So I’ve been playing more WoW (solo) whilst pining away for my wife who’s on a business trip. After Les duoed with me to 10 with a Pandaren, I did some solo play with different races (Gnomes, Dwarves, Draeni, Worgen, and Night Elves) in an array of classes (hunters, warriors, druids, rogues, paladins).
Each of the races I tried has its own starting zone, and its own story (apparently influenced greatly by which expansion set they came out with, or when they were last revamped by another expansion). The result are some very highly flavored starting zones that not only give you plenty of practice with the mechanics, but give you a strong story and sensibility for the race in question. The starter area missions don’t drift radically from the standard “go hunt/kill X things” / “go gather X items” / “go take a message to X over in the next town” types of things, but they do mix them up pretty well, tend to group the missions nicely (there are very few “jog 30 miles over there, find something, and bring it back to me” / “that was great, now go bring back three more” sorts of missions), and wrap them up in as much story text as you could want.
I haven’t gotten into any crafting/auctioning yet (is that actually available for F2P players?), but I’ve done the (borrowed pretty straightforwardly by LotRO) resource harvesting. Not so much my cuppa, but the money’s good.
The screen layout of trays gets pretty darned busy, especially since the tray icons are so small (and there are smaller ones beyond that).
Though non-instanced for the most part, I’ve not had significant problems with interminable waiting for things to respawn, so far at least (LotRO had more problems with that, as I recall).
I’ve resigned myself to having to loot, but at least there’s now an autoloot option in WoW. Though, unlike many other interface options, you have to turn it on for each alt.
Though I’ve not played with any of them, Les mentioned any number of helpful UI mods to help tailor the interface to the game. Definitely some room for research there, if this is the (a) way we go.
I like the WoW graphics, for the most part. I can understand folks wanting highly realistic stuff, but the more animated feel of WoW is fine by me. I’m less sanguine with the “everyone dresses almost exactly alike for the first Nteen levels because they take the same missions and get the same costume rewards” feel to the costuming (even at 15th level, Les and I looked like a brother-sister combo whose grandparents had bought them matching outfits for Christmas …). By the same token, it’s a shame when you find something you like, then have to change it because it’s obsoleted by newer, better loot you picked up.
Based on Les’ and my run through the training levels (through 15) on Panderia, I’d say the game certainly is duoable. Looking forward to see what Margie thinks of all this.
There’s the ability to change out the gear you have with the look of other gear, it’s called Transmogrification. There’s a vendor in the major cities (Orgrimmar/Stormwind)
You keep the stats of the new piece of gear, but can keep the look of other gear (few exceptions, but it works for the most part)
I haven’t played WoW in well over a year. Often when a new MMO comes out, you’ll see the “General Chat” filled with people bashing WoW. Champs Online, Rift, Tera, SWTOR, etc — they were all supposed to be the “WoW Killer.” Even though I don’t play the game anymore and have no intention of ever going back, I think it’s one of the best MMOs one can play. The only “WoW Killer” will be their next MMO — Titan.
Like the iPhone motto of “there’s an App for that” — Wow’s mod community is similar. Don’t like how your buttons stack? There’s a mod for that. Want all your bags to be one HUGE inventory window? There’s a mod for that. Want a visual queue for your Warrior when you have over 60 rage so you can do your big hit? There’s a mod for that. Want your health and mana bars around your character like a fighter jet HUD? There’s a mod for that. You get the point. A lot of games have customizable UIs, but none have a community the size of WoW’s that develops for it. There are thousands of mods for WoW. And like the Apple App store.. some mods are great, some suck.
You’re coming into WoW at a good time IMO. They’ve learned a lot over the years and they’ve improved the game greatly. In your posts you mention the quest layouts. That’s a big one. If you haven’t tried the Horde side, I highly recommend rolling a Forsaken character and playing through their starter zone. In my opinion, it’s the best out of them all(aside from the Pandarian area which I’ve not tried). Well designed, engaging, and a good mix of drama and humor.
