I picked up World of Warcraft (Battle Chest edition) in late November, and did not buy the Wrath of the Lich King expansion because it was indicated to me that it was completely useless below level 55. It was just as well that I did not buy it, because I only made it to level 46 before I tired of the game. Perhaps my less than positive view of WoW is a result of my blasé attitude, as these past twelve months I gravitated from (to limit the list to subscription-based games) Pirates of the Burning Sea (five months), to Age of Conan (six weeks), to Warhammer Online (a week), and finally to Blizzard's cash cow in late November. Six weeks later, I've had enough of World of Warcraft.

I don't think I have seen a game that led to such polarized views, with WoW fans on one side who hope that their game will last forever (it won't), and the haters on the other side who apparently not only despise the philosophy of the game but also its impact on the industry, where WoW clones have become the norm. While I am skeptical of gamers who would turn the clock back to the "good old days" of pre-Trammel UO, I think they are right when they claim that WoW is a poor example of an MMO, closer as it is to a single-player game which many people play simultaneously than to a genuine MMORPG in the traditional sense of the word.

The game world, for instance, is very polished but has no depth; whatever you do in it will have no impact upon the dynamics of said game universe. As I played on a PvP server, I always found it ironic that we should have "contested" areas which would never in fact switch from one side to the other. The player's part in this? Kill a few NPC's and enemy players, but nothing more -- Tarren Mill and Southshore will always remain Horde and Alliance towns, respectively, regardless of how many enemy players overrun them on a regular basis. This gets old, very quickly -- and the static world changes absolutely nothing on an unbalanced PvP server.

Not to mention that the open-world PvP in those so-called contested areas is a misnomer. When it's not a level- or number-based gankfest, the PvP is back to the same annoying "tactics" I have come to expect in every game out there -- kiting, running in circles, stealth and waiting until the opponent is half-dead from NPC encounters comes to mind. In other words, I find that PvP in gaming has deteriorated into a series of clichés, with WoW leading the way not because it has given birth to such tactics, but because it has made them notorious.

This wouldn't be so bad if the game did not also force me to play a certain way instead of being genuinely free to build my class as I see fit. I played a Blood Elf paladin, and when it comes to "pallys" the word was out that "Retribution" was the best build available. And the word being out was, for once, correct: Just reading the description of the various "skills", it was apparent that the Retribution build was vastly superior to the other two, with its various bonuses to offense and other perks (including faster mount speed). But there was a hitch: I did not want to play a Retribution paladin. I have always been a sword-and-shield type of player, preferring to go for tanking and relying on priests and ranged attackers for support -- and the build for it was Protection, not Retribution (which instead gives advantages to two-handed weapons). However, due to the genuine superiority of the Retribution build, I was placing myself at a disadvantage simply for not selecting it.

I would even be prepared to disregard this if it weren't for the ludicrous level imbalances in the game. It so happens that I can hit an enemy NPC five levels above me with great difficulty, and that one higher by a margin of six levels or more almost always means certain death. Even equipment is ludicrously unbalanced. The basic defense bonus for a level-80 cape, for instance, is higher than for a level-5 chest armor, and that's not even taking into account the bonus it gives to other statistics; just try to imagine this in real life. All in all, I will say that as far as treadmill games are concerned, this is the worst I have played; not to mention that with new levels added on top by each expansion, it makes the exercise even more painful. But what a brilliant idea Blizzard had to make this game both level- and gear-based; when you've finally reached 60, then 70, then 80, begins the quest for epic gear in dungeons. And by the time you've obtained the best gear you could ever get, well, the next expansion will probably be out to make you step on the treadmill again before you could relish being king of the (pointless) hill.

This is so transparent as to be infuriating; on a PvP server, it all but forces you to buy every new expansion or be condemned to loser status. I can't say I even have a choice when it comes to deciding whether I want the expansions or not -- because a 10-level difference or more inevitably means certain death. (To add insult to injury, you can't even see how much of an unbalanced gank that is if the other player is much higher than you.) Add on top of this an unhealthy dose of ego-stroking instant-gratification, supplemented by the unhealthy amount of derision for low-level players built into the game thanks to the level treadmill (or as I like to put it, "your gear is the best in the world... until next level, where it's obsolete and where you suck if you keep it"), and you get a highly questionable game. Worse still, even professions such as fishing and cooking have been pegged to level progression -- even if you wanted to be an artisan fisherman, you couldn't do it without first levelling to 45. Maybe I would just like to cast my line without being sent on a run-of-the-mill "Kill X This, Fetch Y that" quest.

