When I used to play, I definitely preferred Windows over OSX and never regretted it. But I can tell you what I do regret. Ever starting that game. It's an addiction that really controls your life and effects you negatively while Blizzard couldn't care less as long as you are paying your monthly fee. I would just stop and say quit while you still have control. Best of luck either way.
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Insanely Reconsidering WoW
- Thread starter Huntn
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Drat you Plutonius, you have me actually thinking about installing WoW again especially since I can get both expansions for $25 (limited time only)!
A general question for anyone- if you were going to play this game would it be under the MacOS or Windows? Traditionally I've always played it with Mac. However, I have been there, done that before and a lot of my special feelings about the game have to do with the early days and early levels. I'll ponder some more.
I'm still in it, on OS X. It's fine except for some stutter in crowded areas, and that's probably because I won't back down from Ultra settings.
The Pandaria leveling content is pretty good. Cataclysm was fairly meh for me. You'll not have to dawdle much, they've accelerated leveling to a horrendously rapid clip, even up to the 90 cap as of last patch.
As for the Cata redoing of the old world, it just about killed it for me. The vanilla game had you going all over the place, and required knowing something about what was where. It also had a feeling of growing challenges as you leveled up. Now, it's all breadcrumbs. Do a quest hub, go to the next one. With the rate of XP gain turned up to 11, you would probably have to not finish zones or skip some.
There's lots of good stuff in the game; scenarios don't require tanks or healers, you can queue for raids. If Pokemon is your thing, you can collect battle pets and fight with them. And at 90, you can own your own farm.
It's all rather simplified, though.
I'm still in it, on OS X. It's fine except for some stutter in crowded areas, and that's probably because I won't back down from Ultra settings.
The Pandaria leveling content is pretty good. Cataclysm was fairly meh for me. You'll not have to dawdle much, they've accelerated leveling to a horrendously rapid clip, even up to the 90 cap as of last patch.
As for the Cata redoing of the old world, it just about killed it for me. The vanilla game had you going all over the place, and required knowing something about what was where. It also had a feeling of growing challenges as you leveled up. Now, it's all breadcrumbs. Do a quest hub, go to the next one. With the rate of XP gain turned up to 11, you would probably have to not finish zones or skip some.
There's lots of good stuff in the game; scenarios don't require tanks or healers, you can queue for raids. If Pokemon is your thing, you can collect battle pets and fight with them. And at 90, you can own your own farm.
It's all rather simplified, though.
Thanks for the info. What characters can be started at a mid level? Are Battle Pets cross class? I don't even know where'd I begin...
Thanks for the info. What characters can be started at a mid level? Are Battle Pets cross class? I don't even know where'd I begin...
It's still only DK's, they start at 55. If you use the Scroll of Resurrection path, you can get one existing character instaleveled to 80 or 85, IIRC.
Pets and mounts are now account-wide; if you have a pet on one character it's available to all.
I'd suggest starting a panda. The starting area's nice, and you can always drop it for something else if you don't resonate. They have awfully good racials, so quite a few people have race-changed to them.
Or, just crank up an old character. It won't take long to cap out.
Last time I've played (that is until the end of the Cataclysm expansion), I've remember the mac client being better than the windows one. It has this great video recording feature where you can even select any desired resolution, with background video compressing. Windows client didn't include that option.
But getting back to WoW ? Nah, not me. Elder Scrolls Online will be the one for me.
But getting back to WoW ? Nah, not me. Elder Scrolls Online will be the one for me.
Huntn
Really in WoW end game raiding is a whole different game from leveling.
The same in WoT, Clan Wars play is very different from the Pug 15 player leveling rounds in fact CW in a tier X is almost a wholly different game.
More perseverance required (or a deeper addiction?)
Really in WoW end game raiding is a whole different game from leveling.
The same in WoT, Clan Wars play is very different from the Pug 15 player leveling rounds in fact CW in a tier X is almost a wholly different game.
More perseverance required (or a deeper addiction?)
My clan participates in Company Battles at the Tier 6 and 8 levels. Now that I am close to having 2 Tier 8s that I earned, I suspect I'll be doing more of that. My understanding is that Clan Wars is too demanding for my interests- nightly obligation?
I can see that CBs and CWs are much more organized, giving it a different feel than Pugs, but as far as Pugs, while I don't like the disorganized tendencies of them, but I do really like the short time commitments.