If your wife enjoys the little things a game includes, then she would love WoW. As you’ve already experienced, there are mounts in the game. And there are hundreds of them. I enjoyed the challenge of getting as many as I could. As a hunter, you have dozens and dozens of different pets you can choose from – some are very rare and some are designed to be incredibly challenging for a hunter to tame. There are also vanity pets too that anyone can get — well over a hundred of them.
When it comes to seasonal events, WoW has plenty. October is one of the cooler holidays IMO, so you’ll get to experience that I think.
The crafting system is there, it’s pretty standard, but not necessary if that’s not your thing. Some of the trades are pretty fun — like engineering. No matter what MMO I’ve played, I’ve never really cared for crafting, but I gathered in WoW.. mining and herbalism and sold the materials on the auction house. It brought me a lot of income.
The one thing I would say WoW probably doesn’t have that you’ve outlined you’re looking for is feeling “Heroic”. I think that’s due to the way they choose to do combat. For COH you rarely fought “one” mob… you often fought multiple mobs. For questing/soloing, I find WoW’s combat sort of flat when soloing/questing compared to a lot of other games. Where WoW combat shines is in grouping and raiding(no other game come close to end game content than WoW IMO).
For me, feeling heroic comes through the combat. And if I had to choose a game that came close to CoH in combat, it’s going to be a tie between Tera and Star Wars The Old Republic. I applaud Tera because it really goes outside the box of what we’re used to with combat in fantasy MMOs. However, they don’t really break any ground in questing or anything else.
Based on what I’ve seen you post on your blog, I really think you would enjoy Star Wars the Old Republic a lot. It’s got solid story telling that is diverse based on what class you choose. For example a Bounty Hunter is going to have a completely different starting area and story arc than a Jedi Knight or Smuggler. And inside those storylines you will be given choices that can alter the story a bit. It doesn’t have the character customization I would like to see, but it’s combat is similar to City of Heroes in that you’ll almost always fight multiple mobs and feel pretty badass. The Imperial Agent storyline is easily the coolest character story lines I’ve ever played in a MMO.
Start Wars is definitely soloable and goes great as a duo as they have “social point” in the game. As you interact with quest givers, your wife will have the option to respond. For example. Lets say you and her have a quest to rescue someone and when you find them a story arc opens up and you’re given the option to continue to rescue them or kill them. You choose to save them, and your wife chooses to kill them. A ‘roll’ is made and if your wife wins, her character will kill the NPC(and she’ll most likely gain dark side points). Social points are awarded as well when you and her interact with NPCs. These social points can be used to purchase different outfits which can change the appearance of your character.
Holy crap, so sorry for the novella of a response. I’ll stop now. I just know what it’s like to search for that MMO and I know what it means to find one for you and your wife because my girlfriend and I love playing together too.
I actually forgot to mention a feature they added to WoW to allow for greater character customization: Transmogrification. It’s aimed mainly at the end-game player who has gotten a full set of Epic gear, but wants it to look different from everyone else. Basically it allows you to take any piece of armor/weapon in the game and transfer the stats to just about any other piece of armor/weapon. So you can take that high-end Tier 12 armor set and make it look like some other set from the game. There are whole blogs dedicated to suggesting transmog sets to give your character the look you want. Want the classic ArmorKini look for your female human Paladin, there’s a set for that. Want to look like a farmer? There’s a set for that too.
In short, it allows for a lot of customization if you really want to look different without giving up the high-end stats if your epic gear.
Which sounds very cool, Les — but really only helps (as it sounds) those who have end-of-game gear that they don’t plan on screwing around with. For a lower-level character who’s always getting new drops, it’s not nearly as helpful, I’d think.
(Btw, I’m working on the assumption that drops happen often enough that it’s not worth, early days, buying any upgraded gear from a store. That’s been my experience elsegame.)
@BrimstoneAshe, thanks for the feedback.
I haven’t even begun to dip into the UI Mods that WoWhas out there, but they certainly sound like a keen idea.
SWTOR is still on the give-it-a-try track.
