Reasons for not playing World of Warcraft

[neonblack]

well I don't want to keep anyone from playing but I stopped due to very good reasons. played it right from the start and for quite a while but I realized very soon that you get too easily addicted and waste your time on this when you could do more important things. Plus it indeed gets kinda boring if you're just running from quest to quest, trying to level up as quickly as possible and if you're no 24/7 pro-gamer you got no chance very soon as everyone reached the maximum level and it just starts to get frustrating for people who're rather evening or weekend players who actually still have some kind of real life...

so I stopped playing and didn't regret it

any other or even similar experiences with WoW?

sure the entire discussion has been done dozens of times elsewhere and will stay controversial but I still like to hear opinions...

[krazor]

Yep, same for me. It got to the point where, if you didn't spend your entire evening until like 3am running instances with the guild, you wouldn't get anywhere. Personally, that's way too much time when you have other responsabilities such as school and a job. I loved the game for leveling with friends and stuff, but the endgame just made me totally lose my urge to play.


Btw, Blizzard announced a Warcraft movie today that's being made by the company that made Batman Begins.

[Sneltrekker]

My reasons:

1) I refuse, have always refused, and will continue to refuse, paying a monthly fee for a fucking game. I will pay for the CD and the nicelooking box if the game is good enough quality. But once I have the CD I expect that's the last of my money that goes out to the developer.

2) I HATE hack and slash without roleplay. Sure, there's roleplay servers out there, but let's put it this way, I HAVE watched WoW over the shoulders of a friend. This is what went on on the 'roleplay servers':

*gang of troll chicks dancing naked on the background and a bunch of gnomes trying to act like perverted teens with fucked up emote combinations*

1d107_W|-|0_C@nT_Sp3l1: ny1 tr8? Gud g3ar h3r3
1_n3Ed_70_637_L@1D: ny1 wanna cyber? Me very good.
Etc etc etc

If I play a roleplay game, I expect ROLEPLAY. For a good example, get Neverwinter Nights, which even has free online options, and join a roleplaying Persistant World, like World Of Caenyr.

NWN PWs are often described as MMORPG-Lite, because they run 24/7, but only with a limited amount of players (most servers around 30 players). But IMO they beat the crap out of any MMORPG.

Anyway, by combining those two factors, the lack of roleplay, and the moneydrain, I have come to this conclusion.

MMORPGs are the whores of the Roleplaying Games:

- they cost a ton of money
- the experience may look great and be very graphically and intense
- but it lacks skill and emotions

Anyway, those reasons don't go for ONLY WoW.

[krazor]

Not sure if I agree with the part about not requiring skill, but you're right about the part of way less immersion and roleplaying due to everyone else.

[Sneltrekker]

I'm talking of roleplaying skill.

A big part of roleplaying skill when you're at a textbased medium like a videogame, is being able to write coherent English.

[neonblack]

or any other language that is involved. In my case I played on the German servers so it was mainly German what people used/tried to use. I did give several different servers a try but no matter where - RPG server or PvP where I could at least understand why that was the case - many many people (let's rather call them kids) somewhat lacked basic linguistic skills in their mothertongue...plus if you don't get any appropriate feed-back for proper RP but just the usual counterstrike-kid-language...well. First it destroys the entire atmosphere or any attemt to build and use some sort or RP-character...then after a while it's not even annoying anymore...
one reason why I did stop...being able to use the game-physics and controls properly is one thing...but WoW (was supposed) is a MMORPG...so where's the RPG if not in very small groups who have to play on their own...and talk in their private guild chat...

I guess I just expected too much...sure, the game is very playable and there's much to do and to see...but if the result of player interaction is just nothing more than good old Diablo or any clan/guild-related stupid fighting/who-levels-up-faster-and-has-got-the-coolest-sword competition...*sigh*

That's why I rather prefer offline console-RPGs or something like Baldur's Gate, the old Ultima or Might&Magic series...or recently Sacred...that was quite nice too.

And I am still waiting for a "real" online RPG where people actually DO RP....not even D&D Online which I beta-tested was any better than WoW cause the people were the same...

Well...one could still stick to pen&paper RPGs with some really weird players who never do anything else

[krazor]

One problem with WoW is that it was too popular. When hundreds of 12 year olds start on the server, a lack of maturity is too be suspected. The only way to get a good experience would be to be part of a guild dedicated to RP that runs their own sort of events and minimize the influence of the rest of the population on the server. The problem with guilds is there is constantly drama and "the ideal guild" is sort of a utopia that probably doesn't actually exist. The game was fun while it lasted, but after a while, as with any game, its time to move on.

Btw, have you tried the new Elder Scrolls game? It's pretty cool and oyu can very easily play any role you want, especiialy with the custom classes and the ability to do good or evil things. People complain that its been dumbed down from past Elder Scrolls games, but the fact is, the features that may have been simplified are entirely optional and if you don't want to use them, then don't. The game does a good job of being playable for botht the casual and hardcore.

[Sneltrekker]

I'll have acquired Oblivion in a few days according to *cough* eMule

If it's good enough I'll buy it the second I have the money.

I actually loved Morrowind, but as of yet, I know not really any reason why I'd prefer Oblivion over that one.

I run Morrowind with a shitload of monds: Better Bodies, Better Heads, Better World Textures, Better Monster Models, Sharper Weapon Models. And if you take all that and compare it to the graphics of Oblivion, I evern prefer the Morrowind Modded Graphics. Oblivion's graphics have this cut'n'paste feeling to me and not the feeling of a living and breathing world.

And except for graphics I haven't heard of many improvements.