While I'm not speaking from a position of personal knowledge, I feel that the "end game" aspect of WoT if we call it CBs and CWs is not the primary motivator of your average WoT player. And I know people who specifically avoid Tier 9 and 10 matches, so it's not really fair to compare the WoW end game to WoT's because WoT is viable at all levels, while WoW's leveling content is perishable.
Thanks for the info. What characters can be started at a mid level? Are Battle Pets cross class? I don't even know where'd I begin...
Only DK's still.
But monks have a daily quest that adds 50% experience for an hour and can be stacked up to about 20 hours. That's a significant increase in leveling speed. Especially if you are in a guild who have the leveling perks as well as have some of the BoA gear.
If you do decide to come back let someone know on here and one of us who still plays could send you a scroll of resurrection that gets you a character to 80. So you'd have that and could level another.
The game is not the same. They focus a lot on end-game but it's pretty boring. Lots of daily quests. Queuing up for raids, dungeons, and scenarios to run with random people you never talk to.
Lots of servers seem to be dieing so instead of merging they are trying new technologies (CRZ) to allow servers to work together. Seems to be an attempt at solving a problem w/out acknowledging it is a big problem and just merging.
Raiding has taken a hit d/t LFR. Most people can queue up and run with 24 other strangers and kill all bosses on easy mode. So it's hard to recruit anyone to raid normal or heroics when your long term guildies can't raid or are leaving the game.
PvP is unbalanced as ever. The entire simplification of specs, making most specs viable for PvE and PvP, and homogenization of class talents has really hurt it.
Your pets are available to any toon you are playing. So if you level a pet on your warrior, log into your paladin, you can still use that pet for pet battles. I have not really touched this feature though so I do not know much about it.
Quest hub to quest hub to quest hub to quest hub is kinda how it works now when leveling. You used to have to travel the entire world for quests. Now they just send you down the street for the next set. There's really not much "exploration" to questing any longer.
I have a lot of 90's. I like leveling but it's not nearly as fun before they redid the old world. The main things I like to do now are mount farming (since they are available to all your toons now), soloing old content, and farming transmog gear. That stuff is enjoyable b/c I've played since vanilla.
It's still a good game. I've played SWtOR and Guild Wars 2 quite a bit (Rift a little) and still prefer WoW to them. But if you haven't played in awhile and the old game was what you loved, it is not that any longer.
Drat you Plutonius, you have me actually thinking about installing WoW again especially since I can get both expansions for $25 (limited time only)!
A general question for anyone- if you were going to play this game would it be under the MacOS or Windows? Traditionally I've always played it with Mac. However, I have been there, done that before and a lot of my special feelings about the game have to do with the early days and early levels. I'll ponder some more.
Apologies
. I currently play it under OS X and have no experience playing it under Windows. I heard the FPS under Windows is slightly higher but it runs well enough under OSX for me.
Sigh... thanks for the info!
Apologies
No worries... I've decided to forgo, but WoW will always have a special place in my gaming heart.
I've played Wow on Mac OS X for 2,5 years but I stopped during Cataclysm. It was a lot of fun and sometimes I feel a bit of nostalgia and temptation to come back. Oh, how much did I love my shadow/discipline Troll Priest! But I try to resist. It always scares me how much time and sleep I lost on that game. Furthermore it would be a pain to re-learn how to play, read dungeon/raid tactics, etc, etc,...Maybe it's ok to just keep good memories
Over at my WoW addicted friends house for dinner, I watched some MoP over her shoulder. It's still beautiful and Blizzard has made it even more beautiful then when I was playing! I'm all most thinking about going back. Most interesting are the farming plots you can call your own and grow goodies on. To me it looks like Blizzard has not been resting on their laurels. This really has me anticipating their Titan project as long as it's a fantasy based MMORPG. If's it is something else like SciFi, I'll be disappointed.
Recently I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV. The last time I played WoW was for WoTLK. So I've not seen Cataclysm or Mists of Pandora, other than looking over someones shoulder briefly.
It seems to me in FFXIV that the stories, cut scenes, and the fuss they make over you when you save the world is superior from what I remember in WoW. FFXIV's graphics are very nice, wowever, WoW has a visual stye and as I remember a spell variety that I prefer over FFXIV, while keeping in mind my highest FFXIV character is only L21. In fact that WoW visual style is one of the things that has gotten me excited about Everquest Next.
