Topic awaiting preservation: World of Warcraft

Although I hate to admit it, I have once again been sucked into the MMORPG realm. I had initially been sceptical about the whole thing because I am the proud papa of an 8-month old and I didn't want to step into another time-sink, but I was pleasantly surprised with World of Warcraft.

It has 3 things that I really like:
1.) It's friendly to casual gamers, and I'm not spending hours and hours online trying to get half a level.
2.) While the graphics may not be stellar, the graphic design and art design is amazing. It doesn't push millions of polygons, but my goodness their artists are badass.
3.) It's Blizzard. I trust Blizzard with things like balance issues and fun gameplay.

Sooo...I was wondering if anyone else is on.

for a LOOONNNGGG time a friend of mine tried and tried to get me to play Neverwinter Nights with him. They have a pretty large community and such.
I didn't want to for pretty much the same reason as you. Except I don't have an 8month old

Since then though...I started playing. NWN does require some pretty heafty graphics though. So I got a new computer and started playing.

*sigh* Now I'm slightly addicted. I have heard that WOW is really really cool too.

Do you play on a server? Or just playing the game solo?

Later,

C:\

Loser

Why pay-to-play, when you can Play NWN online, without paying? Heck, you can even make your own PW with the Toolset, and host a server yourself.

*shrug*

I never understood the need of some people to throw good money away...hehe.

Oh well, have fun.

lol, i just closed WoW and opened the ozoneasylum to check the new posts..... i have been playing it since the european release, and i still do. It never gets boring - its an addiction

CPrompt: there is no way to play WoW solo....you always log on a realm.

Actually, I was hardcore on NWN for about 7 months, and delved pretty deeply into the toolset too. But I've been heavily into the D&D world with the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate series for years and I needed a change of pace. WoW perfectly fit the void.

But I'll probably be torn once I can get the expansions. I'm back in the South Pacific and there is literally nowhere to buy software here. I'll have to wait until someone I know takes a trip to the states. Then again, I'm not sure if my Australian version of NWN will compatible with the expansions.

quote:

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mas said:

CPrompt: there is no way to play WoW solo....you always log on a realm.

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ah...well that explains it then I also didn't know you had to pay to play on WoW. That stinks. I've only been playing NWN for about...a month now. Loving it If WoW is that good I'd like to see it but I can't afford to get sucked into another time consuming thing.

WS: If you ever want to join us in a little RP, give me a shout. The community that I'm involved with is very heavy into RPing but the world they have created is pretty cool and very active.

Later,

C:\

After my many addictions to previous Blizzard games such as Starcraft, Diablo 2, and ranking myself #33 on the USEast FFA ladder in Warcraft 3, I thought it would be best if I just stuck with Unreal Tournament 2004.

Plus I was ever-so-pissed when I discovered that there was a monthly fee.

Give me the Direct Connect IP, CPrompt. Or a link to the Forum, if your PW has one.

You can find my PW under Action -> The Playground - it runs CEP 1.52, PRC 2.2c, and a few tilesets - go to The Playground Haks to get the haks to play.

Hey Silence!

I never thought to check here for other WoW addicts. Here's my character infomation. I'm on Durnel the most... obviously.

Durnel 46 Human Warrior (Khadgar)
Battletank 9 Dwarven Warrior (Khadgar)
Vhaeraun 20 Night Elven Rogue (Khadgar)
Dolin 6 Dwarven Hunter (Medivh)

GD

(Edited by GrythusDraconis on 08-22-2005 22:50)

I have a lvl 30 Undead Mage on Spinebreaker and a lvl 31 Human Paladin on Lothar.

I quit playing for about 6 months, but just turned it on again this week. I am currently working on what is now a lvl 14 Orc Shaman.

I have a bunch of other characters that are all 20 or below of varying kinds on Spinebreaker and Lothar.

I really like the game, particularly the questing. The battle grounds are really awsome it is really too bad that you have to wait a year and a half to get into them.

Dan @ Code Town

WS: here is the site: http://ncs-legendforge.com/

Might have rememberd me asking questions about it It's on GameSpy under RolePlay section NCS Legend Forge.

Hope to see you around there.

Later,

C:\

I would love to play WOW and have heard many great things about it but I'm actually a little afraid of trying it out. I get hopelessly, ridiculously, stupidly addicted to MMORPGs and ALL of my time ends up being used on the computer (like that's any different from this year...)

I'm not entirely sold on the graphics in WOW either. I know they look fantastic but it seems kind of cartoony to me. I realize this has nothing to do with gameplay but I like my heroes to be real men.

