OS Neutral WoW Cannot Decide + Update ?

[Washac]

OK, I used to play Wow a lot, I stopped when the Panda thing happened, since then I have been into Guild Wars 2 and Rift, for some reason I am getting the itch to go back to WoW.

New update coming later this year - http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/warlords-of-draenor/

If you have not got Pandaria, you can get Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor for GBP 44.99 this includes a one character lever 90 boost, in case anyone is interested.

Anybody still play, what,s it like these days ?

I am getting tempted 🙂

 

[Bodie CI5]

Come back! 🙂

Especially as you haven't played for a while, you won't feel any content drought. There is a lot for you to catch up on, so you won't get bored. I've been playing for ten years running (with a hiatus during cata for a while), and I've still got heaps to do.

At least on my realm, I don't see an inordinate number of pandas (excluding npc's in Pandaria), so they're not so much an eyesore as many people fear.

Good luck! And I hope to see you on Azeroth some day 🙂

 

[soulsyphon]

pandas are the less played race in WoW.
evidence = realmpop.com

you've played guild wars 2 and rift and want to come back to wow... you now understand that all mmos fail compared to wow, congratulations... most of us realized this a while ago... the rest simply stopped playing mmos.

so is it worth it to come back? well thats if you like raiding or not... because besides raiding all there really is to do is achievements or battlegrounds/arena.

next expansion is still raiding... like always... a lot of people are getting sick of it... like me for example... but its just that every other mmo is worse... so what i do is pay for wow... level up alt characters... and play battlegrounds... while i switch to diablo or starcraft or hearthstone.

just being honest here, raid or battlegrounds is all really

you could try eve online, but i'm pretty sure you won't last longer than trial... thats what happens to 98% of people who try it out.

welcome to reality. 😛

 

[Washac]

Come back! 🙂

Especially as you haven't played for a while, you won't feel any content drought. There is a lot for you to catch up on, so you won't get bored. I've been playing for ten years running (with a hiatus during cata for a while), and I've still got heaps to do.

At least on my realm, I don't see an inordinate number of pandas (excluding npc's in Pandaria), so they're not so much an eyesore as many people fear.

Good luck! And I hope to see you on Azeroth some day 🙂

OK, I bought the Pandaria update and a three month sub, forgot my main character was 75 so have heaps to do 🙂

How do Blizzard condone charging £22 for an in game mount, think I will walk/run everywhere, you see more and it costs less, well apart from the in game mounts etc 🙂

 

[Nermal]

How do Blizzard condone charging £22 for an in game mount

Sometimes they give the proceeds to charity, but I'm not sure whether that's always the case. You can always get the "non-premium" mounts for free though!

 

[Bodie CI5]

OK, I bought the Pandaria update and a three month sub, forgot my main character was 75 so have heaps to do 🙂

haha yep - I've not gotten into top tier raiding (only LFR), and I've STILL got heaps to catch up on

How do Blizzard condone charging £22 for an in game mount, think I will walk/run everywhere, you see more and it costs less, well apart from the in game mounts etc 🙂

Sometimes they give the proceeds to charity, but I'm not sure whether that's always the case. You can always get the "non-premium" mounts for free though!

Yep, sometimes they give to charity. I think the kitten one went to Hurricane Sandy. One of the other ones went to cancer research iirc.

The good thing is that they are vanity pets/mounts, so they are not game changers. Of the mounts, I've only bought two, and I think I have bought one pet (but now that I think about it, I don't think I have bought one yet). As for cost, that's an eye of the beholder thing - so you won't see me defending. I'm not against them, per se, but I haven't gone out of my way to purchase any more than what I have currently.

The latest addition (horse mount) proved somewhat controversial as it was seen as taking time away from raid development etc.

Personally, I prefer the in-game mounts anyway (baron and kara and wintersabre mounts), and for flight, I love my lock's onyx cloud serpent.

 

[ASKendrew]

I have the same dilemma! I'm in two minds whether to renew and start a fresh.
I've always loved the levelling aspect and when MoP came out I started a Monk and left my old characters behind. I'll probably come back when Warlords of Draenor is released and do the same...although its not as fun anymore when your friends don't play, I think thats what made WoW so much fun back then.