FFXIV also has nice touches like one toon can do all classes with individual gear sets saved, Hunting Log, Levequests, Guildmetes (quests, and group content), you can round up a party and if you've been to a dungeon before, you don't even have to move your toon to it's entrance. You can simply queue your party up and where ever they are in the world, it transports you and them to the dungeon.
Most interesting are the farming plots you can call your own and grow goodies on. To me it looks like Blizzard has not been resting on their laurels. This really has me anticipating their Titan project as long as it's a fantasy based MMORPG. If's it is something else like SciFi, I'll be disappointed.Recently I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV. The last time I played WoW was for WoTLK. So I've not seen Cataclysm or Mists of Pandora, other than looking over someones shoulder briefly.
It seems to me in FFXIV that the stories, cut scenes, and the fuss they make over you when you save the world
is superior from what I remember in WoW. FFXIV's graphics are very nice, wowever, WoW has a visual stye and as I remember a spell variety that I prefer over FFXIV, while keeping in mind my highest FFXIV character is only L21. In fact that WoW visual style is one of the things that has gotten me excited about Everquest Next.FFXIV also has nice touches like one toon can do all classes with individual gear sets saved, Hunting Log, Levequests, Guildmetes (quests, and group content), you can round up a party and if you've been to a dungeon before, you don't even have to move your toon to it's entrance. You can simply queue your party up and where ever they are in the world, it transports you and them to the dungeon.
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Over at my WoW addicted friends house for dinner, I watched some MoP over her shoulder. It's still beautiful and Blizzard has made it even more beautiful then when I was playing! I'm all most thinking about going back.
Recently I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV. The last time I played WoW was for WoTLK. So I've not seen Cataclysm or Mists of Pandora, other than looking over someones shoulder briefly.
It seems to me in FFXIV that the stories, cut scenes, and the fuss they make over you when you save the world
FFXIV also has nice touches like one toon can do all classes with individual gear sets saved, Hunting Log, Levequests, Guildmetes (quests, and group content), you can round up a party and if you've been to a dungeon before, you don't even have to move your toon to it's entrance. You can simply queue your party up and where ever they are in the world, it transports you and them to the dungeon.
Are you talking about "A Realm Reborn" or the Original FF XIV? I'm not a big ARR fan, the quest is lackluster and you need to do the "Main Story" for the side quest. So, if you're DPS and your Main Story says, "DO THIS DUNGEON!" - don't expect to do anything else but F.A.T.E. and wait for a long queued time (Approx. 1hr.).
Now, that I've talked about the Main and Side Quest.. Let's talk about F.A.T.E. - FATE is nice, and very fun! But it's very lackluster too. How so? Easy! If you join a FATE party, it either says your at a high level or your at a low level and you gain little to NO EXPerience (XP).. Stupid imo. I was stuck at lvl 30 for a while until a Dungeon Queued on my Puglists and I was joining FATE's, and only gained about 500 xp, I tried higher level ones too, 250....
I've only played ARR. I've watched FATE parties roll by and they seem kind of mindless wastes of time other than building XP. Don't get me wrong, I do FATES when they are nearby, but it's not a dedicated endeavor
As far as you only getting 500 xp during a Fate, you must be doing something wrong. My highest toon is about L20 and I regularly get 1800-3500 xp for FATE participation in about 10 minutes.
Debating starting back up myself, but not sure I will be able to get into it, nor do I know if want to start a new character and level up.
I was checking out Guild Wars 2 website and that looks very nice and I like not having to pay a monthly fee.
Can anyone give any information on the game? Time sink wise. Would be nice to play maybe 2 hours or so with the wife on a spare evening. Nothing like we used to play with WoW or EQ.
I was checking out Guild Wars 2 website and that looks very nice and I like not having to pay a monthly fee.
Can anyone give any information on the game? Time sink wise. Would be nice to play maybe 2 hours or so with the wife on a spare evening. Nothing like we used to play with WoW or EQ.
For sparse play time, I think a free game would work best, whatever that turns out to be.
Then I would say Guild Wars 2 is the way to go, because it is free to play you do not feel tied into in the same way as WoW. You can buy in game stuff like more bank space and loads of other stuff.
