[Stace]

I've never played WoW. Should I get it? Is it too late to enjoy the regular game?

You'd be joining the game at what I would say is quite a bad time. There are a lot of things wrong with WoW and its community, mainly caused by features and mechanics implemented in later expansions by Blizzard which have both discouraged the social aspect of the game and encouraged poor and often frankly terrible behaviour in players. Most people playing it have been playing for a long time and many are suffering burn-out.

The latest expansion was meant to 'fix' a lot of things that some people - mainly a vocal minority on forums - thought were wrong with Wrath of the Lich King. Despite a revamp of much of the gameworld - which is mostly empty now - Cataclysm has failed to reinvigorate player activity, which is less now than it was a year ago.

There is still a lot of fun to be had in WoW, but for many the magic has gone. Read http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1951296771 and http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369922419 to get some idea of current issues.

[Antony Holdsworth]

Does anyone actually raid the cities anymore? I always thought that was one of the funnest things.

The city and town guards are just too powerful now and will easily overwhelm you. The max-level guards have always been more powerful than regular mobs, but the overall strength of mobs in Cataclysm is also significantly higher than before so these two factors put together just makes the guards too challening. It's a shame, as it hurt world pvp quite a bit.

[djimi]

Despite a revamp of much of the gameworld - which is mostly empty now -

What do you mean by that?

[Marnesia Steele]

I've never played WoW. Should I get it? Is it too late to enjoy the regular game?

It will svck the soul from your body and laugh as it drags you to your doom!

[Emma Louise Adams]

I've never played WoW. Should I get it? Is it too late to enjoy the regular game?

It Worth to try, but dont play too much, or you will lost you soyl :tongue: :teehee:

[Karl harris]

It will svck the soul from your body and laugh as it drags you to your doom!

As long as it lasts me until Skyrim...

[ShOrty]

As long as it lasts me until Skyrim...

Trust me, it will.
As for what Sneakmaster said about the population "dwindling", that's completely false I'm afraid to say. Sure, there are people that are unhappy with the game. I even am from time to time, especially when I pvp. But the game isn't about strictly pvp. There are other aspects of WoW that are spot on.
As for population decreasing, also wrong. WoW's population has gone UP since WOTLK. There are statistics on the forums somewhere. It's still 12 million+strong. And those are individual accounts.
Point being: Are there people unhappy with WoW? Obviously. But there are still millions of people who love it. Loads of people enjoy the game.

[Nikki Hype]

What do you mean by that?

Needs a bit of explanation. Blizzard introduced a system called the Dungeon Finder. Previously, groups of people who wanted to enter a dungeon had to actually travel through the gameworld to get to the dungeon entrance (you could also be summoned by other players, but people still had to physically travel there). People like to group for dungeons because you get a lot of xp and it helps to level up your character.

What the Dungeon Finder did was create a system where you could queue for a dungeon from anywhere in the gameworld. People realised you could simply stay in a city and keep on queueing for dungeons over and over. No need for any of that pesky travelling any more, just click a button and hey presto! you're there.

This had two effects. Firstly, it reduced the number of people questing out in the gameworld. The cities were literally full of people just standing around waiting for their dungeon to pop up. Secondly, because the Dungeon Finder grouped players with people from other servers it encouraged a lot of what is technically known as douchebaggery. Whereas previously players were grouped with people from their own server community and therefore were likely to suffer consequences if they behaved like an idiot, now because of the relative anonymity of the mixed-server Dungeon Finder people were more prone to behave badly.

I realise all this sounds rather negative. As I said before, there is still a lot of fun to be had in WoW, it's just that change isn't always good change.

And let me just correct something written above by 'Shinovakhiin' :wink_smile: Player activity has indeed dropped quite significantly since the release of Cataclysm and has gone back to its slow decline: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/weeklyactivity.php?serverid=-1

[x_JeNnY_x]

I encounter loads of people questing on my alts in the gameworld. =/ I guess it has to do with what type of server you're on though.
The point is to LEVEL. To advance higher so you can do more things at end game level. Why is another option, that is FASTER, a bad thing? The LFG tool is amazing.
Also, Warcraftealms.com is not accurate, at all. Statistics provided by Blizzard themselves on their site is what you want to look for. It's there, I just don't care that much to find it right now.

