Hmm... I think I'd be the kind of people that enjoys being able to actually experience content without being hardcore. I've been lucky enough to run Naxx 1 or 2 times fairly early after getting to 80, and appreciated the chance to actually see what it's like, since I wasn't there for the vanilla version.A thing that I like in raids is that some, if not most, bosses require more than just good gear: it requires knowing what to do and when to do it. And I think that's the factor that really makes me prefer raids over PvP. There's this very precise strategy factor that makes all the difference between a successful encounter and a wipe. Welfare epics allow me to actually try my hand at this without putting hours in the game just to get there.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
I have to say WoW isn't the only MMO I play...I mainly play for the PvP BG and wintergrasp (these days)...I'd like to give raiding a go but need to gear up more for my guild to be happy to take me along.I play Anarchy Online...it has the best social scene of any MMO I have ever played but the system for getting your character to be good (nevermind awesome) involves lots of working of numbers to get specific items on to get other items to get other items on probably to get the weapon on you want then you keep going through this to get different bits of armour on and implants putting the easiest to equip items on last. I love it but I love just getting something in wow going yep I'm the right class and my level is high enough lets chuck it on. Basically the upside of AO's system is if someone is good you know they have the items and have spent the time to make there character good. The downside is if you don't spent the time to do this your only ever going to be mediocre.I also play eve but thats a whole different kettle of fish that I am staying away on this one.
At 70, i was in an awful spot. I desperately wanted to raid, but i hadnt become attuned to any heroic instances, and thus, could not get any gear. So, i got epics the only other way i knew how: PvP. I utterly hated pvping for epic armor, which, despite being epic, wasn't all that good. So i resolved that, when Wrath of the Lich King came out, i'd do better in the end. I was happy to hear that blizzard had not instigated reputation requirements for heroic mode instances and quickly got to grinding. As soon as i hit 80, i started getting in instance groups. To be frank, the 5 man heroics at 80 aren't that hard, but give great rewards. Even better are the actual raids, which have been brought to a level so that you don't have to be in a hardcore raid guild and have incredible epic gear to even scratch the first boss. No, now it's possible for everyone to enjoy the game without having to waste the entire day, or the entire week, or even the entire month grinding for that one epic, or trying to get the required reputation for such and such instance. So i'd have to say i play WoW not only because i love it, but also because it lets me get to a point where i can be proud of what i've accomplished, even if it wasn't very hard.
I play WoW because in my opinion it is the best one out there. There aren't any other MMORPG's where you can play for an hour or two hours and feel like you've done something. I think a lot of the people complaining about the relatively "easy" end-game is really their own doing. Blizzard listens to the players, and really, watching the game grow since my first day in 2005 I've been watching the game get better. I can't wait to see what Blizzard decides to do next!
I was hardcore, I enjoyed being in the upper middle of progression, seeing people with better gear then me, but having better then most felt good, having the items that looked cool and few others had was great.With Wotlk, I dont raid anymore, it took me exactly 14 days to get full t7.5 and the rest of my epics filled out. I used to play because of the sense of adventure it gave me, so much to do, so many things to see! so many battles to fight in!. But when actual bad players at an easy game began getting the same items as me, PvE lost all of its excitement, bosses no longer seemed a challenge, but just another easy scripted peice of colored code.So I thought "hey ill try PvP again". nope. I am a boomkin in end game gear, I was one shotting people for 17-18k starfire crits left and right. I thought "oh sweet im unstoppable". then a Death knight in blues and the crafted 2h mace comes up to me and 2 shots me.nope. PvP has lost what made it intense Survivability. So what do I do on WoW now? I log in out of pure habit, I talk with a few friends, that I realized arent really friends at all, just people I played with. Yea I still maintained a real life while I played, but we are all in college now, and in Canada, you dont live on campus or in frats at colleges. So theres still 5 hours a day in my life that has a big gap in it, I log into WoW for an hour and do nothing, theres no glory in sitting in org in my endgame gear, hell almost everybody has some t7. Hell I only come on WoWhead out of habit.this is my third year playing WoW. I played it because it was, and still is the best game out there as far as mmo and rpg games go. It is the best game, but its not the best game for me anymore. I wish I could get the same amount of joy, excitment and thrill out of it, but its no longer there and I know why but theres nothing I know that I can do. Iv played/owned an endgame character of every class there is.Im a lost and confused gamer that used to be hardcore, the only thing left is to slowly leave WoW.Because no other game can fully replace what WoW is (was) and always will be
