World of Warcraft Passes the 5 Million Mark

[fitbabits]

Next Generation (http://www.next-gen.biz) has the details (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1905&Itemid=2).

Blizzard has announced that their highly popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has surpassed 5 million users worldwide.

The number includes standard monthly subscribers, prepaid card users, those who have purchased the installation bundle with one month free, and players that have accessed the Internet Game Room in the past seven days. Canceled and expired accounts are not included.

World of Warcraft's growth continues to exceed all our expectations," said Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We want to reiterate our thanks to the millions of players worldwide and to all the retailers who have enthusiastically supported the game over the past year."
I'm left thinking that I'm missing out on something with all these MMORPGs. Congratulations to Blizzard.

[DeadPixel]

Nerf shammies...

[gzsfrk]

Seems rather coincidental that this announcement gets made right as the WoW community is currently involved in a bitter dispute over casual vs. hardcore end-game design philosophy, with the CMs scurrying around in damage control mode:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=6279154&s=new&tmp=1#new
(note: thread currently broken due to WoW's crappy forum software, so you can't read Tseric's original post, or at least I can't now)

This, coupled with Blizzard pissing off a fairly sizable chunk of its player base with the lackluster Paladin review, and this COULD be the opening that up and coming MMOs (DnD Online, for example) have been waiting for to steal some of WoW's marketshare. Don't know if it will happen or not, but the WoW team has been seeming to compound ignorant decision after ignorant decision lately (e.g. the 10-minute Battlegrounds timeout rule, waiting 2 YEARS to release a real expansion, et. al.).

I hope they get it all straightened out--WoW is a good MMO, although it may well be that it's simply the best of a bad lot.

Cheers, and Merry Christmas...

[Kelegacy]

I'm left thinking that I'm missing out on something with all these MMORPGs. Congratulations to Blizzard.

Yeah, your missing out on a lack of life. Thankfully, I never got into MMO gaming, even though I love RPGs. The time sinks were too severe for me, and I only played Ultima Online for 2 days before stopping. Thank God.

[fitbabits]

Nerf shammies...
Bless you!

[fitbabits]

Yeah, your missing out on a lack of life. Thankfully, I never got into MMO gaming, even though I love RPGs. The time sinks were too severe for me, and I only played Ultima Online for 2 days before stopping. Thank God.
YOU COULD HAVE DIED!!! (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8140) :)

[gzsfrk]

Nerf shammies...

"No... I'm busy with mage and Shaman. Shamen need more buffs!"
- Eyonix

[Twigmaster]

Its frightning when you play an MMO, you lose track of time, I was playing for like 16 hours non-stop one time and looked outside and it was like pitch black.

[gzsfrk]

Its frightning when you play an MMO, you lose track of time, I was playing for like 16 hours non-stop one time and looked outside and it was like pitch black.

Sounds like you need the ever-useful wife timer.

I have never been so terrified in my life as when one time, while playing WoW and losing track of the time, at around 2:30a in the morning, I suddenly get a weird chill run down my back, then look over and see my wife glaring down upon me.

Suffice to say, I had to quickly abandon my Uldaman run with hasty apologies to my group. =)

[Speed_D]

this COULD be the opening that up and coming MMOs (DnD Online, for example)
I doubt it but I'll wait and see. I think the more I've seen of DnD implementations, the more I realize that the DnD spellcasting system is inherently broken, at least for computer games. Memorization of a limited number of spells just isn't fun if there are more than a handful of fights. It worked ok for the original DnD because the focus was more on exploration and interaction with the DM, than on dice rolling. Not true for computer games. They tried to somewhat address it in the 3rd edition rules (ex: sorcerers). But I still find that I prefer mana-based systems.

[Sion]

They might as well get a few printing presses for making $100 bills.

[Hewie]

Definitely not a fan of MMOs. I'll stick to Thomas and the Magic Words and Counter-Strike.

[NeuroMan42]

For The Horde!!!

[direwolf]

The complaints aren't the end-all of WoW. Once the new patch is out and people have 2 new dungeons to crawl through they'll still be playing (although only 1 will be open immediately, other requries a world event).

All of the horde and half the alliance could care less about the solo'ing/pvp'ing ability of a paladin, this isn't going to cause any mass casualties.

[joruussuun]

I cancelled my account after playing for about 6 months, but I might return after Weather Effects and Burning Crusade are in to check it out (unless I'm still playing EVE Online, heh :D ).

