Basically curious where the game is heading was thinking about starting... a few of my friends play since release but not sure if the game is going to die like after FF14 , Secret World, and Star war release=/

Name some pros and cons and what you feel the direction the game is heading.

Originally posted by ozerinx

Basically curious where the game is heading was thinking about starting... a few of my friends play since release but not sure if the game is going to die like after FF14 , Secret World, and Star war release=/

 

Name some pros and cons and what you feel the direction the game is heading.

WoW is heading towards the E-Sports............but apparently that's what people want so I don't think is going to die any time soon.

Deestroy, your posts are some of the most accurate statements I've read about the state of WoW lately. And here, I thought it was just me.

Originally posted by Deestroy

If you want a true taste of what WOW was like when it came out I suggest playing Guild Wars 2 there are more devs from the original wow team over there than on WOW itself.

Not calling this a bluff, but would you have any supporting evidence for this claim?

with Deestroy about community now a shadow of its former self and about how good WoW used to be and got worse at every expansion and updates.

I faintly remember how a 3.x something update long ago started making everything disgustingly easy. My 3-4 first months in WoW were pure bliss, I was fond of what they created, but with the years they betrayed their players and turned their game into a massive cash hysteria not respecting their own words, allowing pve to pvp server transfer 3 days before Warhammer's launch, allowing faction change on same server (!!! seriously). Not enforcing RPG rule, not watching over constant channel abuse.

Community is still horrible, you still have a gold spammer every minute in capital cities, graphics is still poor, textures low, there's still no general story or epic backbone, housing, etc so it's really a silly cartoony playground for rude teenagers.

So I'd say, don't play it now and find yourself a better mmorpg 8-P

Originally posted by ozerinx

Basically curious where the game is heading was thinking about starting... a few of my friends play since release but not sure if the game is going to die like after FF14 , Secret World, and Star war release=/

 

Name some pros and cons and what you feel the direction the game is heading.

This game isn't going anywhere, disregard anybody who tries to tell you otherwise.  For myself, I recently came back after 2 years break, and having a great time starting over some brand new characters.  It's fun as long as you remember it's a game, and to not rush to lvl 80 because half of the fun for me was the lower level dungeon crawling and pre-80 BG's.

If you're interested, go for it.  It's not like the market is full of wonderful MMO's to play anyway  

Originally posted by Deestroy 

Oh and I totally forgot to warn you off about the HUGE security hole WOW has now. IF you insist on playing I advise a Firewall, real time anti keyloggers, Anti virus and Anti Malware, because the way things are now you are stepping into a 5% chance of getting hacked on log in.

You mean the basic safe-internet practices that all computer users should adhere to?  Yes, anybody who has a computer and is connected to the internet should have a firewall and a solid anti-virus program installed.  Anybody who uses email addresses should know basic things to safeguard themselves and not get tricked into clicking or entering their passwords on malicious sites.

As an IT guy, if it takes WoW to get people to start being more careful and learn more about protecting themselves online, then so be it.  Better WoW account than your banking accounts.

I'm sorry but i cannot agree with the stuff being said by the above posters. In fact, WoW is one of the few old games where you can barge in from the beginning and in an acceptable time you can participate seamlessly in the most high end activities. Also, the game isn't expected to drown or die in the next few years, so in that sense it's a good bet.

WoW is a pretty much easy experience from the beginning. It's very easy to start playing and level your characters, so even non-gamers can start playing right away and have fun.

That said, it's an hard game to master. The most competitive stuff, like the hardcore mode end raids, are truly unforgiving in that matter. Most of the people that you see around here screaming "WoW is too easy", can't really backup their claims with something valuable, it's just the word spread around and they like to bitch.

Also, "vanilla WoW this, vanilla WoW that", it's becoming annoying already. Vanilla WoW was good at the time. The game was fresh and new, and most stuff looked like epic. But really, if you were to play vanilla WoW today, it would S U C K bad. Nostalgia is what those people have, and it really distorts what was like "back in the days". It had great, good, bad and awful things. We have to live with that.

The community in WoW, is generally not good. But when a game has almost more subscribers alone than the entire competition, you'd think there are plenty more morons there. Also, it's obvious that gold sellers attack it more, but there are easy ways to deal with that through addons.

If you have friends there and are gonna play with them, the community won't matter much to you, really. It's not hard to find a good mature guild either, I've been in plenty of them, both casual and hardcore.

Also, the game has a great lot of lore and back-story. People telling you the contrary can't be trusted. It's one of the most extensive lore-driven games around, has 3 warcraft games backing it up and plenty of written books also. To be honest, I think you should at least get a feel of Warcraft 3 before playing WoW, at least to understand some of the story.

Also, the game plays nice, and you can easily play it your way. You can level through grinding (boring, but effective if you know what you're doing), questing (and there are lots of quests that set in the lore) and PvPing in the battlegrounds (afaik the slowest mode, but for PVP addicts the most fun one).