Personally I have got totally hooked on wow for itself, but also because I have read about others and tried one, I think because of the culture shock after trying EVE for a year that truly caught me.With EVE I didn't like always looking over my shoulder, npc "guards" were there more to punish the attacker than to protect the victim. (They'd arrive after you got blown up etc.) I'm not actually complaining about it. EVE is a good game with some nice features and options, it just wasn't for me.As you may of guessed after that I settled on PvE servers on Wow, originally I rolled on PvP ones with the friends who got me into it, however I'm very much a casual player and I've only really discovered battlegrounds/wintergrasp can be fun in the last few weeks.What I'm trying to say is I like the fairly stress free style of PvE play, I like that I can craft some "nice" epics now for my Paladin and Death Knight. Honestly I haven't even looked up if they are the "best", I'm having fun with what I can do, sometimes with the support of my quite small guild.I can kind of sympathise with the hard core gamers if they feel things are too easy, but at the same time, even 10 mans look possible in the near future for my guild. There is no way I will complain about that!I hope Blizzard carry on the way they are going, but I also think with them adding more raids they should be able to step up the difficulty. So yes everyone can do some raids, but if you want the "top" ones you have to put more effort in to organise, learn etc. I don't see an issue with that and would think it could keep most people happy.
My first experience in MMO gaming was Guild Wars. I still keep my downloads current, because it's free and can be a fun waste of time. GW was like a primer for WoW though. Not as much content, not as much character development, only 20 levels, but free (after the initial purchase). But now I play WoW, and I dragged my Guildies, kicking and screaming, away from GW and into WoW with me. I love it, they love it, and we all have a good time playing together. Their wives hate me by the way! *grin*None of us are hardcore. I play WoW as a social outlet, a time waster, and a convenient escape from the mundane.
Hey no offence to the hardcore raiders, but as a new player to wow like 8months ago, I am pretty happy with the current naxxramas. Cause of timezone issues, have not been able to get into a hardcore PVE guild which is what I really want. But with this level of difficulty at least I got to experience raiding naxxramas at level 80 which is a big win for me!Also didn't blizz already say that Ulduar would be much harder in the next patch? I think that's where the skill& gear will really filter the casual and the hardcores... and you guys can get all the "satisfaction" you want.In the meantime... Ill keep trying to get into a hardcore guild =)Peace <3 raiding.
Yep. Facerolled my DK through the starting area in under 2 hours. After the initial "Woah! That was AWESOME!" reaction to some ability that did something cool, it got a bit boring. Bind keys, put cat on keyboard, watch Batman. I took so little notice of the class I couldn't now tell you 4 DK abilities without looking them up. I enjoyed the backstory that came with the class, and I found the area itself interesting, and now I have a lvl 58 storage alt, yay me.I have mixed feelings about current 'end game' content. Overall I'm /cheering it - our guild is pretty small and very casual. Kara was a struggle before the nerf, but we enjoyed getting in there and having a go. It was just annoying that it was the only raid we could feasibly take a shot at, everything else being too far beyond us. Now we're starting to get more toons geared up through heroics (like I said, very casual) it's looking like we're going to be able to get a shot at everything. That's pretty awesome because frankly, I wants the story, and with BC I never got to really experience the culmination of all the questing I'd done. Why did I bother with all those quest chains? To grind primals, apparently. /sighBut...On the other hand, I can see why the 'hardcore' are getting so riled up about it. If I'd spent months working as part of a large team toward the goal of fowarding the guild as a whole, only to find that some guy who logs on twice a week did a couple of runs with his mostly-casual guild and ended up with the same gear it took me all that time to get? Yeah, I'd be deflated.But, Wrath is still pretty much in the baby stage. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some sort of compromise in the works at Blizz HQ...something to keep the casuals in the end game, while giving the hardcore something they can be proud of. Although, in all honesty, anyone who finds themselves thinking of WoW as 'work', should log and go outside for a while. Sorry, wall of text :)