Like the iPhone motto of “there’s an App for that” — Wow’s mod community is similar. Don’t like how your buttons stack? There’s a mod for that. Want all your bags to be one HUGE inventory window? There’s a mod for that. Want a visual queue for your Warrior when you have over 60 rage so you can do your big hit? There’s a mod for that. Want your health and mana bars around your character like a fighter jet HUD? There’s a mod for that. You get the point. A lot of games have customizable UIs, but none have a community the size of WoW’s that develops for it. There are thousands of mods for WoW. And like the Apple App store.. some mods are great, some suck.
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Yes, so instead of fixing the game (the UI mainly and everything else in general) and making it playable right out of the box, you have to go and spend your first day finding and downloading a bunch of add-on’s.
Crafting in WoW is a grind fest and not at all fun, and yet you need it to complete some quests. Best to skip it and just do gathering if you need cash.
Kill stealing is how to play the game in WoW, so kill steal everyone else before they kill steal you.
Do not help anyone but known friends or guildies, anything else is a waste of time and counter to your own needs.
Do not join any PUG ever. Think of any PUG’ing you have done in CoH, now picture the worst one of those and dig down 30 floors and that is what PUG’ing in WoW is like.
Also, a big suggestion, turn off General Chat, Trade Chate and Zone Chat unless you want your mind to pour out of your ear. Better yet, just turn off all chat instead of group.
Looks like BD can ignore my reply on the other thread. I didn’t see his comment here which I would like to take a moment to address.
There’s nothing wrong with the UI in WoW that requires the use of addons. Hell, for the first few years I played I did use them at all and there are players out there who insist on playing WoW “naked” (without addons) because they like it better that way.
As for not “fixing” the UI, Blizzard has incorporated several of the more popular addons into the game over the years. For example, currently the game highlights regions of the minimap where quest objectives are located and will put an arrow on the minimap pointing to the location you need to travel to get there. An idea borrowed from the addon community, though not as specific as some implementations (it doesn’t provide exact coordinates). They’ve also incorporated threat monitoring in for keeping track of how close you are to pulling a mob off the tank, another idea borrowed from the addon community.
Addons are helpful, but not mandatory. It is possible to play the game without using a single one if you don’t want to bother with them and lots of people do.
Crafting can be a grind fest if you make it one, but again it’s not mandatory at all. I’m able to collect enough mats during casual questing that leveling my professions isn’t particularly difficult. Fishing can be tedious as hell which is why most of my character’s fishing skill are below 200 (out of 600) and yet my lack of fishing skill isn’t a big detriment to those characters. Even with such an absurdly low fishing skill I can still catch high level fish by fishing out of a fish pool so not having a high fishing skill doesn’t hold me back.
There are, at worst, a handful of quests that require crafted items to complete out of the nearly 10,000 quests in WoW. Blizzard started phasing those out of the game ages ago and they were mainly put in so Engineers would have something to sell on the AH. I’d guess there’s less than five still in the game.
I do agree with taking two gathering professions and selling the mats on the AH as a quick way to make money, but it’s not mandatory nor does it have to be a grind. In the original game it was a PITA to make money, but that’s not been the case in years. I don’t grind out crafting or gathering or playing the AH and I currently have 32,000 gold (spread over 10 characters) on my Alliance toons.
Again, that hasn’t really been a problem in a long time. Most areas have more than enough mobs with a short enough respawn timer that they can accommodate folks without kill stealing. End of quest elites have an exclamation mark on them indicating that they’re the end of a quest line and everyone can attack them and get credit regardless of who got in the first shot. So long as you get at least one hit in before it’s killed you get credit for it and if you miss out the respawn is short enough that you’ll be part of the next group. A lot of these are phased as well ensuring that only people on that stage of the quest can see and attack the boss.
There’s no particular reward for helping others, but lots of people still do it. When I see someone who is obviously being overwhelmed by enemies I’ll step up and start blasting away. More often than not I’ll get a buff for my troubles. Priests and Palies in particular tend to hand them out like complementary breath mints. It doesn’t hurt them if I help so long as they’ve tagged all the mobs at least once as they’ll get the credit, but even if I do “killsteal” one of them they’re usually glad they don’t have to make a run back from the graveyard. Sometimes folks will offer to group up to jointly do a kill quest where both parties will get credit for a kill by either one.
