed to craft a something he would then give you, or when you had to escort the guy that would fall asleep every 2 minutes, he was a pain in the ass and it would make me angry, but just thinking about it makes me smile, right now :D In the end, it was fun doing it, and it's fun thinking about those old days. Anyway, it ruined my fun when having nothing else to do at lvl 60 kinda made my character progression starve. I didn't care about rolling an alt, nor I had interest in gaining money, I was fed off by pvp already and raiding was too difficult for me because I was unlucky and could not find a guild I liked.

But, I never said WoW sucks or anything, I still used to say it was the best game around, I just got tired of it. And in fact, I quitted. I decided to pay my monthly fee again when TBC was released. I played TBC with my girlfriend and old friends of mine (one of them is that guy I mentioned earlier) and we went up together trough the grinding, 'till me and he got fed off again. It was lvl 67 btw. I enjoyed a lot TBC because, as I said, being a fan of Warcraft, I loved the strategy games and felt enthusiastic about linking the facts in warcraft II with those of TBC, both taking place in Outland. I was overjoyed when I walked trough Honor Hold, thinking: "Wow, these soldiers endured Outland till now? But I thought they were dead after the Dark Portal collpased in Warcraft II final mission, and wow, they got old, they were sieged by demons for 20 yeards, and yet they and their hold still stands here in the nowhere, surrounded by enemies!" and all epic stuff like that. You know, when you are a fan, you get caught by these things! xD Again, what did enjoyed me the most? Questing, seeing the world, exploring and staying with my friends, until I got bored again because of other RL interests and various other problems.

The last time I decided to get my account and play again was when my girlfriend told me: "Hey, I wanted to play again, I hit 70, I joined a guild and we're doing a lot of fun things!" and I answered something like "Nah, sorry, can't be bothered, I quitted, and anyway I was already 67, what else could be there? Just a few things, can't be really bothered." And well, she FORCED ME to play with her (you know how these things work, hehe) but I soon felt it was a good idea once i started endgame content with her and our guild. I can state that raiding was a complete different game than doing quests or pvp. Even end game istances were on another level of gameplay, they required actual skill to get them done, especially when you hadn't the best equip for that level. You had to put effort in it, know what skill use and when to use it. Especially in raid, you had to move a lot, stay in certain places to avoid certain skills, know what would a boss do, and when it would do it, and on who... You had to read trough tactics or find them by yourself after many tries... and the more I raided, the more I had to improve my gamestyle to keep the pace with the difficulty increase, and the more I went up the ladder of guild improvement, the more I witnessed with my eyes how much WoW had still to offer me, when I thought I had seen everything, I was barely at 10% of the whole. This proved to me that somehow I never had experienced endgame, even tho I already hit a cap (lvl 60 during classic wow) and 67 (during first weaks of TB release).

This is why people in this thread, and perhaps in all World of Warcraft threads are so different in their positions. From one side many that never tried endgame or act like they did to make themselves look knowledgeable, from the other side people that actually played it (and I mean played it seriously, raiding and stuff, seeing the true endgame and not just hitting the cap) and maybe tested on themselves what means playing a "different game". I made this idea long before Wrath of the Lich King came out. The idea of WoW and endgame-WoW being two different games. I cannot stress enough the importance of "Try endgame content before judge a game" sentence, I would not know how else put it. And up 'till now I didn't took into consideration WotKL.

Ok, TBC starts to grow boring, I raided, I PVPed, I begin thinking that I'm tired of farming for gear and I'm tired of wiping in certain raid boss'fights my guild can't beat, when WotLK is finally released. I can guarantee everyone of you that I didn't expect myself to be THAT impressed. So much that I thought "Time to open my eyes, the game before today was worthless". WotLK was really THAT good for me that it was like a fresh breeze after a long walk into the desert. And I don't want to list everything added with the last expansion, because this post is already long and I do not find a technical list of adds relevant. What I want to say is that Blizzard was able to refresh my interest toward the game many times, with many patches that added many things, both to the new contents, both to the old game, and I'm talking about the talent specialization rewamps (that lets you play a class you already played with another different flavour), the new Achievement system (wich give little rewards, but it's a fun thing to do per se, because it's just fun to have always something new to try to do), the renewed Graphic Interface (always modern and full of options and so many customs to let you play with your own style). Sure, maybe other games have these features or similar, but I didn't see any game that beats WoW in care for the details, updates, care for its community (wich is both game development and technical assistance).