[ashleigh bryden]

Also some buddies and I were bored last night so we decided to run some classic raids. Molten Core must have been awesome back then and Blackwing Lair was pretty sweet.

[Brandon Bernardi]

Also some buddies and I were bored last night so we decided to run some classic raids. Molten Core must have been awesome back then and Blackwing Lair was pretty sweet.

Yeah, classic raids are fun. I do them every week. I like to collect the gear from the raids and make vanity sets on all my characters.

[Sammi Jones]

I probably leveled my way up to around say 61-62, and leveling has become just GRUELING now. So ridiculously slow it's always unbearable.

[helliehexx]

I probably leveled my way up to around say 61-62, and leveling has become just GRUELING now. So ridiculously slow it's always unbearable.

Do you have heirlooms? Also, BC is better than orignial Vanilla WoW, but it's still not as good as WOTLK. This is the way I see the leveling experience:

1-60 (Original Vanilla WoW) The most painstaking/difficult thing in this entire universe
1-60 (Revamped Vanilla WoW) Extremely entertaining, fun, and fast
60-70 (BC) Still grueling, but much better than original Vanilla WoW. Still slow, but a little more entertaining.
70-80 (WOTLK) Still kind of a grind fest, but much better than BC. More involved quest, and the introduction of zone phasing really makes some zones fun.
80-85 (Cata) Extremely entertaining, fun, and fast. The best leveling of the entire game IMO. Dynamic zone phasing, very fun quest, beautiful zones. Really A+

[Wanda Maximoff]

Do you have heirlooms? Also, BC is better than orignial Vanilla WoW, but it's still not as good as WOTLK. This is the way I see the leveling experience:

1-60 (Original Vanilla WoW) The most painstaking/difficult thing in this entire universe
1-60 (Revamped Vanilla WoW) Extremely entertaining, fun, and fast
60-70 (BC) Still grueling, but much better than original Vanilla WoW. Still slow, but a little more entertaining.
70-80 (WOTLK) Still kind of a grind fest, but much better than BC. More involved quest, and the introduction of zone phasing really makes some zones fun.
80-85 (Cata) Extremely entertaining, fun, and fast. The best leveling of the entire game IMO. Dynamic zone phasing, very fun quest, beautiful zones. Really A+

Nope, no heirlooms, and no guild so no guild perks. Zangarmarsh is pretty though, .

[Anna Kyselova]

Yeah BC is the worse. Maybe because 1-60 goes by so fast.

Was getting tired of questing so I decided to tank. Insta-queues ftw. Easy xp and tanking isn't that hard for wrath 5-man dungeons.

[Chris Ellis]

You'd be joining the game at what I would say is quite a bad time. There are a lot of things wrong with WoW and its community, mainly caused by features and mechanics implemented in later expansions by Blizzard which have both discouraged the social aspect of the game and encouraged poor and often frankly terrible behaviour in players. Most people playing it have been playing for a long time and many are suffering burn-out.

The latest expansion was meant to 'fix' a lot of things that some people - mainly a vocal minority on forums - thought were wrong with Wrath of the Lich King. Despite a revamp of much of the gameworld - which is mostly empty now - Cataclysm has failed to reinvigorate player activity, which is less now than it was a year ago.

There is still a lot of fun to be had in WoW, but for many the magic has gone. Read http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1951296771 and http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369922419 to get some idea of current issues.

And good luck enjoying PVP if you're a new player. Everyone is loaded up with heirlooms, and I can't count the amount of times I've been killed before I even realized what happened, in just the level 15 or 20 bracket.

[Rachyroo]

Yeah BC is the worse. Maybe because 1-60 goes by so fast.

Was getting tired of questing so I decided to tank. Insta-queues ftw. Easy xp and tanking isn't that hard for wrath 5-man dungeons.

Oh yeah, if you're leveling a class that can tank, it's definitely the fastest way to level if you have full heirlooms. Insta-queues and +30% XP ftw. Can hit 60 in like a week doing that even only a few hours a day.