But let's not forget that it has flaws too. The game isn't perfectly balanced (no game is), the starting of a new char without any help can be a bit overwhelming, especially when it comes to some gear choice and talents \ glyphs. It should not be hard though, to find extensive and detailed help on how to develop your character, both in WoW forums or in fan-sites.

The graphics are outdated, even though I admit I like the cartoonish style. On the other side, you don't really need a great PC to play WoW decently, which is good for your pockets.

It has no survival sense, or housing. This isn't a real flaw, to be honest. It's more the style and feel of the game. Also, it's instanced, and the stuff you do won't alter the state of the game itself (well, except in some events, and also in WOTLK where they started a new concept of fading world).

Give it a try, and see the feeling of the game, and the combat itself. If you can beat the first 15 levels of a druid \ shaman (gee, the most boring classes at start) then you're probably good to go. Get a free trial, and never forget that friends > all. The game becomes a lot less fun when you're "alone".

You can also state what kind of features you do like in a game like this, that could help us helping you telling whether the game is or isn't, and what should you expect.

Originally posted by Deestroy

 no broken classes ( DKs) etc.

Yeah like paladins werent broken in vanilla right?

 DKs aren't broken as of now (unless you mean blood DK on arenas, lol), but let's not get offtopic and try to help the OP instead ;)

Any time someone asks "should I...?" you're bound to get a lot of differing opinions. It's more a matter of perception than anyone being "right" or "wrong" on the subject. I've played WoW on and off since the open beta stress tests that were run in the months leading up to release and while many things have improved, unfortunately, I feel that much of the creativity that went into the original game has evaporated in recent months. The focus now is on the Arena, Blizzard's competitive E-Sport. Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) seems to have been tasked with turning the game inside-out in an attempt to make Arenas viable, to the detriment of everything else. Much of what was based on lore and imagination has turned into an unfortunate pursuit of gear and numbers.

While I would have preferred a Diablo MMO (my personal preference), Warcraft does have a rich background and the early game of WoW showed that. The people who are working on the game now are not the same crew. Why does every sword in Northrend look like a cross between Cloud Strife and Fred Flintstone? Why are players encouraged to run the same instances over and over until they become running jokes? Why is there no real distinction between a Dwarf Priest and a Forsaken Priest? Who thought it was a good idea to create the ridiculous and annoying Mechano-hog? Mr T grenades? Temporary miniature skeleton pets with sombreros? Pilgrim costumes? Instant cross-server grouping? You think these were  all good ideas?

The strategy seems to be to keep players distracted long enough to squeeze one more month's subscription fee out of them. Blizzard's partnership with Activision has turned their creativity into souless corporatism. What was once a vibrant, living fantasy world now resembles a box of crayons that someone's taken a flamethrower to.

That's my impression, but your mileage may vary.

 I would wait until Cataclysm is out to be honest. I started a Warrior and then quit when I got him to 77 after the "nerf them again" announcements (We are aready a 100% gear based class with shitty line specs, what gives?).

Take it from me, there will be many people quitting after the changes hit and new folks coming in, just wait is my opinion (your not missing anything).

 http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3370013/Warning-to-WOW-Players-Compromised-Accounts.html#3370013

Accounts are being hacked daily and blizzard is doing nothing to stop it...other than delete the accounts of the unfortunates who got hacked and then tell them to "Buy a new account and pray to whatever god you serve it doesnt happen again". No thats not a direct quote but its pretty much what they told me in so many words. Enjoy the wonderful world of hackcraft.

WoW will not die when those games you mentioned come out, so you have nothing to worry about. WoW will probably go pretty strong for 3-5 years (if not more). I predict we will see a gradual decline over time. 

 I think pilgrim costumes are ok, and cross-server stuff is awesome, it means that no matter what time you'll always have someone to do some instance with.

I understand the "forsaken and dwarf priest" view, they had some unique spells based on race, which gave some feeling. But why did only priests have them? 

Also, those priest abilities meant that dwarf priests were awesome, human and night elf were sub-par, for example. Fear ward was really powerful back then, and that is bad for the game.

I agree that the game might have lost a bit of feeling, but it's not the culprit alone. It's an aged game, the feeling is bound to fade, so the game needs to come with new stuff.

Now, I don't like every change they did, but most of them have some reasoning behind them, and can even be understandable. To appeal to more people, the game had to leave some of the crowd behind. 

I think they'll be gone with the arenas in the next expansion though, and bring BG glory back. Yeah, I do loathe arena, and enjoy BG's. Arena kinda ruined a lot of the balance and class fun we had, but when I played (i've stopped playing since October or so) I could easily ignore the arena stuff and have fun with my raids and casual BGs.

Like other said, wait for Cataclysme, TONS of peoples will start new character to experience the low level stuff again.

