Is WoW any good?

[Barley]

I've seen the game in the shops, but as soon as I saw you have to pay £9 a month to play it, I was turned right off.  I don't believe in monthly subscriptions for games, we're ripped off buying them in the first place!

But I want to know, am I missing out on much?

[Armitage]

This is going over old ground. But the game is very good. There are a few things wrong with it. But unlike SWG there is not hours of grinding. The game in entirely quest driven. One a the few faults i would say is the fact the game makes it very hard for players of differing levels to quest together. which is a bit of a shame if you like playing with your m8's but he plays 8 hours a day. and you can only play 2 hours a week.  

as for the economy. it is far more static/restricted the other online rpg's i have played. this has good and bad points. on the good side. you don't need to spend hours grinding cash to buy a rare item. the biggest purchase i guess most people make is at level 40 ( a horse). on the down side. it makes lots of the professions a little pointless. i dare say you can sell stuff when you master your chosen skill. but most of the mid to lower level stuff. wont sell, as the quest items are much better than anything you can make.


Don't let the bad points put you off. i have been playing the game a while. and feel i have got good value for money out of the game. It will give you many, hours of fun. and if you haven't play a mmrpg before. i would say it is a good one to start with.

a lot simpler than SWG, so you don't need to dedicate you life to it, but in the long term I'm not sure it has it's leg either.

one last point. the monthly charge is to pay for the running of the servers. and it's a point lots of people make. but I'm not sure why people expect to get everything for free all the time. It's entertainment, run by a commercial company. people don't moan when they have to pay to go to the pictures or hire a DVD. Entertainment cost and £0.30a day for wow seems a bargain

[smilodon]

This £9 a month is a common question. I'd agrue that if you went and bought say Doom3 you'd expect to pay once for it. The developer should be responsible for providing patches to fix bugs or game errors and once in a blue moon a bit of additional content. When the first expansion arrived with five new levels, three new weapons and a load of new multiplayer features, you wouldn't go down the shops and say I've already bought the game once so I want the expansion for free. You'd expect to pay for new content.

WOW has had several major updates since it was released. There are numerous new quests and several new dungeons. A new PvP mode is on it's way, an honour system is coming in the next patch as is a complete new Battleground system. Evey class has been tweaked and had new features added and some old ones removed or changed. This is a game under constant development and is updated every Friday with at least some new content. Add to that a small army of Game Masters who are on hand day and night to deal in game with problems and issues and it's clear running any MMORPG especially WOW costs money.

Also with Doom3 (as an example again) you play that game on your PC. You have to pay for it and you also have to maintain it. If your hard drive fails and you can't play Doom3 you don't expect ID Software to pay for a new hard drive.

WOW is played on your PC but also on a vast array of servers. They require purchasing, running and maintaining. If they break down then it's down to Blizzard to fix them. They have already opened about a dozen new servers to meet the demand from the first wave of purchases and have just opened a load more to deal with the new influx this weekend.

We're very lucky that we can play CS on the dMw Servers and not have to pay for it...so far. That's not usual. It would be quite reasonable to help pay for the dMw servers and I imagine likely that in the future we will have to start doing so on a regular basis as memebrrts of the dMw community.

Paying £9 a month is fine if you know where you money is going. While WOW is not perfect every time I log on (which isn't very often these days ) I know exactly what my money is being spent on.

Give it a go and go the whole way and role play it. WOW is a role play game after all. Try Argent Dawn or Earthen Ring. If youy want to buddy up with the majority of the dMw who play WOW go for Aszune

[TeaLeaf]

Originally posted by smilodon@Apr 16 2005, 11:50 AM
Give it a go and go the whole way and role play it. WOW is a role play game after all. Try Argent Dawn or Earthen Ring. If youy want to buddy up with the majority of the dMw who play WOW go for Aszune

[post=82086]Quoted post[/post]

[/b]

Out of interest for the uninitiated (me included), what's your explanation of the difference between the 'RPG' server 'Argent Dawn' and the 'Normal' server 'Aszune'?   Is it just the lack of Player versus Player?

Btw, I detested the £9 per month - I almost never played the game due to that single fact, but I liked the game so much that I do pay the £9pm, or a little less than that as I pay per quarter.  Worth every penny imho.  

TL.

[smilodon]

Role play servers are simple PvE servers with a few extra rules.

The naming policy is stricter so only fantasy or medevil names are allowed. No Laserblaster, or Technobot are allowed. Also Deathbringer or Evilone are out. Basically your name is simply your characters christian name. The chat channels have stricter rules about when you should speak in character and when not.