[Siobhan Wallis-McRobert]

And good luck enjoying PVP if you're a new player. Everyone is loaded up with heirlooms, and I can't count the amount of times I've been killed before I even realized what happened, in just the level 15 or 20 bracket.

Then don't pvp at those brackets. Gear in dungeons is easily attainable which is just as good as heirlooms.

[Flutterby]

Gear in dungeons is easily attainable which is just as good as heirlooms.

Haha, no. Not even close.

[Blaine]

Haha, no. Not even close.

:huh:
How do you think Blizz figured out the stats of heirlooms in the first place? They took it from the best gear's stats at that level which you can get in certain dungeons.

[IM NOT EASY]

:huh:
How do you think Blizz figured out the stats of heirlooms in the first place? They took it from the best gear's stats at that level which you can get in certain dungeons.

I had mostly gear from dungeons, and even enchanted my gear with scrolls from my maxed enchanter, and most people had almost double the HP as me.

[Natalie Taylor]

That's because there are things called twinks. Heirlooms alone do not make you OP in pvp. 2 items? No. What makes someone OP is being the highest level in the bracket allowed, being fully enchanted with stamina enchants, and heirlooms.
Don't blame getting owned by a twink on simply heirlooms.
And yes, there are items equal to heirlooms from questing. Just today I found a shoulder piece a lot better than my heirloom shoulder piece for my hunter. Had 7 more agi on it, plus some hit. It was all around a better piece of gear. I just couldn't equip it because I'd lose 10% experience.

[Robert Jr]

That's because there are things called twinks. Heirlooms alone do not make you OP in pvp. 2 items? No. What makes someone OP is being the highest level in the bracket allowed, being fully enchanted with stamina enchants, and heirlooms.
Don't blame getting owned by a twink on simply heirlooms.

I'm not talking about the highest level in the bracket, bro.

And yes, there are items equal to heirlooms from questing. Just today I found a shoulder piece a lot better than my heirloom shoulder piece for my hunter. Had 7 more agi on it, plus some hit. It was all around a better piece of gear. I just couldn't equip it because I'd lose 10% experience.

Fair point. But consider you also gain at least 1 level from each dungeon run and 1 level from 3 or 4 quests, and you see how quickly those things become outdated.

[LADONA]

Yeah BC is the worse. Maybe because 1-60 goes by so fast.

I've literally hit a point where nothing is fun. The dungeons are the same ole simple, easy to do, no risk run throughs, and the experience is too slow so I've been grinding through the 60's which seem to never end. Then on the other side, I'm PVPing with my Affliction lock, which is a joke because I do absolutely no damage, I die in seconds, and almost never win a one on one situation. Granted, I know I'm in underwhelming gear, but it's ridiculous at times.

Then I get the pleasure of seeing druids/pallys charge off into 5 people and not die, just heal repeatedly...some classes get all the fun.

I'm almost ready to go back to my hunter, officially the funnest PVP class I've ever played, but I'm trying to hold out til 70 when I can start Arena.

[matt oneil]

I've literally hit a point where nothing is fun. The dungeons are the same ole simple, easy to do, no risk run throughs, and the experience is too slow so I've been grinding through the 60's which seem to never end. Then on the other side, I'm PVPing with my Affliction lock, which is a joke because I do absolutely no damage, I die in seconds, and almost never win a one on one situation. Granted, I know I'm in underwhelming gear, but it's ridiculous at times.

Then I get the pleasure of seeing druids/pallys charge off into 5 people and not die, just heal repeatedly...some classes get all the fun.

I'm almost ready to go back to my hunter, officially the funnest PVP class I've ever played, but I'm trying to hold out til 70 when I can start Arena.

Aff locks are pretty horrible in PvP right now lol. Your dots get dispelled like crazy, and you're squishy. Not the best spec for it.
Right now, PvP is all about burst. Burst burst burst. Fury Warriors literally 3 shotting people with CD's lined up with procs/healer CC, Rets can do the same, so can assass rogues. Boomkins can too, but burst is about the only good thing about Boomkins in PvP right, since they are super RNG with Starsurge procs.