I'm with WebShaman - I play NWN regularly and freely to get my fix. And you get to make your own modules

--Amerasu--

Well, I'll take a look, CPrompt, but don't expect me to stay - I do not like to play under ILR (Item Level Restrictions).

And spells have been nerfed, as well as some classes... *bleh*

(Edited by WebShaman on 08-23-2005 16:39)

quote:

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Amerasu said:
I'm not entirely sold on the graphics in WOW either. I know they look fantastic but it seems kind of cartoony to me. I realize this has nothing to do with gameplay but I like my heroes to be real men.

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that's probably because wow has been in development for about 5 years if i'm not mistaken. and the graphics engine was one of the first things that was finished, so the graphics are kinda yesterday. i especially hate the low resolution textures and the quite boring spell effects. compare it to everquest and you know what i mean.

i hope they rework the graphics engine for the expansion.

about the cartoony effect: that's actually a wanted effect, according to the DVD "The making of WoW". They wanted the characters to look a bit exaggerated like in japanese cartoons. example are the extremely long elven ears or troll heads. also they did no motion capture for the character animations. all keyframed by hand.



(Edited by GRUMBLE on 08-23-2005 17:12)

Yeah, the graphics are a bit dated, but, like I said the art direction is awesome. There are parts of the world that just look amazing. I'm actually glad they strayed away from the whole realism deal, because I like my fantasy to be, well, fantastic. And it fits in perfectly with the entire Warcraft Universe.

I think the main draw for me is that it's just so much more fun to play to than, say, Everquest. The other thing to remember is that it is still relatively in it's infancy. I don't think the public release has been up for a full year yet. I believe beta ended sometime late last year.

And, again, it's easy to pick up and put down. You actually get bonus experience for not playing. In fact, I took a 2 week hiatus recently to go back to my first love: coding. I finished a fully functional intranet phone directory for our call center 411 service (Perl with a MySQL backend), and got right back into it without missing a beat.

Grythus and Warmage: I'll have to look you up sometime

Regarding NWN: With all the comments on this, I may be forced to dust off my copy and install it again. Again, I hope I don't have a problem with the Australian release of the main game and US versions of the expansions. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't, but stranger things have happened.

i personally am so damn impressed by the graphics of WoW. the atmosphere and the feeling this game delivers are just as silence said....amazing. additionally the game gets expanded by nearly every patch, which makes the monthly fee a little bit more acceptable

quote:

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WebShaman said:

Well, I'll take a look, CPrompt, but don't expect me to stay

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It was just an invitation. don't have to have to come at all if ya don't want to.

Later,

C:\

Well, CPrompt, I actually played for about 4 hours. The Players are a nice crowd, very amicable. The DMs are very RP orientated, and I found that to be very positive.

The PW is a Nordock clone, and that is a bit of a letdown - because everyone and his grandma knows Nordock by the back of his/her hand.

The extra design, and scripting is excellent - lots of attention to detail.

XP is relatively low, and advancement is slow.

All in all, not a bad PW.

WS: Thanks for stopping in. Yeah it's a Nordock clone. Since I never played until about a month ago, I didn't know the first thing. Better for me I suspect. The DM's are very RP oriented which I like. I joined in for just a bit but had to run early. Came back, but you were already gone.

They have a lot of scripters that are very active which I like. The DM that was handling everything last night is a good friend of mine and helped quite a bit while putting the site together. She complimented you on your RP abilities

XP...yeah, it's a little low. Took me forever to get to lvl3 it seems.

I like the crowd there but I really have nothing to compair it to. Thanks for stopping in and if you come back, let me know. I'd like to join up with you on some adventures.

Later,

C:\

I'll be on again tonight - I've been missing the RP aspect of playing for awhile, since right now our Campaign play is off, due to the Main DM's wife being in the hospital

That, and the DMs and Players really struck a positive note in me - the play with Trondheim, the cursed axe, that was simply brilliant!

I'm on German Time, GMT + 1. I will probably be coming on around 20:00 tonight (that is GMT time).

20:00? 8pm? Not sure what that would be for me...EST?

Well hopefully I'll be able to log on by then and join up for some action.

The DM that was on yesterday will probably not be around then but maybe someone will be that we can grab for some RP.

Glad you had a good time. Those DM's can think pretty quick on their feet. I played last night for a couple of hours. Ran into some nasties down in the crypts!