Are there jerks in the game? Sure. You don’t get 9 million+ players without there being some jerks.
Except that I PUG all the time without issue. I have the two PUG achievements to prove it too. I’d say that 95% of the time my PUGs go smooth as silk. I make heavy use of the Random Dungeon Finder for finding PUGs and have a great time doing it.
Even this isn’t as much of an issue as it once was. Trade Chat is only active in the capital cities to begin with. The amount of chatter in General in any particular zone tends to be pretty small as most folks are busy questing and it’s limited to that zone.
It sounds to me like you’re judging the current game from a very outdated viewpoint, BD. A lot has changed over the past 8 years and it has improved greatly in that time. I’d suggest creating a trial account and seeing for yourself, but I doubt it would change your mind.
“There are, at worst, a handful of quests that require crafted items to complete out of the nearly 10,000 quests in WoW. Blizzard started phasing those out of the game ages ago and they were mainly put in so Engineers would have something to sell on the AH. I’d guess there’s less than five still in the game.”
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For a completionist this is insainly maddening, especially once you have invested quality time into the chain. And they all hit at about the same level range.
Well, whenever Barbie Elves became available and just got the account killed no need to start it again.
Wow, I turn around for a second … 🙂
@bd – I have not bothered to look for any add-ons to the UI. There are a few annoyances, but in general it seems functional. The UI mod market seems to be half “this is the way *I* like it” and half “because I can”. Not worrying about it at the moment. (I’ll note that the default LotRO screen UI seems to be much the same; you can shuffle things around, but there’s no more control over what shows up than in WoW.)
You know me and crafting. I don’t expect I’ll make much if any use of it in WoW. Mostly just gather-sell.
I have not see much in the way of kill-stealing so far. Granted, most of my experience is in the starter areas, so maybe people haven’t figured that out yet.
So, I guess you didn’t get hounded by somebody’s Alliance friends that decided to gank and spawn camp you when you helped someone that was about to die and then have one or two come back Hoard side to tell you about it.
@BD writes…
Shouldn’t be maddening at all. It’s not that hard to buy the item from someone who is crafting if you don’t want to craft it yourself. The AH tends to have the items in question for sale most of the time and if it doesn’t then most crafters will be willing to make it for you if asked. Hell, if you’re in a guild then chances are good you’ll find the item needed in your guild bank.
As I said, the vast majority of these have been removed from the game. There’s only one I can think of off top of my head that, as far as I know, is still in the game and it is “Just A Few More Things…” from the Burning Crusade expansion.
Assuming you mean Blood Elves, that was Burning Crusade released five years ago in January 2007. There’s been three new expansions since then, one of which overhauled most of the original game content.
Nope, in part because I don’t play on PVP servers. I prefer PVE where I only engage in PVP when I feel like doing so.
An article on add-ons (recorded here just so I remember it): http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2011/08/how-to-download-and-install-wow-addons-and-some-good-ones-to-try/
If Barbie Elves are Fire Elves, that would be Burning Crusade (2007).
@Les – “Nope, in part because I don’t play on PVP servers. I prefer PVE where I only engage in PVP when I feel like doing so.”
For myself, I have utterly no desire to PvP. Not only does not not appeal to me (if for no other reason than I’m not good at it), but it encourages the kind of behavior BD is complaining about.
Of the mods that article recommends, I make use of Deadly Boss Mods (though BigWigs is pretty good too) and Omen. I prefer AuctionLite to Auctionator and Recount to Skada.
In total, I have about 38 addons installed. Most are informational things such as Altoholic which allows me to
Crap, hit the wrong button.
Altoholic allows me to keep track of my alt’s levels, bag and bank items, profession levels, mailbox contents, and shows in tool-tips things like which alt can use that nifty cooking recipe I found which my current character already knows.