Starting WoW for the first time

Celadore

Hey,
Just wondering is World of Warcraft a hard game to get into if I'm thinking of starting it now or would there be a better game that I should just go for instead considering?

Vicxas

The game used to be very unfriendly to get into.

Lately blizzard have made the entire starting game to about level 10 incredibly user friendly and focused on new players.

I would grab the free trial from the WoW website and see what you think.

Also. Just to make you aware, this game is an INSANE free time vortex.

Enjoy

Temptamperu

Guild Wars 2

shruikan2553

Theres a starter edition that you can download and is free. Lets you level up to 20 and has some restrictions but youll get a good idea what to expect from the game.

orchidsrpretty

It's very easy to get into now. And great fun to level new characters. Like most games end content way outstrips anything you will do on the way up, but there are plenty dungeons and raids to keep you going. It's easy enough now to get pretty decent gear also when you hit 90. Try the free trial you can change over if you think you like it. It goes up to level 20.

Canis Lupus

Welcome to the end of this year. You should emerge sometime around xmas blinking at the light wondering where it all went.

I recommend rolling a hunter as your first char

Glebee

I remember the first time I started WOW. It scale completely blew me away. Don't think I played another game for maybe a year or more. Gave up soon after starting Mist of Pandaria expansion. I got bored I guess. But defo get stuck into WOW if you can spare the time.

Skerries

do you still have to walk back to your body as a ghost when you are killed? I hated that

ShadowHearth

Give trial a go. Nothing to lose.

I played for years wow and loved it. I got pandaria expansion and did not even got to level 90. I just burned out of it and I still think that flying mount with dungeon finder destroyed any sense of massive and awesome world it once was before.

Shiminay

I play Star Wars before WoW and thought personally thought WoW was awful in comparison. It looks it's age, having to read masses of text instead of having the NPC's all voiced like SWTOR was just a better experience for me (as someone who had never played any MMOs before).

Plus Lightsabres!

Celadore

I'll definitely give the trial a go. Most hours I've put into a game in one run through has been 180hrs in Skyrim but I'm guessing this is gonna be a whole other story. That's why I think I haven't been playing it already. When I get into a game, I really get into it.

So you think definitely should start as a hunter? Or any other suggestions?

shruikan2553

Hunter is good for new people. The trial doesnt have a time limit so you can try out a few classes that look interesting to you, get an idea of how they work then can continue to level them when you start paying.

Gummy Panda

It's so newbie friendly now you'll have a blast. Realm connections means most realms feel really busy. The only thing I don't like is you'll miss the original deadlines with the awesome Mr Smith.

Questing is massively better now with awesome quest chains like the csi one in westfall or Rambo in redridge

Spunge

Stop before its too late !

Celadore

My brother is strongly advising me to play Final fantasy online instead of WoW now. Anyone played it?? Is it any good, better, totally different?

Lol, ya I'm wondering if I'm going to being signing my life away if I start. Get really into games I like.

Status Offline

Celadore wrote: »

My brother is strongly advising me to play Final fantasy online instead of WoW now. Anyone played it?? Is it any good, better, totally different?

Lol, ya I'm wondering if I'm going to being signing my life away if I start. Get really into games I like.

As others have said, WOW is free to try, so you have nothing to lose by trying it. It's hard to recommend one over the other as it's hard to say what you'll like about either one if you have no experience with MMO's.
I recently went back playing WOW after a 6 year break and I'm loving it at the mo'. I've played Guild Wars, Final Fantasy and a few other MMO's but as good as they all are in their own right, there is something about WOW that feels special. I'm not sure what it is , maybe it's because it was the first MMO I got in to , so I'll always have a fondness for it.
Final Fantasy is great , so which ever one you decide , it's win ,win. But nothing to be lost trying WOW's trial, you might find you hate it but at least you won't be after forking out money to discover that.

Celadore

@Status Offline

Well ya you're right, can't do any harm to try the trial version and see how I get on and then go from there.