Don't you think these aren't minor things? From my experience in mmorpgs, I haven't seen many games that revamp an old interface adding new stuff to make the game at pace with time or user tastes. Let's just say that Blizzard forums are overflowd with people, both noobs and pros, that ask for changes and wow, they're listened! Blizzard developers answer themselves to the players and work with them to improve the game mechanics. I can say that maybe a few milions of players think that WoW was made in part by them too. 

I want to end this post by adding that I did not want to look arrogant or offensive, I read every post in this thread and I wanted to tell you guys about my own experience, wich I find important and valuable since I know better than you all if WoW was fun or not for me :P WoW has a grinding and farm mechanic, yes, but I'd rather say: MMORPGS have a farming and grinding mechanic. WoW has little depth maybe, but many other mmorpgs if none could add more than WoW had and still have to offer to its players. As many already said, perfection doesn't exist, but theer are models that try to get close to perfection as more as possible. WoW is the game that most earned the title of best game. The fact that 11m people love and play it is not an absolute truth, nor the fact that nowaday many mmorpgs try to copy from WoW its features (and still fail because they aren't WoW), yet they are RELEVANT truths. I'd take them into consideration if we were to argue about what's the best game around basing our judgement on these criteria. 

But your point, Vetarnias, wasn't even about that. You just told us why you didn't like WoW. I respect and appreciate your opinion and I agree on almost everything you said. Just, I can say with 100% confidence, that your judgement is closed to the lvl 46 game experience, and is also limited to your little real time gaming experience. You had not the chance to see how WoW started and how improved, you hadn't the chance to see new content added for lowbies too and probably you also were unlucky. Experience in the end is what matters. You just hadn't good experiences in WoW, thus your decision to leave it and judge it for what you thought you knew. I'll tell to you what I told my friend and what was told to me: you know almost nothing of WoW. Nor does your lvl 78 friend.

Leveling is fun, if you like quests and leveling, but even if you dislike them, they are practice from when the real game will start. I personally think that if you knew what lies ahead, you'd appreciate that leveling more, and perhaps you and someone else would have reckoned that "killing 15 scoprions" wasn't just wasted time, but a school about how to play your character. When you were poisoned for the 41th time already, you earned some practice into dispelling yourself or a party member. Maybe, when fighting a boss with heavy poison skills, you would have been the key character that brings victory to the raid, with your astounding poison-dispelling skills, heheheh xD That would have made you think: "Damn, these damn scorpions taught me something, to hell with that quest tho! XD"

I play WoW from 4 years, since its very european launch, I quitted and always came back to try the new stuff. Yet, I think I still don't know everything myself about this game. It's just too big and full of stuff to do. Maybe I'm too much of a fan? Heh, who knows, maybe my judgement is clouded, but I had and I'm having so much fun, that playing and being a fan are just good to me right now :P

Sure, there are many things I want to talk about but since it would really take me forever to write them all, especially after a whole night reading and writing, it would kill my head, hehe, and even tho I'd like to add more I'll just quit with my greetings to everyone. What's important, guys, is having fun, and maybe socialize a bit wit these useless forums able to keep people awake for all the night!

Byeeeeez! ^__^//

PS: I wanna really see this guy flying with haxxorz, please find me in moonglade and warp to me, possibly not while I'm raiding with other 24 friends! I'm a healer and I must focus on my 5 parties! 25 people are difficult to handle, even if I have help from the other healers! *__*