Starting WoW for the first time

A Neurotic

wayne040576 wrote: »

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

+1. I had a moderately enjoyable time playing as a druid but the quests are so repetitive I quickly got bored of it.

TheDoc

Battleflag wrote: »

Elder Scrolls Online is coming out in a few days, played the beta and really enjoyed it. Looks a lot better than wow too

:O

General consensus is that game is a massive bag of rubbish and bugs, and is nowhere near ready for a full release( scheduled in three days)

I'd be VERY weary of going near that title......

I tried the first wave Beta and uninstalled it pretty quickly, was an absolute mess. Is the latest beta more stable?

gaynorvader

wayne040576 wrote: »

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

I agree, I'm in the same boat, picked it up for the first time last year.
For the greybeards advising that it's easier to get into now, it's still far from easy. There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there. Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking up wikis. There's very little class customisation before the maximum level. You get most of your skills automatically at certain levels. Every 10th level or so you'll get to pick a speciality which you can change.
Honestly, I'd rate WoW as one of the worse MMOs I've played and I regret paying for it. I'd definitely advise having a look at SWTOR. I also enjoyed DDO though it's very different. The Elder Scrolls MMO is out soon and it's supposed to be good (or at least, the main criticism I've heard is it's just like Skyrim online).
Try the trial, maybe you'll be one of the many people that love WoW.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there. Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking up wikis.

Be happy you missed the early days, be very, very happy.

mayordenis

gaynorvader wrote: »

For the greybeards advising that it's easier to get into now, it's still far from easy. There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there.

I have to disagree, if you read any quest description it will tell you where to go, the only issue is a mixture of impatience, dropping quests or not reading the quest text other than that it will daisy chain you from quest hub to quest hub.

gaynorvader

mayordenis wrote: »

I have to disagree, if you read any quest description it will tell you where to go, the only issue is a mixture of impatience, dropping quests or not reading the quest text other than that it will daisy chain you from quest hub to quest hub.

I encountered a lot of "Go to [Town Name] and talk to [NPC name]". Often this would require me getting a boat or something. Not to mention trying to find the NPCs in some of the huge cities is a task in and of itself. I always read the quest text in detail before consulting a wiki.

mayordenis

Maybe I'm just remembering it as more seemless than it was, but normally you'll get some 'Person X north east of Y, in the Z district' etc. etc.

But sure it has been a while so I could well be wrong.

Shanotheslayer

I havn't played since WOTLK got bored. Then computer broke havn't had one since. But ****ing hell do I miss WOW. Not sure what it's like now but a great game. i put hundreds of hours into it. Still stay in contact with old friends to date!

gaynorvader

mayordenis wrote: »

Maybe I'm just remembering it as more seemless than it was, but normally you'll get some 'Person X north east of Y, in the Z district' etc. etc.

But sure it has been a while so I could well be wrong.

Occasionally did get the district, but still wasn't a huge amount of help in the larger cities (particularly the Drenai one)

ShadowHearth

Jaysus, people still moan about wow being hard to get in to and too complicated? The only thing that's left to do for them to make it easier is to make a button, which you press and your character just does everything on autopilot so you can just sit down and watch it.

I don't really understand the " it's a waste of time, don't play it". Like gaming in general is a productive time spending...
It's a game, go play it, if you don't like, don't play it. I played it for years and I have not played for ages. Bought last expansion and got only 2 levels and closed my wow carrier. I played that game for 5-6 years. And even if I am not playing it anymore I don't see it as a wasted time. I had fun and if I could, I would do it again.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Jaysus, people still moan about wow being hard to get in to and too complicated? The only thing that's left to do for them to make it easier is to make a button, which you press and your character just does everything on autopilot so you can just sit down and watch it.

I don't really understand the " it's a waste of time, don't play it". Like gaming in general is a productive time spending...
It's a game, go play it, if you don't like, don't play it. I played it for years and I have not played for ages. Bought last expansion and got only 2 levels and closed my wow carrier. I played that game for 5-6 years. And even if I am not playing it anymore I don't see it as a wasted time. I had fun and if I could, I would do it again.

Not moaning, just warning that you need to be prepared to look up wikis as it's not obvious where stuff is. Also, recently they removed the skill tree and replaced it with talents which massively limits character customisation in earlier levels.