[bapenguin]

I find subscription based MMORPGs suck the life out of the rest of your gaming habbits. I try not to play them anymore.

[DirtyChimp]

Just think about how much money they make per month now, it’s ridiculous!

[joruussuun]

I find subscription based MMORPGs suck the life out of the rest of your gaming habbits. I try not to play them anymore.
I'll vouch for the truth in that! That's why I am thinking I might not pursue EVE Online after the trial... plus I always like MMOs at first, but then get bored a couple months in. I'm starting to learn. That's why I like Guild Wars (I didn't at first but recently returned...), I don't have the pressure of 'should I cancel and save the $15' if the tables turn on the 'enthralled/bored' meter.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Im getting sick of WoW. Getting to lvl 60 blows hard unless you love PVP and doing stupid ass dungeons over and over. Plus Im seriously getting annoyed by the lag sometimes. My main is a mage and Im sick of how mages have to PVP/duel. With the anti poly etc trinkets it totally puts us at a disadvantage unless were in full sets of high end gear.

Ill probably quit or just stop playing soon... Alts get boring after a while...

end game = hunting for better gear to pvp with.../ doing the same raids over and over and over = F that.

[Royal Fool]

There are few things as boring as grinding mobs.

[Kefkataran]

Seems rather coincidental that this announcement gets made right as the WoW community is currently involved in a bitter dispute over casual vs. hardcore end-game design philosophy, with the CMs scurrying around in damage control mode:

Uh, this philosophy has been being argued back and forth since the game's release. And the CMs on the WoW forums are ALWAYS in a state of damage control because it's the goddamn WoW forums. There's hardly ever a hint of intelligence on there, god bless 'em.

Yeah, your missing out on a lack of life. Thankfully, I never got into MMO gaming, even though I love RPGs. The time sinks were too severe for me, and I only played Ultima Online for 2 days before stopping. Thank God.

Anyone who's played WoW will tell you the timesink/lack of life feature is pretty missing. You can play just a few hours a week and still make very noticeable advancement. This is true, of course, up until you hit the level cap and have nothing left to do but the high-end raids. Those bitches take time, which is unfortunate and also why I cancelled my account until the x-pack is out. Still, even that is potentially fixed with the addition of some less hardcore endgame content, which has sort of been done through PvP and smaller raid/group stuff.

I find subscription based MMORPGs suck the life out of the rest of your gaming habbits. I try not to play them anymore.

I think this is actually a pretty fair argument. That's something I've noticed too. But that's why, if I do play MMOs, I try to play the more casual ones (i.e. Guild Wars, WoW, CoH/CoV, etc.).

Plus Im seriously getting annoyed by the lag sometimes.

Last I played (a few weeks ago) most the lag problems were fixed, weren't they?

There are few things as boring as grinding mobs.

Mmm, yup. Good thing you never really *have* to do that in WoW.

[Everlost_MI]

Sounds like you need the ever-useful wife timer.

I have never been so terrified in my life as when one time, while playing WoW and losing track of the time, at around 2:30a in the morning, I suddenly get a weird chill run down my back, then look over and see my wife glaring down upon me.

Suffice to say, I had to quickly abandon my Uldaman run with hasty apologies to my group. =)

Hey I got one of those too! I was silly to think that only my wife had the power to freeze blood with her stare for staying up too late playing games.

[Derella]

WoW certainly has it's issues, but it's still the best MMO currently on the market and will likely remain so for the forseeable future. None of the upcoming MMOs seem all that appealing...

I was looking forward to DDO, but after playing in the stress test for a week I've lost all interest in the game.

[zengeist]

Sounds like you need the ever-useful wife timer.

I have never been so terrified in my life as when one time, while playing WoW and losing track of the time, at around 2:30a in the morning, I suddenly get a weird chill run down my back, then look over and see my wife glaring down upon me.

Suffice to say, I had to quickly abandon my Uldaman run with hasty apologies to my group. =)

heh, my wife has discovered ambien, she only glares in her coma. I know what you mean though, that would scare me!!

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I guess its just my server - Elune - but lately there are a shit load of lag issues. Even some people gathering outside of org dueling get a ton of lag randomly. Any lag where it makes it unplayable should NEVER fecking happen. I dont want to hear the crap about how many people play and blah blah blah. MMO + lag = unplayable. I love being in the middle of a cast then getting "the spell is not ready" and then getting raped because my cast got screwed from a lag spike. No its not on just my end either.