I have been playing WoW ever since the closed beta times, and started with my first real character in February 2005, when the game hit the streets.At first the game was exciting and I spent hours for exploring the world (just spent a month ~ level 30 to explore every single zone I could get to), and then raiding and progress hit me. Suddenly, the game was a bit more exciting and the rewards looked sexy. This feeling stayed with me, but not for long. I'd say it was two or three weeks that I enjoyed MC and BWL until it felt like being forced to progress. By then I did not notice it, and assumed my choice of a dwarf rogue probably was just plain wrong, and I should become a troll shaman.So I switched and continued till I hit level 60, and again I raided. This time I did until Ahn'Qiraj was there and available to raid. But it did not change the feeling that something was wrong. Progress was there, epics dropped a lot. This time, I only stayed with my troll shaman for one reason... the Horde definitely had more and better quests in WoW than Alliance (the only exception being the Onyxia attunement where both Alliance and Horde quest chains are on par).Today I do play without raiding. I only play with people I know from real life, I do not play with progress sitting behind me like the devil who wants my soul as loot :-)I never enjoyed the game as much, but it took my long to realize that progress was actually what made the game bad for me. Now, I only quest, explore and run dungeons for quests, and associated lore, and totally skip raids.Today I once again love playing WoW. Raids and progress are the problem in this game for me.
I started with Anarchy Online...it was the first MMO I got seriously into. At the time I thought it was just the best damn MMO out there, people would mention something about WoW and I'd be like hah, never played it, never will, AO is the game for me. Then one day I got bored and for the hell of it downloaded the free trial of WoW and I was hooked.AO grabs you, but wow grabs you more. It's been touched on before, in how Wow wants to make >you< the hero. Never mind that everyone else has the quest to kill Illidan, or how odd it seems that even though you're the shattered sun's chosen one Kael'thas seems to have sprung extra heads so everyone else in your party can loot it and be the chosen one also... we overlook that, but in essence, wow wants >you< to be the hero. AO tries to make this happen, but they just don't pull it off so well, and the game (imho) quickly becomes more of a grinding session than anything else.Take for example. levelling up in AO versus levelling in wow... In wow, at a certain point, quests are pretty much the only way to level. You will sooner die of old age and/or psychosis grinding your way from 70 to 71 killing monsters. However...in AO, where the max level was 220 when I left...grinding is not only the most feasible way, but the only way pretty much...however it's a cheap form of grinding. Wow forces you to quest, because quests are superior in exp than anything else... this means you learn your character (generally speaking). You know what it can do and what your main role is or should be in a given situation. Now, in AO...the preferred method of levelling is getting into a team of 5 folks, sitting up on a mountain with 3 of the other folks, while the 5th person, a nanotechnician (wow's equivalent would be a mage) gathers up hundreds of enemies known as hecklers and AoE nukes them all into oblivion at once, giving the entire team buttloads of experience for sitting there. i.e. the 'kite team'. Nanotechs make a lot of ingame money doing this, it's rare to see a poor nanotechnician, but the downside is it leads to people having >zero< idea of how their class works in pvp or pve, and oftentimes being the downfall of raid content when you've got a lvl 190+ player who has no idea how to work functionally in a team...and this happens >a lot<.That's one long-winded example, but is the best way I can illustrate what draws me to wow and makes me love it. It makes you learn, but it makes learning fun. Questing is fun. And going up against other folks who've gotten their gear the same way you've gotten yours, just makes it better.
Raiding is difficult, the encounter itself isn't the challenging part, the monitoring and teaching the other minimum-IQ members of the raid while doing the encounter is the challenging part.If I would raid with people that were somehow creative and smart like me, then raiding would be easy.I don't want to flatter myself, what I want to do is insult the other people out there.It just makes me angry that I have to tell them things that I think are obvious.
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