I don't think the opinions of people that are very familiar with the game and have been playing it for years are all that useful to a new player as you're going to have a very different perspective and did your initial exploring in a different game world. One thing that I'm told is much easier is dungeon queuing, which is mostly automated now.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

I encountered a lot of "Go to [Town Name] and talk to [NPC name]". Often this would require me getting a boat or something. Not to mention trying to find the NPCs in some of the huge cities is a task in and of itself. I always read the quest text in detail before consulting a wiki.

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

ShadowHearth

nesf wrote: »

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

I would kill for that exploration sense I had in vanilla wow. Just exploring woods and finding shadow fang keep for the first time. Then finding another 3 people and trying to explore that place. Yes, I said another 3, because we had no clue about tank, dps and healer setup. We learned it in there by common sense. Spent 2 hours in that dungeon, died so many times. Was it stupid? Yes. Was it fun? HELL YEAH!

gaynorvader

nesf wrote: »

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

That's a new one to me. I know that it's certainly part of WoW, but I never thought it an intrinsic part of all MMOs. I understand that exploring is fun, but there's a limit. Especially pre mount when it takes a long time to get anywhere. Plus it's frustrating walking around a town looking for an NPC only to find out he was standing above you the whole time.
Again, maybe it's just me and wayne that WoW isn't suited for. That's why I encouraged the OP to try the trial.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I would kill for that exploration sense I had in vanilla wow. Just exploring woods and finding shadow fang keep for the first time. Then finding another 3 people and trying to explore that place. Yes, I said another 3, because we had no clue about tank, dps and healer setup. We learned it in there by common sense. Spent 2 hours in that dungeon, died so many times. Was it stupid? Yes. Was it fun? HELL YEAH!

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's a new one to me. I know that it's certainly part of WoW, but I never thought it an intrinsic part of all MMOs. I understand that exploring is fun, but there's a limit. Especially pre mount when it takes a long time to get anywhere. Plus it's frustrating walking around a town looking for an NPC only to find out he was standing above you the whole time.
Again, maybe it's just me and wayne that WoW isn't suited for. That's why I encouraged the OP to try the trial.

Well, did I say all MMOs? It's a fairly common design element in most of the older medieval type "questing" MMOs like Everquest and WoW. Part of the reason was to extend the playtime out a bit, it's a cheap way of giving "more content." Pretty much also why it's get 10 crisp basilisk livers from basiliks that have a 1 in 3 chance of dropping them and only 5 spawn at a particular location at a time not "go kill me 5 basiliks, and sure, do it in a group." It's fallen mostly out of favour in recent years, you can see this with WoW's quest helper stuff and Guild Wars 2's auto-quest mechanics that just grant and complete quests were you stand. Budgets have grown quite a lot though and they've better distilled that constant drip-feed of "dings" that seem to keep people playing.

I'm not defending this, just remarking that this is pretty normal in a Fantasy MMO and much, much better than it used to.

ShadowHearth

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

No **** m8... :pac:

Seriously, it changed a lot over the years. Game changed and people changed. I personally don't like how wow changed. A lot of the changes were made due to people bitching it being to hard to get in to, then others started to bitch how it caters to casuals and original fan base just got ignored. It got in to a mess it is now.
I can bet a lot of original players don't really like wow as they did before, but a new comers might really enjoy it as it is now, as they won't have the baggage we have.
By the way, I am one of those assholes who hates flying mounts and dungeon finder systems. Those 2 things completely destroyed the immersion of huge awesome world wow was. I bet most of people who grind dungeons don't even know where they are on map and whats the back story to a them.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

You why I hated dungeon finder and looking for raid when they were introduced? The above. 5 mans and raids especially should be you and a group of mates. Preferably with teamspeak or similar. That way they're a ball of fun and even 5 new players can have a good time learning and then beating a dungeon. But toss together 5 people of random skill levels, temperaments and ages and you get a cluster****. Dungeon finder is fine if you're queuing as a premade or a tank, healer and 2 dps looking for a fifth, but going in solo can be a nightmare even if you know what you're doing.