Sorry to hijack your thread silence

Later,

C:\

53 Tauren Druid on Firetree
27 Dwarf Hunter on Stonemaul

^^^so if there is anyone who plays on the european - german realms:

60 Undead Mage on Mal Ganis
41 Human Paladin on Mannoroth
25 Tauren Shaman on Mal Ganis

lvl 60 Dwarf Paldain of Self Preservation Society, on Terenas.

A large proportion of my friends and guildmates are ex-Everquest players, so setting up the guild etc was easy with an established group of friends.

It is an addictive game, but as the original post stated, it's much easier than other games of it's type to dip into for short periods. We recently had our Everquest account reactived by SoE for 21 days. When we logged in to see how things had progressed since we left, it was obvious that we couldn't go back after playing WoW.

On Ilidan (PvP):
Level 60 Night Elf Warrior
Level 39 Human Mage
Level 23 NE Druid
Level 21 NE Rogue
Level 13 Gnome Warlock
Level 12 Dwarf Priest
Level 10 Human Paladin

All in House of Sagacious guild

On Dragonmaw (PvP):
Level 20 Tauren Shaman
Level 15 Undead Rogue

Both in Barn of Sagacious guild

I've been playing since beta and it's really fun. I love the graphical look and feel of the game, as someone already mentioned the quest system is awesome and you can take breaks from the game and not feel left behind. The bonus XP for resting is a terrific idea. I honestly hate when it runs out on me, so that's why I have so many lowbies, I keep switching to keep them in blue.

_____________________

coeur de feu
Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête!

(Edited by RhyssaFireheart on 08-27-2005 07:42)

I can't believe how much money people are willing to throw away.

WS - look at it this way... I pay $13.99/mo to subscribe to WoW. For the amount of time I play online (an average of 20 hours/week), that comes out to be pretty damn cheap entertainment, IMO. People only look at the monthly cost, but never think about how that breaks down depending on the amount of time you play the game. If I only played a few hours a month, then I'd agree it could be considered throwing money away. But I play regularly and it's inexpensive time playing online with my friends and guildmates.

I rarely go to the movies ($8/show + snacks =~$30/2 people for about 2.5 hours of entertainment), yet some people go regularly. I would consider that a waste of money personally. Or how about any other assorted types of entertainment that people pay for? If you want to stick to gaming (computer or console), I think single player games are a huge waste of money. You pay ~$50 per game, and spend X number of hours to "beat" it, then you're done. The replay factor is almost zero. Sure you can then turn around and sell the game to the local GameStop or EB for pennies to buy another SPG that you'll do the same thing to. That is a vicious cycle to me.

I've been playing WoW for almost 10 months now since retail, or if you count beta, for almost a year, and I still find enjoyment and things to do. Until the amount I play is no longer worth the time I spend ingame, then I think I'm getting a bargain.

_____________________

coeur de feu
Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête!

I play NWN - online, on PWs, with lots of others for FREE.

Yup.

Of course, I have my Flat Rate DSL to pay (but I would be paying that anyway, whether or not I was playing NWN - hehe).

And that is what I don't understand - why pay-to-play, when there are alternatives?

But I suppose that is besides the point - if you (and others) consider it worth your time and money, by all means, pay, play, and have fun.

WebShaman: i always compare wow with smoking :
wow makes fun, wow entertains you, wow costs me 13 euros a month.
smoking doesnt make any fun, smoking is very unhealthy, smoking costs also ~13 euros a month. tada. i dont smoke, but my friends do, instead of playing wow
they enjoy their cigarettes for a few minutes. i enjoy wow for several hours

i know that was a strange comparison but.......oh well

I stopped smoking, because it became to expensive here in Germany



I have a few NWN friends that play WoW...and some that played it, and came back to NWN. I was never really excited by WoW - I don't play MMORPHs on principle - I will not pay-to-play on a monthly basis.

As I said, as long as one is having fun...I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? To each his/her own.

if you consider all the things you spend money on every month ... mmorpgs don't really cost that much ... it's like seeing 2 movies in a cinema ... ofcourse when you go to see a movie you pay for alot of other things too ... every time i go to the cinema ... i spend around 1-2x a monthly fee of a mmorpg ... and the movie lasts only a few hours ... makes me wonder why so many people whine about the monthly fees ... and i'm poor ... i'm really poor ...

i've played:
world of warcraft <- definitely the best mmorpg out there (got bored after 4 months but i may start playing it again one day) ... 4 months is actually pretty good for 1 game isn't it?

everquest 2 <- i'm playing it now and i'm quite sure it's the 2. best ... in a month's time i can probably give a more adequate overview... the playability is really good tho ... lots of things to help the player ... unlike in ffxi

final fantasy XI <- didn't last the first month ... extremely demanding, requires nerves of steel, lots of patience, time and brainpower (in the first week) ... after that it's just grinding monsters ... some like it tho ...the interface sucks ... direct port from ps2 ... very diffucult to play (whats the opposite of intuitive? ...anyway very difficult to understand if you don't have a tutor)

Knight online <- the first expression was great ... but there were some fatal faults ... that i couldn't take ... didn't last 2 weeks...

