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Should I get into World of Warcraft?

Rail Tracer

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I think it's the big flaw with any long-term game, as there is no "ending." Most games, you play through a few times and quit. MMOs are going to feel repetitive after awhile. I had it happen with every one of them if I play them long enough. I'm doing SWTOR right now, and what's holding my interest is building a character from each class and doing the quest lines... but I'm always bored with some of the quests and worlds I'm repeating and once I finish all the storylines, I'll probably be bored.

One thing that kept me playing FFXI for so long was the seemingly endless amounts of storyline quests and side quests (even though they were side quests... the story for them were still very good considering I can actually name a lot of NPCs from the game.. still.)

I think that long intermission that I had while trying to look for something else to play (but at the same time...wasn't so time consuming) failed in that every mmo that I've tried so far feels like they just slouch on the story... or if they did try something, they just give you a wall of text. (I like mmos where the storyline could be given in dialogue form.)

TERA is a fine example...it had a nice combat system, but the story, and the way it was presented, was horrible. After getting to level cap, there was nothing to do. I don't remember any of the NPC names in the game... not one single one. All I could remember where these three groups and some dude named Kelsaik that wanted to do something to the world in TERA.

Didn't find FF14 (v2) any good. I tried playing NWN and it ended up to pay to win for me, although it was fun when I was doing it. LOTR, EQ2 and so forth aren't very good, honestly, and GW2 and all the action-types just aren't great. WoW is still the most polished.

I'm actually having fun with FFXIV. As long as I am NOT doing FATE on a day to day basis, it is sort of fun just doing quests after quests. The English dialogue creators must have had fun sticking whatever they thought was cool to be part of some of the NPC dialogues... because some of them actually cracked me up. A Hyur miner named Medrod... just finished a few quests from the storyline, "My friends and I call ourselves gold diggers. Why? Because we dream of striking it rich at a stroke! Hahaha! ...All right, it's not that funny. I'll shut up now. Ahem."

NWN, let me tell you, I stop at about level 6-ish. Felt like I have to pay a little bit of this or a little bit of that for just about everything.

The action-types are great... as long as they could balance it out with storyline, otherwise I get bored easily. TERA was fun in that there wasn't a need for point and click. I could solo BAMs with enough concentration.... It is definitely a different experience than point and click mmos.
 

Totenkindly

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TERA is a fine example...it had a nice combat system, but the story, and the way it was presented, was horrible. After getting to level cap, there was nothing to do. I don't remember any of the NPC names in the game... not one single one. All I could remember where these three groups and some dude named Kelsaik that wanted to do something to the world in TERA.

Well, for me Tera is one of the most beautiful online games that I found unplayable as I advanced in levels. I loved the look of it; I hated the skills and stats system, it was just confusing to me and little seemed intuitive, higher-level combat was confusing (and like I said, I've played a number of MMOs and gotten toons in each to max cap). I think my highest-level character was about level 23 or so when I quit. But I still have screen captures of my characters; they looked very cool.

I didn't particularly find the story that great either. I'd consider it slightly below average, at least at the lower levels, compared to other MMOs.
 

Totenkindly

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I actually didn't care for the main focus of questing and levelling, I found it more interesting to come up with builds no one else had and thus that no one was expecting. I have played SWTORO and I really enjoyed the story aspect, I played as an empire agent.

That's the class I'm currently playing through, I'm about at level 27 and it's fun. Some quests of course repeat regardless of your class. Others are unique (even in the same locations) to the class you are playing. I do appreciate how they made it fun and interesting to NOT be a lightsaber wielder. Those classes are fun, true, but I've found the others are also fun. I've played smuggler close to level 20 and I love how the entire storyline has a different tone than the more serious classes -- it has the tongue-in-cheek dialogue and tone of Han Solo, with all the wisecracks, bad luck, and wry commentary. That game also has the benefit of having three different pools you can make builds in (so even the same class, you might have a different play style depending on your build), and the light side / dark side choices also change the storyline (so you can play the same class through as the unexpected side).
 

Totenkindly

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I actually didn't care for the main focus of questing and levelling, I found it more interesting to come up with builds no one else had and thus that no one was expecting. I have played SWTORO and I really enjoyed the story aspect, I played as an empire agent.

