I think you got it when you said Requiem bloodymare lol. The game was designed around being gloomy and dark mood. 

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by vorashu

Originally posted by arcdevil

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by doctormozg

Yes i paid around 2-3k$ for f2p games.

Great.

Expect to be quoted by all the haters as the prime example of how much it costs to play these things. They love toting a single case of being spendthrift as a widespread panic.

there are thousands of "single cases" out there fyi.

there are plenty of news about people spending a few grands in F2P games

 

the saddest part is that news always name the top spenders, they seem to forget that if the top 1 guy spent 4k, the other 49 in the top 50 spent between 1k and 3k....

 

so yeah, keep your "its more rare than white rhinos" lies to yourself

Top spenders on a F2P are usually closer to 40k than 4k.  Perfect World is a great example of P2W.  There are quite a few people who will openly admit they have spent over 30k on the game. 

 

edit: The top 50 are all over 10k spent.

And almost all of them would probably say $15 a month is too much to play because they'd have to be on an even field.

I LOL'd so hard when I read that but it's soooo true! 

Ill admit once I get my Psy.D and I start working 8-10 hour days making decent money I would be willing to spend about $ $30-50 a month on an mmo to have the ability to progress faster and make my life easier than on a standard P2P mmo. However no amount of money made in any career would ever put me in a position where I would feel comfortable spending more than $100/mo for any single piece of entertainment. 

While I do believe the people who argue these companies are scam artists have some truth to their claims I also believe that if you are willing to fall for the very basic and obvious tactics of a company you deserve to get screwed. 

If you want to contribute knowing full well that your paying a lot more for a mediocre product then by all means its your money go balls out. 

There's also the other people who just wanna play a game that they enjoy for the hell of it. A lot of people really don't care about spending any money on F2P games in general. I know tons of players who get by in Free games quite well by having friends buy them or give them stuff, in some cases they save up in game money and buy it themselves. There are ways to get by in most free 2 play games without spending money.

Will you compete with the top tier of players? No you won't.

Can you be a mid range "Decent" player? Yeah you can, if you work hard, socialize, and play your cards right. 

I have no respect for the people who buy their way to the top in these games but if they want to spend their money on it then its their own deal. The problem is the trickle down effect and the fact these players often think of themselves as the "best" in the game because they can simply swat away all the F2P players and those who spend less than they do. It's quite a pathetic way to boost their egos. 

But I digress, If they want to spend their money then its their choice. If you want to play the F2P games for free you can, and you can get quite far, and enjoy a lot of the content for free. They are FREE 2 PLAY and in some rare cases even "FREE 2 WIN, "Sometimes" but a lot of them are also "Pay 2 Win". 

The total amount of money that I have spent on Free 2 play games since 2007 when I started giving them a shot is

$155 -  About $90 of that was on a game called Sword of the new world which I managed to enjoy for about 6 months and the rest on random action oriented F2P games like Exteel and so on. Most of the time I can play those games for free for a long time, if I really like the game I can pay for it. It's a matter of self control more than principle. If you are willing to work a little hard, and have some sense of self control you should be able to determine if you really want to spend those $15 boosting up your ONE weapon in that "Free 2 play" "Pay 2 win" game or if you rather spend them on 30 days of a Pay 2 play game. The choice is yours. 

They don't know how to get anymore players interested in this game.

It's quite pathetic marketing really.  Sword 2? Pfft. 

As far as a Free 2 play quality game this one is quite good. Expect to pay an average of $15-$25 a month once you reach the Expert levels though. (level 120/130) before that its not to bad to level up on your own without spending more than a few dollars here and there. I was able to get to level 110 without spending any money before the game became unrealistically slow to progress. At which point I spent about $15 a month or so on it. 

That being said there are better ways to spend your $15/mo than this game. I realized that and quit this game at about level 116. 

The biggest drawback I see to the game is the PvP. 

Its based on who has the best gear almost entirely and quite extensively. 

Let me put it to you this way.

A level 120 who spends $25 a month and upgrades his gear to +7-+8 can usually one or two shot a  level 120 who doesn't spend money and can only get his gear to around +5. 

There is a huge advantage for those who use the cash shop in high level PvP and some dungeons to obtain some of this really good high level gear require you to spend the money in items in order to participate in the dungeons *depending on your Clan but largely common in high level clans*

Not a single person who reached level 120 in my clan of 62 players (28 reached the level) actually managed to do it without spending money.

