[crAzerk]

because I've a friend in Frostmourne who is sponsoring me 2k gold and prob can rush me too? lol. Plus, can raid with him when (if) I hit 85

[Zanderax]

I'm up for it. I played WoW for a while but my low income prevented me.

[HDPhoenix]

Another SC2SEA buddy and I will be transferring to Frostmourne this week or next, actually. However, he wants to play Alliance so you'll kinda out of luck.

Speaking of the Cata end-game vs the last time I played WoW in TBC, I must say the graphics has improved tremendously. What impresses me the most is how unforgiving the dungeons are now. In TBC, dungeons would never kill you, much to the dismay of vanilla WoW players like myself. If you got shadowflamed in BWL, you're dead. In TBC, you just annoy the healer. I heard in WotLK, it was EVEN worse.

However, even in heroics and ZA/ZG (haven't had the time to do raids), if you're in the wrong spot, you're almost guaranteed to die and each boss has multiple mechanics rather than just 1 (in TBC, only raid bosses had multiple mechanics so it was nice to see even 5man bosses have them).

I'm a fresh 85, been so for about a month and already I'm half-epiced on my pve prot paladin and about 1/4 epiced on my pvp holy paladin gearset. Personally, its the most fun I had in WoW, even topping the challenge and fun I had in vanilla. I can't wait for my friend to transfer to Frostmourne so we can Arena ^_^

[Dox]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

@Dox

Heh I read that the Quest system has a 'auto-walk' function which just brings you to the area for the Quest. I'll prob use that all the time cos I'm lazy.

Yep, for all the quests in the game, you can simply click the objective or the questgiver in the tracker and your character will automatically walk to them. It's really handy, I play it when I'm watching GSL as it doesn't demand much of my attention.

However, I am not such a person. Even back when it was WotLK and vanilla-WoW players were already complaining about how dumb everything had become (I only started from Ulduar onwards, but I DID do the Naxx raids too of course, but not so much of vanilla) , I was still enjoying the game and had no idea what people were complaining about.

People complain for the sake of complaining in that game... It's a very bitter community/atmosphere. Each expansion has progressively improved the game - WotLK included. Ulduar was an excellent raid, one of my favourites of all time. Cataclysm really improved the quality of the game tenfold. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I'm just saying FW is better.

I mean sure, the encounters may be easier and not very fresh for those who've been around forever, but it was still an enjoyable experience.

Don't listen to that "Vanilla was harder" bullshit. The only reason people think that rubbish is because:
1) Mods were not as widely developed, supported and infused within the community. There was no DBM/BigWigs/etc for a very long time. All we had was CTRaidAssist, so a lot of players were dependant on a (good) raid leader calling out all of the necessary timings and events. Once boss mods became mainstream, everything became marginally trivial. Most of the vanilla fights were simpler than some of the 5-man concepts you see today. Move out of fire, swap tanks, pick up the adds, dispel the debuff. Like 80% of the 1st tier of Cataclysm raids required an interrupt rotation of some sort. ~3 encounters in all of Vanilla WoW did. Just for the sake of comparison. :P There are only 2 reasons why people say things are "easier" these days.
1) Because those same concepts have been recycled dozens of times throughout each tier of content. This isn't the fault of the encounter design team - there's only so much you can do with the archaic game engine. It's impressive to see some of the stuff they've managed to do with it. But when you spend 4 years moving out of fires, you sure as hell would hope it's easier.
2) People love to flex that epeen.

I will probably try it too as suggested! Probably play it for a day or something. Are there different servers/allegiances or anything? Which one are you on?

There are different realms, yes, but they're all connected. I'm on LionHeart USWest ( Squall), Server 4 or something. PM me when you start playing it with your char names and stuff.

But yea, I don't see myself being awed by the cleaner interface or better stuff you mentioned, because my main focus is on end-game raid content.

I think it's something you need to experience firsthand before you can establish the comparison. The auto-quest travel is one of dozens of examples. You play WoW and spend like ******* 348340634 years travelling between destinations. You play FW and alt-tab while your character runs to the NPC. It's all about gameplay being more engaging for the player.

As System said, the game is brand new, there are barely any players at the level cap yet, so we have no idea how the endgame will develop. But considering their attention to detail with regards to every other aspect of the game, I'm confident they're gonna nail it.

The very first dungeon I did required me to interrupt the final boss every cooldown! For a comparison between the Interrupt abilities between WoW's Rogue and FW's Assassin, the Rogue merely requires you to pool half a bar of energy in anticipation, whilst the Assassin requires you to invest combo points as well. The interrupt management requires a little more forethought, which is nice.

[Dox]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

@Dox and SYstem
I've been looking at more reviews, and many commented that it's very 'grindy'. Is that the case? :/
And they also commented that it's quite dependent on the Cash Shop where you have to pay money to get stuff. So basically you'll be severely outclassed by people who actually spent money on the game, regardless of skill . :S

I haven't experienced anything grindy yet. To be honest, it's been a pleasantly surprising contrast. There's none of this stupid bullshit where you have to kill 50 Murlocs to get 1 Murloc eye. All questing is very straightforward and simple. To be honest, the daily quest and random luck quest system is ******* fantastic. (Chance when doing dailies to be rewarded with a Dungeon Daily quest for like 10x XP)

As for the cash shop, the only things I've seen on there are aesthetic. Like REALLY ******* awesome outfits, wings, mounts, shit like that. There's this one outfit that I've seriously contemplated buying ($6) cos it just looks so goddamn awesome. And that leads on to another thing I appreciate about the game. You can equip two sets at once and choose which one you want to display. Your gear set, or just a fashion set. Either way, it has no impact on your stats, but you can look as cool as you want when you're doing raids/arena rather than being forced to look like a gimp because the circumstance demands shit looking gear. A minor touch, but I'm a fan.