It does make it easier for the "uber casuals" though, the ones who won't join guilds and want to play an MMO solo for some Godforsaken reason (really, I couldn't stomach any of these games without friends to play them with). Actually, I think it's the same with MOBAs, I don't get why anyone would put themselves through playing one of those solo all the time, that just sounds like hell to me.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

No **** m8... :pac:

Seriously, it changed a lot over the years. Game changed and people changed. I personally don't like how wow changed. A lot of the changes were made due to people bitching it being to hard to get in to, then others started to bitch how it caters to casuals and original fan base just got ignored. It got in to a mess it is now.
I can bet a lot of original players don't really like wow as they did before, but a new comers might really enjoy it as it is now, as they won't have the baggage we have.
By the way, I am one of those assholes who hates flying mounts and dungeon finder systems. Those 2 things completely destroyed the immersion of huge awesome world wow was. I bet most of people who grind dungeons don't even know where they are on map and whats the back story to a them.

nesf wrote: »

You why I hated dungeon finder and looking for raid when they were introduced? The above. 5 mans and raids especially should be you and a group of mates. Preferably with teamspeak or similar. That way they're a ball of fun and even 5 new players can have a good time learning and then beating a dungeon. But toss together 5 people of random skill levels, temperaments and ages and you get a cluster****. Dungeon finder is fine if you're queuing as a premade or a tank, healer and 2 dps looking for a fifth, but going in solo can be a nightmare even if you know what you're doing.

It does make it easier for the "uber casuals" though, the ones who won't join guilds and want to play an MMO solo for some Godforsaken reason (really, I couldn't stomach any of these games without friends to play them with).

This is the kind of stuff I was getting at. Getting friends who haven't played before to play with you is good advice. Unfortunately I was playing with people who had played before and they mostly ran ahead while I was trying to figure out what was going on, so I started a solo character to get more of the experience but encountered the issues raised above.

Flying mounts are pretty awesome, but should definitely be end game content (I know it was originally, but maybe it should be pushed back again).

Speaking as someone who tried to pick it up recently, it's not fun at lower levels. Maybe with a group of friends. They also accelerated the levelling so you frequently have to skip past sections if you want to keep levelling (another reason I started playing solo). I think they've ruined it tbh, it might be great at level 80/90/whatever it is now, but I'll never know as it didn't get fun for me by level 54 and I'm not willing to keep paying for it in the hopes it'll get better.

ShadowHearth

I agree, if you don't have friends to start mmorpg with, then go and find a guild ASAP. Now active guild/community, not just a chat window for bored people.
I started wow as a solo player and ended up meeting people in game, that are my real life friends now. We don't even play wow anymore and we still on ventrilo daily playing other games.

Apocalypse

Hi Celadore

We have a guild on the Frostwhipser server called Paddy Irishman if your interested in playing with your fellow paddy's

Lone Stone

Ah god i made a tone of friends in vanila wow, all that cross realm stuff really just ruined any community that was around. bloodhoof.

ShadowHearth

Lone Stone wrote: »

Ah god i made a tone of friends in vanila wow, all that cross realm stuff really just ruined any community that was around. bloodhoof.

Amen.

Last time I played, people did not even bothered saying hello in dungeon group. If you wipe, then there is a huge cluster **** of noobies accusations. If wipe again - whole group falls apart...

Remember when you would see a person from particular guild on the server and you would knew that person will have awesome epic gear. That's the times, when epic actually were epic... Took me a month to get mats for lionheart helmet, then begging some dude to craft it for half price as that was all I had on me. He did crafted it for half price, but asked not to tell anyone as he did not wanted to get in trouble for undercutting on server... Yeah, back then a server was a lot more then just a hub for dungeon queues...

This thread should be renamed to wow nostalgia thread lol .

nesf

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Last time I played, people did not even bothered saying hello in dungeon group. If you wipe, then there is a huge cluster **** of noobies accusations. If wipe again - whole group falls apart...

These children, imagine them running Heroic Shattered Halls or similar.

ShaShaBear

Seriously, WoW?

Do you have a partner?
A diet?
Predictable toilet habits?
A fondness for sleep?

Not any more.

I am a lady who is responsible for sucking in no fewer than three of my ex's into WoW's cavernous mouth. I don't play nearly as often any more due to college commitments, but when I play - I play. Sure, there are things that changed I am not happy about (seriously miss the talent tree) and there are things that overjoy me to no end (making all of the spiders in that cave in the NE starting zone neutral instead of aggressive) but if you have never, ever played it before these things won't matter to you. The game will be what it is to a new player, not what it is no longer

Seriously though OP, dump your partner and buy some adult nappies/a share in Coca Cola.