That's the class I'm currently playing through, I'm about at level 27 and it's fun. Some quests of course repeat regardless of your class. Others are unique (even in the same locations) to the class you are playing. I do appreciate how they made it fun and interesting to NOT be a lightsaber wielder. Those classes are fun, true, but I've found the others are also fun. I've played smuggler close to level 20 and I love how the entire storyline has a different tone than the more serious classes -- it has the tongue-in-cheek dialogue and tone of Han Solo, with all the wisecracks, bad luck, and wry commentary. That game also has the benefit of having three different pools you can make builds in (so even the same class, you might have a different play style depending on your build), and the light side / dark side choices also change the storyline (so you can play the same class through as the unexpected side).
 

Rail Tracer

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Well, for me Tera is one of the most beautiful online games that I found unplayable as I advanced in levels. I loved the look of it; I hated the skills and stats system, it was just confusing to me and little seemed intuitive, higher-level combat was confusing (and like I said, I've played a number of MMOs and gotten toons in each to max cap). I think my highest-level character was about level 23 or so when I quit. But I still have screen captures of my characters; they looked very cool.

I didn't particularly find the story that great either. I'd consider it slightly below average, at least at the lower levels, compared to other MMOs.

I played towards level cap as a Lancer and Archer, so I do have some knowledge of being right inside the action, as well as further away from the action.

In TERA, you tend to have a rotation of skills that you use, this is probably the most important for the damage dealing classes as some skills build on others. Although I sucked horribly at Archer...yeah, there were rotation of skills that you needed to learn to effectively play the game. I had to aim and shoot at every mob I encountered rather than clicking a mob to target.

However, I had a better time playing Lancer (the tanking role) because it was more like the traditional tank. But it also had less traditional ways of tanking. Aggro was not sustained like it was in more traditional MMOs (I think this was the case for WoW also.) In a way, it was a battle against my party members from taking the boss away from me while at the same time, keeping myself alive and looking at the boss movements.

I actually thought the system was intuitive mostly because the battle system was so different. In a way I had to constantly look at what the BAMs were about to do as well as keep sustaining aggro... so it was fast-paced for me. There were certain keyframes to know when a boss was going to use a particular skill and that you would either have to block, if you were front-lining the guy, or that you have to back-step from being hit. In some dungeons, all the players had to learn the mechanics of the dungeon (to know when to run from an attack and when to attack.) Tanking in TERA, compared to tanking in a more traditional MMO was packed with action and required a person to constantly look at the surroundings.
 

ptgatsby

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The action-types are great... as long as they could balance it out with storyline, otherwise I get bored easily. TERA was fun in that there wasn't a need for point and click. I could solo BAMs with enough concentration.... It is definitely a different experience than point and click mmos.


TERA was pretty good, and the characters were... pretty. What got me was the game design. For instance, the main boss for the first (newbie) section required you to get the killing blow to complete the quest to move onto the next section. Same boss was being farmed by an old time player power levelling his character. Over and over. For about 2 hours.

These are issues that WoW has solved through experience. Most MMOs have solved those issues, really.

I only got half way through levelling in Tera till I realized that I had no attachment to anything in the game. That, and while I liked the break from "point and click", the style never really won me over.

I should give FFIV-2 another try. I just wanted to go crafting and had my hopes up for it. Why is it so hard to get a decent sub-game out of crafting? They. All. Suck. I really would like a character to be able to just craft it's way to max level and have it be an accomplishment (either "raid-styled" crafting end game, or something).
 

Fluffywolf

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I admit as far as gaming goes, I've logged most playtime on WoW by miles. But I've been unable to enjoy myself in WoW for a long time now.

It used to be far more social. But now it's extremely casual and there's just no need for sociability. The game is made so you don't have to look for others, you don''t have to engage. You just sign up for stuff and poof, you're doing it. Whilest in essence this makes the game better now than it used to be, I myself really enjoyed the older times.

Spending an hour getting a party together, traveling together to the objective, engaging with each other whilest tackling the (somewhat imbalanced but therefor arguebly hard) content and making friends that way was just a lot more fun than clicking two buttons, breeze through some (super casual and easy) content, without caring about or talking to your party members at all.

The last time I enjoyed myself playing WoW, it was when I was multiboxing four characters simultaniously in a small 10 man guild with a couple of friends and my brother, tackling 10 man naxxramas. That feels like an eon ago already. :p

I played in cata, leveled a druid, got bored. Then I played in MoP, leveled to 90, got bored, came back a bit later, solo grinded some gurubashi warlord mounts on my blood DK, got bored again.

Also at the time of TBC I was quite into roleplaying, and there was a lot going on with actually impressive creative writers and servers where you could go up and roleplay with people randomly and people would roleplay back with serious and creative intent (with the 'goldshire hookers' type of roleplayers being a minority) , I had been a part of many cool stories in those days... But that's pretty much completely gone now as well.