Jonathan Blow, the maker of Braid (which I haven't played), made headlines when he called World of Warcraft "unethical". There was much whining in some circles about his comment, but he's right. In his words: "When you play World of Warcraft -- and what I'm about to say is a generalization, since different players enjoy different things, obviously -- a lot of the appeal of playing World of Warcraft is not in the core gameplay mechanic, because it's boring, a lot of the time. Sometimes when you're on a really good raid with a team and you're getting teamwork going and that's a close call, that can be exciting, but if you graph out what players are doing over the average 12-hour play session or whatever... That's obviously hyperbole, but if you're looking at what activities they're actually performing, there's not that much good gameplay in there. I think what keeps them in there is, at first, the level ding, because it's very addictive to get that. "Okay, I've got more gold. Whatever." And eventually, they've made this huge time investment and they've got a character there and they know what that level ding feels like and the next one is pretty far off, but they can get there! And it's not any better, because this is like number 67. It's got to be better than 66!"

In other words: The most boring journey possible to reach your destination, the last level until the next expansion. But what destination are we talking about anyway? Well, in one word: nowhere. You just start to grind for gear instead of levels on the endless treadmill of WoW. Just hang around your average city, and you will see those guilds recruiting, asking specifically for level-80's, and sometimes for specific classes. And if you get in, it becomes a job. You *must* be available to do the raid at this or that time. Sometimes they even ask that you be properly geared before they let you in, starting a vicious elitist circle that never really ends.

Once more in the words of Jonathan Blow: "World of Warcraft says: You are a schlub who has nothing better to do than sit around performing repetitive, mindless actions. Skill and shrewdness do not count for much; what matters is how much time you sink in. You don't need to do anything exceptional, because to feel good you just need to run the treadmill like everyone else." When people complain about WoW only requiring time of its players, not skill, this is what they are talking about. Someone once commented on an ad for WoW that went "Come join 8 million heroes!" by asking, "Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero?" A valid concern. What makes a hero? Logging in? And if everyone's a hero, what sort of game does that lead to? Well, a game where nobody can have an impact upon the world, because everyone must have the opportunity to be as heroic as the next guy -- if you wish, a single-player game played in parallel, not an MMO. It's not only hypocritical -- equality of outcome is impossible -- it's also contrary to the general philosophy of a level- and gear-based game where some are more heroic than others by virtue of having put in more grind-hours to get to a higher point.

I talked above how instant gratification permeated every aspect of the game, and it's reflected in the type of players the game is attracting: many "serious" people who treat it as a second job, but many kids who come in and behave like spoiled brats. I was constantly being begged for money, and one case in particular stands out in my mind. I was extremely well to do (as a result of selling vast quantities of one item, at 1 gold apiece or so, which most people probably knew that anyone could obtain by killing level-5 monsters wouldn't be bothered to do -- in other words, my fortune came from other players' laziness), and in later stages, when being asked for money, I sometimes gave one gold or two to lowbies to help them along. One such player, level 23ish, asked me for 20 gold, which in a moment of complete indifference I gave him, with the piece of advice that he should keep the amount to buy a mount at level 30.

The next time I heard from him, he had spent all the money I had given him, long before level 30. Worse still, he candidly admitted that he had obtained no less than 450 gold just by begging -- and he had spent it all. His answer when I asked him whether he thought begging was honourable? "Yes..." And what could have a level-25 player have spent 450 gold on, may you ask? He showed me an uncommon-quality level-24 cape, which he said he had bought for 100 gold. He had been ripped off, I told him. Then he showed me his sword, a rare-quality level 19 item he said he had bought for 90 gold. In that case, I knew that it was that twinking business which was ripping off every bona fide levelling player looking for better gear that was to blame, not the begging player's gullibility.

I learned about the twinking business by accident. I had once obtained a level-19 Sentry Cloak in a dungeon, which a fellow raider told me was worth 180 gold on the auctionhouse. Not knowing about twinks, I asked him what could possibly justify such a price. Twinks... An entire industry of alts dedicated to the purpose of not levelling, with their entire gear bought at high prices by their high-level owners, thus proving the gear-is-king mantra and the unethical conduct of players themselves. I sold that Sentry Cloak for 180 gold, because I knew that if I put in a price which I judged reasonable, one of the numerous auctionhouse stalkers (such as those selling back cheap recipes at outrageous prices) would grab it and immediately repost it at a more fitting price. The level-19 players looking for the best gear to level up based on what they could afford, well, they never had a chance.

On top of that, there is the pointless economy which is entirely dedicated to levelling up crafting skills at the expense of rewarding craftsmanship resulting from such levelling-up in the first place. On the server I played, a stack of 20 bars of mithril could fetch 30 gold, while any piece of armor made of a dozen mithril bars would barely fetch 5 gold because it would have to compete with open world loot, while being inferior to some bind-on-pickup equipment from quests and dungeons. Not to mention that all the items you were forced to craft would end up flooding the market because there is no way to get rid of them at a decent price. Then hurdles would be placed for those seeking to level up by requiring increasingly arcane ingredients for which no justification could possibly be satisfactory in otherwise straightforward recipes; perhaps it was essential to place those pearls and moonstones on that shining silver breastplate, but why did higher blacksmithing recipes invariably require ichors of this, breezes of that? What does it have to do with the craft of blacksmithing? Isn't magical stuff what enchanters should be doing? (I won't even discuss armorsmith recipes producing items which only other armorsmiths can wear; what a way to nip demand in the bud.) End result: Crafters hawk their skill in major cities in a desperate attempt to level up without having to go grind for all those ichors and breezes -- or grind for the money to buy them.