Then it's up to you how much you roll play.

Sadly some people don't seem to bother at all. But they find as they level up fewer and fewer people will group with them and they can't advance their character or visit instance dungeons. Some go the whole way with role play. It common to see characters walking sedately through towns with their armour packed away wearing just robes or shirts, chatting about the state of the world. People build camp fires and tell stories, or go back and re do quests just to help a friend even though they have already done them themselves (my character actually lead excursions into the Deadmines on five occassions for lower level players).

Questing and leveling just part of the game. Community and adventure is a player generated part that doesn't earn cash or give XP. So I've levelled a lot slower than I might, as I'm doing loads of stuff that doesn't give XP. Examples are guild meets, the big inter guild seminars where dozens of guild leaders and their  senior officers meet to discuss the world, the horde and such like. I'm a Lv39 hunter and I started the game on day one. I'm sure many of you have got a lot higher than that.

As to PvP there is actually loads of it. I don't know what happens on the non role play servers, but large raids and multi Guild assaults are common place on Argent Dawn. There have been attacks on Ironfoge and Stormwind and I was part of a huge alliance raid that actually got into the middle of the Undead city and attacked Queen Sylvanias (leader of the Undead faction). We got slaughtered but actually fighting into the Royal Chamber was a major achievement. One mage managed to get a hit on her before we were all hacked to pieces by the Horde players. Many/most of the serious role players on Argent Dawn would like a role play PvP server. Therefore lots (but by no means all) use mods that switch PvP on full time. This is part of the reason why Blizzard are bringing in a feature that allows you to toggle PvP on and off. I have PvP active all the time (more or less).

Someone said role play was like being in a play, and haveing a character to play. Getting a personal lore (a story about your life history) and a set of personality traits that aren't your own (I don't drink a lot, but my dwarf is borderline alcoholic) is all part of the fun.

Role play isn't for everyone and sometimes role playing is very poor on Argent dawn. Friday night in Goldshire are horribe with loads of naked humans rushing about and leet speaking all over the place, but generally once you have got your character out of the start area there's always role play to be found.

It might be an idea to role an alt character and have a dabble.

[ChimpBoy]

Originally posted by Armitage@Apr 15 2005, 05:22 PM
as for the economy. it is far more static/restricted the other online rpg's i have played. this has good and bad points. on the good side. you don't need to spend hours grinding cash to buy a rare item. the biggest purchase i guess most people make is at level 40 ( a horse). on the down side. it makes lots of the professions a little pointless. i dare say you can sell stuff when you master your chosen skill. but most of the mid to lower level stuff. wont sell, as the quest items are much better than anything you can make.

there hasn't been an RPG made that has solved this imho, but it's a damn sight better than SWG.  If you weren't a crafter or doctor in SWG then you were continually shafted on money making opportunities because there were no NPCs to sell anything to.  At least in WOW you can flog anything you pick up, even if you aren't getting the premiums you might get if you sold it to a player.  All in all, the economy works pretty well, and it's a testament to how well thought out the game is.

I played SWG pretty full on for 18 months - and I can categorically say I will never go back to that after being in WOW.

Personally I find the £9 fee a non-argument.  The points in this thread are all valid, plus I haven't had a desire to buy any other game since I got WOW, and so I figure I'm probably saving the best part of £20 a month

Try it - you just might like it

[smite]

:withstupid:  :withstupid:

What he said.....in fact what they all said.
If you go with the 6 month package at about £46 (i think..... it has been a while) it works out at £7.67

I have had my moneys worth and continue to do so. But as i have posted before it is VERY addictive, 2 hours dissapear very quickly in this game.

[Barley]

How does it relate then compared to something like Diablo 2?

I used to play a lot of Diablo 2, and that's free once you've bought the game, AND the expansion pack

[DarkAngel]

Honestly buy the game (should be back on the shelves) you will not be dissapointed, I dont mind one bit with the monthly subscription. They need people to maintain the servers and its cheaper than SW.

So dont listen to the moaners buy it and get going im currently a lvl 44 mage, but id recommend playing as a rogue the best character overall, and for your professions alchemy and herbalism. As you can make potions etc with em great for stating out.

[Blunt]

But do you get to kill anyone?

[TeaLeaf]

Originally posted by Blunt@Apr 17 2005, 12:16 AM
But do you get to kill anyone?

[post=82130]Quoted post[/post]

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......only if you make bad potions :norty:

TL.