[krazor]

The fact that everything is voice acted is one nice improvement. Graphics are a huge improvement (if you have an ok PC) and the combat is a lot more fun. It requires more skill such as blocking, dodging and parrying, rather than just hacking away like in Morrowind.

[neonblack]

I'm not quite sure if it would run on my notebook. WoW was playable...with medium details...but Oblivion might be a series of screenshots...or just one and then the cpu
melts

[Sneltrekker]

www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srl

There you can test your PC for a variety of games.

BTW, gonna do some moderating. I'll split the topic into a WoW/MMORPG and an Oblivion topic, since the discussion has gone on for a while now about Oblivion. Nothing wrong with that though.

edit: apparantly Proboards can only moderate entire topics at once, and not separate posts. Can't find split topic option for now.

[jamahara]

The only reason to quit WoW, is Shadowbane.

Its WoW, 100.4% better, and its FREE.

I find too many amazing free games >.< And the Lore for the game is amazing, its so well written and balanced out, theres not many plotholes.

www.fileplanet.com/130645/download/Shadowbane-15-Day-Free-Trial-%5BWin32%5D-(US-&-Canada-Only)

I know it says free trial, but FilePlanet wont update the installer to say "100.4% free Shadowbane" >.< All you need to do, is download that, install it, then go to www.chronicle.ubi.com, make an account, then log-in to the game with it, and you make your character and stomp away! And if you need help, ive got a character on at least every server (theyre all different worlds, deliciousness) and surely i can help you.

Its so much better than WoW, its got an active roleplaying element on a few servers, like Braillia and Vindication, where items are discovered by explorers and an alert is put out for travellers to go and discover the story and get the treasure and stuff. The games just amazing.

[Silhouette]

sneltrekker said:

If I play a roleplay game, I expect ROLEPLAY.

I could marry You for just saying that, but I guess that would be unfair to my girlfriend, right? ;D

I never started to play Wow, but I've at least tried it out, and yeah, it's a somewhat good computer game, but as a role playing game, it's actually a complete failure.

I don't like many RPG's for computers or consoles, but I do like game with good and interesting stories, such as Baldur's gate and Neverwinter Night's, or older games like Chrono Trigger and Bahamut Lagoon.

[jamahara]

The Lore for Shadowbane is real detailed, muchily, mindblowingly.

ubbforums.ubi.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=sb_lore

It should all be there somewhere.

[metal_leper]

silhouette said:

sneltrekker said:

If I play a roleplay game, I expect ROLEPLAY.

I could marry You for just saying that, but I guess that would be unfair to my girlfriend, right? ;D

I never started to play Wow, but I've at least tried it out, and yeah, it's a somewhat good computer game, but as a role playing game, it's actually a complete failure.

I don't like many RPG's for computers or consoles, but I do like game with good and interesting stories, such as Baldur's gate and Neverwinter Night's, or older games like Chrono Trigger and Bahamut Lagoon.

:/ NWN doesn't come close to either of the BG games!

You might like Planescape Torment, though...

[Silhouette]

No, I know Baldur's Gate is better, but Neverwinter Nights is still a good game.

I've been recommended Planescape Torment before, but I haven't got the chance to check it out yet.

But actually, I prefer real roleplaying games, like Dungeons & Dragons (or actually I don't really like Dungeons & Dragons either, but that kind of games, for example a Swedish RPG called 'Drakar och Demoner').

[Sneltrekker]

NWN singleplayer is crap.

NWN singleplayer, with usermade mods like Dreamcatcher etc = comparable to BG

NWN multiplayer = best roleplay I ever found in a computer game. Only problem is that lately the amount of players has been steadily dropping because of all the new games coming out.

The only thing with NWN, is that servers are NOT hosted by the developers. They're hosted by other players. So your gaming experience will differ a LOT depending on the server you play at.

But for example, the server I played at for 2 years, had a strict policy: as a new player you had to join the forum first, write a short history, background, description of your character, then as soon as the character got approved by a DM you got the password.

The problems with 1337 kids, did not exist in that mod.

[jamahara]

Guild Wars and Shadowbane are two reasons.

Get power leveled by your friends on Shadowbane (join my guild XD if youre on it), meaning you sit about all day, doing nothing, and your friend kills high level monsters (long as he's a high level) and gets you free xp. Thats right, you get the same chunk of xp from not even touching them, as if you did touch em. Very very very fast levels. I got 40 levels in one day 0_o And i had a few hours break between each levelling session.

Guild Wars, the game is levelled out for all the roleplayers, and PVP'ers. If you wanna go PVP, you get given a player who's fixed at level 20, youre given a certain amounts of points to spend on stats, and a tonne of skills to choose from, plus equipment. And Roleplayers are stuck with certain level people, so all the level 10- people are stuck in one world, while people at level 10 take a mission which puts them into a different world, like say some enemy warband destroys the capital, then a new age begins, and youre all the same level, and you can team up and go out and do quests and all that.

Shadowbane also has that questing nature, but its mostly stuck on baning, which is slang for a siege on another Guild's HQ, and the baning has gotten VERY active of late, VERY. My guild lost a bane, coz we had so many people (2000+) and we all crashed . The roleplay is also open-ended, you dont talk to some convieniently placed NPC in a safe town, and then get given a quest. You gotta stalk the world map (its fucking huge, and i mean HUGE) and search the forests and caves for people, looking for help defeating something, or recovering lost treasure in an aincent tomb or something like that. Much coolness.

And WoW totally sucks anyway. Cartoony Minotaurs? Dont think so, BLIZZARD >.<