[GrinR]

I will never understand all the complaining. After playing about 20 alts over 3 servers (to 40+) it seems to me there is no end to the adventure...

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I will never understand all the complaining. After playing about 20 alts over 3 servers (to 40+) it seems to me there is no end to the adventure...

You must sit there masturbating the whole time becuase I guess you get off on repetition.

[ruprect]

You know last year at this time I was deep in WoW, and it was one of the happiest gaming experiences I've ever had. Everything was just so polished and vast. From the storylines to the different atmospheres in each area . . . it was incredible (except to for the stability problems).

I've cancelled my account now. I hit 60, tried other characters, got bored. . . but those first 4 weeks were fantastic.

MMO's take a dedication and attention span I just don't have I think. Grats to Blizzard though. I'll be surprised if they keep 5 million people though. They'd better hurry up with the expansion.

[Qoz]

I have come to the conclusion that WOW really sucks. The end-game that is.
The game is great and all when you play it at first, but soon you realize what kind of clever things blizzard implemented just to keep you playing more. And those things hamper the game from being great once you reach lvl60.

There is NO economy besides lame auction housing - the best items are bind on pickup anyway. The PvP is broken because its so item dependant. PvP doesn't matter anyway because you cannot loot the person you kill. You gain nothing except some honor crap.
I could kill some extremely hard opponents in the 2 hours I could play each day, and some teenager with no job kills easy opponents for 5 hours and get more honor. What a stupid system. Top of the honor = no life except camping the battelgrounds each day. Thats the message Blizzard is giving - play more and you will be the best! Yeah .. the best at wasting your life.

The game strives to make anyone a winner and in the end no-one is. Everyone is the same running around in the same armor.

I played it at day1 and got a lvl60 gnome rogue pretty fast.
I quickly found the endgame PvP so broken. The battlegrounds are one big zerging mass of players. I found myself wasting 4 hours to get a dagger with a little more damage.
I agree with the hardcore players that the game is too much carebear making everyone win, instead of making it about skill.
They should have made the battelgrounds more ladder-like with solo and 2v2 rankings. And include a replay-functionality and spectator mode so you could watch (and admire) the really good players.
The problem is the game is primarily Player vs. Environment balanced, and PvP will never be balanced properly. I think every hardcore WOW player will realize that the endgame is just not there and leave. But it is hard because the game is designed to keep you busy with time-consuming dungeons, item gathering, lousy honor-system rewarding those spending the most time. Every WOW player will go through excatly the same procedure (questing, items, instances) and loose their time and money to Blizzard. But for people trying it for the first time I guess they will have some fun.. until the really time consuming content comes at lvl60.

I may sound bitter and perhaps I am. I'm just really disappointed in Blizzard.
They made this great game, with great teach and GUI. But they made some choices that made sure lots of casual gamers where not frustrated. It made them all billions, but the game lacks the Blizzard magic in the end-game. Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft is still played by many competitive people online even though the games are very old. I hope the competitive players will leave WOW and turn to DnL or other MMORPGs. The good thing about WOW is how so many casual gamers play it and will play it. The market is growing and we will perhaps see more focused MMORPGs thriving like EVE and perhaps DnL. I hope so.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Like Ive said, I agree. End game is total bs. OMG I NEEDS TEH ARMOR UP!!#@!~!

[endrom]

thats why i like RP servers, people dont care about PvP and care more about their avatar, and they don't speak leet.

[Citizen Philip]

I believe the summary of WoW problems are:

There is only a basic PvP implementation: the current offerings and rewards are in no way as in-depth or developed as their PvE. The current system is a HORRIBLE grind.

The current endgame PvE implemenation is designed for exclusive 20-40 man raids into instanced environments: The best rewards in the game are only found in 40 man dungeon content.

The hardcore vs not hardcore argument is: The best gear comes from 40 man raids, if you cannot do 40 man raids (i.e. run the same 2-3 dungeons oncer per week, every week for +5 hours each) you do no get any of the best gear, because you don't deserve it.

The non-hardcore want smaller instances (5-8 man) with end-game content, so they can enjoy the nice items as well: hardcore players assume that they don't want a challenge and want their gear for free. Some of the non-hardcore do want their gear for free, which will never happen.

--There are no current plans (known) that will allow smaller group end-game content--
-- The current endgame options are tiered dungeons, i.e. Molten Core -> Blackwing's Lair -> Ahn Quiraj--
--The higher the tier the better the gear--

Endgame content = the current best items in the game, i.e. there are a number of "high-level" dungeons for smaller groups: but none of the rewards are close to the power level of the 40 man raid gear (i.e. you goto the highlevel dungeons to get into the raid dungeons, and then dump the gear).

