WoW, This Game is Terrible

[Dragonboy]

I am a player who started with MMO’s the day he by accident bought the box for Horizons, not knowing that it even was a MMO or what it was supposed to be. Since then I forced myself to try multiple MMO’s mainly so that I would know what other people were talking about and one I tried because I thought that I would like it.

Let’s just say that in this world filled with MMO’s there is a game for everyone… Only it makes me sad to walk into a record store and look at the games collection they have and see that they have 4 different boxes of WoW greatly advertised at eyelevel, while other games are simply not sold this way or are dumped in a damp corner were it is easily overseen.

There also lies the problem not just for Istaria, but other smaller MMO’s as well, not all gamers read MMORPG.com or related sites… Heck I only go there when someone on this forum has a link to a review or something, it is just not my site to be.

I know what my type of game is…
For fantasy it will be Istaria every day, not just for dragons (mostly it is I won’t lie) but it is a nice peaceful community without PvP which I dislike fully. I have played multiple MMO’s recently and only a few that I actually liked.

WoW (total ingame time 8 hours)…
Eventhough it seems to have PvE servers it seems a problem to actually get dumped on one.
The problem is that when you are a noob to a game when you try it and the game itself recommends a server for you and you get dumped on a server which has PvP it gets annoying…
Sure those Mohawk granates are fun (for about 10s) and then it gets pretty annoying, why did I just spend time creating a character if I constantly run around with a Mohawk head (and yes you can cancel the effect, but with LOADS of noobs with LOADS of granates how long do you think that will last???).
Another thing that I found annoying is lvl 60+ players sweeping through dungeons in the newby area’s, while not knowing that run into the dungeon solo killing various mobs, to be suddenly surrounded by 20 of his friends totally annihilating you.
And what then? Walk back to your corpse and die again? Yeah I guess that is all that’s to it. I died 2-3 times before I made it back outside that dungeon, so I learned the whole ghostly “were is my freaking corpse” thing very quickly.
But the biggest thing I found annoying was that at least in the newby lands people who were in a group think they are god, but actually act like a swarm of locust. They sweep the land ridding the whole freaking area of any type of mob leaving nothing for a player who had been killing stuff there for about 10-15 minutes in this case me. It wouldn’t have been bad if they had asked me to join, but this also never happened.

LoTR (total ingame time about 48 hours)…
What can I say about that other then it is boring, landscapes are nicely made… Mobs are plentifull and if you don’t watch out you suddenly run into lvl 60-70 mobs while in a lvl 10 area (or atleast you thought that was the area). Some quests are recommended for a group, but it appears that most of these quests were quite doable when solo playing. Also I liked the whole horse riding thing from location to location. All in all better then WoW, less annoying players at least none that I met during my 3-4 days of playing.

City of Villians (total ingame time 16-20 hours)…
Never made it of the beginning island, found the ferry boat, but never used it. I was slamming level 5 mobs into the ground from level 3… Not sure if that was intended, but in the end I was around lvl 10-12 doing various quests… Killing LOADS of bandits or whatever they were on my way to the quests, but to me it was just boring and not my type of game.

EVE online (subscription time 1 month + 1 month trail)…
Played this game for a staggering 2 months before deciding that it also was not my game, I liked the whole space genre and being able to buy loads of ships and outfitting them… However during that time I did loads of PvE mission, some of which forced me to go through pirate friendly terrain and to be honest it scared the **** out of me… I don’t mind being attacked, but loosing everything that I had worked for up to that point because someone with a Battleship type vessel wants to flatten little me in my Cruiser just because he/she can was to much for me. In the end I lost my ship and stuff during a PvE mission who I never could have beat solo… well maybe with a battleship filled with fighter sized guns, but my cruiser was obliterated… Overal the game is good, but just not my cup of tea. Liked the variety in ships and weapons though… liked the planning of your ship to make it just like you want it (or almost like you want it since you don’t have enough cash).

Starwars Galaxies (Subscription time about 6 months)…
Love the star wars genre, loved the idea of potentially becoming a Jedi. Had my whole character planned out up to lvl 80. Had a cool floating Mustafa mount which could hold 10 people I think, had an even cooler house also from that pre-order of the expansion… And then the bubble burst… The game was turned into a mostly non-melee click click click click mob is dead game… Was level 40’ish at the time and just couldn’t get myself to choose Jedi as new profession at the initial relog into the game. So I became a bounty hunter instead… Then I noticed the game had totally lost its appeal to me so I quit very soon after.