Those who don't spend money are seen as fodder to those who do.

So goodluck if you can spend the money and you really wanna AFK while you level which is this game's main selling point then you should probably give it a shot. 

The music and graphics are great even though the game came out in 2007 in the US and 2005 in Korea the graphics still look phenomenal for a Free game. It's got a decent storyline and the AFK game play will keep you happy right up until it asks you to open up your wallet....but consider this.

Most F2P mmos now days take at least $25-30 a month to compete even if you spend a large amount of time playing them.

In this game you can AFK the majority of the time spend about $15-$25/mo and progress extremely well.

So its your choice really.

If you absolutely MUST get screwed by a F2P company and pay more for a sub-standard product I suppose this game isn't a very bad choice. 

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

I don't mind "Pay to go Faster" or "Pay to have silly costumes".   The ones that do bug me are "Pay to Win".

My feelings about F2P games exactly!

QFTW!!!!

Just one little modification.

If the game say takes about on average of 12 months to reach the max level without the cash shop and 7-8 months with the cash shop, that would be acceptable.

However, if the game takes you about 7-8 months on average to reach max level with cash shop but 15-20 months without that's pushing it and going to far even on the "Pay to go faster' route. It has to be possible for the average player to reach the maximum level and enjoy the end game for a few months before the game decides to increase the level cap.

Thats a major problem with F2P games. If you do go the free route and they do let you get to the max for free usually what happens is by the time you reach the level cap the game is almost always ready to increase it or close to it...so you end up never really enjoying being max level. If you want to do that you have to pay. 

I have played the Beta for 14 and there are 4 issues that came up that I simply don't want to have to deal with in that game.

#1 Lack of leveling system, FFXIV is probably the most gear dependent game in history. Take levels out of the equation and it becomes a huge gear grind that would put WoW's Skill vs Gear ratio to shame. 

#2 Absolutely horrible controls for Computer Mouse + Keyboard. I hated them pure and simple, the camera was terrible and WASD felt unresponsive.

#3 Very stiff system requirements. I can only  really run the game around Medium settings with no lag although it looks good how I run it I didn't see any option to change the resolution past its standard in game or outside it, so I assume this will come in a later patch? Something as basic as a resolution change should be available from the beta to get an accurate measurement as to how performance will be when you put the game on native resolution. 

#4 I have way to much work put into FFXI to just let it all go away, to many friends (Some of which will leave for FFXIV) and to many hours of logged in time. I think I will be a casual FFXI player until the day the servers shut down in 2013-2015 (My rough estimate of the game's total life time by no means solid or truth). 

If I don't play it will be because of 3 reasons.

#1 Resolution, The beta locks you at a 720p display resolution or a 1080p which means that if your monitor does not support 1080p your stuck viewing a tinny screen. Also currently the game does not allow any modification of textures, graphics, backgrounds or anything of the sort. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt because its beta. 

Unless they offer the ability to change the resolution settings to fit your screen I won't play the game.  I am not spending $400 on this just to try it. (Ps3+game +tax) 

#2 Controls & Camera. Enough said Fix this please its horrible. 

#3 Very high system requirements. My machine is not a slouch but on the benchmark I only got 2000 or so which is extremely low and about 1000 lower than I expected. 

If I have a machine that can run AoC & Aion on maximum settings in VERY crowded areas at about 30-35 fps and on average on 70+ fps there's no reason why  I couldn't run FFXIV on at least medium settings comfortably. 

Originally posted by Majinash

Originally posted by NightCloak

 If you take a look at Guild Wars and at its expansions. Its business model had you paying more than the average sub cost of an MMO.

 

woah what?  I've been a GW player for... well, 4+ years with all 3 games and the expansion.  I've paid about the same amount I've paid for Aion, which I've only owned for 10 months.  GW buisness model has you paying WAY less than a normal P2P MMO, WAAAAY less.  just look at how much you'd have to pay for WoW if you've been playing for 4+ years (box +2 expansions = 150 + 4 years of $15 = over $800)

 

So i've paid 1/4th as much for GW as WoW.... don't see how your numbers work.

Numbers work if your one of the hundreds of thousands of players who bought the game and all its expansions like I did, then only really beat 1 or two of the games played for 1-2 months and never logged on again. 

Thousands of players had a similar experience and all of that is pure profit for Ncsoft

oh wow thats basically an exact list of all the mmos I have not played. And I have played over 50! lol

I will get right to the point and say exactly what I didn't like about Aion without any coating or bull shit. 