Basically there is a sliding power scale: if you do NOT visit endgame dungeons, another player will be able to kill you with much less effort, the endgame rewards outstrip high-end dungeons and PvP rewards.

Things to be fixed:
endgame content for smaller groups balanced against 40 man dungeons.
better pvp

Next year the the expansion pack with its +10 level is going to invalidate all the gear you will spend the next year and half acquiring.

I think the end-game sucks balls. 40 man dungeons are boring, repedative and frustrating. The PvP has a great foundation and a terrible system.

[vornskr]

If I had disposable income and time, I'd play this.

And EVE.
And probably DDO when it comes out. :-/

[gzsfrk]

The complaints aren't the end-all of WoW. Once the new patch is out and people have 2 new dungeons to crawl through they'll still be playing (although only 1 will be open immediately, other requries a world event).


You have apparently missed the point that the current outcry of complaints are from the majority of non-raiding casual players who have reached end-game and have discovered that the developers have focused little to no effort on providing additional solo or small group (5-10 man) content for players in order to progress their itemization. In other words, if you're married, have a job, or just don't consider it fun to sit at your computer for 5-8 hours every night, WoW end-game isn't for you. I miss the early days of playing WoW when, as a husband and father, sometimes an hour or two was all I could get in on a regular basis. There was always some solo content available that I could use to advance my character, even if I only managed to get a quest started or partially complete, I felt like I was able to accomplish something worthwhile.

Of course, you might say, there's always the PvP system for advancing your itemization. And for some people that might be fine. But to me and many other casual players, the current implementation is like playing the same 3 maps in Unreal Tournament over and over and over, ad infinitum, until you're raised your Honor Points high enough to achieve the next rank. Mindless grinding for teh loss...And, since my time is generally more limited, competing with players who HAVE hours upon hours to expend is nigh impossible.

All of the horde and half the alliance could care less about the solo'ing/pvp'ing ability of a paladin, this isn't going to cause any mass casualties.

In an of itself, other than causing a great many Pally players to re-roll and quite a few to cancel their subscriptions altogether (not that this will significantly hurt Blizzard in any financial way, mind you), it does compound on top of many of the other aforementioned cock-ups to tarnish the image of the game as a whole.

As an aside, I personally see the emphasis on keeping Paladins as a powerful support role (perhaps the best in the game), but very weak in offense, solo leveling, and solo PvP viability as a means to achieve faction balance, since most players (not all, but most by and large) prefer:

1. Offense over defense
2. The OPTION of being an effective loner
3. To be the one delivering the killing blow rather than preventing a killing blow to a teammate.

Does that make a Paladin any less powerful? No... not at all. But it does make the class appealing to a much narrower subset of players than a class such as Shaman, which is known to give players a god complex. Thus, in theory, Paladins will be played by fewer and fewer players as their true role becomes more well known, while Shaman will (and has) inversely become a much more heavily-played class than before it was known how powerful they are.

Should Pallies have the ability to be the best support class in the game and have DPS abilities equivalent or greater than classes that do NOT have as wide an array of support roles available? No. Should Paladins be given the option to specialize via their talent trees in such a way that they can tank (Protection Tree) or do damage (Retribution Tree) while sacrificing some of their viability in the support (Holy Tree) role, much like Druids have that option? This point is up for argument, depending on how you would like to see the class defined (Holy Knight or Cleric?), but I tend to think that having options is a good thing.

While the details of why the latest patch are wonderful (to Cleric lovers) or an abomination (Holy Knight wanna-be tanks and melee'ers) have been debated ad nauseum in the forums and are easily researched, the point that is largely not debated, and that applies to the topic at hand, is that the developers seem to make very arbitrary and inexplicable decisions that do very little to encourage enthusiasm amongst a significant number of their playerbase. Add all these stupid little decisions together and you may well likely have a majority of the playerbase that have been pissed off or otherwise made to feel alienated by the developers in one way or the other. Throw in a general air of dishonesty in the communications players receive back from Blizzard (e.g. Their explanation of why the "10-minute rule" made it into the game), and there is, I believe, an opening for another MMO with a more "sympathetic" and "in-tune" dev team to come in and steal away a lot of WoW's "hurt-feelings" players.

Of course, as I mentioned, it remains to be seen whether this will be the case or not; only time will tell.

