I'm a 6 foot male that plays a gnome female warrior. She kicks total ass and is extremely fun to play (and as a practical aside, her small size is a huge boon in PvP). I only wish that gnomes had a greater class selection.:)
Very true. I have the exact same types of friends (real and in other games) that won't touch any subscription based model and end up paying 2-3 times as much for similar entertainment. My bank balance loves me:D
Granted I have experience, but I can get a character to 50 over a weekend. I can then enjoy that character to its fullest over the next year. Like most MMO's, the earliest levels are the easiest. You shouldn't look at 80 levels and think the first 20 make up 1/4 of the game.
If they could manage their lives, they'd play reasonable amount of time and not let it interfere. Quitting is preferable to letting something encroach on your life but it's still an inferior solution.
My guild is intermixed with casual players and hardcore players. The most casual log on once a month and still enjoy it. The most hardcore supplement our guild raids with pick-up-group raids.
I have been informed that pie in america is limited to dessert. Elsewhere, pies usually refer to the savoury variety. A gourmet pie (as I define it) is a fresh pie baked with high quality ingredients (such as high quality steak) from a bakery. As opposed to a cheap-ass pack of 10 mince and cheese pies from the supermarket;)
In an FPS you have a gun with maybe a couple of firing modes. If you want to get laborous, you have an "aoe" effect like a rocket launcher or something that sprays a ridiculous amount of ammunition along unique vectors. You also have full 3D with jumping and hit boxes and the like.
What's different in WoW? The hit boxes are simplified. There's dozens of "guns" to choose from and many of them are AOE. A "gunfight" often involves a full 10-20 players (more if it's a raid or alterac valley) toting said guns. I have a net graph going in WoW and the bandwidth in any given pvp fight can get pretty damn high.
Go to youtube and search for wow duel or wow pvp. Take a look at some of them then tell me that a 15v15 fight in WoW is neutered in complexity compared to fps's.
Thanks! Good point with the comparison to a TV show -- if only there was a pause button. Heh, come to think of it, that wouldn't be too hard for blizzard to implement for raids/instances... though whether they would or not is debatable (it'd probably make things easier as the leader could pause the game at crucial intervals to bark orders).
I'd add point (c) to that; they're quite social. They differ from other media due to interactivity yes, but they also differ (apart from DnD) in that you can build complex relationships (ranging from "hi wanna kill X" to "/kneel ; will you marry me?") that help to put the nail on RL's coffin.
At the moment, you spend gold to "respec". All your talent points are refunded and you can spend them again as you see fit. The cost is small (1g first time, then 5g +5g increments for subsequent respecs, up to 50g maximum; it goes down by 5g every fortnight since your last respec). Blizzard are planning to add an easy and free way to switch between two talent builds in a future patch.
It's not like Diablo where you have to create a new character if you mis-spend a talent point;)
WoW has a bad rep from a very small minority of players who can't manage their lives. I'll treat the argument of whether or not this is WoW's fault, or whether any other fun activity would have done it, as out of scope... I'd like to set the record straight on a few things that may be found insightful by some.
Myth 1. WoW is a diabolical money sink
Untrue. At its most expensive, factoring in the initial cost and its expansions to date, WoW averages to about US$18 a month (conservative estimate). I'm not too familiar with costs in America but two trips to the movies and you're spending more. A gourmet pie a week and you're spending more. A few drinks with friends once a month and you're spending more. These activites are once-off entertainment and I highly doubt a pie a week is the extent of one's monthly entertainment bill.
In addition, there are hundreds of servers, each servicing tens of thousands of players and all of the maintainence, hardware and bandwidth costs that come with it. There's a huge development team fixing the most trivial of bugs and developing new content every couple of months. There's a huge support team consisting of the usual helpdesk drones as well as in-game game masters (who aren't just any old gamer off the street; they're veritable WoW gurus). All of this isn't cheap. All of this isn't possible with a standard once-off $40 game. On the side, a once-off $40 game that captures my attention for more than a month is a rare thing these days.
Myth 2. WoW is a giant grind
While this is subjective, I have to argue against it. It is true that the first 50-60 levels of WoW are definitely repetative and while I'm sure Blizzard are aware of this, I don't think their steps to fix it are the right ones (they're just making it faster). However, once past this hurdle you are in the clear. BC raised the bar with quests that capture your interest. Wrath has redefined the bar with some extremely fun quests; they appear to have redesigned their whole philosophy on questing for the latest expansion.
But that's quests. You can grind if you want, nothing is stopping you, but there are all sorts of things you can do -- especially with the new achievements. There are battlegrounds. There is exploration. There are dungeons. In the middle of doing anything, world PvP can erupt - my favourite kind. At end game you don't need to worry about quests if you don't want to. It's an MMO; there's more things to do than you can shake a stick at. But I do agree on the repetativeness of questing pre-50's before your character has a chance to gain most of its class-defining abilities and gear.