#1 I don't like open world PvP games where you can be ganked by a person of ANY level. If a game has PvP I want to have a fair chance to at the very least put up a decent fight and go down swinging. Once a game lets its player base go to lower level areas and gank people who can't defend themselves I don't want to play it. 

#2 I believe the leveling was to slow. The key to a slow leveling game to me has always been group co-op game play. I can do heavy grind games as long as they are VERY VERY VERY and almost exclusively centered around group game play from the start. If a game is focused on solo questing and the grind is really steep I loose interest. If the game is focused on group combat like FFXI for example I can keep it a bit longer. 

#3 To many bright mmos coming out in the next year or so to want to make a commitment to any one of them. I saw Aion it looked awesome, I bought it I ended up feeling "Meh" so I stopped, and now waiting for the next big mmo to try out. FFXIV Tera and Guild wars 2. 

So these are basically the 3 reasons I personally quit Aion at level 31

The benchmark said that I can only run this game on low settings on low resolution on my PC.

I found this very surprising considering I can run games like AoC, LoTRO, Aion, on Max settings, at 35-40+ FPS.  as well as offline games like The Saboteur, Empire total war, and Mirrors Edge on 45-60FPS.  I was actually expecting my machine to be able to handle this game on at least Medium settings  well enough.

My cousin has told me that there are people with machines who can run games like Crysis on maximum settings that are getting low scores on the Benchmark. 

So how reliable is the benchmark test? Do you really need to score in the 4000's to run the game smoothly at fairly high settings? 

Should I completely dismiss the notion of playing this game based on the benchmark ? 

It would run me about $300 or so to upgrade my pc to where it could probably score a 4000 on the benchmark, as it stands I scored 1900-2000 in low resolution and about 900 in high resolution. My native resolution is 1680x1050 which the benchmark didn't have the option for. 

I don't really want to spend $300 + 50 just to try out a new game. Especially since my mmorpg strike out record so far is 11/0 (11 games Iv treid 0 iv stuck with). So I don't think its worth my money to upgrade my pc just to perhaps play a single game. That being said I still don't even know if its absolutely needed or if the benchmark is off and I can actually run this game well on Medium settings. 

That...and I'm kinda already planning to spend my year long savings on a slightly more important upgrade in my life lol...

http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-GC41-Handcrafted-Classical-Guitar/dp/B001EH2EYI/ref=sr_1_33?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1279037722&sr=8-33

Hmmm So I was really looking forward to FFXIV but once the benchmark was released and I found out I could only run that game on Medium/low settings on my desktop I figured rather than spending $400 to upgrade I would look into a game with perhaps more modest system requirements.  Now I don't have a bad computer, but its not a hard core gaming machine either. It can run games like AoC,Aion,  Fear2, The saboteur, prototype, WoW & Empire total war on max settings at 35-50 FPS or higher in some cases its just not a quad core liquid cooled monster of a machine. There are people who can run crysis on maximum settings but on the FFXIV benchmark test only scored in the Medium range, which is surprising. It does not look like Square Enix is to worried about PC accessibility with the game coming out on the ps3.  According to the benchmark I can run that game at around 25- 30fps on medium settings Its not to bad...but I still don't want to have to gimp my experience so much. 

From what Iv been reading this game is going to have realistic system requirements. And I am not surprised since accessibility is important to Korean developers.  I have also been reading that this game is very much skill based over gear based. So If I am to understand correctly, this is the kind of game where if you want to block you raise your shield up in the proper direction and block, if you want to attack you press or click a button, for every swing, real time combat "Ala Monster Hunter style" if this is the case this could potentially be the only mmo on the market that involves player skill over gear, or any random stat factors. It seems like a very worthy alternative to FFXIV. 

Just a few things I haven't been able to find

#1 Subscription fee or F2P?

#2 Any estimated Release dates yet or beta dates?

#3 How long has this game been in development? 

#4 A lot of people are saying that the team behind this game is a really strong one, Can you elaborate on this? Is it the FFXI team? The Lineage 2 Team the WoW team or a combination of all? Why is it such a strong team of devs? 

#5 Just curious because I can't help but notice the obvious similarities in art style and architecture...did they completely just rip off or buy off the rights to the Aion designs for the cities and textures? 

Are classes going to be tied to Race or Gender? 

The real reason behind WoW's success is much more complicated than simply putting Marketing, good game play, art style, or lore. 

