Play FFXI instead. : )
Its on par with any game in the series short of the very best with more content than the entire rest of the series combined, with the only real differences being the silent protagonist and the greater gameplay emphasis (with a still considerable storyline emphasis) that forces you to cooperate with others to be able to progress.
WoW is actually addressing one of the concerns raised here: leveling to 85 in the expansion will be roughly as fast as 1-60 was in original WoW. They've also recently introduced much more intuitive queue systems for instances and battlegrounds to make leveling easier. Early and middle levels are rather clunky, and have suffered at the expense of making endgame fun. But leveling is much easier than it was even 6 months ago, before the new dungeon system and heirloom gear that speeds up alts ridiculously.
Grinding sucks, yes, but the vast, vast majority of time spent on any MMO will be at endgame. Is "I hate fetch quests" really enough reason to discard it, when I've spent the other 99% of my WoW time in endgame endeavors? For me it's "no." But I figure WoW is just the case study here because it's popular. If that's why someone doesn't play WoW, they really shouldn't be playing MMO's in general. It's not a criticism particular to just one game.
Anyway, I leveled through dungeons even before the new system. Questing is boring, so that's justifiable. But slowly learning my class while leveling in dungeons was fun as hell. The game allows you other options. You're not boned if you hate fetch and kill quests. Hell, my healer alt got faster queue times, and probably completed 20 quests from 1-80. I never quested, and it was fine.
Originally posted by Aede Madavan
Play FFXI instead. : )Its on par with any game in the series short of the very best with more content than the entire rest of the series combined, with the only real differences being the silent protagonist and the greater gameplay emphasis (with a still considerable storyline emphasis) that forces you to cooperate with others to be able to progress.
Or he can try one of the many, many free MMO's.
Lord of the Ring Online just went free, and Runes of Magic or Perfect World International are viable alternatives.. Mabinogi is just plain fun.
As long as you can overlook the "Free to play, pay to win" cash shop perks thing and you're not obsessed with being the top PvP player or something..
I'll also say this, the social aspect of any game is as awesome or worthless as you make it. Find yourself a great guild or group, and it's a lot of fun. There's also a lot of other things to get involved in: world events, PvP, etc. that include a fair amount of teamwork.
And then there's things like this:
YouTube video
...which is just the latest among a series of gigantic events that the hunter community has put on. I've helped organize and run a few of them, and this is the video I took from our most recent one. Granted, not everyone gets a chance to be a part of something like this, but it also represents the kind of collaborative awesomeness that isn't possible in a single player game.
P.S. set the vid to 480p under the screen. Much better quality.
Peach you saying that you don't like the gameplay of wow is like me saying saying I don't like a particular book after only reading the first few pages. The gameplay in wow first of all is much more then just killing NPC's that barely hurt you and using 4 different spells that are at your disposal.
Endgame wow cannot in anyway be compared to the first parts of the game.
For me personally the story which is quite decent in wow was never what kept me playing that game. It was all about the competition and rush of PVP. Arena and WSG (Capture the flag) and sometimes AB.
That was wow for me, Now for me the gameplay was the selling point. Having a team of good players that liked PvP as much as I did was just fantastic, when I liked wow and played it I dare say that was the most fun I've had in gaming ever. In that sense the game was also a strategy game. We would meet other teams in say WSG and no team played exactly the same, so you had to change tactic everytime, ofc we had our basic tactic which we started with, but then had to adapt if it did not work, or even if 2 people died at start because of a good opponent team.
And having 2 enemy flag captures when they had 2 captures of ours and both teams had enemy flag in their base, and the attack waves started. wow... THAT was fun, infact that specific sceneario was the best and most thrilling experiance I've ever had in a game.
Who would die first, Win or loose! Happily for us we won 99% of the games. But some were VERY hard, and those were the most fun, specially the feeling of winning such teams. That was what it was all about for me, gathering my super good team of players and winning all the other teams.
And the early seasons of arena wow. That was good gameplay no matter which way you turn it, as long as you like a competiton. And after awhile you know all the other good players on the server, and at that point it was really fun, everyone wanted to join my team, and I'd take the best players that were online and we would play against other people, some which we've met in arena and if it was a good rival arena team, the WSG game sometimes lasted over an hour.
Our server was just great I am very thankful for that, so many good players, and sometimes I'd be lucky and I could make that perfect team of players and we would all be excited to see how good we would do, sometimes we would win better geared teams in only a matter of minutes and then we would laugh about it.
We had a great battlegroup aswell with 18 servers in it, so the competition in arena was very good. season 1 we got to top 5 in all 3 brackets, that took hard work, infact it felt more like a sport then a game, thats how serious we took that first season hehe.
hehe I get carried away sometimes when I talk about those fun times in wow. But as with most games they do get boring after awhile... But it was fun.
I had it like Peach aswell when I got the game in May 2005. played a little stopped, played a little more, and then stopped. It took me 8 months or so to finally get level 60. And that only happened because I met people in the game that were fun and I enjoyed playing with, without the sosial aspect of the game, getting to level 60 would have been impossible for me.
Originally posted by PeachYour first point is a silly one. Every game has different learning and appreciation curves If you don't like a game instantly there is always the chance that if you give it a real go you will. You just strike me as stubborn and impatient.
You really don't need to get far into a game to decide that you dislike the way it plays and the way the mechanics work.And no thanks. A game has to seriously wow me for me to consider paying a monthly fee, and as I'm not a superhero fan anyway, CoH/V/R has never interested me at all.
I'm not saying that you should like WoW (although if you like GW there is no reason not to) but to judge and bash it without actually giving it a fair whack is just lazy.
Originally posted by §P0oONYThat is actually a very fair point.
Your first point is a silly one. Every game has different learning and appreciation curves If you don't like a game instantly there is always the chance that if you give it a real go you will. You just strike me as stubborn and impatient.
ANY medium, be it videogames, literature, movies, etc., if it is unable to grab you and pique your interest early on, then that is a very real flaw of the game, in this case.
A game should be able to captivate you from the beginning.
I tried out the game four different times. I gave it far more chances than I wanted to, but I have several friends that play and wanted me to try it. It is not remotely the style of game that I enjoy, or have ever enjoyed. And I have tried (more in-depth) other games that are functionally identical and greatly disliked them, so when I started WoW and saw that it was just like the other ones I tried out and didn't like...yeah. Traditional MMOs are simply not a style of game that I enjoy.
GW plays completely differently (it's not even considered an actual MMO by the developers) so yes, there are reasons why I'd enjoy that while not liking WoW.