May see you back in there in a few months time 🙂!

 

[Washac]

I have the same dilemma! I'm in two minds whether to renew and start a fresh.
I've always loved the levelling aspect and when MoP came out I started a Monk and left my old characters behind. I'll probably come back when Warlords of Draenor is released and do the same...although its not as fun anymore when your friends don't play, I think thats what made WoW so much fun back then.

May see you back in there in a few months time 🙂!

I went back last week and carried on from where I left off, you now get XP for doing lots of different things, where as before you only got it for questing/grinding from I recall. Archaeology is quite fun to do, lots of XP and some gold thrown in, thing is I am quite happy running about on my own in game, prefer it that way as I am not beholding to people who if you do not do it their way you get verbal.

 

[mr.bee]

The fun part about wow was back in the vanilla and TBC days when you could stay in one level for days and stay in the same region for weeks. The world was huge and dungeons took hours (ok that was maybe a bit too much). that was fun with your friends 🙂
You thought PVP was about strategy and pushing the right button at the right time. Although a lot of mechanics weren't perfect.

now, it's a rush to end game and waiting for raids. And in PVP, gear is the dominant factor to win, even if you can't play (or play very well).

that's the main reason why it's on its decline (that and pandas of course)

 

[MacAlien]

The latest addition (horse mount) proved somewhat controversial as it was seen as taking time away from raid development etc.

Eh, every items in the store creates a group of players who cry about how pointless it is and how Blizzard should be doing this or that or how X item should've been an in-game exclusive and how carebears and casuals are ruining the game. Every. Single. Thing. =P

I went back last week and carried on from where I left off, you now get XP for doing lots of different things, where as before you only got it for questing/grinding from I recall. Archaeology is quite fun to do, lots of XP and some gold thrown in, thing is I am quite happy running about on my own in game, prefer it that way as I am not beholding to people who if you do not do it their way you get verbal.

You've been able to get xp from things like gathering professions and such since around TBC btw. Personally I found Archaeology a nice distraction like, once a month. More than that I'd fall asleep.

The fun part about wow was back in the vanilla and TBC days when you could stay in one level for days and stay in the same region for weeks. The world was huge and dungeons took hours (ok that was maybe a bit too much). that was fun with your friends
You thought PVP was about strategy and pushing the right button at the right time. Although a lot of mechanics weren't perfect.

now, it's a rush to end game and waiting for raids. And in PVP, gear is the dominant factor to win, even if you can't play (or play very well).

that's the main reason why it's on its decline (that and pandas of course)

I do like when people "remember" times in vanilla with rose tinted glasses. It's cute. Vanilla sucked. Plain and simple. =P

Vanilla, you could stay in one level for a couple days but definitely not during TBC. You could level just as fast during TBC as you could now, however people generally did not do so so quick so that 10 levels from Vanilla to TBC was spaced over a couple days. This all changed when Achievements were introduced the end of TBC which introduced the server first FoS for WotLK when people started racing to max level. Even then (WotLK), some of the server firsts took a couple days.

PvP, it's has always always always been either about which flavor of the month class is overpowered or who has the best gear. This includes Vanilla. Never has PvP been balanced or required some elusive strategy, unless you count "The healer is casting, spell lock/interrupted them!" as a distant type of strategy, or pretty much stunned/frozen to death which again, really doesn't require a "strategy." Even when BGs were realm exclusive and you could spend days in a place like AV, there wasn't that much strategy. Got Pally/Warrior or later Warlocks on your team, you win life. =P


Dungeons were fun, even with complete strangers and they did take waaaay too many hours to complete. I still remember a DM West group spending 3 or 4 hours clearing the place, then I convinced them to do the dreadsteed ritual... they'd never group with me after that was finished. =P

Far as why WoW has declined, you need to figure it's a 10 year old game. A lot of players who were loyal during the first few xpacs have grown up, gotten bored, became busy, etc... Not because of some rush to end game or the not-so-new brute forcing PvP. None of that is a new concept. It is, however a dated concept. Pandas will always make people quit, too. 😉

 

[antonis]

WoW used to have a different community in vanila, mostly based on single-player rpg gamers, and the game was designed with them in mind. People really enjoyed the game back then, and it was nothing about rush or stacking gear. You leveled taking your time, you had to travel to the dungeon entrances by yourself, flight paths were fewer and sparse, you had to be prepared (e.g. repairs, hunters having ammo etc) and each class had to be used accordingly (rogues should sap, hunters should freeze, warlocks use bane). And even 5-mans could take hours so every dungeon had a meaning and count.