I have already written far more than I should have, because I know this will either be laughed off, met with a few "can I have your stuff?", or issued a few reminders that 11 million players can't be wrong. Let's just hope that the MMO industry can survive the WoW juggernaut; unfortunately, when every new game, including niche titles such as Pirates of the Burning Sea, get compared to WoW to demonstrate they're not doing well, it is to be feared that the genre has been killed off.

Who knows, maybe Blizzard's "More of the Same" approach to expansions will kill the game in the same fashion as adding new floors to a skyscraper might ruin its appearance or weaken its foundations. But I certainly hope that enough players will tire of the obvious WoW treadmill to ask for different types of games without having to leave it to Blizzard to wreck their own game with their greed.

To the OP,

You would have been a great gamer 4-3 years ago.

Im surprised you are not addicted now.  Please, please level to 80.  Experience endgame, then be a judge,  Hell I hate endgane and yet Im stil playing.  Want to know why? You need to play to find out

Well, in all fairness, he did play for over a month.  Having to be max level (or close to it) to see any of the 'cool stuff' and not stale almost-five-year-old content that hasn't had so much as a freshing up is a weakness on the part of Blizzard, not any prospective player.

His opinions are pretty valid at lvl 46...  but he made some major mistakes

1.  if you want to be a sword/shield player, then spec protection pally and level that way.  You'll be able to take on 3-5 same level mobs at a time.  The problem you had was you 'heard' the retribution was 'best' (which is only true at endgame anyway) and so YOU decided to roll something you didn't want to play.   Leveling as a protection pally ( or warrior ) is very viable now.  Both can use shields and are fun.

2.  Massive PvP -  I'm sorry, but this is true of ANY game.  If you want massive battles, you need to be where the majority of players are... and that is 60-80.   Level 1-60 go very fast, it's unreasonable to think that on a 2 year old server you are going to find 20v20 fights in Tarun mill / southshore.

3.  Your leveling speed.  I really have to question the fact that you've been playing more than a month.  They have absoluely cranked up the leveling speed (more exp per quest, less exp needed per level, mounts at 30).   I can see someone who has never played a MMORPG before being that slow, but if you've played SWG, War and AOC.. then you know how MMORPGs work.

I think the OP is pretty much bang on with his post,he also touched onto the fact about if he joined a raid guild to do the end game it would have to be like a 2nd job and maybe thats not his thing,so saying he should do the end game doesnt hold much water.I did play the end content of the orginal release and quite a bit in TBC and  alot of what the OP said is the reason's I stopped playing and deleted my guys.

well i stopped playing wow after 2 years, after the ret pally god era. that and the ghoul invasion... it pretty much made me hate the game... so i wasnt paying any money for the new expansion... only thing i actually liked in that game was battlegrounds and arena..and that was pretty lame . over powered classes.  and trying to win a battleground with 14 other morons was just stressful as hell. i would rather take a raping then ever play that game again..and dont get me started on /2

thanks wow for making me forever hate rogues

gnomes

dwarves

the word nub, lol, and QQ

 The only problem I had with WoW and why I quit playing was the community.

The game itself is awesome and fun to play.

It's just the community that consists about 75% of 14-year olds (real 14-year olds or older peeps acting like one) playing 24/7 using their mommy's creditcard. 

It's just the amount of immaturity and the horrible attitude of many players that made getting fed up with WoW.

Usually the RP servers hold a more mature population. But it was always inevitable and just a matter of time till they got overrun by 14-year olds as well. 

Wich is a shame.

lol the 40 on 40 av's .. what a joke.. you got 5 people afk. another 5 doing nothing.. 10 people just chatting 3 people doing quests.. and a map thats set up for one faction...wow i havnt played in 2 months and this game still angers me....

theres a reason why people stick to wintergrasp. Also since the game is practially 90+ % pve theres almost no point to pvp

Originally posted by Vetarnias

I picked up World of Warcraft (Battle Chest edition) in late November, and did not buy the Wrath of the Lich King expansion because it was indicated to me that it was completely useless below level 55. It was just as well that I did not buy it, because I only made it to level 46 before I tired of the game. Perhaps my less than positive view of WoW is a result of my blasé attitude, as these past twelve months I gravitated from (to limit the list to subscription-based games) Pirates of the Burning Sea (five months), to Age of Conan (six weeks), to Warhammer Online (a week), and finally to Blizzard's cash cow in late November. Six weeks later, I've had enough of World of Warcraft.

