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Why is WoW so great?
x10122007
Member Posts: 60
My boyfriend and I tried WoW out about two months ago. It was fun and all but I don't know what's so great about it. I don't dislike it or anything, I was just wondering why so many people play it. Is it for the game or is it for something else? I'm looking for something new to pick up because every so often, I just want to try something else, and I keep wondering if I should try WoW again, actually pay to play for a bit. So I'd appreciate any information you could give me, pros, cons, why you play or why you quit, things like that. It seems a bit expensive to dive into if you don't know anything about it.
Comments
It's worth leveling up.... it's fun, you'll enjoy it. As for what makes it so great.. well you will get a different answer for each post. As well as hater post saying "because it's so easy." But the truth is... I think it just did a lot of things well. While it might not be anything spectacular, all aspects seem to be well thought out and work smoothly. That's why a lot of people play it imo.
But it's certainly worth playing. People who would tell you no have either gotten bored with the game because they've played so long, or just hate it because the game is somewhat of an attention hog... you can try the free trial to see if you might want to get into it.
I like it because I've been in a guild that is very friendly and nice folks for a long time, I helped make it what it is today.
I enjoy going and running dungeons with the new members getting to know people, helping others out...
Its just like most of the other MMO's I've played but it has less bugs, more people I know play it, and they're pretty much perfected their "idea' of what they wanted this game to be.
Other companies are still unsure where they want their game to go, but Blizz seems to have a steady hand on the wheel.
Its the most polished MMO out there. It doesn't have a strong learning curve and its grind is a lot less than most mmo's, which is why it attracts such a large player base. Another thing about wow that attracts people is its low system requirement. Ive played and quit wow several times, usually out of frustration or because it gets too much of the same. Raids can be too much of the same, you spend weeks getting the epic gear sets only to have a new raid come out and rinse repeat. Same goes for PvP, however i do find PvP enjoyable. Having said that, it is a fun game if its one of your first mmo's and it can be incredibly addictive, especially when everything is new to you.
What I like the most about is that I have 100 % real control of my character, you never have that in a click to walk game 100 %. I like the stealth system in it also. And the lore is very intressting and fun.. well atleast it was the first year or so
And the game might look "cartoony" but the characters sure make up for in personality. The NPC feel like they are really there. And also you got swimming,riding,flying,mindcontrol,stealth, falldamage,WASF controlls (no click to walk).
Might have missed something but this what I liked those 3-4 year I played it. In the end I got bored tho, but no other mmo lasted 4 years for me before WoW.
At the moment I am really intressted in Mortal Online, hope it will be a good and fun game.
I would say that WoW is great mainly because of it's popularity.
Important aspects also include things like casual friendliness, overall polish and quantity of content.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
WoW was my first mmo so everything was new to me, i have just outgrown it recently & looking into a new mmo to play. What makes wow great for me is it's popularity since it's growing the mmo market causes other companys to take more interest & they then go on to develope some of the titles we are now getting excited about.. For a first mmo wow is great & it takes along time to grow out of it..
I agree with this. There is a whole WoW culture out there. If you play WoW then you really feel you are of something. With tons of youtube videos to the media references WoW is not just a MMO it is a phenomena.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
Things like advertising, and word of mouth have a lot to do with it also. When you have TV commercials, shows about the game, and celebrities saying they play it, that helps a boat load I imagine. WoW has had more advertising than any MMO in existence, I think. There's also the fact that the company already had a huge fan-base before WoW's release.
It's really not the greatest game, but it's also not bad, I think advertising has the most to do with the large sub numbers.
What Laughing-Man wrote + maybe the biggest reason i still play WoW since the first time the Alpha leaked is the story which Blizzard is the best at doing in any game they release. It might be boring just replacing your epic gear every new raid instance but just seeing the new stuff and how they are gonna implement all the epic characters from the story is worth the wait and the pain of being in a high end guild with what all that involves. And one more reason is that most MMOs that gets released nowadays live for a couple of months and maybe get some half-arsed expansions if they are lucky but when you play a Blizzard game, be it WoW or whatever you know that they arent gonna let go of it easily, its gonna live on for a long time.