Celadore

Lol, just thinking how funny it is being a newbie again at something game related. Being playing games since I was 6 but this will be my first mmo. It's always been consoles for me and now I'm delving into the unknown.

orchidsrpretty

Good luck you won't regret it! Hunter is probably easiest as your pet will take most of your damage. If you can join a level 25 guild on the trail do it, as you will get some gold and Xp boosts.

KilOit

I'd recommend WoW over all other MMO's
I won't play it again myself but got some great years playing it, i envy people only getting to play it now.

Magill

By far the best MMO around imo. At this stage its just so polished and full of content... very "newbie" friendly as well as having enough depth to keep you entertained for a long time.

Grimebox

I'm going to go against the grain here...

Don't do it. MMORPG's are the biggest waste of time going. As genre, I do not recommend them to anyone. They are designed to addict players.

nesf

Grimebox wrote: »

I'm going to go against the grain here...

Don't do it. MMORPG's are the biggest waste of time going. As genre, I do not recommend them to anyone. They are designed to addict players.

Nah, single player Farmville type games win "biggest wastes of time going" awards, at least in MMOs you can talk **** with people and have a social element. Most games are designed to "addict" you, well, designed to drip feed you positive feedback that keeps you playing, MMOs are more cynical about this than others but it exists in most genres really. The issue with MMOs I think is the social element, it can become the main or only social outlet for a person and this isn't healthy! It's the mix of constant "1 more turn/kill/whatever" with the social side and the competitive side that makes MMOs so "addictive" for people (I'm using scare quotes because whilst I do believe that people can become addicted to these games this is a far cry from the mere "overplaying" that many people seem to think addiction is (as opposed to unemployed and happy about it because it means more time for EVE or whatever that I've seen).

TheDoc

Enjoy it! I'd love to get that feeling back of first time playing WoW. It was an amazing feeling when I first logged in and roaming the world, incredible stuff.

Your making a good choice, WoW wipes the floor with everything else in my opinion, I really don't think there is a debate.

Some other games have a good stab at doing SOMETHING particularly well, but then flounder a tthe rest of it. WoW does pretty much everything excellent, be it PvP, PvE, Gold Making via Economy play, solo play and loads more.

The trial should give you a good indication of wether youd be into it or not, and then remember the game itself doesnt even really start until you hit max level (Although as a new plyer, the levelling experience will be pretty good and enjoyable)

TheDoc

Shiminay wrote: »

I play Star Wars before WoW and thought personally thought WoW was awful in comparison. It looks it's age, having to read masses of text instead of having the NPC's all voiced like SWTOR was just a better experience for me (as someone who had never played any MMOs before).

Plus Lightsabres!

I noticed that with my mates. The guys who never played WoW but got SWTOR and then played WoW, stuck with SWTOR.

The guys who came from WoW, left SWTOR pretty quickly.

I was as pumped as anyone for Star Wars, didn't help most of my friends went to work for them in Galway and I was just getting a constant feed of Star wars.

Such a disappointing game that pretty much shattered my trust and love for bioware : /

Glebee

Same here. Got fed up of wow and tried prity much every other mmo. Nothing came close to the enjoyment got from wow. Enjoyed Star Wars but gave up because it just was not wow.

MadYaker

If you have a tendancy to get addicted or hooked on certain games id probably reconsider. I've purposely avoided WoW for this reason. I know that if I started playing id find it very difficult to stop and other aspects of my life would suffer as a result of all the hours id be wasting on this. Some people can log in, play for an hour or two and then log out but I know id just get totally sucked in so I stay away.

Battleflag

Elder Scrolls Online is coming out in a few days, played the beta and really enjoyed it. Looks a lot better than wow too

Celadore

Battleflag wrote: »

Elder Scrolls Online is coming out in a few days, played the beta and really enjoyed it. Looks a lot better than wow too

Saw the trailer today, looks pretty cool.

wayne040576

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

nesf

wayne040576 wrote: »

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

Yeah, I tried Quake and to be honest I got bored with mousing over a target and then clicking. Sure you could move around a bit with WSAD but I just couldn't really see the appeal of these more fast paced point and click adventures. People told me that multiplayer would change things but, eh, frantically hitting spacebar loads didn't change much for me.