[Kefkataran]

--There are no current plans (known) that will allow smaller group end-game content--

Actually, I thought that was the point of adding all the new quests for solo/small groups in Silithus? Admittedly, the rewards aren't as powerful as the stuff you're going to get for 40-man raids, but that seems like a given.

[Speed_D]

The Silithus revamp = massive reputation grinding. And after you're done with that, you can summon a boss that takes a 20-man group to kill for a purple item. Meaning it wasn't really for solo players / small groups after all.

[Qoz]

I think WOW will receive a declining flow of casual gamers who will spend 1 year to reach lvl60 and quit. Perhaps ready for another game then?
And then there will be a few of the so-called hardcore players who will spend all their time maintaining their honor-rank and quest for the uber items in MC.
I don't think WOW will ever maintain the constant fanbase like Ultima Online has.

There will be other MMORGPs that scoop up both the newbies and the more competitive players. WOW is placed excatly in the middle and claims to have both PvP and newbie friendly atmosphere. For me (and alot of people) the game is a master of neither of these playstyles. WOW is trying so hard to appeal to both and it is ruining the game. After playing it for so long I still think of it as a single player campaign, where you play the content and you are done. You have seen the monsters, done the quests and thats it. Perhaps because I played a rogue. Hmm.
WOW will loose alot of players once other good MMORPGs are released that appeal more to the casual gamer (PvE) and the hardcore (PvP), but with the polish of WOW ofcourse. I just hope other developers are not fooled by the mega-cash-cow that WOW is right now and try to make something similar.

[direwolf]

Those that have said no 5-20 man dungeons are en-route haven't been paying much attention to the news lately.

There is one alone that is a winged dungeon with 3/4 wings being dedicated to 5 man groups, the fourth is a larger raid encounter (can't remember if it is 20 or 40 thinking back).

This was all discussed at Blizzcon and has been posted numerous times in the various threads. Another fact that was missed is that the dungeons ARE NOT tiered where there is a linear progression through them. This was pointed out several times and something the developers have said they are no longer interested in doing. Lastly, there is gear in 20 man raids that is equivalent of 40 man raid gear.

It seems most of the people posting about end-game have never experienced any of it to know any better, and worst off, they haven't kept up with the info that has come down regarding it.

Yes, I'm in a raiding guild, but I also have a wife and kid. It takes us 2 nights a week to run Ony and MC, still waiting to tackle BWL.

[Kefkataran]

The Silithus revamp = massive reputation grinding. And after you're done with that, you can summon a boss that takes a 20-man group to kill for a purple item. Meaning it wasn't really for solo players / small groups after all.

Fair enough. I didn't have the chance to touch any of the Silithus content, so I didn't know for sure. Either way, 20-man's still better than 40. It's maybe not 'small group', but it's less of the commitment and trouble of a full-on raid.

Yes, I'm in a raiding guild, but I also have a wife and kid. It takes us 2 nights a week to run Ony and MC, still waiting to tackle BWL.

See, that's the kind of guild I'd like to be in. All the ones I've gone back and forth from have either been way too hardcore for me to really take part in or not interested in any raiding at all.

[Speed_D]

WOW will loose alot of players once other good MMORPGs are released that appeal more to the casual gamer (PvE) and the hardcore (PvP)
Don't confuse hardcore/casual with PvE/PvP. In fact, I think the situation is mostly opposite of what you wrote. The hardcore people who spend waaaay too much time in-game right now are usually PvE players in high end raiding guilds. PvP in WoW -- yeah it can eat up a ton of time if you're trying to achieve the top rank. But discounting that, you can easily improve without a guild, which means playing on YOUR time, not on some mandatory raid schedule.

[Citizen Philip]

Actually, I thought that was the point of adding all the new quests for solo/small groups in Silithus? Admittedly, the rewards aren't as powerful as the stuff you're going to get for 40-man raids, but that seems like a given.

If it's not listed on the website you are talking at least +6 months: so they can "talk" about end-game content all they want. If there are 50 servers with 1000 endgame raiders on each that is 50 000 out of 5 000 000 players who actually get to see the best gear. I'm not saying any of the stuff should be free: I'm saying there is no middle ground in WoW, you are either hardcore or getting owned by hardcore.

Sure there might be "items" that are equivlent to some of the endgame gear, in Zul Gurub - BUT - if there were not a few pieces that made it endgame worthy, why would anyone not already 60 and have all their set pieces even run it?