From my limited experiences most MMO’s are okay. They are just not for me. The only game that has (most of the time) been there for me is Istaria and while I sometimes take longer breaks I always find my way back… Why? I am a dragon and wouldn’t want it any other way… I have a lair which I can build in relative peace and quiet. I dare say that if Games Network hadn’t giving up on the game while I had massive bugs I would probably have finished ARoP and my lair years ago. Also I dare say that if GN hadn’t given up on the game I wouldn’t even have left for over 3 years. I was just too annoyed with GN and the inability of Tulga at the time to help me with my problems that I forced the game out of my mind… Thankfully Rakku/Spirit while he hardly plays anymore him self kept me reminded of the game and convinced me to ask for a Unity to Chaos transfer. I am still thankful to the devs that they managed to allow most of us to retrieve our old characters from the long dead Unity server and hope that this is a lesson as well for other game producers… Don’t give away server maintenance to another company. It can only turn out badly when for some reason the relationship turns sour.

[Dhalin]

Eventhough it seems to have PvE servers it seems a problem to actually get dumped on one.
The problem is that when you are a noob to a game when you try it and the game itself recommends a server for you and you get dumped on a server which has PvP it gets annoying…

Don't use the "recommended" server. The "Recommended" option picks the server with the lowest population to try and balance out the populations. Just open the realm list, click the type column header, and then pick either "Recommended" "Low", "Medium" population. A "Full" population server can be good in their own ways too, but you may experience queues to log in at peak times. They vastly improved upon this though, I play on two high population servers and haven't seen a single queue in two months plus and even then it was only 7 players long (about 5-6 seconds).

Sure those Mohawk granates are fun (for about 10s) and then it gets pretty annoying, why did I just spend time creating a character if I constantly run around with a Mohawk head (and yes you can cancel the effect, but with LOADS of noobs with LOADS of granates how long do you think that will last???).

I've only ever been hit with a grenade but once. Maybe when they first came out they were wildly popular, but they are like any other fad -- it dies out. You can use the grenades on yourself, if you want the mohawk look. If not, then don't. At 10s per 5, it is doubtful that very many newbies are going to have that kind of money to waste on annoying other players.

Another thing that I found annoying is lvl 60+ players sweeping through dungeons in the newby area’s, while not knowing that run into the dungeon solo killing various mobs, to be suddenly surrounded by 20 of his friends totally annihilating you.

Use the LFD feature. If someone does something stupid like that, try to educate him. If he does it again, vote-kick him. The community as a whole is responsible for helping people learn.

And what then? Walk back to your corpse and die again? Yeah I guess that is all that’s to it. I died 2-3 times before I made it back outside that dungeon, so I learned the whole ghostly “were is my freaking corpse” thing very quickly.

I tend to not run dungeons until later -- they are very largely unnecessary and solo questing will get you all the levels you need just fine. Some people enjoy dungeons. You can also level up by doing PvP Battlegrounds (not recommended, unless you know the game well) if that is your cup of tea. Even if you roll on a PvE server so that you don't get attacked at random, you're still permitted to enter PvP Battlegrounds. They act like dungeon instances, only are obviously PvP oriented. The very first one is the classic Capture-the-Flag variant that everyone knows how to play.

But the biggest thing I found annoying was that at least in the newby lands people who were in a group think they are god, but actually act like a swarm of locust. They sweep the land ridding the whole freaking area of any type of mob leaving nothing for a player who had been killing stuff there for about 10-15 minutes in this case me. It wouldn’t have been bad if they had asked me to join, but this also never happened.

There are reasons that high levels may want to do lower level quests. It can be annoying, but mobs in newbie lands usually have fast respawn timers. Give it a minute or two; go kill something else and your mob will be respawned by then. The high levels sometimes need low level quests for reputation gains (there will be an alternate way to gain those reputations in Cataclysm) or for Loremaster achievements (you need to complete 90%+ of all quests in the entire game for this achievement).

[Dragonboy]

Thank you Dhalin for explaining some of those things to me and some I had already discovered like the mob killing locusts, went to another area which still had mobs. But that is something that bothers me, not only in WoW but also in Istaria. I remember that 2 days in a row the CNA or -$- guild was farming the Fire Opal Golems near Saritova... Sure it is a free game, but 2 dragons controlling the whole spawn? Exact same thing and that bothers me, it bothers me double when I am playing a trail for a potentially new game. That alone is for me a reason to quit playing.
I did not even mention the constant PvP requests I got from players 10 levels above me, but that is part of the game I can ignore and go about my own way.