Now everything is flattened out in the name of some weird balance and speed. Blizzard has a very odd idea about what balance is, making every class pretty much the same with all the others. And it's all about rushing everything all the time. People are transferred back and forth between dungeons and cities, they actually don't have to move even a bit, and they can join raids, dungeons, battlegrounds without even moving a step from their position. So it does not even matter anymore if the game world is big or small, because nobody travels anywhere.

All these things are reflected to the quality of the community as well, that is dropped down near to zero these days (you don't have to take my word for that, just read the general chat for a while). WoW is a different game.

 

[Washac]

You've been able to get xp from things like gathering professions and such since around TBC btw. Personally I found Archaeology a nice distraction like, once a month. More than that I'd fall asleep.

About the XP, I forgot been a while since I played, thanks 🙂

 

[b3av3r]

I started playing with TBC and played pretty regularly until Cataclysm. I sat out for a while and when I went back it was a totally different game. I felt like everything had been watered down to accommodate the most players and the feeling of playing an RPG with friends or groups was kind of lost. I know Blizzard wants to make a ton of money from WoW but I definitely feel like it has come at a cost to the experience of the game.

I tried Eve and would love to play it, but I just don't have the time to invest in learning the damn thing.

 

[antonis]

I tried Eve and would love to play it, but I just don't have the time to invest in learning the damn thing.

Hopefully, "Elite: Dangerous" will be more easy to learn, and more casual rival of Eve. And there will be a mac port.

 

[Bodie CI5]

Eh, every items in the store creates a group of players who cry about how pointless it is and how Blizzard should be doing this or that or how X item should've been an in-game exclusive and how carebears and casuals are ruining the game. Every. Single. Thing. =P

Oh, most definitely. I was only using the latest example 🙂

I do like when people "remember" times in vanilla with rose tinted glasses. It's cute. Vanilla sucked. Plain and simple. =P

haha yes, it's like when people ask for vanilla servers. I started on 26 December 2004 (there's a reason for pointing this out - not for "cred") and truly, being THE noob, questing in Northshire and hitting level 2 with my warrior, I thought I was king. Then I was asked to go to Goldshire and I freaked out a little when I saw that the game got bigger, and that I saw other people with level 3, 4 7 etc. Then at Stormwind I saw a higher levelled gnome warlock sitting on a horse! :O

The expanse of the game then was just so much bigger. Seemingly. Westfall looked HUUGE, and when I teamed up with two guys from the US, and one of them said 'hey, I went to this real dark place, you guys wanna see it?!', we ran across the bridge into Darkshire and we saw a lvl19 spider. Haha we bolted back across the bridge.

For me, reminiscing about vanilla were over such moments (as well as the Southshore battles and hearing about the Alterac Valley epic battles.

But honestly, there are many more better inclusions in the game now. Some of which you've touched upon in the rest of your post. For example, the epic lag - remember when looting a mob you've just killed, and your char never returning to standing position and therefore gliding across the map in the kneeling position? 😛

I do wish the goblins didn't rip up Azhara though; and I still prefer the old Desolace 😛

 

[MacAlien]

Oh, most definitely. I was only using the latest example 🙂




haha yes, it's like when people ask for vanilla servers. I started on 26 December 2004 (there's a reason for pointing this out - not for "cred") and truly, being THE noob, questing in Northshire and hitting level 2 with my warrior, I thought I was king. Then I was asked to go to Goldshire and I freaked out a little when I saw that the game got bigger, and that I saw other people with level 3, 4 7 etc. Then at Stormwind I saw a higher levelled gnome warlock sitting on a horse! :O

The expanse of the game then was just so much bigger. Seemingly. Westfall looked HUUGE, and when I teamed up with two guys from the US, and one of them said 'hey, I went to this real dark place, you guys wanna see it?!', we ran across the bridge into Darkshire and we saw a lvl19 spider. Haha we bolted back across the bridge.