Playing: CO, C&C and WoW.
Played: Tabula Rasa, AoC, War, Aion.
Regret Playing: Hellgate: London, EVE.
I agree it's not the greatest game thats why I have left but it does have a hand in building up a bigger fan base for mmo's which is a good thing for the development of future mmo's which is a good thing for us
Why is WoW so great? Almost anything that other MMOs do, WoW does it ten times better.
like player housing or city sieges......gimme a break. Its popular because it doesn't require a powerful computer to play.
WAR did the same thing and look how that turned out. So I cant really agree on this. In the start of WoW there was not much comercials about it. The adverts came after like 3 years. By then WoW already had lots of subscribers.
But the reason so many play it is that its an easy game to get into, and when you get more advanced there is alot to do also. Even the endgame and content of WoW is very big.
Yeah any game that keeps me captivated for 4 years is good. I played about 90 % of all MMOs out last 10 years. But after you got 5 max leveled with raid gear and pvp gear, it gets very boring that is why I left and I am not planing to go back.
But its a great game.
Many peoples like it because it have smooth learning curve, its polished, have relatively good quests and high end content have very addictive item grind.
Some peoples do not like WoW because they see it too linear and predefined, very weak open world PvP (its almsot missing nowdays) and last but not the least lack of massive game play depth.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
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LordOfDarkDesire
And there is many other games that do housing and big city sieges well with millions of subs? I wonder why all these other games dont do aswell as WoW when they have all these great features that people really want, ohh wait we dont value those things that much, Who cares about a house if you walk into an empty world.
And that its popular cause it dosnet req a good comp? c'mon, do you really, when you look for a game to play, go out and try to find the game that would do the least stress on your comp? You can play most MMOs on a really crappy comp aslong as you tune down the graphics.
Maybe if games that come would focus in getting some good lasting PVE and PVP content into their games instead of just trying to fix all these niche things like housing and city sieges that gets boring after 1-2 times.
And dont forget the lore in the Warcraft universe, people never mention it when they talk about pros and cons but i think the lore in WoW is whats holding alot of people in, combined with everthing else it becomes a "complete" package which i think alot of MMOs neglect or fail at. If they tried to make a complete game instead of just trying to get all these niches in at launch like housing and guilds being able to build big citys and castles and what not. Building a city and farming all the mats required for doing so wont get you subs, having your own little house wont get you subs, have a complete game gets you subs and most importantly alot of stable subs. And alot of subs gives the game a great community which is really imprtant in my opinion.
Playing: CO, C&C and WoW.
Played: Tabula Rasa, AoC, War, Aion.
Regret Playing: Hellgate: London, EVE.
Cause the combat just feels so smooth and good compared to all other mmos
I wouldn't honestly, not now, you would be coming into WoW way after it was at it's peak. You don't want to get stuck leveling in what is a dated and to be honest boring game experience. People played wow simply because it was the most polished of the new gen mmorpgs. On the other hand the model they used is identical to Everquests and that means Instance Grinding. And that wasn't too bad back when the instances were challenging, now not only is everything easy but so are the instances.
Game breaking things have happened to really throw off the game balance namely the level increases followed by Paladins and Death Knights being recreated as more like Demigods than actual characters, also if you do play and don't want people to spit on you and hate you, I dont advise playing either of those two classes.
Breaking it down for you but I don't know if you have played any other mmorpgs. Crafting in wow is a joke and totally meaningless, Fast travel and large level set areas mean your going to map the world fast, by level 50 you will have been most everywhere on the old maps, by early level 60s youll have been to most of the outland areas, and by 72 or so you will have at least seen most of Northrend, you can actually go to these places earlier via portal/summons, and do like i did and get the dalaran FP on your 30+ toons. Wow seriously lacks in atmosphere. Moving around in game I seriously feel like im playing a fantasy version of Street fighter Alpha, not a mmorpg.
Not to mention if you get used to wow and then want to play something else you will be sorry to find out the skill gap is rather high, you cant button smash through Eve online like you can on WoW. So it's better not to get used to it. WoW started off good a fun game with decent pvp balance and the raids were hard enough to make the game credible. But NOW the game is custom crafted for bored housewives, Dads and their 12 year old kids to play, not the serious gamer, not even the half serious casual wants to touch this poison. If you start playing now your ice skating uphill.