Maybe I missed something.

A Neurotic

wayne040576 wrote: »

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

+1. I had a moderately enjoyable time playing as a druid but the quests are so repetitive I quickly got bored of it.

TheDoc

Battleflag wrote: »

Elder Scrolls Online is coming out in a few days, played the beta and really enjoyed it. Looks a lot better than wow too

:O

General consensus is that game is a massive bag of rubbish and bugs, and is nowhere near ready for a full release( scheduled in three days)

I'd be VERY weary of going near that title......

I tried the first wave Beta and uninstalled it pretty quickly, was an absolute mess. Is the latest beta more stable?

gaynorvader

wayne040576 wrote: »

I played Wow for the first time last year. The GF asked me to try it because she had been playing it for years. I gave it a few months. Bored the bejesus out of me.
Kill ten x by pressing 1, sometimes 2 and then 3. In a few levels you'll get to press 4 and 5. Repeat for 80 levels.
Now do the same for ten y followed by gathering 10 x pelts.
I kept getting told it would be better when we did the dungeons. It wasn't, especially when we started repeating the same dungeons on a daily basis. I also tried PvP which seemed to be a bunch of people jumping around pressing 1,2,3 and 4.
I dunno. Maybe I missed something.

I agree, I'm in the same boat, picked it up for the first time last year.
For the greybeards advising that it's easier to get into now, it's still far from easy. There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there. Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking up wikis. There's very little class customisation before the maximum level. You get most of your skills automatically at certain levels. Every 10th level or so you'll get to pick a speciality which you can change.
Honestly, I'd rate WoW as one of the worse MMOs I've played and I regret paying for it. I'd definitely advise having a look at SWTOR. I also enjoyed DDO though it's very different. The Elder Scrolls MMO is out soon and it's supposed to be good (or at least, the main criticism I've heard is it's just like Skyrim online).
Try the trial, maybe you'll be one of the many people that love WoW.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there. Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking up wikis.

Be happy you missed the early days, be very, very happy.

mayordenis

gaynorvader wrote: »

For the greybeards advising that it's easier to get into now, it's still far from easy. There's no clear indication where to go most of the time, you're expected to know where everything is and how to get there.

I have to disagree, if you read any quest description it will tell you where to go, the only issue is a mixture of impatience, dropping quests or not reading the quest text other than that it will daisy chain you from quest hub to quest hub.

gaynorvader

mayordenis wrote: »

I have to disagree, if you read any quest description it will tell you where to go, the only issue is a mixture of impatience, dropping quests or not reading the quest text other than that it will daisy chain you from quest hub to quest hub.

I encountered a lot of "Go to [Town Name] and talk to [NPC name]". Often this would require me getting a boat or something. Not to mention trying to find the NPCs in some of the huge cities is a task in and of itself. I always read the quest text in detail before consulting a wiki.

mayordenis

Maybe I'm just remembering it as more seemless than it was, but normally you'll get some 'Person X north east of Y, in the Z district' etc. etc.

But sure it has been a while so I could well be wrong.

Shanotheslayer

I havn't played since WOTLK got bored. Then computer broke havn't had one since. But ****ing hell do I miss WOW. Not sure what it's like now but a great game. i put hundreds of hours into it. Still stay in contact with old friends to date!

gaynorvader

mayordenis wrote: »

Maybe I'm just remembering it as more seemless than it was, but normally you'll get some 'Person X north east of Y, in the Z district' etc. etc.

But sure it has been a while so I could well be wrong.

Occasionally did get the district, but still wasn't a huge amount of help in the larger cities (particularly the Drenai one)

ShadowHearth

Jaysus, people still moan about wow being hard to get in to and too complicated? The only thing that's left to do for them to make it easier is to make a button, which you press and your character just does everything on autopilot so you can just sit down and watch it.

I don't really understand the " it's a waste of time, don't play it". Like gaming in general is a productive time spending...
It's a game, go play it, if you don't like, don't play it. I played it for years and I have not played for ages. Bought last expansion and got only 2 levels and closed my wow carrier. I played that game for 5-6 years. And even if I am not playing it anymore I don't see it as a wasted time. I had fun and if I could, I would do it again.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Jaysus, people still moan about wow being hard to get in to and too complicated? The only thing that's left to do for them to make it easier is to make a button, which you press and your character just does everything on autopilot so you can just sit down and watch it.