For me, reminiscing about vanilla were over such moments (as well as the Southshore battles and hearing about the Alterac Valley epic battles.

But honestly, there are many more better inclusions in the game now. Some of which you've touched upon in the rest of your post. For example, the epic lag - remember when looting a mob you've just killed, and your char never returning to standing position and therefore gliding across the map in the kneeling position? 😛

I do wish the goblins didn't rip up Azhara though; and I still prefer the old Desolace 😛

Well, a virtual world will seem bigger when there's no flying, which people will once again have to endure without next xpac until the first or second patch...which is stupid but whatever!

My story: I played starting in the closed beta to this past December when I finally said F this and stopped cold turkey although have logged in a few times since. Have always been in a top 20 guild the entire time, but have tried going like, super casual once or twice which never lasted long... Besides the interaction with players during Vanilla, the rest was painful, tedious and long.

I remember raiding Scholo, UBRS, MC when T2 dropped in that zone and then taken out to make BWL actually enticing. I remember enduring horrible hours farming resist gear for AQ40, being the lock tank for twin princes and having to not bother with C'thun. I loved ZG when it was a raid zone. Naxx40 was plain silly lopsided and the rep grind to get in made me want to gouge my eyes out (old EPL sucked). I can recall the dr4m4 when TBC was released and changing the raid sizes. I do remember the loot lag and server instabilities for TBC release. All the way until Sunwell reaching KJ right as the xpac patch hit. Have gotten a few server firsts individually and for raids. Having to endure the most horrid raid in history (ToGC) and watching everybody burn out every other day. ICC was fine but meh.

I don't remember much of Cataclysm, probably because it was annoyingly boring but still cleared every raid and lasted way too long. Again, watching people burn out on DS wasn't fun. MoP came out and it was the same 'ol, same 'ol. Still cleared everything until SoO was released and then only got to 8/13H then quit. Every alpha/beta, etc...Been there, done that.

I do miss the old Azshara and hunting world dragons. Desolace hasn't changed all that much besides some random green area in the middle of the zone.

The direction the game has gone is probably better than it used to be. Exp grinds aren't so extreme and there's a lot more ways to level than vs. Vanilla, nor are reps grinds as bad. There's more content for all types of players vs. back in Vanilla where you got to level 60 (assuming you didn't raid) and just did some 5man dungeons which took hours or gathered herbs/ores to buy your mount. I do agree the "RPG" now compared to during Vanilla is very different. But I wouldn't really blame Blizzard on that but, blame the players who have themselves become more... elitist.

Play WoW if you're interested. If you can try the Beta for WoD, then do that. Doesn't hurt anybody. 😉

 

[Jws]

I've thought about trying the game again during the next expansion, too, but I think what I'm missing and reminisce for is what WoW used to be many years ago, not what it is today. The current state of the game is better in many ways but worse in others.

Although I started playing shortly after TBC released, I think I was happiest during the early patches of WotLK. We got the skill trees updated so many specs were more viable than they were in TBC, but we hadn't gotten the dungeon finder yet, which I felt negatively affected the sense of community on my realm. Call me crazy, but I liked findings groups on my server for heroics and actually arriving at the entrance. I do think dungeon finder is a good thing for leveling since, unlike current expansion heroics, it isn't as easy to find groups for lower level content.

I'm sure I'll try it out at some point. I haven't regularly played in years, but I keep buying the expansions and quitting after a couple of weeks.