I don't think I have seen a game that led to such polarized views, with WoW fans on one side who hope that their game will last forever (it won't), and the haters on the other side who apparently not only despise the philosophy of the game but also its impact on the industry, where WoW clones have become the norm. While I am skeptical of gamers who would turn the clock back to the "good old days" of pre-Trammel UO, I think they are right when they claim that WoW is a poor example of an MMO, closer as it is to a single-player game which many people play simultaneously than to a genuine MMORPG in the traditional sense of the word.

The game world, for instance, is very polished but has no depth; whatever you do in it will have no impact upon the dynamics of said game universe. As I played on a PvP server, I always found it ironic that we should have "contested" areas which would never in fact switch from one side to the other. The player's part in this? Kill a few NPC's and enemy players, but nothing more -- Tarren Mill and Southshore will always remain Horde and Alliance towns, respectively, regardless of how many enemy players overrun them on a regular basis. This gets old, very quickly -- and the static world changes absolutely nothing on an unbalanced PvP server.

Not to mention that the open-world PvP in those so-called contested areas is a misnomer. When it's not a level- or number-based gankfest, the PvP is back to the same annoying "tactics" I have come to expect in every game out there -- kiting, running in circles, stealth and waiting until the opponent is half-dead from NPC encounters comes to mind. In other words, I find that PvP in gaming has deteriorated into a series of clichés, with WoW leading the way not because it has given birth to such tactics, but because it has made them notorious.

This wouldn't be so bad if the game did not also force me to play a certain way instead of being genuinely free to build my class as I see fit. I played a Blood Elf paladin, and when it comes to "pallys" the word was out that "Retribution" was the best build available. And the word being out was, for once, correct: Just reading the description of the various "skills", it was apparent that the Retribution build was vastly superior to the other two, with its various bonuses to offense and other perks (including faster mount speed). But there was a hitch: I did not want to play a Retribution paladin. I have always been a sword-and-shield type of player, preferring to go for tanking and relying on priests and ranged attackers for support -- and the build for it was Protection, not Retribution (which instead gives advantages to two-handed weapons). However, due to the genuine superiority of the Retribution build, I was placing myself at a disadvantage simply for not selecting it.

I would even be prepared to disregard this if it weren't for the ludicrous level imbalances in the game. It so happens that I can hit an enemy NPC five levels above me with great difficulty, and that one higher by a margin of six levels or more almost always means certain death. Even equipment is ludicrously unbalanced. The basic defense bonus for a level-80 cape, for instance, is higher than for a level-5 chest armor, and that's not even taking into account the bonus it gives to other statistics; just try to imagine this in real life. All in all, I will say that as far as treadmill games are concerned, this is the worst I have played; not to mention that with new levels added on top by each expansion, it makes the exercise even more painful. But what a brilliant idea Blizzard had to make this game both level- and gear-based; when you've finally reached 60, then 70, then 80, begins the quest for epic gear in dungeons. And by the time you've obtained the best gear you could ever get, well, the next expansion will probably be out to make you step on the treadmill again before you could relish being king of the (pointless) hill.

This is so transparent as to be infuriating; on a PvP server, it all but forces you to buy every new expansion or be condemned to loser status. I can't say I even have a choice when it comes to deciding whether I want the expansions or not -- because a 10-level difference or more inevitably means certain death. (To add insult to injury, you can't even see how much of an unbalanced gank that is if the other player is much higher than you.) Add on top of this an unhealthy dose of ego-stroking instant-gratification, supplemented by the unhealthy amount of derision for low-level players built into the game thanks to the level treadmill (or as I like to put it, "your gear is the best in the world... until next level, where it's obsolete and where you suck if you keep it"), and you get a highly questionable game. Worse still, even professions such as fishing and cooking have been pegged to level progression -- even if you wanted to be an artisan fisherman, you couldn't do it without first levelling to 45. Maybe I would just like to cast my line without being sent on a run-of-the-mill "Kill X This, Fetch Y that" quest.

Jonathan Blow, the maker of Braid (which I haven't played), made headlines when he called World of Warcraft "unethical". There was much whining in some circles about his comment, but he's right. In his words: "When you play World of Warcraft -- and what I'm about to say is a generalization, since different players enjoy different things, obviously -- a lot of the appeal of playing World of Warcraft is not in the core gameplay mechanic, because it's boring, a lot of the time. Sometimes when you're on a really good raid with a team and you're getting teamwork going and that's a close call, that can be exciting, but if you graph out what players are doing over the average 12-hour play session or whatever... That's obviously hyperbole, but if you're looking at what activities they're actually performing, there's not that much good gameplay in there. I think what keeps them in there is, at first, the level ding, because it's very addictive to get that. "Okay, I've got more gold. Whatever." And eventually, they've made this huge time investment and they've got a character there and they know what that level ding feels like and the next one is pretty far off, but they can get there! And it's not any better, because this is like number 67. It's got to be better than 66!"