As is the way WoW is going now, you need Lion to run it.
The WoW hype is dwindling. It should be interesting what comes to replace it. Although GW2 was a great game, it does not have the same mission or direction as WoW therefore I don't think it will acquire the vast majority of WoW players. Nothing beats vanilla WoW or BC though.
I am the first to admit that WoW is the greatest MMO ever created and still holds the highest number of participants, if not from an innovation standpoint, but from a loyal follower standpoint. Last reported I saw was Aug2013 at 7+million (down from a high of 90+ million...is that even possible??). No one else has close to these kinds of numbers, as far as I know.
I've also said I can never go back so I'm now waiting for Titan and dallying with other MMOs along the way. It will be really interesting to see if Blizzard can pull off this feat a 2nd time.
I am the first to admit that WoW is the greatest MMO ever created and still holds the highest number of participants, if not from an innovation standpoint, but from a loyal follower standpoint. Last reported I saw was Aug2013 at 7+million (down from a high of 90+ million...is that even possible??). No one else has close to these kinds of numbers, as far as I know.
I've also said I can never go back so I'm now waiting for Titan and dallying with other MMOs along the way. It will be really interesting to see if Blizzard can pull off this feat a 2nd time.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they have had titan in the works for a while. Looking at it from a business side, any loss, especially one where they are charging $15 a month is a big problem. If say they did have 90+ mill ACTIVE players that's $1,350,000,000/mo to now 7 million ACTIVE players $105,000,000/mo. Of course this is extremely basic and does not consider the discounts for longer than one month plans and also doesn't factor the cost of the game to get started plus the expansions. Quite a difference. They are keeping their operating costs high because they refuse to merge servers. Regardless though, the base is dwindling.
Amazing what the game has come to now. It's gotten pretty terrible.
WoW has long been the biggest but they never had anything approaching 90 million subscriptions. At the height of WoW's popularity they hit a high of 12 million subscriptions. So, they have at this time lost a number approaching half their player base which while significant certainly leaves a lot of paying players.
WoW as far as I know remains one of the few MMOs (are there any others left?) that can get away with requiring a monthly fee.
WoW has a long way to go with so many users before it stops being profitable that is for sure. Consider that games like Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online and the original EverQuest (which is doing the best of these) are all still up and running. Even Vanguard which by all accounts was a colossal failure is still running so they must have enough users to be making some profit.
WoW tends to enjoy an influx of returning as well as some new players whenever they release another expansion too. About the only thing that might be able to really cannibalize WoW would be Titan and that's a big maybe because it depends on how similar or different the game is. Plus it is amazing how invested people become in their characters in virtual worlds.
I'm still enjoying WoW myself and expect that I will be on and off for a long time. I've invested a lot in lining my ducks up in a row (the alt army) and it will be fun to level the various classes now that money is no problem and all are decked out in full heirlooms. And that is just on the Horde side. I'm thinking I just may do it all again on the Alliance side as well. My guild has chapter guilds on both sides and I'm in both of them. I'm looking at many hundreds of hours of gameplay there easily and on top of that I like single player games...
WoW as far as I know remains one of the few MMOs (are there any others left?) that can get away with requiring a monthly fee.
WoW has a long way to go with so many users before it stops being profitable that is for sure. Consider that games like Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online and the original EverQuest (which is doing the best of these) are all still up and running. Even Vanguard which by all accounts was a colossal failure is still running so they must have enough users to be making some profit.
WoW tends to enjoy an influx of returning as well as some new players whenever they release another expansion too. About the only thing that might be able to really cannibalize WoW would be Titan and that's a big maybe because it depends on how similar or different the game is. Plus it is amazing how invested people become in their characters in virtual worlds.
I'm still enjoying WoW myself and expect that I will be on and off for a long time. I've invested a lot in lining my ducks up in a row (the alt army) and it will be fun to level the various classes now that money is no problem and all are decked out in full heirlooms. And that is just on the Horde side. I'm thinking I just may do it all again on the Alliance side as well. My guild has chapter guilds on both sides and I'm in both of them. I'm looking at many hundreds of hours of gameplay there easily and on top of that I like single player games...
Well I bought our first copy of GW2 Regular Version. But keep hitting refresh on my email to get the code. That isn't an instant thing like I expected? I wanna SEE!