TheDoc

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I can bet a lot of original players don't really like wow as they did before, but a new comers might really enjoy it as it is now, as they won't have the baggage we have.
By the way, I am one of those assholes who hates flying mounts and dungeon finder systems. Those 2 things completely destroyed the immersion of huge awesome world wow was. I bet most of people who grind dungeons don't even know where they are on map and whats the back story to a them.

I'm playing since friends and family Alpha, to my knowledge, I was one of the first people to get to play the game, and I've been playing it ever since.

There is a serious case of looking back nostalgicly when it comes to WoW. Alot of people think back to the good old days, and how it was better.

I think that's bull**** to be honest. The only rubbish feature that came into WoW was LFR and instanced PVP. Everything else has been a major success in my eyes.

Dungeon Finder is a godsend. I remember sitting in cities barking and shouting for groups for dungeons, then having to go there, do endless pvp to just get to the summoning stone, and probably waste an hour / 90 minutes before I could start the dungeon. Being able to queue up, get in and clear a dungeon is wonderful.

I've always been part of a guild, so making friends in a dungeon was never a must or a requirement. A Hi and a Bye with DPS in between was all that was required. I do like how they are coming back though in WOD as a gearing step. I thought they dropped the ball in MOP with dungeons, and pushing people into LFR as a gearing step. Looking for raid is a horrible implementation, that a player should NOT have to go anywhere NEAR if they can actually raid properly.

Thankfully that is being addressed in WOD where more time will be spent running Heroic dungeons as a gearing platform, to then be able to enter flex level raiding.

i'm HAVING to run LFR at the moment on some alts for gearing, and it's heartbreaking. I normally raid Flex because its times that suits me, but having to go into a mode where it's for people to just "see" endgame content, with no raiding expeirence or skill is a major drain of the game.

Grimebox

nesf wrote: »

Nah, single player Farmville type games win "biggest wastes of time going" awards, at least in MMOs you can talk **** with people and have a social element. Most games are designed to "addict" you, well, designed to drip feed you positive feedback that keeps you playing, MMOs are more cynical about this than others but it exists in most genres really. The issue with MMOs I think is the social element, it can become the main or only social outlet for a person and this isn't healthy! It's the mix of constant "1 more turn/kill/whatever" with the social side and the competitive side that makes MMOs so "addictive" for people (I'm using scare quotes because whilst I do believe that people can become addicted to these games this is a far cry from the mere "overplaying" that many people seem to think addiction is (as opposed to unemployed and happy about it because it means more time for EVE or whatever that I've seen).

I played an MMO for about a year. Not WoW mind you. They're all about grinding. The worst part of most other genres. They have created a game that actively encourages players to exchange time for progression, and they charge by the month. It is in their best interests to retain as many players as possible. The entire business model just doesn't sit right with me.

Celadore

ShaShaBear wrote: »

Seriously, WoW?

Do you have a partner?
A diet?
Predictable toilet habits?
A fondness for sleep?

Not any more.

I am a lady who is responsible for sucking in no fewer than three of my ex's into WoW's cavernous mouth. I don't play nearly as often any more due to college commitments, but when I play - I play. Sure, there are things that changed I am not happy about (seriously miss the talent tree) and there are things that overjoy me to no end (making all of the spiders in that cave in the NE starting zone neutral instead of aggressive) but if you have never, ever played it before these things won't matter to you. The game will be what it is to a new player, not what it is no longer

Seriously though OP, dump your partner and buy some adult nappies/a share in Coca Cola.

Boyfriend looking nervously at me as I read out your post. Brilliant!!!!

ShaShaBear

Celadore wrote: »

Boyfriend looking nervously at me as I read out your post. Brilliant!!!!

Play together. Then steal gold from his account when hes not looking.
I promise thats not why I have three exs that play wow.

nesf

Grimebox wrote: »

I played an MMO for about a year. Not WoW mind you. They're all about grinding. The worst part of most other genres. They have created a game that actively encourages players to exchange time for progression, and they charge by the month. It is in their best interests to retain as many players as possible. The entire business model just doesn't sit right with me.

I don't disagree. It's not even just grinding, so many aspects of the game are there to keep you playing a bit longer before you get your cake. Grinding resist gear anyone? There were some raids in the old days where clearing trash could take a very large proportion of your raiding time. This is there in other genres too to give you the "80 hours of singleplayer content" part of the box flavour text. It is very cynical. They need to keep people playing to pay the bills though, it's becoming far less silly but it's definitely still there.