The real reason is because blizzard spends millions and millions in R&D. 

They spend money and hire some of the best behaviorists in the business to help make their games an addictive experience that keeps people hooked and coming back for more.

I know a professor at UCSD who has  colleague's working for blizzard perfecting the reward system in the game. Everything about WoW's drop rates, to talent points, to mounts and even level progression and exp required is mapped out and underlined by a team of behavioral psychologists who are helping blizzard make the game what it is. 

http://blog.jodybrewster.net/2007/07/22/the-psychology-of-slot-machines/

Here's an article of how classical and operant conditioning are used in slot machines simply replace things like flashing lights and small payouts of money as positive reinforcement with loot and small item drops. 

I honestly could not decide. It was such an even split 50 50 in my own mind. I tried leveling both classes to 10 and I thought both were ok about equally. I just don't know. My main class is a priest right now. I decided I'm going to level a Paladin for now and maybe sometime later I will know if I want a Mage or warlock.  that is a seriously hard choice to make. 

1 More question.

Which is less expensive to level? 

They are both Mage type classes.

They are both Damage Dealers

They are both Classes a Blood elf can choose (Which is the race I want to play)

They are both generally considered "Best choices" when some one wants pure out right Damage.

Both of which I have never played.

I'm trying to decide for my 2nd character which one of these should be it. 

A few questions I have are.

#1 Which levels faster?

#2 Which can survive an ambush better?

#3 Which has the edge in "Group" PvP?

#4 Which has the edge in "Solo" exping and "Questing" ?

#5 Which has the edge in "Party based Questing / Dungeons" ?

#6 Which has a more complex and customizable utility list? (Basically which can be played more ways / different styles that are more varied from each other)?

#7 Which is better for farming (Money making)? 

I think that Just about covers everything I would like to know about those classes. I would ask in the WoW forums but I think we all know why I don't. 

Hope to get some positive and informative feedback. Thanks. 

Originally posted by TheHatter

Originally posted by Calintz333

I'm just being an objective but fair advice giver. I stopped playing in 3.3 and the wife still plays almost every day with 2 chars almost fully maxed in current gear. 

#1 Can I solo end game gear or competitive to end game gear quality in WoW

Absolutely not. You can be guildless and do it the hard way, but you cannot solo it. It's pretty hard to get top end gear w/o being in one of the best guilds on your server..... which of course is like having a job. Lots of requirements and required play time. Fun stuff. :-|

#2 Does it take more than 6 months to max out a craft in WoW?

 I've maxed out pretty much every profession in 2days after being 80, with a nice gold reserve. Enchanting is the only one that took awhile, it took 4. Doing it this way requires quite a bit of gold though.

#3 CAN you make money off a craft in WoW?

 Sometimes. It's kind of hard though. Your best bet is mining or harvesting herbs for hours on end and selling the materials.

#4 Can you do group quests and group activities in WoW BUT have the option to solo things as well if you don't feel like grouping on a particular day?

 Not really at 80. You can do your dailies, but those are the same thing every other day. Each one has a list of like 5 they alternate through. Fun times.

#5 Do you have to wait 5-10 hours looking for party in hopes of getting an invite to grind some monsters in a far away corner of the world for 2 hours with a 6 man group to gain a level or can you do it effectively by yourself?

 In WoW, you grind instances... dungeons and raids. Raids can sometimes take awhile, but dungeons can be done quickly with the group system w/ an instant teleport to the location. At 80, the only thing really worth grinding is harvesting solo herbs and minerals for gold.

#6 In reference to question 5 WHICH JOBS can do it effectively by themselves? Can the White Mages?

 Ummm... I think your confused.

FFXI has a very advanced class system, and probably the only class system I've ever thought to be done well. WoW's system could be understood by a 5yr old 15min into the game.

#7 Does everyone have every job leveled by now in WoW so is it pointless to only focus on one character? 

 Everyone is 80.... but you can make 80 fast. Everyone in WoW does the same thing. They grind for gold from dailies, grind for gold from harvesting/crafting, or they grind dungeons or raids for gear. Fun stuff! :-|

#8 In reference to question 7, do end game linkshells / clans require you to have multiple jobs maxed out before they accept you into the clan? 

GOOD guilds require alot of play time (see question 1). You can only be in 1 guild per character, there are no Linkshells. You can join player made channels, but they suck worse than Trade chat usually.