 

[soulsyphon]

i subbed to MoP but i rarely... and i mean rarely played... the whole panda thing doesn't fit high fantasy... but also because theres nothing to do besides raids or bgs/arenas. raids are boring after you've done them 20 times (after 2 times i'm bored) and then when you have to raid again into flex, then normal, then heroic it's just redundant on so many levels.

the bgs are mostly filled with bots, alliance barely ever wins so on horde there isn't much of a challenge except waiting 10 minute to join. alliance does win the 40m bgs so thats all they queue in.

arenas.... well i rather play a fighting game than playing arenas so i never once tried it out... i really don't want to either... doesn't appeal to me.

now comes the next expansion ... WoD ... if you read the patch notes... they're removing like 30-40% of all of whats good about classes... a lot of spells are going away while they aren't adding any new ones... a lot of instant spells become longer cast spells... they made it so shadow priests (my main class) could heal themselves... now they decided they can't anymore... i would always renew myself but thats not allowed anymore.

they aren't adding anything new this expansion besides "garrisons" which is just a quest hub with professions... something i really honestly don't want to take part of but its required as soon as you enter WoD you are told to build your garrison.

its still going to be rush to dungeons, raid lfr, then raid flex, then raid normal, then raid heroic (mystic its called now). heroic is now "normal" i think and normal is "flex".

all these changes to the game like removing spells, class "balancing" and renaming raids makes believe innocent players that the expansion is actually bringing something new to the table when it isn't.

have you seen blizzcon or heard about faction cities in draenor? well that's gone... its now copy paste orc/human tiny city hubs in ashran... the pvp island. wanted pet breeding? well thats gone. wanted to place your garrison in another area? thats gone.

i'm not sure why i play blizzard games anymore... d3 RoS is about grinding billions of demons for hours and hours until what end? whats the point of it? is that considered fun now? just kill billions of demons for no reason other than to raise "paragon"? just raid endlessly the same content over and over to make your +100 gear to +150? aren't people getting sick of this crap?

hearthstone is about random number generator... and its about copying the latest deck of the week/month from a website or streamer... almost no one has an original deck unless they are ranked 20 or above or playing casual.

ah man... i changed to apple laptops in 2008 because i figured all i played was blizzard games... but now i'm seriously getting sick of it... why have an apple computer? i know OSX is awesome but gaming wise the only game i seem to play now is EVE Online... i don't think i want to pay 3000$ tax included just to play eve..

ah i feel depressed about all this... maybe i'm just getting sick of gaming... although i enjoy facebook games a lot more than actual games... is that wrong? it was never like this before... facebook games actually require more skill and i don't have to farm/grind anything.

my two cents.

got nothing else to say really.

 

[King Shady]

i subbed to MoP but i rarely... and i mean rarely played... the whole panda thing doesn't fit high fantasy... but also because theres nothing to do besides raids or bgs/arenas. raids are boring after you've done them 20 times (after 2 times i'm bored) and then when you have to raid again into flex, then normal, then heroic it's just redundant on so many levels.

the bgs are mostly filled with bots, alliance barely ever wins so on horde there isn't much of a challenge except waiting 10 minute to join. alliance does win the 40m bgs so thats all they queue in.

arenas.... well i rather play a fighting game than playing arenas so i never once tried it out... i really don't want to either... doesn't appeal to me.

now comes the next expansion ... WoD ... if you read the patch notes... they're removing like 30-40% of all of whats good about classes... a lot of spells are going away while they aren't adding any new ones... a lot of instant spells become longer cast spells... they made it so shadow priests (my main class) could heal themselves... now they decided they can't anymore... i would always renew myself but thats not allowed anymore.

they aren't adding anything new this expansion besides "garrisons" which is just a quest hub with professions... something i really honestly don't want to take part of but its required as soon as you enter WoD you are told to build your garrison.

its still going to be rush to dungeons, raid lfr, then raid flex, then raid normal, then raid heroic (mystic its called now). heroic is now "normal" i think and normal is "flex".

all these changes to the game like removing spells, class "balancing" and renaming raids makes believe innocent players that the expansion is actually bringing something new to the table when it isn't.

have you seen blizzcon or heard about faction cities in draenor? well that's gone... its now copy paste orc/human tiny city hubs in ashran... the pvp island. wanted pet breeding? well thats gone. wanted to place your garrison in another area? thats gone.