I hope you all do understand that I made my previous post only to give a detailed description about my experiences not only in WoW, but also in other MMO’s and not to provide fuel to keep the currently happening anti-WoW flame war going.
People are entitled to play the game as they like it, but if too many things happen that are not compatible with what I like… I leave the game, most of the time never to look back (with Istaria as the so far only exception).

Let's just say that most MMO's (if not all except for Istaria) in existence currently are not my cup of tea. Might try a few in the future… Star Trek online or Starwars The Old Republic as example, but most Fantasy MMO’s will always be compared to Istaria… And shall undoubtedly fail to produce what I want from a game compared to Istaria despite its occasional bugs and loads of lag due to player build plots and lairs.

Anyway… What started out as a rant about why WoW is so bad has turned into a debate between the lovers and haters of WoW… Neither have a chance what so ever of convincing the opposition. A never ending debate…

[velveeta]

db has explained my feelings on this matter much better than i can, and i thank him for that!

[Dhalin]

I did not even mention the constant PvP requests I got from players 10 levels above me, but that is part of the game I can ignore and go about my own way.

It isn't well known (it should be!), there are addons that can automatically block Duel requests. I have some nice peace and quiet when I turn that thing on lol. But lately I haven't updated that addon, and I still haven't been getting that many requests. I find that if I decline, it is rare they send it again. If they do, the ignore list will permanently block all duel requests from that player. You can always remove em later if you don't want them taking up a slot on your IL.

I hope you all do understand that I made my previous post only to give a detailed description about my experiences not only in WoW, but also in other MMO’s and not to provide fuel to keep the currently happening anti-WoW flame war going.

Yeah, there is a lot of WoW hate in this thread, and the sad thing of it is, a lot of it are based upon misconceptions. It is easy to misjudge at first glance; I just wish peeps would actually take a step back and take a good look at it, ask others about said issues, or at the very least, be willing to listen. Some of the views expressed are valid.... others, quite frankly, and no offense, are not. I don't blame anyone for misjudging at first-glance; we all do it.

People are entitled to play the game as they like it, but if too many things happen that are not compatible with what I like… I leave the game, most of the time never to look back (with Istaria as the so far only exception).

Games also change over time; WoW is a good example but by far not the only example. Some of these games may be worth taking another look at. I left Istaria for awhile, and came back to find it a better game than it was. I was pleasantly surprised, and my sub is still going.

Let's just say that most MMO's (if not all except for Istaria) in existence currently are not my cup of tea. Might try a few in the future… Star Trek online or Starwars The Old Republic as example, but most Fantasy MMO’s will always be compared to Istaria… And shall undoubtedly fail to produce what I want from a game compared to Istaria despite its occasional bugs and loads of lag due to player build plots and lairs.

Player-built plots and lairs are nice, but I doubt that they should make-or-break the MMORPG. Istaria does have buildable housing, and that's nice. But when I want some good action combat.... Istaria is not that game. That's why I play WoW. Istaria's combat... it is OK, but it is nowhere near as fun as WoW's. I probably won't quit either game, but I play each for different reasons. No One game needs to be a jack of all trades.

Anyway… What started out as a rant about why WoW is so bad has turned into a debate between the lovers and haters of WoW… Neither have a chance what so ever of convincing the opposition. A never ending debate…

Yes, but there ARE small shiny gems in the middle of all of this text. Some of them come as suggestions that maybe Amon and Co. are seeing, maybe some of them might get a player who's never touched WoW to think "maybe I should give it a try" or maybe some who quit WoW years ago saying "Oh, they fixed that? I might have to look at it again!" and the myriad of other things that have been said in this thread.

As long as people don't get angry at each other, all is fine. I've been holding absolutely zero grudges against anyone in this thread, even the loudest WoW-haters. They have a right to their opinion, and I do my best to educate them if they should say something that is absolutely wrong about the game. Like I said, misjudging can happen -- they don't know everything about the game, and even a game like WoW can have its hidden nooks and crannies that can fix some issues/problems. The "I didn't know that!" syndrome.

[Velea]

This thread too has become one that's pushing posters toward breaking forum rules, so it's time to close.