#9  I have herd rumors of WoW having some kind of microtransaction features in the game, what is all that about?

 Dunno about that. I think it's just trivial pets and crap you don't really need. 

#10 Does wow have voicework and cinematics? 

 Very little.

#11 Is there PvP?

 PVP is like an Instance. You are locked into a battleground with other players all PVPing for points. There really is no point to PVPing other than for the sake of PVPing. You can max out PVP gear (very different from PVE gear) very fast. 

The only PVP that really matters, is when you fight for control of Wintergrasp. The winning side (horde or alliance) gets access to VOA and a few other minor things.

#12  In reference to question 11 Is pvp optional or mandatory?

 Optional. Unless you play a PVP server. I am a PVPer by heart in just about every MMO I've ever played. So let me tell you that playing on a PVP server on WoW is probably the most retarded thing to do ever. Just expect to be ganked over and over by people who you are absolutely NO match for and when I say ganked, I mean GANKED. There is absolutely NO reason for those players to kill you other than to waste your time. I could understand if they had some reason, any reason, to do it.... but they don't.

Just play a Normal server. 

#13 Is there a lot of different types of PvP ?

 Simple answer.

NOPE.

Formulaic battlegrounds. Capture the flag is pretty much the theme in all of them. There are 2 of them that do things differently, but they are very long and get boring after awhile. 

#14 Is there many ways to make money in WoW?

 Sweet, another simple answer!

No.

#15 Is making money usually a big problem in this game, do you have to grind 3 months to save up enough money to buy 1 piece of gear from the Auction house ?

 You don't buy gear from the Auction House. You will make 80 in less than 3 months, then all of your gear will come from raiding or at least dungeons. There are some good things in the AH, but they aren't really worth it unless you really need it. They aren't too bad if you grind the hell out of minerals, herbs, and dailies for a few days.

#16 What do you enjoy most about WoW?

 I've been talking crap about WoW this whole time, but I did enjoy the raiding and dungeons for quite a while. There is alot of them and the Cat expansion should give the older dungeons a reason to be played. They are very well scripted and just alot of fun. If you like doing the dungeon dances with other people, you will enjoy it. 

Raiding and running Dungeons are alot of fun...... until you've done the same one 50+ times. Anything's fun till you have to do it, over and over and over and over.....

#17 Would you continue to play WoW if you didn't have friends playing it, just for the gameplay experience ?

 WoW is a skinner box. <-link

I will never be back.

#18 Would you recommend WoW? 

 Absolutely not. See #17.

#19 Are the servers mixed, Example Japanese players with American players, or Latin American servers mixed with Australian servers? 

No. Infact, unless you modify the realmlist.wtf and make a different account and buy a new CD key. You will play with people from your area. 

NA plays w/ NA, Aussies play with Aussies (although, these 2 can cross....... albeit with bad pings)

Europe plays w/ Europe. Many different languages can play with eachother.

I don't know how it works in the Asian world, but you can't see them from either the EU or NA clients. I've played on both EU and NA servers. 

My advice, unless you have friends who already play just hold out for FF14 or just find something else to play.

WoW is not a good game. The end game PVE is good at first, but it gets old quickly. Other than that, it's built specifically to get you addicted and keep you playing, even though you're not having fun. (see my link to the skinner box above) 

Hehe I'm working on my BA in psychology right now. I know how mmorpg games are designed and I know blizzard hires some of the best behaviorists in the gaming industry to make their games appealing and addicting. One of my professors actually worked for them a few years ago :). 

I am a bit taken aback by the level of information and maturity in the replies so far. 

Maybe all the rumors about wow being invaded by 10 year old kids that were in FFXI were not exactly true. 

Or it maybe the forums just has all the adults :)

I really appreciate you guys who took time to reply with so much detail.

I have read all your posts and have a few questions.

With Regards to soloing your own end game gear. I have no interest in having "The best" gear. I just want "Good" gear. Good enough to do a lot of things in the game by myself without much problems. Good enough to participate in many high level activities and be a productive member of a group. 

So its possible to get a good set of gear solo then by simply running dungeons with small groups of people? I think thats what you guys were getting at but I am just making sure. 

I was reading online that every class in wow is a DD class. I don't understand could you guys elaborate on this?

Do people like healers and tanks as much as they do in FFXI in WoW?

My computer was once in 2008 a solid piece of hardware but today is a bit outdated. It still performs better than a lot of store bought laptops but it is a bit old. Here's the specs.