I believe that Blizzard maybe planning a slow dissemination of endgame gear over 20 man instances, but that certainly is not the case currently. THe dungeons are stacked, stacked high.

[TheKeck]

For The Horde!!!

FOR THE HORDE!!!

[biscuitbutt81]

Does that make a Paladin any less powerful? No... not at all. But it does make the class appealing to a much narrower subset of players than a class such as Shaman, which is known to give players a god complex. Thus, in theory, Paladins will be played by fewer and fewer players as their true role becomes more well known, while Shaman will (and has) inversely become a much more heavily-played class than before it was known how powerful they are.

People who whine about shamans being overpowered know absolutely nothing about the game. They are good, but they are nothing compared to mortal strike warriors with epic 2handers, or hunters in full giantstalker that are specced for multi-shot (there is a hunter in my guild that hits cloth for over 2000 with his multi-shot).

Seriously, shamans are very beatable; work on your strat and try to become a better player instead of constantly screaming NERF.

Also, I can totally understand why people don't want to raid with 20-40 people in order to get THE PHAT LEWTZ; that is a really valid complaint, because it's difficult to get that many DECENT people together on a somewhat regular basis and some people just prefer smaller groups. HOWEVER, when I see people claiming that all of the guilds that do the 40-man instances raid something like 5-8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, I really do have to shake my head. It's retarded to use HYPERBOLE like that to prove a point.

There are PLENTY of guilds out there that experience the end-game content that only raid a couple of days a week (and not just the experienced and geared up ones). I really wish people would make arguments beyond, "Yeah, I have a life. I'm not going to raid 8 days a week, 63 hours a day. Fucking douche bags."

I'm not saying the WoW end-game is perfect as it certainly has its flaws and it can be incredibly tedious at times, but jeez, it's certainly not the awful piece of shit time sink that only .0005 percent of the population can enjoy (apparently, you can't run the Molten Core unless you quit your job, school, and life in general and then surgically graft your face to your monitor) that some people here are making it out to be.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

I don't give a shit about nerfing shamans. They're beatable. It's the damn rogues that have to be nerfed.

[Voodoo]

I just rolled a Tauren Shaman named Nerf. I just heard that in the patch after 1.9, Shaman will no longer take damage.

Shaman FTW!

Want to know the problems with WoW? Awwww, who gives a flying fuckernut! Its so damn popular there aren't even servers made yet that can support the damn demand. Blizzard is now exactly where Origin should have gone and I hope that they keep flying. Can't wait for the 2nd expansion, Return to Northrend!

[GrinR]

I don't give a shit about nerfing shamans. They're beatable. It's the damn rogues that have to be nerfed.

QFT - NE rogues in particular. Nice to be completely invisible all the time and stunlock me to death 10000 times over. Good game balance asshats.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

Yeah, there's a video floating around of a nekkid undead rogue armed with just a plain dagger and bandages killing level 60s with epic gear.

[mig]

I've been playing Wow since beta, and have two 60s to show for it, warlock and priest on a PvP server. The biggest headache is getting a friendly guild to actually work together and show up for the 40+ raids. It seems my only choice is to join large established guilds that raid BWL , ZG and MC , every night of the week. It starts feeling like a 9-5 job, with rules, regulations, and mandatory "meetings" aka, raids. That's not my idea of fun.

For those who say Dire Maul is the answer for casual players, let's see, an instance that's been around since April of 05. About as fun as running UBRS/Scholo/Strat for the bazzillionth time. Battlegrounds are also a horrible time sink and grinding hamster wheel. I actually miss world PVP and large town raids that the BGs completely obliterated.

My .02 on class differences. Mind you, coming from a caster/squishy class.

Pallies want their cake and be able to eat it too, boo-hoo I say. News flash, you're a healadin when you hit end game.
Shammies are tough, but not invincible. Without mana they're toast.
Rogues were the bane of my existance, until I learned how to kill them
Skillfull Hunters, of all classes, are one of the toughest challenges to a lock.
Warriors = kiting goodness.

I'm waiting for 1.9 to decide if I shelve my characters until the expansion comes out fall of 06. Which in Blizzard release dates means summer 07. Enough rambling from me.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

I'm a NE hunter and rogues within melee range are my bane. I can handle one rogue (trap, flare, mark, scattershot, pet) but if there are two I'm essentially dead.