Originally posted by Sortis

 http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3370013/Warning-to-WOW-Players-Compromised-Accounts.html#3370013

 

Accounts are being hacked daily and blizzard is doing nothing to stop it...other than delete the accounts of the unfortunates who got hacked and then tell them to "Buy a new account and pray to whatever god you serve it doesnt happen again". No thats not a direct quote but its pretty much what they told me in so many words. Enjoy the wonderful world of hackcraft.

Blizzard isn't responsible for stopping it, the end user is.

If you left your keys in the ignition of your car and the door unlocked, are you going to blame BMW when you find out your ride's been stolen?

People are responsible for securing their own computers and their online business.  If they can't be bothered to educate themselves and take (very easy) steps to safeguard their online activities then they can pay the price and get hacked.  Frankly, the internet was much more fun when it was populated by nerds and the tech-savvy as opposed to Facebook moms and grandpa. Good riddance.

Originally posted by onetruth

Originally posted by Sortis

 http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3370013/Warning-to-WOW-Players-Compromised-Accounts.html#3370013

 

Accounts are being hacked daily and blizzard is doing nothing to stop it...other than delete the accounts of the unfortunates who got hacked and then tell them to "Buy a new account and pray to whatever god you serve it doesnt happen again". No thats not a direct quote but its pretty much what they told me in so many words. Enjoy the wonderful world of hackcraft.

 

Blizzard isn't responsible for stopping it, the end user is.

If you left your keys in the ignition of your car and the door unlocked, are you going to blame BMW when you find out your ride's been stolen?

People are responsible for securing their own computers and their online business.  If they can't be bothered to educate themselves and take (very easy) steps to safeguard their online activities then they can pay the price and get hacked.  Frankly, the internet was much more fun when it was populated by nerds and the tech-savvy as opposed to Facebook moms and grandpa. Good riddance.

I have a sneaking suspicion that one culprit is the prevalence of add-ons that people tack onto their games without a second thought. It's rare to find players that have never used any sort of downloaded mod. Blizzard said during beta that they were allowing modders access to the game files so they could root out exploits and hacks. Well, that came and went and at some point, the developers decided that they could use the mods to add to the basic game. Now people download and install these things without thinking. There's no telling what they wind up putting into their game client in the process.

I would still say it's the best game out there right now. They have simplified some things in game but I don't think that necessaraily a bad thing.  Pardon my bad spelling :-)

Originally posted by onetruth

Originally posted by Deestroy

Originally posted by onetruth

Originally posted by Sortis

 http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3370013/Warning-to-WOW-Players-Compromised-Accounts.html#3370013

 

Accounts are being hacked daily and blizzard is doing nothing to stop it...other than delete the accounts of the unfortunates who got hacked and then tell them to "Buy a new account and pray to whatever god you serve it doesnt happen again". No thats not a direct quote but its pretty much what they told me in so many words. Enjoy the wonderful world of hackcraft.

 

Blizzard isn't responsible for stopping it, the end user is.

If you left your keys in the ignition of your car and the door unlocked, are you going to blame BMW when you find out your ride's been stolen?

People are responsible for securing their own computers and their online business.  If they can't be bothered to educate themselves and take (very easy) steps to safeguard their online activities then they can pay the price and get hacked.  Frankly, the internet was much more fun when it was populated by nerds and the tech-savvy as opposed to Facebook moms and grandpa. Good riddance.

 

For someone who doesn't know anything about the history of Battlenet laying it all on other players sounds easy.

But there has been more than one instance of Battlenet itself being hacked, in late 2001 2002  they hacked the main server soo bad they had to do 2 weeks worth of rollbacks. in 2008 about the time they forced everyone to switch over, they had just implemented NEW Battlenet code. I know the difference between normal levels of hacked accounts and the BS we have going on now. There is no way with most computers running Norton, half if not all of us running some free anti Virus, not to mention most of use behind a firewall with anti spyware keylogger software. That all those accounts were personally attacked by their own hacker. I mean you really  believe that there is a hacker army out there looking for us one by one, or would they just hack battlenet AGAIN. Get real.

 

Look I live with a Server Network Expert, I can tell you for a fact that Battlenet is shit.

 

Lol, ok.

So Battle.net is shit and Norton provides effective protection.  Uh huh.

Better consult with your 'Server Network Expert' again.  Your post is full of the type of computer ignorance that allows virus and malware writers to be successful.

People that get hacked are doing something they shouldn't be doing (or not doing something, take your pick).  Do some research or pay a professional to educate you.  There's no reason to ever get hacked.

You can be hacked without actually doing anything bad except connecting your computer to internet unless you wrote your own OS and all software and you're 100% sure there is no way that ...

I planned to write a very long comment to your "There's no reason to ever get hacked.". And then the truth stroke me. You would never understand.