In other words: The most boring journey possible to reach your destination, the last level until the next expansion. But what destination are we talking about anyway? Well, in one word: nowhere. You just start to grind for gear instead of levels on the endless treadmill of WoW. Just hang around your average city, and you will see those guilds recruiting, asking specifically for level-80's, and sometimes for specific classes. And if you get in, it becomes a job. You *must* be available to do the raid at this or that time. Sometimes they even ask that you be properly geared before they let you in, starting a vicious elitist circle that never really ends.

Once more in the words of Jonathan Blow: "World of Warcraft says: You are a schlub who has nothing better to do than sit around performing repetitive, mindless actions. Skill and shrewdness do not count for much; what matters is how much time you sink in. You don't need to do anything exceptional, because to feel good you just need to run the treadmill like everyone else." When people complain about WoW only requiring time of its players, not skill, this is what they are talking about. Someone once commented on an ad for WoW that went "Come join 8 million heroes!" by asking, "Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero?" A valid concern. What makes a hero? Logging in? And if everyone's a hero, what sort of game does that lead to? Well, a game where nobody can have an impact upon the world, because everyone must have the opportunity to be as heroic as the next guy -- if you wish, a single-player game played in parallel, not an MMO. It's not only hypocritical -- equality of outcome is impossible -- it's also contrary to the general philosophy of a level- and gear-based game where some are more heroic than others by virtue of having put in more grind-hours to get to a higher point.

I talked above how instant gratification permeated every aspect of the game, and it's reflected in the type of players the game is attracting: many "serious" people who treat it as a second job, but many kids who come in and behave like spoiled brats. I was constantly being begged for money, and one case in particular stands out in my mind. I was extremely well to do (as a result of selling vast quantities of one item, at 1 gold apiece or so, which most people probably knew that anyone could obtain by killing level-5 monsters wouldn't be bothered to do -- in other words, my fortune came from other players' laziness), and in later stages, when being asked for money, I sometimes gave one gold or two to lowbies to help them along. One such player, level 23ish, asked me for 20 gold, which in a moment of complete indifference I gave him, with the piece of advice that he should keep the amount to buy a mount at level 30.

The next time I heard from him, he had spent all the money I had given him, long before level 30. Worse still, he candidly admitted that he had obtained no less than 450 gold just by begging -- and he had spent it all. His answer when I asked him whether he thought begging was honourable? "Yes..." And what could have a level-25 player have spent 450 gold on, may you ask? He showed me an uncommon-quality level-24 cape, which he said he had bought for 100 gold. He had been ripped off, I told him. Then he showed me his sword, a rare-quality level 19 item he said he had bought for 90 gold. In that case, I knew that it was that twinking business which was ripping off every bona fide levelling player looking for better gear that was to blame, not the begging player's gullibility.

I learned about the twinking business by accident. I had once obtained a level-19 Sentry Cloak in a dungeon, which a fellow raider told me was worth 180 gold on the auctionhouse. Not knowing about twinks, I asked him what could possibly justify such a price. Twinks... An entire industry of alts dedicated to the purpose of not levelling, with their entire gear bought at high prices by their high-level owners, thus proving the gear-is-king mantra and the unethical conduct of players themselves. I sold that Sentry Cloak for 180 gold, because I knew that if I put in a price which I judged reasonable, one of the numerous auctionhouse stalkers (such as those selling back cheap recipes at outrageous prices) would grab it and immediately repost it at a more fitting price. The level-19 players looking for the best gear to level up based on what they could afford, well, they never had a chance.

On top of that, there is the pointless economy which is entirely dedicated to levelling up crafting skills at the expense of rewarding craftsmanship resulting from such levelling-up in the first place. On the server I played, a stack of 20 bars of mithril could fetch 30 gold, while any piece of armor made of a dozen mithril bars would barely fetch 5 gold because it would have to compete with open world loot, while being inferior to some bind-on-pickup equipment from quests and dungeons. Not to mention that all the items you were forced to craft would end up flooding the market because there is no way to get rid of them at a decent price. Then hurdles would be placed for those seeking to level up by requiring increasingly arcane ingredients for which no justification could possibly be satisfactory in otherwise straightforward recipes; perhaps it was essential to place those pearls and moonstones on that shining silver breastplate, but why did higher blacksmithing recipes invariably require ichors of this, breezes of that? What does it have to do with the craft of blacksmithing? Isn't magical stuff what enchanters should be doing? (I won't even discuss armorsmith recipes producing items which only other armorsmiths can wear; what a way to nip demand in the bud.) End result: Crafters hawk their skill in major cities in a desperate attempt to level up without having to go grind for all those ichors and breezes -- or grind for the money to buy them.