I do miss the old times.



I've the same now with other MMO's though. They just feel like single player games where you see other people running around. There's never any reason to socialize in order to get something done anymore. Everything is just made too easy. I did enjoy the story and leveling in Guild Wars 2, but again, once I reached max level, it wasn't enough to get me to keep playing.
 

Stigmata

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I wouldn't recommend it.

WoW has been on its way out for a few years, existing now as just a faint glimmer of its former self.
 

Stigmata

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It used to be far more social. But now it's extremely casual and there's just no need for sociability. The game is made so you don't have to look for others, you don''t have to engage. You just sign up for stuff and poof, you're doing it. Whilest in essence this makes the game better now than it used to be, I myself really enjoyed the older times.

Spending an hour getting a party together, traveling together to the objective, engaging with each other whilest tackling the (somewhat imbalanced but therefor arguebly hard) content and making friends that way was just a lot more fun than clicking two buttons, breeze through some (super casual and easy) content, without caring about or talking to your party members at all.

Yes!

Implementing the LFG system was the best/worse thing that ever happened to the game. While it's certainly a bit more efficient on a macro level, I did miss having the sense of community feeling on my realm. Nowadays you join a group and it's pretty much every man for themselves in terms of loot, with no real emphasis on fairness, necessity over want, or working towards a common goal. Back when I played the most and was really engulfed in the gameplay (TBC/Wrath), your reputation as a player in terms of both skill and attitude actually mattered, to the point to where nuisances were generally well-known and blacklisted by most respected groups/guilds.

Also, now they've completely homogenized all the classes and buffs, to the point where now, in the grand scheme of things, nothing really matters. I miss sitting there for an hour trying to attain the perfect group composition to maximize buff/class synergy, and just watching how much of a performance increase it was when all those factors were present and everything came together.

I played a Warlock (Destro in TBC, and Demo/Affliction depending on what my guild needed at the time. Had almost one of every class, though) through end-game content for two expansions (Up to M'uru in pre-nerf Sunwell, and up-to 25-man Lich King Hardmode in Wrath), and enjoyed being able to blow away the competition simply because I knew how to play my class after everyone had abandoned the class after the massive TBC nerfs in the patch before Lich King. Now, there's so little room for class optimization through spec/buffs since everything is either a baseline ability or has been taken completely out of the game (certain gems, weapon oils, abilities and cooldowns, ect).
 

Totenkindly

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I've the same now with other MMO's though. They just feel like single player games where you see other people running around. There's never any reason to socialize in order to get something done anymore. Everything is just made too easy. I did enjoy the story and leveling in Guild Wars 2, but again, once I reached max level, it wasn't enough to get me to keep playing.

I actually would like to be involved. The reality, sadly, is just that as soon as you organize or become part of a group, you're kind of required to commit specific amounts of time to it to remain part of the group. Scheduled times, typically. I guess that's the reason I prefer the more automated grouping... because my lifestyle of not having consistent times set aside for playing with regulars prohibits it. Which is both a plus and a con.

I'm thinking, though, every MMO is this way. Because it's a never-ending game (like comic books). People end up coming and going. I would say I've been a regular user of 5-6 MMOs (EQII, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, City of Heroes, and....?), and while in the midst of leveling I would be almost obsessive with playing, eventually once my friends drifted away or I leveled out and was familiar with the system and locations, I just left the game. Sometimes i'll cycle back through (like a year later, if new releases come out), but otherwise?

This isn't a bad thing, it's hell to play something you are no longer interested in, but it's still a loss to admit it and just give it up. Sniffles.

---

Sounds like a lot of discussion has been about whether simplified game play and grouping is good or bad. I do agree with both.

One reason I don't go back to WoW is that leveling / skill selecting seems pointless. Everything seems kind of stock, from what I can tell. One thing I liked about City of Heroes, despite older graphics and approach (I think it was created in 2004), was the enhancement system. It was actually kind of cool to pick what powers you wanted (and not pick others) + slotting your enhancements in order to make those power most effective -- so you could customize the strength of the powers based on what you wanted to emphasize (damage, buff power, energy cost, distance, etc.) Plus, your buffs would drop as you leveled, so you'd have to replenish with a higher level enhancement to keep your character maxed. Complicated and complex in some ways, but builds actualll MATTERED. Most games, they don't as much... although SWTOR and Rift both use a three-tree system that lets you mix and match class skills, at least.
 
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