Playing WoW - the Brutal Approach

[BlueCross]

After burning out (rather quickly, I might add) on LOTRO, I jumped back into WoW, and have (surprisingly!) enjoyed it.  I'm also looking forward to the Mists of Pandoria (monk!   Pandas!   ).

As I was browsing through various forums, I found this gem (link listed below).  THIS is what I really don't like about WoW; guys who min/max everything, gear is everything, no tolerance, etc.  Granted, he's probably a great player, 'knows' the fights, etc.  but sheesh... I'm sure if I grouped with him I'd be booted in less than 12 seconds after telling my first Marx Brothers joke.

Blog about gearing up but seems more about how to manage /kick

Just curious; are any WoW players/former WoW players here that were more interested in gear and power rather than just enjoying the journey?  Or is that the journey for you?

[Hatchetman]

Greedy Goblin takes elitism to a bizarre place, because it's not rooted in his ability to actually play the game. Years ago he actually came up with a term to denote the bulk of the warcraft playerbase; M&S. Morons and slackers. A lot of his gameplay revolves around buying his way through things. And he can, because everywhere he goes he absolutely takes over, dominates and controls economies. He basically considers anyone who can't pay for anything at the drop of a hat to be second rate.

He promotes behavior that can get your account actioned (It doesn't take long on the battleground forum to run across a post from someone complaining they were suspended or banned because of repeated afk reports in battlegrounds in which they "weren't afk"), which he denies, or says "isn't against the ToS" even though it's frequently against code of conduct, and is entirely hypocritical. Feel free to idle in battlegrounds, but take over a raid and kick anyone who isn't carrying you hard enough.

That said; Warcraft is a gear-driven game. Basically all MMO's that get content patches are. New content, new gear grind.

[Thanatos]

I mean, I have to respond with "Can't it be both?" 

You know, I was gonna type a bunch of bullshit, but here's what it comes down to.  WoW is a social environment with challenges.  I want to beat the challenges because I like overcoming challenges; I would like to group up with people who are also interested in beating challenges when I am doing that.  If I am grouping with people who feel the same way I do, then friendly competition ensues.  When I am not trying accomplish things just for the hell of it, all I care about is having a good time.  The term for people who only care about internet points was "munchkin" a decade ago.  Munchkins have a lot more pull now, but they still kinda suck.

Honestly, Blue, WoW is just like the real world.  There are a lot of douchebags who will try to convince you that everything is terrible, but it really doesn't have to be that way!

[KMD]

   I have a question BC (or anyone else)

   I have never played WoW, thought about it sometimes, but generally decided that I didn't have the time/interest.
I've heard the bad about how repetitive it is etc, but the good aspects of it people don't really talk about. I guess its something that just needs to be experienced. I've even tried a week trial (I played for about an hour and got bored slaying rabbits) to try to see. But it's still hard to understand how people could get so enveloped.

   So could someone tell me, in a few sentences or so, what WoW is and why its so great/bad? I say that because although I still have a curiosity to try it, doubtful that It would be the same experience as it was in the prime. Keep in mind I've played a lot of videogames but no MMOs. Thanks.

[BlueCross]

   So could someone tell me, in a few sentences or so, what WoW is and why its so great/bad? I say that because although I still have a curiosity to try it, doubtful that It would be the same experience as it was in the prime. Keep in mind I've played a lot of videogames but no MMOs. Thanks.

Yow!  Probably not in a few sentences, but I'll give it a shot.

Preemptive strike: it took me three (!) times to start WoW before I finally got hooked.  The first time, the graphics just looked too loony for me; ironically, now I find it is the graphics (loony as they are) is what brings me back.  The second time, I was just overcome by the mechanics, terminology and weird social mechanics.  So I gave up again.  The third time I 'tried harder', and what I found, I liked.

But what I like is not what most players like.  I love leveling; I love making new characters; I love making 'themed' characters (I have one 'personal' guild <Greybeards> that is composed of 9 Dwarves (different classes);  I have another one just made: Goblin guild (to be named) of 8 different classes,

I love the different professions (fishing!).

WoW is so much more mature (meaning 'developed and polished') than other MMOs I play.  Grammar and spelling are impeccable (and that is way important for me).

I love the variety in scenery, the variety in skill sets, the variety in the different towns and capitols.

It seems there is always something I want to do somewhere (well... I do have 40 alts...  *cough*)

Even the stuff I don't like, such as idiots spamming trade, I end up liking because I love insulting those people in ways they cannot comprehend.  And when they shut up, I know I 'won' .

I hate the following phrases:
"must be geared"
"cheaper than AH!"

I hate... no, let me rephrase that...  I HATE fricking Gold Spammers!  I HATES 'EM, I TELLS YA, I HATES 'EM!!!


So... what should I name my Goblin Guild?  Here are some potential names:

<Beneviolence>
<The Downsized Cartel>   (Galliwix quote)
<The Philanthropic Cartel>

special prize to person if I use their suggestion...

[Hatchetman]

But what I like is not what most players like.  I love leveling; I love making new characters; I love making 'themed' characters (I have one 'personal' guild <Greybeards> that is composed of 9 Dwarves (different classes);  I have another one just made: Goblin guild (to be named) of 8 different classes

One of the guys in my guild started a pacifist toon a few days ago. He's already level 21, has herbalism at 205 and mining at 147.