I have already written far more than I should have, because I know this will either be laughed off, met with a few "can I have your stuff?", or issued a few reminders that 11 million players can't be wrong. Let's just hope that the MMO industry can survive the WoW juggernaut; unfortunately, when every new game, including niche titles such as Pirates of the Burning Sea, get compared to WoW to demonstrate they're not doing well, it is to be feared that the genre has been killed off.

Who knows, maybe Blizzard's "More of the Same" approach to expansions will kill the game in the same fashion as adding new floors to a skyscraper might ruin its appearance or weaken its foundations. But I certainly hope that enough players will tire of the obvious WoW treadmill to ask for different types of games without having to leave it to Blizzard to wreck their own game with their greed.

You could have saved us time by typing the following.

I hate the game and was pretty bad at it thus didn't enjoy it.

no thanks.....achievement points lol . biggest waste of time ever....and why would i buy wolk if i dont like the content in the current game lol...

   yeah and its easy to lead on the dmg meter.. cause your probly not cc'ing or watching aggro...i love when ppl in the battlegrounds think the damge means you are the best....cause only 5% of the people even know how to bg properly.

                                                                                             hope i never see another mmo with stunlock.....

Originally posted by daylight01

I think the OP is pretty much bang on with his post,he also touched onto the fact about if he joined a raid guild to do the end game it would have to be like a 2nd job and maybe thats not his thing,so saying he should do the end game doesnt hold much water.I did play the end content of the orginal release and quite a bit in TBC and  alot of what the OP said is the reason's I stopped playing and deleted my guys.

What are you talking about  raiding being a second job.    My guild raids 6hrs per week.  What you are talking about is from 3 years ago.  Let me fill you in on the changes

1.  All content can be seen by 10 man guilds.  Takes much less time to organize everyone's schedule
2.  Potions/flasks have been marginalized.  You dont' have to grind for mats for potions anymore.
3.  Resist fights don't exist anymore.  No more grinding for 'my nature set'.
4.  Almost NO repetitive trash.   MC days are long gone.

Raids are no more time-consuming to put together than 5mans.   Very little prep work needed and with only 10 players scheduling is a breeze.

I guess it also has to do with your guild.  If you are joining a group of 'jerks' just because you want gear, then you are going to have to deal with 'dps charts' and worry about getting kicked for being to low.  My guild only uses the charts to see who needs upgrades the most.  We know each other well and know our classes very well.  But yeah, join a bunch of people who are only out to get fast gear, and you get what you deserve.

I am sorry OP, that you do not like WOW. You are more than entitled to your opinion but to be honest, your post reads like a bad cliche of "WHY we hate WOW posts". I mean, for example, there is plenty of lore and you experience all the time if you take the time to experience it. One of the reasons I love WOW is I love the lore and I love seeing things I experienced in Warcraft 2 and 3 come alive and I participate in the events.

It seems that you, like many others who hate WOW, have your version of what the game should be like and you fall into the trap of "the game must be played this way". Your comment about ret pallies - sure, they are good but we have a tanking and healing pally in our guild and they do just fine.

There is no one way that WOW must be played; only idiot players who think WOW must be played one way (not saying you are the idiot but people who tell you that you must play this or that way). I fell in love with WOW when I realized that I was playing how others wanted me too. Now I play the class I want, level how I want, do the quests I want, etc.... Heck, if I want too, I will log on and fish all night or craft all night. While I am doing that, I will talk in guild chat and get to know my guildmates! Wow, what an idea - socialize and get to know people around you.

Sure, WOW isn't for everyone and that is fine but I really do get tired of the same old cliched complaints that can really be summed up as "I was told I have to play WOW like this and because of it I didn't enjoy it". WOW is fun and deep and enjoyable but sometimes the PLAYER must take the time and energy to experience it.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

You know.

It is NOT because you use a lot of words that these words mean something.

First you leveled up to lvl 46, meaning you don't know what Alterac Valey is nor Strand nor higher end possibilities in PvP, you haven't seen any of the new open world PvP in Wintergrasp (100/100 several times a day with tanks/artillery/siege systems and fortresses in ashes). I never took part, correct, but they're all instances from what I gather, i.e. no impact upon the larger world.

You haven't seen ANY of the world changing techniques for ANY MMORPG ever in WotLK (phasing) and you have NO clue what the meaning of crafting is in the end game. More ichors and breezes being required, undoubtedly?

No Raids, no arena, no nothing concerning the real PvP/PVE end game.

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Saying that Wow is "empty" is odd because on http://www.Wowwiki.com you'll find 68.000 pages of Wow lore to get .. started. Reading them would take an effort I know. But Warcraft Lore is 15 years old and everything is very good developped ... for those that want to RP in.  Not really my point, and I never even used the world "empty", a qualifier I'd use for Warhammer Online but not here.  While I despair at all the real-world references ("Haris Pilton's Gigantique Bag"?), the lore really doesn't mean much if the world remains all the same.  Yes, they've really spent some time putting it together, but it really fits into the general idea that the WoW world is all polish and no depth.  And for the record, I found that Age of Conan had the best world potential, but it remained unfinished.