I don't really understand the " it's a waste of time, don't play it". Like gaming in general is a productive time spending...
It's a game, go play it, if you don't like, don't play it. I played it for years and I have not played for ages. Bought last expansion and got only 2 levels and closed my wow carrier. I played that game for 5-6 years. And even if I am not playing it anymore I don't see it as a wasted time. I had fun and if I could, I would do it again.

Not moaning, just warning that you need to be prepared to look up wikis as it's not obvious where stuff is. Also, recently they removed the skill tree and replaced it with talents which massively limits character customisation in earlier levels.

I don't think the opinions of people that are very familiar with the game and have been playing it for years are all that useful to a new player as you're going to have a very different perspective and did your initial exploring in a different game world. One thing that I'm told is much easier is dungeon queuing, which is mostly automated now.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

I encountered a lot of "Go to [Town Name] and talk to [NPC name]". Often this would require me getting a boat or something. Not to mention trying to find the NPCs in some of the huge cities is a task in and of itself. I always read the quest text in detail before consulting a wiki.

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

ShadowHearth

nesf wrote: »

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

I would kill for that exploration sense I had in vanilla wow. Just exploring woods and finding shadow fang keep for the first time. Then finding another 3 people and trying to explore that place. Yes, I said another 3, because we had no clue about tank, dps and healer setup. We learned it in there by common sense. Spent 2 hours in that dungeon, died so many times. Was it stupid? Yes. Was it fun? HELL YEAH!

gaynorvader

nesf wrote: »

Part of an MMO is supposed to be about exploration and finding stuff on your own. I'm as guilty as anyone of using addons to help me find objectives quicker but you're kind of complaining about a design element of an MMO there. There's a reason why the term "walking simulator" is applied in quite a serious way to them.

That's a new one to me. I know that it's certainly part of WoW, but I never thought it an intrinsic part of all MMOs. I understand that exploring is fun, but there's a limit. Especially pre mount when it takes a long time to get anywhere. Plus it's frustrating walking around a town looking for an NPC only to find out he was standing above you the whole time.
Again, maybe it's just me and wayne that WoW isn't suited for. That's why I encouraged the OP to try the trial.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I would kill for that exploration sense I had in vanilla wow. Just exploring woods and finding shadow fang keep for the first time. Then finding another 3 people and trying to explore that place. Yes, I said another 3, because we had no clue about tank, dps and healer setup. We learned it in there by common sense. Spent 2 hours in that dungeon, died so many times. Was it stupid? Yes. Was it fun? HELL YEAH!

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's a new one to me. I know that it's certainly part of WoW, but I never thought it an intrinsic part of all MMOs. I understand that exploring is fun, but there's a limit. Especially pre mount when it takes a long time to get anywhere. Plus it's frustrating walking around a town looking for an NPC only to find out he was standing above you the whole time.
Again, maybe it's just me and wayne that WoW isn't suited for. That's why I encouraged the OP to try the trial.

Well, did I say all MMOs? It's a fairly common design element in most of the older medieval type "questing" MMOs like Everquest and WoW. Part of the reason was to extend the playtime out a bit, it's a cheap way of giving "more content." Pretty much also why it's get 10 crisp basilisk livers from basiliks that have a 1 in 3 chance of dropping them and only 5 spawn at a particular location at a time not "go kill me 5 basiliks, and sure, do it in a group." It's fallen mostly out of favour in recent years, you can see this with WoW's quest helper stuff and Guild Wars 2's auto-quest mechanics that just grant and complete quests were you stand. Budgets have grown quite a lot though and they've better distilled that constant drip-feed of "dings" that seem to keep people playing.

I'm not defending this, just remarking that this is pretty normal in a Fantasy MMO and much, much better than it used to.