[Draft]

My guild beat Vaelestraz for the first time on Saturday. I was so proud :)

[Pnorcio]

I love WoW, not as an addict, but as a casual gamer. But DAMN if I have to wait another 15 minutes to fucking get into Elune. The fact that the server has a line to enter tells me Blizzard fucked up bad somewhere.

[Royal Fool]

I've been playing Wow since beta, and have two 60s to show for it, warlock and priest on a PvP server. The biggest headache is getting a friendly guild to actually work together and show up for the 40+ raids. It seems my only choice is to join large established guilds that raid BWL , ZG and MC , every night of the week. It starts feeling like a 9-5 job, with rules, regulations, and mandatory "meetings" aka, raids. That's not my idea of fun.
Stuff like DKP and silly regulations on looting, along with asshole guild members and guild officers/leaders is what usually puts me off. I haven't had a lot of positive experiences with big guilds.

[Kefkataran]

If it's not listed on the website you are talking at least +6 months: so they can "talk" about end-game content all they want.

Umm, I was talking about the Silithus questlines. They've already been implemented. And someone already corrected me on what they were eactly. They require 20-man raid for the finale.

It seems my only choice is to join large established guilds that raid BWL , ZG and MC , every night of the week. It starts feeling like a 9-5 job, with rules, regulations, and mandatory "meetings" aka, raids. That's not my idea of fun.

EXACTLY the problem I had. I'm with you 100% there. I could tell the content would be fun with the right group of people, but the likelihood of that group appearing seemed minimal at best.

The fact that the server has a line to enter tells me Blizzard fucked up bad somewhere.

It's just a popular server and they don't want to overload it thus causing it to crash. People need to stop making characters on popular servers, and Blizzard needs to get into gear in making server transfers from large population servers easier.

Stuff like DKP and silly regulations on looting, along with asshole guild members and guild officers/leaders is what usually puts me off. I haven't had a lot of positive experiences with big guilds.

Yeah, the loot rules were always an annoyance as well.

[Inglorion]

I've never been tempted to try WoW. It just seems like a Diablo meets IRC to me.

[Heretic Machine]

It's just a popular server and they don't want to overload it thus causing it to crash. People need to stop making characters on popular servers, and Blizzard needs to get into gear in making server transfers from large population servers easier.

No, they need to start allowing people to buy transfers for their characters... I'm not on an enourmously popular server (Cenarrion Circle), but I still want to transfer to Scarlet Crusade to play with friends.

[Roc Ingersol]

Rogues don't need stunlock. They simply do not. I've got a 60 rogue. Dagger damage is plenty nuckin futz. gouge, sap, kick and blind are more than enough for even a decent rogue to do his work.
cheap shot, kidney shot (wait till you see the mace stun proc changes from 1.9 ... jfc)... Stunlock makes rogues more newb friendly than any class this side of paladins.

As for the end-game, there are two main end-game problems in WOW atm. One is that time investment vs reward between pve and pvp is broken. horribly broken. This is mostly just because the honor system totally blows. Blizzard's acknowledged this problem and says they're going to address it. They've done pretty well and fixing crap, so I'm not too worried about this.

The second problem is that they expect everyone to raid. You're either doing the same 5/10 man runs you've had for a year now, or you're getting together 19 to 39 of your closest friends and raiding. Whether raiding is fun or not doesn't really matter. It's a pain in the ass to organize, there's alot of drama that goes along with guilds, and sometimes you just don't feel like raiding.

That the 5/10 content is stale, isn't even a big concern. Blizzard does great fixing problems when they see them. They add great content in the normal patches. The actual problem here is that they're in total denial mode.

Blizzard just will not acknowledge the demand for more 5/10 dungeons. They have some weird notion that its inextricable from levelling. (note how they only refer to the expansion when talking about upcoming 5/10 content)

I don't care about who's casual and who's not, who raids and who refuses to raid, or where the best gear is.

What I care about, is some rough parity between time investment and reward between pvp and pve, and having some new damn 5/10 dungeons. They're growing a content gap in their game and they need to sack up and admit it's there.

[Kefkataran]

No, they need to start allowing people to buy transfers for their characters... I'm not on an enourmously popular server (Cenarrion Circle), but I still want to transfer to Scarlet Crusade to play with friends.

That's a choice too, although obviously keeping them free is going to help server load issues more, where as yours has nothing to do with server load.

[Harshmage]

FOR THE HORDE!!!

For the Horde!