Myth 3. There is not enough content
This should probably get merged into #2 but whatever. I was standing outside a fort the other day wondering what I should do. It was Hallow's End, a halloween event that adds a swathe of seasonal content to the game, and I was struck by a thought: if I were to roll a brand new character, I would have more things to do than I could fathom. The achievements system ensures that there's an extra layer to everything you do. The dungeons and reputations and achievements and pvp and large number of unique class/talent combinations would keep you busy for years. The true scope of the game, pre-wrath, suddenly hit me like a stapler hitting the balding head of an IT consultant as he enshrined the virtues of domain-centric networking infrastructure to a technical executive in a large services corporation that delivers banking and financial services to leading institutions across the globe.
Myth 4. If you play WoW you have no life
A catch-all argument that can encapsulate any game or non-mainstream entertainment activity on the planet. If you watch anime you have no life. If you collect stamps you have no life. If you go tramping you have no life. It's fun. It's social. It's not getting tanked in a bar at 2am. Get over it.
As an aside, I'm a
I'd personally like to see some hard info on what they're running under the hood. Hundreds of servers, each supporting tens of thousands of players. During stress testing they had over 300 players in one small area fighting without a hiccup (try that in any FPS game!). Every month or two sees more complexity added to the game. We've had two expansion packs double and then triple the content of the original WoW (and all the free patches would add up to another expansion pack's worth easily). Whatever solution they're using must cost a ridiculous amount of money, hardware and manpower to keep running.
Blizzard dropped the ball between levels 1 and 50: it's very misrepresentative of the "real" WoW. Many play it to 10, think "okay this is getting repetative/boring", try a different character, find no difference and then make a post on slashdot.
At 60+, you will notice that not only do the ten classes have significantly different playstyles and things going for them, but that they also have three different talent trees. For most of the ten classes, a switch from one tree to another will again completely change your game.
To address the comic joke: it's spot on... often. However, having completed an expansion zone over the weekend, I can tell you that while there are many of the "same" quests, there are also some crazy new styles. Perhaps most significantly are the additions of "vehicles" to the game, which are worked into a lot of the quests. One example is riding a mammoth and using its special abilities to destroy another mammoth-mounted npc. Another is using a siege engine to shelter your team mates from incoming cannon fire (vehicles that are also manned by players). I've been playing the game for years and the creativity of the quests in Wrath are a complete breath of fresh air. The poking in the comics is, imo, unfair.
These people aren't going to sit around now going "whelp, that's that" and go do something else. They've experienced 30 hours of an expansion that has a good year of content to enjoy, not including the content patches to come.
Indeed. Instead of doing what you want to do, go out and do what is the accepted norm in society, and/or what I want you to do. Life is too short to risk going against the grain.
He's just putting time in perspective. Be conservative about what you do or do not do because of how it'll pan out in the future. Live for the moment; live how you want to live; do what you want to do.
It all sounds a bit idealistic, wishy washy or cliched but it's a sound and rewarding way to live.
So blizzard should create insanely-hard raid content that 0.5% of the player base will see?
I have slightly different ideas: spend the effort on refining, improving and adding to already existing areas. Add raids and instances that can be experienced by a double-digit percentile of the player base. Make the level of raid loot proportioned to the effort put in and the number of people participating. Have the hardcore in-fighting grind-loving folks go off to everquest or ultima.
I'd imagine the pre-BC experience of the near-identical level 60 Naxxramas, the Sunwell-level gear that only just gets replaced around 79-80 and the guild members consisting of the two best guilds on the planet helped.
Insightful, if not for the parent's oversight on RTFS.
You get to level 80: you haven't conquered the expansion.
You kill the hardest raid boss: you haven't conquered the expansion.
You get every achievement in the game (practically impossible): you haven't conquered the expansion.
It's been 3-4 years since WoW's release and the game has come a long, long way. There's more to do than you can shake a stick at now, and that's all fine and good, but by and large, the best thing about wow? You can do it all again with a different class and have a totally different experience. There's ten classes to choose from. Each with three different specs (broadly speaking), which for many classes, means three completely different playstyles.
I've been playing off and on since release (a few breaks totalling about a year) and I have never been more immersed in the game than I am now.
Slashdot Mirror
Finnish? I thought he was french?
I just noticed I put the last three myths as "myth 5".... .
News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
./s subscriber base, this satisifes both criteria.