His armory statistics say he's inflicted a total of 82 damage.

[BlueCross]

But what I like is not what most players like.  I love leveling; I love making new characters; I love making 'themed' characters (I have one 'personal' guild <Greybeards> that is composed of 9 Dwarves (different classes);  I have another one just made: Goblin guild (to be named) of 8 different classes

One of the guys in my guild started a pacifist toon a few days ago. He's already level 21, has herbalism at 205 and mining at 147.

His armory statistics say he's inflicted a total of 82 damage.

Yeh, I really like these kind of challenges.  I have (or have had) some of the following:
Pacifist - 0 kills (no current active one right now; last one had 'Fear of Flying' - never took a Flight Path!)
Immortal - no deaths (highest I've got is 21 when I got ganked by a stealthed Rogue when I was running from the Inn to the Flight Point)

Perhaps a Super Special is in order:
Pacifist + Immortal + Fear of Flying

Any other restrictions we should add (that wouldn't be outrageously debilitating)?

Perhaps:
-Super Solo: no alts of same faction on same server
-On PvP server (where opposite faction hugely outnumbers your faction,  such as Alliance on Illidan where Ally population is 1700 to Horde's 44,000, at least according to http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php )

[KMD]

   So could someone tell me, in a few sentences or so, what WoW is and why its so great/bad? I say that because although I still have a curiosity to try it, doubtful that It would be the same experience as it was in the prime. Keep in mind I've played a lot of videogames but no MMOs. Thanks.

But what I like is not what most players like.  I love leveling; I love making new characters; I love making 'themed' characters (I have one 'personal' guild <Greybeards> that is composed of 9 Dwarves (different classes);  I have another one just made: Goblin guild (to be named) of 8 different classes,

I love the different professions (fishing!).

So, you have guilds composed of just your own characters and you can fish in the game??

On second thought maybe I'll stick with RL. 

but thanks

Edit: I really like the graphics style. It strikes a balance between looking fairly nice without trying too hard to be realistic. And in all honesty, I get tired of grinding so if I did play WoW I would probably spend most of my time exploring the world.

[BlueCross]

Edit: I really like the graphics style. It strikes a balance between looking fairly nice without trying too hard to be realistic. And in all honesty, I get tired of grinding so if I did play WoW I would probably spend most of my time exploring the world.

Something for you

[Hatchetman]

This is me, my main, so you have an idea the perspective I play from.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dalaran/cayse/simple

When it was just vanilla warcraft, I really just wasn't super into it. I started and quit a few times. The game was honestly not good, if you weren't raiding. I didn't start really playing until the original two people I was playing with quit, and I met up with people from my highschool/university D&D group. They were in an Alliance MC/BWL feeder guild on Stormreaver, when Burning Crusade launched we all rerolled as Horde.

My guild is a number of RL friend clusters, which is both a good and a bad thing. We've perpetually been at the almost-there level. We just get into heroic content and find that the tier is coming to a close. We just get to 2100 pvp ratings and can't quite get that 2200 wall. We have people who constantly want to do more, and every time we try, we have our RL friends who just aren't quite into it wanting to slow down.

So we're full of people who have a ton of achievement points. We've dug up everything, fished everything, we know every inch of our toons... and are kind of annoyed by people who don't. And continually can't say anything about it, because they get mad.

But every one of those people in my guild who are like me, right now we're stuck in a "what now?" situation, and we have been for a while, especially with a number of our better players having left for Old Republic. A lot of our game play has come down to "what can I solo?" and Blizzard really seems to go out of their way to stop that, but there isn't anything left in the game for a lot of people, and they really don't care. They don't want soloists.

[BlueCross]

This is me, my main, so you have an idea the perspective I play from.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dalaran/cayse/simple

A Belf Retadin??  How2008...

(that wuz a joke)

They don't want soloists.

Damn their eyes!  I'll solo anyway!!

[Hatchetman]

Two of my paladins are double ret blood elves!

A lot of their new content, especially the holiday content, is designed specifically to "not" be soloable. A number of cheese specs can still do it. Their plans for dealing with item inflation in the future will also pretty much stomp directly on a lot of people's ability to solo older content. That's a great deal of my play time. A lot of people (especially on the achievement forums) view that as a severe failure by Blizzard.

Even as a mid-content raider, I do very little actual raiding. I generally label myself as a raider, even though in any given week I'll have spent at least double the amount of time in battlegrounds as I spent on current raid content, and at least as much time solo in older raids or instances chasing one thing or another.

[BlueCross]

I guess I must be the ultimate soloist.  I've playing WoW for...  maybe four years now, not really sure... and I've been on... two Raids?  At most.

I rarely pug (sometimes not at all in a given month); the only reason I would pug now is to get the random goodie.  I rarely join Guilds (except for my own vanity/bank guilds).    And for some reason, I've never liked BGs...  too much confusion, too much qq'ing.  And I've never done an Arena.

So at least the answer  to "Are you geared?" in my case is very obvious:  I fall down and laugh hysterically, and then start sobbing uncontrollably.

[Hatchetman]

About six months before Burning Crusade, I got fully into the gear hamster wheel... Every tier, every season.

Guilds are fine, you just have to be careful the guild you're looking for is the guild that's actually interested in the things you are. I don't think there's a better guild for someone who's as completely almost-motivated as I am.

[Solwyn]