i'm not sure why i play blizzard games anymore... d3 RoS is about grinding billions of demons for hours and hours until what end? whats the point of it? is that considered fun now? just kill billions of demons for no reason other than to raise "paragon"? just raid endlessly the same content over and over to make your +100 gear to +150? aren't people getting sick of this crap?

hearthstone is about random number generator... and its about copying the latest deck of the week/month from a website or streamer... almost no one has an original deck unless they are ranked 20 or above or playing casual.

ah man... i changed to apple laptops in 2008 because i figured all i played was blizzard games... but now i'm seriously getting sick of it... why have an apple computer? i know OSX is awesome but gaming wise the only game i seem to play now is EVE Online... i don't think i want to pay 3000$ tax included just to play eve..

ah i feel depressed about all this... maybe i'm just getting sick of gaming... although i enjoy facebook games a lot more than actual games... is that wrong? it was never like this before... facebook games actually require more skill and i don't have to farm/grind anything.

my two cents.

got nothing else to say really.

Disagree. That is all. 😎

 

[joemod]

Disagree. That is all. 😎

I agree with soulsyphon 🙂

 

[antonis]

i subbed to MoP but i rarely... and i mean rarely played... the whole panda thing doesn't fit high fantasy... but also because theres nothing to do besides raids or bgs/arenas. raids are boring after you've done them 20 times (after 2 times i'm bored) and then when you have to raid again into flex, then normal, then heroic it's just redundant on so many levels.

the bgs are mostly filled with bots, alliance barely ever wins so on horde there isn't much of a challenge except waiting 10 minute to join. alliance does win the 40m bgs so thats all they queue in.

arenas.... well i rather play a fighting game than playing arenas so i never once tried it out... i really don't want to either... doesn't appeal to me.

now comes the next expansion ... WoD ... if you read the patch notes... they're removing like 30-40% of all of whats good about classes... a lot of spells are going away while they aren't adding any new ones... a lot of instant spells become longer cast spells... they made it so shadow priests (my main class) could heal themselves... now they decided they can't anymore... i would always renew myself but thats not allowed anymore.

they aren't adding anything new this expansion besides "garrisons" which is just a quest hub with professions... something i really honestly don't want to take part of but its required as soon as you enter WoD you are told to build your garrison.

its still going to be rush to dungeons, raid lfr, then raid flex, then raid normal, then raid heroic (mystic its called now). heroic is now "normal" i think and normal is "flex".

all these changes to the game like removing spells, class "balancing" and renaming raids makes believe innocent players that the expansion is actually bringing something new to the table when it isn't.

have you seen blizzcon or heard about faction cities in draenor? well that's gone... its now copy paste orc/human tiny city hubs in ashran... the pvp island. wanted pet breeding? well thats gone. wanted to place your garrison in another area? thats gone.

i'm not sure why i play blizzard games anymore... d3 RoS is about grinding billions of demons for hours and hours until what end? whats the point of it? is that considered fun now? just kill billions of demons for no reason other than to raise "paragon"? just raid endlessly the same content over and over to make your +100 gear to +150? aren't people getting sick of this crap?

hearthstone is about random number generator... and its about copying the latest deck of the week/month from a website or streamer... almost no one has an original deck unless they are ranked 20 or above or playing casual.

ah man... i changed to apple laptops in 2008 because i figured all i played was blizzard games... but now i'm seriously getting sick of it... why have an apple computer? i know OSX is awesome but gaming wise the only game i seem to play now is EVE Online... i don't think i want to pay 3000$ tax included just to play eve..

ah i feel depressed about all this... maybe i'm just getting sick of gaming... although i enjoy facebook games a lot more than actual games... is that wrong? it was never like this before... facebook games actually require more skill and i don't have to farm/grind anything.

my two cents.

got nothing else to say really.

+1
Having played from the beginning of WoW, I can't agree more.
But don't give up from Mac yet. The good part is that you can have the best from both worlds as you can run Windows as well (if needed). Back to MMO topic, I have my hopes on Elite Dangerous (which will also be available for Mac).