World of Warcraft

I hear a lot of people say that WoW is easy and i don't full understand what they mean...

Do they mean that WoW is easy to learn?

In which case i would like to know which game is hard to learn?

Do they mean that it is easy to level up?

Again i would like to know about a game that is hard to level up.

Or do they simply mean that it is an accessible game and interface and in fact mean it as a compliment?

1)EVE

2)LINEAGE2

3)NO

WoW is very easy to pick up and play,within the 1st 5-6 levels you have passed the learning curve,Yes alot of games are easy but there are quite a few with harder learning curves.

Things like crafting are also very easy and take little thought unlike some MMo's like VG's crafting system that needs alot more thought.

Leveling in WoW has to be the easiest I have seen,you basically "follow the yellow brick road" go from quest hub to quest hub,If you die 20 times trying a quest*shrug* who cares,you are hardly crucified for dying in wow,You can be level 70 putiing the time in,in around 2-4 weeks.

None of this is a bad thing I guess and is what blizzard forseen and the numbers stand for themselves,so I guess the players like it this way.

 Basicly you will learn everything about the game in less than 20 lvls,the gameplay is "hold my hand while I go to the toilet" style,it's realy easy to lvl up.The hardships of the game come directly from the players you will group with (mostly kids) who will ruin your group fast.

Yes, WOW is very easy to learn, excellent interface and this is not a bad thing as many would lead you to believe, especially if you are new to the genre.

Hard to learn, EVE is right up there at the top, but by no means the only one thats more of a challenge than WOW. To some WOW's ease of play is a virtue, to others its a huge fault.

Yes, WOW is very easy to level up, certainly one of the easiest I ever played. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Lineage 2 or FFXI, but they are not necessarily difficult, you just have to have the patience of Job to put up with the horrific grinds they involve.  You could play Lineage 2 for 2 years and not have a max level, properly geared character. (unless you are willing to put in a ton of time or risk botting)

Yes, WOW's accessibility and UI are certainly its strong point, just some of us like more of a challenge in our games than it offers.  To take another example, I played LoTRO for 2 months, and I knew at that point everything I'd every need to know about the gameplay.  All that was left was the execution, and that was a terribly boring prospect to me.  Contrast that with EVE after 10 months, I am astounded that I still know less than a third (if I'm lucky) of the things that are available and I'll one day get around to learning.

Originally posted by airstrike

 Basicly you will learn everything about the game in less than 20 lvls,the gameplay is "hold my hand while I go to the toilet" style,it's realy easy to lvl up.The hardships of the game come directly from the players you will group with (mostly kids) who will ruin your group fast.

With all these fantasy games by lvl 20 you will have known all there is to know, EQ2, LOTR, etc etc.

Easy to lvl up means what? As the Quests in all these games are the same, ie go here kill 20 bears, or go to this guy and give him this and collect this and return it to me etc.

Or does it mean that there you get a lot of experience for doing very little?

What exactly do you mean "hold my hand while i go to the toilet" the gameplay style is exactly the same as all other MMO fantasy games that use auto attack>?

Originally posted by daylight01

WoW is very easy to pick up and play,within the 1st 5-6 levels you have passed the learning curve,Yes alot of games are easy but there are quite a few with harder learning curves.

Things like crafting are also very easy and take little thought unlike some MMo's like VG's crafting system that needs alot more thought.

Leveling in WoW has to be the easiest I have seen,you basically "follow the yellow brick road" go from quest hub to quest hub,You can be level 70 putiing the time in,in around 2-4 weeks.

None of this is a bad thing I guess and is what blizzard forseen and the numbers stand for themselves,so I guess the players like it this way.

I've played plenty of MMOs, there is no hard learning curve to them, just tedious mechanics or time sinks put in place of difficulty.

No crafting in any game I've played has been difficult or thoughtful.  Once again, tedious mechanics or time sinks are put in place of actual difficulty.

Once again, people think that investing more time than is healthy in order to progress a character, somehow increases the difficulty or complexity of a game, complete hogwash.  Still requires effort to progress a character in WoW, despite the reduction in overall time required to advance.  It's called streamlining, not simplifying.

That yellow brick road has many forks in it.  You may not like quests that give you directions to new areas, but there is certainly not one single path at any given level beyond your race's starting area.  Nothing says you have to do quest progression, you can still level quite nicely by just hunting or doing instances.

Hardcores love the tedious, time wasting mechanics of old school MMOs, thank gawd most of the rest of us are sane and won't put up with that kind of crap anymore.  Sadly, developers still pay too much attention to hardcore whiners on bulletin boards along with too many of them being hardcore themselves.

Diversity is a good thing, but it's becoming really irritating to see old schoolers coming into casual games and whining to developers to make the game more hardcore and make sure that the hardcore elements get rewarded better than any other play style.  They've done this in WoW (original concept was little to no raiding with status rewards, not best rewards) and are really ramping it up in LOTRO (really starting to focus on adding raid content and yet again giving them the best rewards). 

All of this crap about WoW being so easy is exactly that, crap.  There is challenge in the game and it's not just from raiding.  People die all the time, solo and in groups, that indicates challenge to me.  Forced grouping does not indicate challenge.  Death penalties do not add challenge.

I'll be a very happy camper when a development team with real backbone, makes a casual game that caters only to casuals and actually makes casual playing the most rewarding and ignores all the hardcore whining.

Eve is not necessaily harder just has more depth and content imho.

Dont do crafting but i imagine that in almost all games you get a plan and then get the materials and tput the two together and get a product, easy in all games i would guess.

Lineage 2 - Is grinding the opposite to being easy? In which case i would choose easy over grind every day.

Lack of content does not equate to Ease.

The arguements presented so far have not convinced me that WoW is indeed easy when compared to similar fantasy based MMOs as they all use the same basic formula, Quests, auto-attack, amor selection etc etc.