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Paladins can be a tanking class, a healing class (greatest tank healers) and a dps class. Fully in your hands what you decide and respec anytime at a cost of 3 to 4 daily quests. So there goes your argument concerning pala's and classes in general. I respecced recently with a hybrid of retribution and protection -- in other words, I willingly accepted my status as an inferior.

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The "killing NPC's 5 levels above you isn't possible" statement is a good one. What do you expect? Some ability to do something about it.  You'd take five players against an NPC seven levels above, and you'd get five dead players and a barely dented monster. As is the gear statement. Would you like the gear of a level 5 as good as a level 80?  I'd expect an element of realism when dealing with such matters.  Don't tell me with a straight face that a level-80 cape in itself should offer more protection than a level-5 mail chestpiece.  It's just impossible.

Of course you don't know what "gear on account" is either, since you missed ... the game. Oh right, I just deluded myself for these past 6 weeks that I was playing World of Warcraft.

Perhaps you tried to play complete duds as MMORPG's, where gear is so much broken it isn't funny anymore that you forgot what gear means (both in the old RPG and present day).

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I am sure you posted this very important personal view in the hope that mmmorpg.com would certainly vomit all over our game once more. Just like it happens every day.  Very strange.  Seen from the perspective of forum sections for other games, it's often mentioned there that these boards have a knee-jerk reaction FOR World of Warcraft, not against it. I suspect it's just the idea of disagreeing that a game is good that gets people all riled up, and that there's no pro- or anti-WoW bias.  Just overall negativity.

No doubt you succeded Mr level 46, but doing with complete unfounded elements like above (because of complete lack of lnowledge about Lore, classes, PvP, PVE RAids and end game crafting), I doubt any game will please you as you "think you know it all" ... Maybe it's WoW's problem in the first place?  That it forces you to reach 60... no, 70... no, 80 before you can "know it all".  If you make the game as boring as possible in the meantime, what incentive does that offer players?  It's just the damn treadmill getting started again.

and all you could prove is .... you don't even have the basic understanding of its mechanics. We'll see.

 

Originally posted by Azrile

Originally posted by daylight01

I think the OP is pretty much bang on with his post,he also touched onto the fact about if he joined a raid guild to do the end game it would have to be like a 2nd job and maybe thats not his thing,so saying he should do the end game doesnt hold much water.I did play the end content of the orginal release and quite a bit in TBC and  alot of what the OP said is the reason's I stopped playing and deleted my guys.

 

What are you talking about  raiding being a second job.    My guild raids 6hrs per week.  What you are talking about is from 3 years ago.  Let me fill you in on the changes

1.  All content can be seen by 10 man guilds.  Takes much less time to organize everyone's schedule
2.  Potions/flasks have been marginalized.  You dont' have to grind for mats for potions anymore.
3.  Resist fights don't exist anymore.  No more grinding for 'my nature set'.
4.  Almost NO repetitive trash.   MC days are long gone.

Raids are no more time-consuming to put together than 5mans.   Very little prep work needed and with only 10 players scheduling is a breeze.

I guess it also has to do with your guild.  If you are joining a group of 'jerks' just because you want gear, then you are going to have to deal with 'dps charts' and worry about getting kicked for being to low.  My guild only uses the charts to see who needs upgrades the most.  We know each other well and know our classes very well.  But yeah, join a bunch of people who are only out to get fast gear, and you get what you deserve.

I only stopped playing at the start of last year and back then only Karazhan was 10 man the rest was 25 man and the god awful rep grind,Also you did need resist gear back then,maybe this has changed now I dont really read alot about the game now but alot of guilds a year ago were running the likes of SSC 4 and 5 times a week for 4 hours at a time,so what I was talking about was not from 3 years ago.
 

Originally posted by Zorndorf 

 MAX level at level 46? Close to end game?

Blizzard made leveling (for those who want it) as fast as possible to come to the real game.

In about 6 weeks you are in Outland (casual) and 4 weeks later you are in Northrend.

His arguments are well chosen because all his arguments can be countered in the end game. But he refuses to see the end game. End game: Running the same dungeon/raid all over again so you can get your epic Armor of Uberleetness?  That's not an endgame. That's a treadmill, which Blizzard will never let you walk off of.  End game: PvP arenas?  How old does that get anyway?  So we react and say: look uninformed people : good for you but don't come with laughable arguments. So apparently I'm uninformed and my arguments are laughable? What message do you think you're sending to all people who never had the fortitude to reach level 80 in the first place?

Paladins "that HAVE to be Retri". What a laugh. I bet he doesn''t even know you can respec anytime. Me is dumb.