For a significant chunk of
I'm a 6 foot male that plays a gnome female warrior. She kicks total ass and is extremely fun to play (and as a practical aside, her small size is a huge boon in PvP). I only wish that gnomes had a greater class selection. :)
Very true. I have the exact same types of friends (real and in other games) that won't touch any subscription based model and end up paying 2-3 times as much for similar entertainment. My bank balance loves me :D
Granted I have experience, but I can get a character to 50 over a weekend. I can then enjoy that character to its fullest over the next year. Like most MMO's, the earliest levels are the easiest. You shouldn't look at 80 levels and think the first 20 make up 1/4 of the game.
If they could manage their lives, they'd play reasonable amount of time and not let it interfere. Quitting is preferable to letting something encroach on your life but it's still an inferior solution.
My guild is intermixed with casual players and hardcore players. The most casual log on once a month and still enjoy it. The most hardcore supplement our guild raids with pick-up-group raids.
I have been informed that pie in america is limited to dessert. Elsewhere, pies usually refer to the savoury variety. A gourmet pie (as I define it) is a fresh pie baked with high quality ingredients (such as high quality steak) from a bakery. As opposed to a cheap-ass pack of 10 mince and cheese pies from the supermarket ;)
In an FPS you have a gun with maybe a couple of firing modes. If you want to get laborous, you have an "aoe" effect like a rocket launcher or something that sprays a ridiculous amount of ammunition along unique vectors. You also have full 3D with jumping and hit boxes and the like.
What's different in WoW? The hit boxes are simplified. There's dozens of "guns" to choose from and many of them are AOE. A "gunfight" often involves a full 10-20 players (more if it's a raid or alterac valley) toting said guns. I have a net graph going in WoW and the bandwidth in any given pvp fight can get pretty damn high.
Go to youtube and search for wow duel or wow pvp. Take a look at some of them then tell me that a 15v15 fight in WoW is neutered in complexity compared to fps's.
Not as insightful as your post, apparently :)
Thanks! Good point with the comparison to a TV show -- if only there was a pause button. Heh, come to think of it, that wouldn't be too hard for blizzard to implement for raids/instances... though whether they would or not is debatable (it'd probably make things easier as the leader could pause the game at crucial intervals to bark orders).
I'd add point (c) to that; they're quite social. They differ from other media due to interactivity yes, but they also differ (apart from DnD) in that you can build complex relationships (ranging from "hi wanna kill X" to "/kneel ; will you marry me?") that help to put the nail on RL's coffin.
At the moment, you spend gold to "respec". All your talent points are refunded and you can spend them again as you see fit. The cost is small (1g first time, then 5g +5g increments for subsequent respecs, up to 50g maximum; it goes down by 5g every fortnight since your last respec). Blizzard are planning to add an easy and free way to switch between two talent builds in a future patch.
;)
It's not like Diablo where you have to create a new character if you mis-spend a talent point
We managed with a group of kara-geared 71's and 72's, give it a shot :)
WoW has a bad rep from a very small minority of players who can't manage their lives. I'll treat the argument of whether or not this is WoW's fault, or whether any other fun activity would have done it, as out of scope... I'd like to set the record straight on a few things that may be found insightful by some.
Myth 1. WoW is a diabolical money sink
Untrue. At its most expensive, factoring in the initial cost and its expansions to date, WoW averages to about US$18 a month (conservative estimate). I'm not too familiar with costs in America but two trips to the movies and you're spending more. A gourmet pie a week and you're spending more. A few drinks with friends once a month and you're spending more. These activites are once-off entertainment and I highly doubt a pie a week is the extent of one's monthly entertainment bill.
In addition, there are hundreds of servers, each servicing tens of thousands of players and all of the maintainence, hardware and bandwidth costs that come with it. There's a huge development team fixing the most trivial of bugs and developing new content every couple of months. There's a huge support team consisting of the usual helpdesk drones as well as in-game game masters (who aren't just any old gamer off the street; they're veritable WoW gurus). All of this isn't cheap. All of this isn't possible with a standard once-off $40 game. On the side, a once-off $40 game that captures my attention for more than a month is a rare thing these days.
Myth 2. WoW is a giant grind
While this is subjective, I have to argue against it. It is true that the first 50-60 levels of WoW are definitely repetative and while I'm sure Blizzard are aware of this, I don't think their steps to fix it are the right ones (they're just making it faster). However, once past this hurdle you are in the clear. BC raised the bar with quests that capture your interest. Wrath has redefined the bar with some extremely fun quests; they appear to have redesigned their whole philosophy on questing for the latest expansion.
But that's quests. You can grind if you want, nothing is stopping you, but there are all sorts of things you can do -- especially with the new achievements. There are battlegrounds. There is exploration. There are dungeons. In the middle of doing anything, world PvP can erupt - my favourite kind. At end game you don't need to worry about quests if you don't want to. It's an MMO; there's more things to do than you can shake a stick at. But I do agree on the repetativeness of questing pre-50's before your character has a chance to gain most of its class-defining abilities and gear.