[ElPresidente]

After jumping in to WoW for a month I have to say it bored me very quickly after the initial wonder of wandering around the Warcraft universe wore off. PvE mission design was very bland compared to that of City of Villains, etc. The news that end game content is somewhat lacking and knowing that the vast majority of people I know online were hitting Lvl 60 within two months of playing the game really took the appeal out of hanging around to see if things got better.

I don't like playing Alts, I like to see a character grow over time, mature and become more powerful without artificial limits. In such a case give me a leveless system ala EVE.

[Mav]

I love mmo's and I love other game types like FPS or RTS. But there hasn't been a middle ground. MMO's, at least good ones, require a huge time sink investment, and monthly payments as well as the initial $40-50 purhcase. FPS's, while only costing that one time fee (unless theres an expansion or sequel) just can't hold my attention. I just can't sit there and play 4 hours of death match like I used too, theres just no real sense of completion at the end. I'm waiting on a massively scaled actual MMO (read, not GW) that has pay-as-you-go fee's. If I play only a handful of times each month I shouldn't be billed nearly as much as someone who has logged in 90 hours or more..each week.

[Kefkataran]

If I play only a handful of times each month I shouldn't be billed nearly as much as someone who has logged in 90 hours or more..each week.

That would be like punishing someone for playing a lot. Admittedly the other way is punishing for people not playing as much, but I'd say it's much more accepted. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Won't happen.

[Mav]

People need to stop making characters on popular servers


This is 100% not the case.

I've played WoW for brief periods. The periods consisting of as little as a week, to as long as 3-4 weeks. At least three times, spread out, since the game's release.

The server setup is atrocious at best.

The senario is as thus; all the popular servers are filled beyond comprehension, enormous queue lines. So naturally when you are first starting the game (minus a guild) you figure "ok I'll pick a low population server or one of the servers marked 'New' " So you get on one of these new or low populated servers (tested at peak times during the day) and it's fine right. No lines, no lag, works. A few days go by and that new server has turned into a high population server, with queue lines as long as the "popular" servers.

So you roll an alt, on another low population or new server. Same thing happens.

You end up bouncing between 3-6 characters on 3-6 servers cause every damn server is full. The only real solution you have on your end is in two parts; A) setup your playing times to be vastly different. If it's full at night when you are off work, try getting up a few hours early and going to bed a few hours early, and get your playing time in before work or whatever. (hard time finding a good guild for this...). Or B) instead of chosing the most chosen option for servers (PvP) chose PvE servers or RP PvP... Less people but accessible servers..

The minute I had to wait in a line, to log into an mmo, it's just sad. I know they can't overfill a server, I understand that. But as a paying customer, you want access to the character you've invested time and money into. Let them allow transfers for free, 24/7. "Hey, my server is full. Ok, click a button, change character to server X for tonight". It shouldn't be that hard, all the data is server side, should be a minor thing for them.

[Mav]

That would be like punishing someone for playing a lot. Admittedly the other way is punishing for people not playing as much, but I'd say it's much more accepted. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Won't happen.

Well, thats why you can have different plans. Just like phone services, you can get the unlimited option for X amount of money each month (extra perks could be character transfers at any time or something along those lines), or you can purchase time like cellphone minutes, or pay as you use time. The system would be flexible for both people who play ALOT and people who play a little or just a casual player.

[Kefkataran]

The senario is as thus; all the popular servers are filled beyond comprehension, enormous queue lines. So naturally when you are first starting the game (minus a guild) you figure "ok I'll pick a low population server or one of the servers marked 'New' " So you get on one of these new or low populated servers (tested at peak times during the day) and it's fine right. No lines, no lag, works. A few days go by and that new server has turned into a high population server, with queue lines as long as the "popular" servers.

See, I've never experienced that, oddly enough. The server I've played on since the game started is always fairly full but the longest I've ever had to wait in line is five minutes at a peak time. I've heard those complaints before, though, yes.

Well, thats why you can have different plans. Just like phone services, you can get the unlimited option for X amount of money each month (extra perks could be character transfers at any time or something along those lines), or you can purchase time like cellphone minutes, or pay as you use time. The system would be flexible for both people who play ALOT and people who play a little or just a casual player.

That's not a half-bad idea, really. I get the feeling the company would bump the unlimited time option too much, though, but it's still pretty smart. Of course if the cut-off point for paying per-time played was the same as the unlimited option, it seems the vast majority of people would just choose to play per-time played. Still a smart idea. And then you wouldn't have to go through all that unsubscribing trouble so much, assuming the minimum monthly payment was pretty small.