It's not.
/thread
Katsma is Lithuanian for 'he who drinks used douche fluid'.
indeed, crap from start to finish, alot of ppl play it and thus more ppl play it, its easy, casual and doesnt have any real learning obstacles.
With that said its too casual, its a kindergarden party with its toonish graphics, lack of blood and general lack of feeling, but hey dont we all wanna play with 11year olds? As that wasnt bad enough has extremly bad pvp, poor player based content with a combat system based on buttom mashing, but hey its balanced. The classes are all equally shit to play /my point of view/end of ranting
Polished and simple mechanics, and that is the ONLY thing that is great about WOW. Other games get the movement all clunky or messed up, but not WOW.
Now WOW gets the world wrong, being mostly a joke world with immersion-destroying lame pop references to the modern world. However, because your character moves fluidly in WOW and it runs well on any computer, it is the top game.
Come back when you have done all the Hardmodes in Ulduar (maybe you have, doubt it but maybe, then hats off to you), but to say that WoW instances are easy is just to smash your face in the wall of ignorance, just cause a game dosent only focus on the "hardcore" people that spend hours and hours and hours everyday and living of their parents dosent mean its easy or bad or whatnot. Ofc the starter instances are easy, what would you expect from Wailing Caverns=P, while doing normal instances in Northrend what would you expect them to be since apparently you want insanely hard 5 man instances, good luck.
Heroic 5 man not very hard either but a clear diffrence from normal lvl 80 instances, but cant really expect a 5 hour 5man heroic instance? thats just stupid. And the raids, sure 25 man raids arent very hard if you have a guild, doing the hardmodes tho thats another story, so its not like stuff isnt hard and if you have cleared all the hardmodes in Ulduar then congrats=D
When i read on these forums it seems like people are so stuck on this idea that things NEEDS to be shit hard and can't be both as with normal and heroic and hardmodes and so on. Why is that? Is it such a bad thing if they are able to make a good game that gives something for everyone and they do it pretty well whats the harm?
Loosen up please=D
Playing: CO, C&C and WoW.
Played: Tabula Rasa, AoC, War, Aion.
Regret Playing: Hellgate: London, EVE.
Well, most of the time I did play WoW (since the US closed beta), I have been in pretty good raiding guilds. I have cleared most raid content and had even some server firsts. However, I find the whole achievement/hardmode thing mind-numbingly boring. I much preferred the old, hardmode only approach. And would not have minded some encounters, like Sartharion and Freya, with hardmodes, but almost every single new boss? The raiding was repetitive enough as it was, but at least you did not have to kill the same boss with multiple different styles. I find that to be extremely lazy design.
I give points to Blizzard where they are due, but achievements and hardmodes in raiding environment aren't getting a single point from me...also the biggest reasons why I no longer play WoW.
I am sure there are some who want to post that you like it. I understand. As long as you are having fun, you should continue playing. Raiding for me has gone downhill ever since TBC. After Kael'Thas I really started to notice the change with Blizzard's design. However, the last straw for me was Ulduar.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
One word sums it up best....
Polish
With all of the patches and revisions that have gone throughout it's 4 years of existence it's more polished than any other major mmo on the market today. Yes there are issues with the game like unbalanced pvp, but overall Blizzard does a well job of taking conventions that have been in the mmo universe and making them work great. They even stole the pvp leveling from WAR and queuing for battlegrounds anywhere from WAR. They don't come up with many original ideas, but they do them well.
The proper question isn't "Why is WoW so great?", but should be "Why is WoW so popular?". There is a big difference between the two.
First, Blizzard advertises the hell out of the game, and they had a large following going into it.
WoW is also popular because of it's extremely low learning curve, it's ability to run on a toaster, it's polish and it's addictive nature. Out of those four things, I would only consider "polish" as a quality of a great game, the rest aren't.
That being said, WoW isn't a bad game, but it isn't the best game either. Just like Hannah Montana isn't the best show on TV, it is still wildly popular because it is good at what it does.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.