Myth 3. There is not enough content
This should probably get merged into #2 but whatever. I was standing outside a fort the other day wondering what I should do. It was Hallow's End, a halloween event that adds a swathe of seasonal content to the game, and I was struck by a thought: if I were to roll a brand new character, I would have more things to do than I could fathom. The achievements system ensures that there's an extra layer to everything you do. The dungeons and reputations and achievements and pvp and large number of unique class/talent combinations would keep you busy for years. The true scope of the game, pre-wrath, suddenly hit me like a stapler hitting the balding head of an IT consultant as he enshrined the virtues of domain-centric networking infrastructure to a technical executive in a large services corporation that delivers banking and financial services to leading institutions across the globe.
Myth 4. If you play WoW you have no life
A catch-all argument that can encapsulate any game or non-mainstream entertainment activity on the planet. If you watch anime you have no life. If you collect stamps you have no life. If you go tramping you have no life. It's fun. It's social. It's not getting tanked in a bar at 2am. Get over it. As an aside, I'm a
I'd personally like to see some hard info on what they're running under the hood. Hundreds of servers, each supporting tens of thousands of players. During stress testing they had over 300 players in one small area fighting without a hiccup (try that in any FPS game!). Every month or two sees more complexity added to the game. We've had two expansion packs double and then triple the content of the original WoW (and all the free patches would add up to another expansion pack's worth easily). Whatever solution they're using must cost a ridiculous amount of money, hardware and manpower to keep running.
Which is where the monthly fee comes in I guess.
Blizzard dropped the ball between levels 1 and 50: it's very misrepresentative of the "real" WoW. Many play it to 10, think "okay this is getting repetative/boring", try a different character, find no difference and then make a post on slashdot.
;)
At 60+, you will notice that not only do the ten classes have significantly different playstyles and things going for them, but that they also have three different talent trees. For most of the ten classes, a switch from one tree to another will again completely change your game.
To address the comic joke: it's spot on... often. However, having completed an expansion zone over the weekend, I can tell you that while there are many of the "same" quests, there are also some crazy new styles. Perhaps most significantly are the additions of "vehicles" to the game, which are worked into a lot of the quests. One example is riding a mammoth and using its special abilities to destroy another mammoth-mounted npc. Another is using a siege engine to shelter your team mates from incoming cannon fire (vehicles that are also manned by players). I've been playing the game for years and the creativity of the quests in Wrath are a complete breath of fresh air. The poking in the comics is, imo, unfair.
Assuming you can get past the first 50 levels.
These people aren't going to sit around now going "whelp, that's that" and go do something else. They've experienced 30 hours of an expansion that has a good year of content to enjoy, not including the content patches to come.
Indeed. Instead of doing what you want to do, go out and do what is the accepted norm in society, and/or what I want you to do. Life is too short to risk going against the grain.
He's just putting time in perspective. Be conservative about what you do or do not do because of how it'll pan out in the future. Live for the moment; live how you want to live; do what you want to do.
It all sounds a bit idealistic, wishy washy or cliched but it's a sound and rewarding way to live.
So blizzard should create insanely-hard raid content that 0.5% of the player base will see?
I have slightly different ideas: spend the effort on refining, improving and adding to already existing areas. Add raids and instances that can be experienced by a double-digit percentile of the player base. Make the level of raid loot proportioned to the effort put in and the number of people participating. Have the hardcore in-fighting grind-loving folks go off to everquest or ultima.
But your idea's cool, too.
I'm grinding rep with your mom. I just hit "friendly".
I'd imagine the pre-BC experience of the near-identical level 60 Naxxramas, the Sunwell-level gear that only just gets replaced around 79-80 and the guild members consisting of the two best guilds on the planet helped.
I'd imagine the hundreds of people questing and grinding and instancing their arses off competing to be the first 80 would feel a bit cheated.
The difference is that WoW will cost you less per year than a fortnightly trip to the pub for a few drinks.
Or an A+ game title every couple of months (good luck stretching those out that long).
Or a monthly trip to the movies with popcorn.
Insightful, if not for the parent's oversight on RTFS.
You get to level 80: you haven't conquered the expansion.
You kill the hardest raid boss: you haven't conquered the expansion.
You get every achievement in the game (practically impossible): you haven't conquered the expansion.
It's been 3-4 years since WoW's release and the game has come a long, long way. There's more to do than you can shake a stick at now, and that's all fine and good, but by and large, the best thing about wow? You can do it all again with a different class and have a totally different experience. There's ten classes to choose from. Each with three different specs (broadly speaking), which for many classes, means three completely different playstyles.
I've been playing off and on since release (a few breaks totalling about a year) and I have never been more immersed in the game than I am now.