Anarchy online <- pretty much like FFXI ... lots if grinding! ... from the first levels till the end ... it did last a month tho ... i don't know what kept me playing ...

Ragnarok online <- i only played this game for a few days ... it got really confusing and strange when i left the introductory part of the game ... it would have lasted longer ... probably ...if i had bought it or smth ...

MU online <- i think i played this for a month ... not a great game ... but it has certain virtues ... it kinda feels like advanced runescape ... don't expect lots of quests or anything ... the world isn't huge ... but i guess some people enjoy it's simplicity...

astonia <- i can't really say i've played this ... it lasted only a day ...

there are a number of other mmorpgs that i have tried ... i can't recall their names right now ... and then there are some web based mmo's like Utopia (i still play this ... i could say i'm a veteran ... kindof) ... blacknova traders (it can be fun) ... and some others (including some MUD type games) ... OH! .. and can't leave unmentioned ... runescape! ... i played this for months! ... i must admit i'm not proud ... and it was several years ago ...


i've only ever payed for wow, ffxi and eq2 (btw when i ordered ffxi they couldn't get me one with english manual so they sent me one with german manual inside and eq2 as compensation) ... got lucky i guess... 2in1 ... (payed for one) ...


oh btw ... my bank has a really cool feature ... i can instantly create virtual prepaid credit cards for myself on my bank's website ... they only last a month but ... they cost <1$ + the money you spend ofc ... it's cheaper than real credit cards, there are no % and i can easily control the money i want to spend ... for example if theres a problem with one of the mmos ... they can't charge me double nor keep charging me after i've finished playing ... those things have happened to unbelievably many players out there ...


ok err .. time to get some sleep ... i know the overviews weren't exactly detailed but feel free to ask more if you're considering buying one of them ... kinda out of topic but ... hey ... something i was looking for and couldn't find before i ordered FFXI was an experienced mmorpg-s player who could adequately compare all the available games ... and ultimately find me the one i'm looking for ... i'm not that person either but someone must have found this post useful

quote:

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i've played:
world of warcraft <- definitely the best mmorpg out there (got bored after 4 months but i may start playing it again one day) ... 4 months is actually pretty good for 1 game isn't it?

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I've played NWN now for over 2 years, and that is not an exception...more like the norm for the huge community there. There are alot of players that have played much longer. I can play PnP with NWN - with a DM, with a group of players, in our own, exclusive campaign world. NWN includes the DM client, a Toolset to build your own worlds, a Stand Alone Server, so that you can run a Persistant World, and of course the Player client (for MP) and an adventure out of the box (the Official Campaign), as well as a Vault, that is FULL of custom content made by the community (meaning - adventures, new material like monsters, swords, armor, cloaks, animations, scripts, tilesets, you name it) - all that, for free.

I don't consider 4 months pretty good for 1 game, as you can see.

I tried to play Dia-blows, but I never really got into it - stopped after trying twice. I guess it just isn't my thing (and WoW isn't either).

<weeds his way through the assortment of saop boxes that have suddenly appeared>

I'll be on tonight playing Durnel. If anyone is interested in starting a character on Khadgar my two lower level characters can get most anywhere. Either that or I'll make a new character. Just ping me we'll set up a time to play unless my Uldaman group falls apart early tonight then we'll play tonight. =)

GD

Been playing WoW on and off since it was released here in Europe. Highest (and only character I play on now) is a lvl 55 human mage on Twillight's Hammer. Enjoying it a lot, only problem is that I don't have time to play enough The price for WOW isn't much. One can afford a couple dollars to have fun. If you go out to town to have a couple of beers, you are sure to spend at least twice as much for that single evening/night...

About NWN. Played it a lot to begin with, but it didn't feel right to me. If you want to roleplay you do it with pen and paper, when I play on a computer I always get this urge to power game Might have been different if I had joined a real roleplaying server, but I still doubt it could get as good as a real pen and paper session.

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"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio - Vim Tutorial -