Dell Inspiron 1520

Windows vista 32bit

2.0 Dual core centrino processor

Nvidia 8600m GT

4GB DDR2 Ram

Can it run WoW on high settings?

Are there a lot of grown up guilds /clans in WoW that play semi hard core but not all out. Something between casual and hard core? 

Is a Priest a good class? How about a Paladin ?

I never thought I'd see the day I choose to play this. Id like some information on wow.

After 7 years as a very proud FFXI player the recent SE update really got to me. 

Not only did they raise the level cap of a game that has kept the same level cap for the better part of a decade but they are also continuing to make the game completely time consuming to the point where no casual player could ever accomplish to get anything done.

I have been playing FFXI since 2003. In that time I have gotten 4 jobs to level 75 (The old cap).  I have done virtually no end game and have gotten no real good gear of any kind. The problem with FFXI is that its not about what you know, or how you play, its about WHO you know. 

In FFXI its very hard to get things done without a huge group of 12-18 players. Getting decent gear is not possible unless you have this.

These linkshells "Clans" usually require players to have 3 jobs to 75, 1 mage, 1 DD 1 support or Tank.  Just to get into them. They also require you to have unlocked all of the hidden areas where this end game takes place. Areas for which the unlocking process could potentially take 2-3 months of questing with a 6 man party for a casual player. 

Iv just had enough of FFXI at this point. I'm in college, I'm trying to finish my degree and I can't afford to spend 4-5 hours a day hoping that  I get a party invite with my flag up in the middle of town, or waiting on some help shouting every 10min for a CoP mission to get sea access.

No I think I'm done with that crap. 

WoW  would not be my first choice if there was quite frankly any other choice. It seems that no matter what mmo I try they all feel very stale. Age of conan, Aion, Pirates of the Burning sea, EvE, all were way to boring and repetitive for my taste. I want  to feel like an adventure is happening. Having lots of variety in what I do. I don't wanna be limited to doing 1 thing all the time. I want to actually be able to level a craft and make a PROFIT from it without spending 8 months trying to skill it up to max level! "Cough smithing Cough" Woodworking"  and I would like to be able to take brakes between party leveling to do somethings on my own.

Hell you know what I would really like? Id like the ability to get my own damn end game gear (Or at least competitive with end game) without having to hope I meet the right people by a stroke of luck and have them help me do 35+ Missions to get into a end game shell where I would be at the bottom of the priority list for a piece of Neck gear that Id probably be able to have by the year 2012 if I participate every week!. Im not in high school anymore and I just don't have that kind of time.

I apologize if the majority of this post feels like a vent. My main questions are the following and sorry for taking this long to get to them.

#1 Can I solo end game gear or competitive to end game gear quality in WoW

#2 Does it take more than 6 months to max out a craft in WoW?

#3 CAN you make money off a craft in WoW?

#4 Can you do group quests and group activities in WoW BUT have the option to solo things as well if you don't feel like grouping on a particular day?

#5 Do you have to wait 5-10 hours looking for party in hopes of getting an invite to grind some monsters in a far away corner of the world for 2 hours with a 6 man group to gain a level or can you do it effectively by yourself?

#6 In reference to question 5 WHICH JOBS can do it effectively by themselves? Can the White Mages?

#7 Does everyone have every job leveled by now in WoW so is it pointless to only focus on one character? 

#8 In reference to question 7, do end game linkshells / clans require you to have multiple jobs maxed out before they accept you into the clan? 

#9  I have herd rumors of WoW having some kind of microtransaction features in the game, what is all that about?

#10 Does wow have voicework and cinematics? 

#11 Is there PvP?

#12  In reference to question 11 Is pvp optional or mandatory?

#13 Is there a lot of different types of PvP ?

#14 Is there many ways to make money in WoW?

#15 Is making money usually a big problem in this game, do you have to grind 3 months to save up enough money to buy 1 piece of gear from the Auction house ?

#16 What do you enjoy most about WoW?

#17 Would you continue to play WoW if you didn't have friends playing it, just for the gameplay experience ?

#18 Would you recommend WoW? 

#19 Are the servers mixed, Example Japanese players with American players, or Latin American servers mixed with Australian servers? 

These are my questions and again I do apologize if the first half of my thread seems like a Vent. I am a bit frustrated at the moment. I tried to make it clear and specific as to what my dislikes of FFXI were and my questions as simple and to the point as possible. 

Thank you and I hope you take the time to reply.