"No massive PvP fights". Never a concern of mine.  Tell it to those doing these fights every time as of level 70. And over, and over, and over... The guy doesn' teven know what a personal flying mount is I suppose.

Or crafting helicopters and flying carpets ... Sure you might be telling me I'll be getting a Ferrari at level 60 to replace my Honda Civic.  Still, same crappy road...  Means absolutely nothing; if anything, it's just insulting.

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It's the same as someone making a thesis about US football after having seen two matches with the local amateurs. Just as bad as those who consider that anything outside the NFL isn't really football.

 

Originally posted by Azrile

His opinions are pretty valid at lvl 46...  but he made some major mistakes

1.  if you want to be a sword/shield player, then spec protection pally and level that way.  You'll be able to take on 3-5 same level mobs at a time.  The problem you had was you 'heard' the retribution was 'best' (which is only true at endgame anyway) and so YOU decided to roll something you didn't want to play.   Leveling as a protection pally ( or warrior ) is very viable now.  Both can use shields and are fun. Glad to hear it.

2.  Massive PvP -  I'm sorry, but this is true of ANY game.  If you want massive battles, you need to be where the majority of players are... and that is 60-80.   Level 1-60 go very fast, it's unreasonable to think that on a 2 year old server you are going to find 20v20 fights in Tarun mill / southshore.  I played on a PvP server, and you're right, we didn't get 20v20 fights in Tarren Mill.  What we got instead was a couple of level-80 enemies showing up to gank everyone or permacamp the Yeti Caves. Same thing with Ganklethorn Vale.  And where were our own side's level-80 players to protect lowbies?  Running their Raid of the Night, that's where....

3.  Your leveling speed.  I really have to question the fact that you've been playing more than a month.  They have absoluely cranked up the leveling speed (more exp per quest, less exp needed per level, mounts at 30).   I can see someone who has never played a MMORPG before being that slow, but if you've played SWG, War and AOC.. then you know how MMORPGs work.  So I'm lying?  I had to renew on Christmas Day, so that would indicate late November, wouldn't it?  Yet I struggled to gain more than one level a day, and sometimes I played for 6-7 hours in a row. 

What I *didn't* do, however, was use those online guides that send you running from one place to another to "optimize" levelling with little concern for scenery or helping out other players.  I knew two guys who did that -- they started playing a couple of weeks after me, and they just shot past me in their levelling.  But me, I was mostly stuck with doing solo quests because my other friends had joined a few weeks ahead of me, and I knew they were busy with their own treadmill grind to 80, so I didn't ask them to help me.

And by the way, some of those quests are a genuine waste of time.  I recall one in particular where the item you needed to complete it had a 0.5% drop rate.  Who in their right mind would spend time on a quest like that?  (And I won't even discuss other quests that required you to collect body parts off victims but which were not found on every corpse.  What was that supposed to mean?  They don't have hearts? Quite a feat.)

I've tried.. 3 or 4 different times, to get into WoW, mainly due to the fact that all my friends are playing it. But I couldn't. The most I was able to last, was close to a month. That was back when the game first came out though. I thought I'd give it another try, but still I burned myself out on it in less then a week. I don't know why, but I didn't find it half as wonderful as most of the WoW-Playerbase (Teenagers) Seem to think it is.

Maybe it was due to the fact that it seemed like a major gear rush, and without that uber loot, you have no chance in PVP. Ontop of that, PVP in WoW seems to simply be all about BURST damage. From what I hear, anyways. I didn't bother with it.

Some people are entertained by simple things. I don't like my MMO's to hold my hand every step of the way.

Originally posted by Frostbite05 

You could have saved us time by typing the following.

I hate the game and was pretty bad at it thus didn't enjoy it.

But bad at what exactly?  The economy?  Nope, I made cartloads of money.

PvE? For quests my level, it's all rinse-and-repeat anyway.  For quests too far above me, I'd be the best player in the world and I'd still fail, because the game is designed that way.

PvP?  I'd have to find some form of equal world PvP for that (not arenas or battlegrounds, which I've never entered).  All I've seen so far was ganking -- sometimes one-shotted -- by players so high I couldn't even notice their level, or otherwise players using the same stupid PvP techniques that make me rebel against any game that encourages their use.  Besides, I can't get looted if I lose.

That type of argument you're making (i.e. you must suck at the game), I hear it often about games where there is some property loss for the loser (Shadowbane, PotBS, EVE Online), but not for superficial fluff like WoW.  Here, it doesn't even matter if I'm good or if I suck, because we're all heroes, remember?

The I-must-suck argument doesn't wash here.

Originally posted by Zorndorf

That's why I find it sad he didn't experience the 40/40 battles of Alterac Valley 

AV hasn't been a 40/40 "battle" for years.  Who are you kidding?  It's a 15 minutes zerg to the north and south.  Field of Stife is simply an area where alliance and horde can wave at each other as they ride by on their mounts.