ShadowHearth

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

No **** m8... :pac:

Seriously, it changed a lot over the years. Game changed and people changed. I personally don't like how wow changed. A lot of the changes were made due to people bitching it being to hard to get in to, then others started to bitch how it caters to casuals and original fan base just got ignored. It got in to a mess it is now.
I can bet a lot of original players don't really like wow as they did before, but a new comers might really enjoy it as it is now, as they won't have the baggage we have.
By the way, I am one of those assholes who hates flying mounts and dungeon finder systems. Those 2 things completely destroyed the immersion of huge awesome world wow was. I bet most of people who grind dungeons don't even know where they are on map and whats the back story to a them.

nesf

gaynorvader wrote: »

That's gone now. If you go into a dungeon and don't know what you're doing you get yelled at for being a n00b and not knowing how to fight the boss, where to go, etc. Also there's no exploring for dungeons anymore, you just enter a queue, though I did wander around the map a fair bit looking for stuff like that.

You why I hated dungeon finder and looking for raid when they were introduced? The above. 5 mans and raids especially should be you and a group of mates. Preferably with teamspeak or similar. That way they're a ball of fun and even 5 new players can have a good time learning and then beating a dungeon. But toss together 5 people of random skill levels, temperaments and ages and you get a cluster****. Dungeon finder is fine if you're queuing as a premade or a tank, healer and 2 dps looking for a fifth, but going in solo can be a nightmare even if you know what you're doing.

It does make it easier for the "uber casuals" though, the ones who won't join guilds and want to play an MMO solo for some Godforsaken reason (really, I couldn't stomach any of these games without friends to play them with). Actually, I think it's the same with MOBAs, I don't get why anyone would put themselves through playing one of those solo all the time, that just sounds like hell to me.

gaynorvader

ShadowHearth wrote: »

No **** m8... :pac:

Seriously, it changed a lot over the years. Game changed and people changed. I personally don't like how wow changed. A lot of the changes were made due to people bitching it being to hard to get in to, then others started to bitch how it caters to casuals and original fan base just got ignored. It got in to a mess it is now.
I can bet a lot of original players don't really like wow as they did before, but a new comers might really enjoy it as it is now, as they won't have the baggage we have.
By the way, I am one of those assholes who hates flying mounts and dungeon finder systems. Those 2 things completely destroyed the immersion of huge awesome world wow was. I bet most of people who grind dungeons don't even know where they are on map and whats the back story to a them.

nesf wrote: »

You why I hated dungeon finder and looking for raid when they were introduced? The above. 5 mans and raids especially should be you and a group of mates. Preferably with teamspeak or similar. That way they're a ball of fun and even 5 new players can have a good time learning and then beating a dungeon. But toss together 5 people of random skill levels, temperaments and ages and you get a cluster****. Dungeon finder is fine if you're queuing as a premade or a tank, healer and 2 dps looking for a fifth, but going in solo can be a nightmare even if you know what you're doing.

It does make it easier for the "uber casuals" though, the ones who won't join guilds and want to play an MMO solo for some Godforsaken reason (really, I couldn't stomach any of these games without friends to play them with).

This is the kind of stuff I was getting at. Getting friends who haven't played before to play with you is good advice. Unfortunately I was playing with people who had played before and they mostly ran ahead while I was trying to figure out what was going on, so I started a solo character to get more of the experience but encountered the issues raised above.

Flying mounts are pretty awesome, but should definitely be end game content (I know it was originally, but maybe it should be pushed back again).

Speaking as someone who tried to pick it up recently, it's not fun at lower levels. Maybe with a group of friends. They also accelerated the levelling so you frequently have to skip past sections if you want to keep levelling (another reason I started playing solo). I think they've ruined it tbh, it might be great at level 80/90/whatever it is now, but I'll never know as it didn't get fun for me by level 54 and I'm not willing to keep paying for it in the hopes it'll get better.

ShadowHearth

I agree, if you don't have friends to start mmorpg with, then go and find a guild ASAP. Now active guild/community, not just a chat window for bored people.
I started wow as a solo player and ended up meeting people in game, that are my real life friends now. We don't even play wow anymore and we still on ventrilo daily playing other games.