[crAzerk]

@zanderax drop me a PM with your MSN or email details, I'll be emailing some more specific questions to those who were interested.

@HDPhoenix aww man! ask him to consider horde! heh.
And yea WOTLK dungeons were pretty easy, are pretty much for you to do dailies and whatnot.
Even the raids were pretty easy, just that heroic modes stepped it up a notch (which according to Blizz was how they intended it to be, they wanted the general raid content to be accessible for casuals, but challenging for hardcore raiders)
And yup I heard the dungeons/raids were more unforgiving now, which is precisely why I wanted to check it out again

But.. one month and only half epicced on PROT pally?? Is loot harder to come by these days or something? Or do you play very rarely.
('prot' is capitalized because tanks generally get their loot due to less competition)

@Dox
I don't really care about anything else besides end-game content. I'm not a huge RPG fan who loves and enjoy the leveling/questing experience as much as you do.
Yes, FW can be >> WoW in all of these aspects, and so far all the positives you've been giving are related to questing/leveling/instancing.

Simply put, all these are irrelevant to me; If I were rich I'd just buy a level 85 account and play from there, as end-game content is all I care about. I'm a simplistic player. :/

But still, I thank you for your effort to explain and promote the game Appreciate it.

[Dox]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

@Dox
I don't really care about anything else besides end-game content. I'm not a huge RPG fan who loves and enjoy the leveling/questing experience as much as you do.

Not sure where that interpretation came from but anyway!!

As for your comment to Phoenix re: 1month/half epic, it is surprising. I managed to get my Prot Pally alt in full ilvl 346 gear (Heroic blues, min requirement for raids) within 2 days of hitting 85, and picked up ~8 epics in PUG raids the same week. Would have been completely decked within another 2 weeks with badge gear filling any necessary gaps.

Still, it takes a lot longer to get your hands on purples than WotLK. Grinding badge & Baradin gear will only fill out half of your slots, and with the 10/25 raids sharing the same lockout, you have less options as well. It's actually pretty goddamn painful if you're not a Tank or a Healer.

[nard]

imo just pay for char transfer

[crAzerk]

I don't have a character to transfer, sold my previous account for .. quite a bit

@Dox
Haha I don't know, you seemed to appreciate the gameplay aspect of the game (particularly questing, leveling, mechanics etc (not endgame stuff)) alot and the way you talked about it sounded like it

Oh shoots, they share lockout now? How retarded. Is there much to do apart from raiding? E.g. heroic instances that actually drop decent loot, etc.


For those interested please drop me a PM with your contact details, in particular, your email and/or MSN!

[Dox]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

How retarded. Is there much to do apart from raiding? E.g. heroic instances that actually drop decent loot, etc.

Heroics are mandatory now, you can't get into a raid without being pretty much fully kitted in 346+ gear first. You can get like one epic per 1-2 months if you were to stick exclusively to doing the daily random heroic every day.

Aside from that, I hear they recently revived ZG/ZA as heroic dungeons, which are a tier above the rest of the regular Heroics (in terms of difficulty and loot). There is plenty to do apart from raiding. Again, lots of mandatory dailies and faction grinds in order to get the appropriate shoulder/helm enchants. Some of the BIS pre-raid gear also comes from faction grinding.

Once you're fully kitted in 346+ gear and have all of your Cata factions at exalted, then nope, there isn't really much to do besides grind Baradin tokens, raid and do the daily random heroic. ((There's always PvP/Arena too, if you're into that.))

[Meatex]

For good mmo TERA is awesome
though not out anywhere except Korea
It lets me play and feel like i'm also improving my korean

[HDPhoenix]

@CzAzerk: Epics aren't free anymore. Heroics only give blues, with the latest 5mans (the remade ZG/ZA, which I immensely enjoy) giving the lowest tier of epics. And as Dox said, its geared such that you MUST do heroics to get the minimal gear for raids. Epics are for raids only. I tried to do a BH raid (its like the Wintergrasp open dungeon) in ilvl 350 gear and I basically got my arse handed to me and booted from the raid for "being a scrub" even thou I avoided all the mechanics. I just wasn't geared enough.

I'll ask if he wants to play horde cause he is horde currently and wanted to play Worgen. Frankly, I'm continuing to play Alliance cause of the instant BG ques and if I'm inside, I very rarely lose (cause I'm a mofo spamming healbot ^_^). What class are you playing? I'm trying to set up a casual TSG style arena team (I play Holy Paladin, my friend plays Unholy DK and we are looking for a Arms Warrior, triple plate team). I'm not looking for Vicious Gladiator titles but Gladiator should be really doable if we play 2-3 hours a week

@Dox: I don't know if you played Vanilla but Vanilla was far more fun (read: challenging). Perhaps you didn't do AQ40 or the old Naxx but they were as unforgiving as shit. And the gear requirements, while a pain in the arse to acquire, forced 40 people to work together as a single unit. It was marvelous, if you got it right. I was on the premier raid guild on Warsong US, and I miss those times. So far, nothing since then compares to it, since they nerfed raid sizes to essentially 10. Its just very different. Also, the game was made far easier. Chromagus in BWL? 1 person missing a timing = wipe. Pre-nerfed Cthun? We had 3 raid leaders calling their various groups. OMG farking 4-horsemen in old Naxx was my favorite (and most challenging). I suppose I play WoW to "die", to be challenged. TBC and the little I tried to do in WotLK bored me to tears.

Needless to say, when I was tanking a "regular" 5man at 85, and I barely got hit by an ability and was surprised to see I took 90k dmg instant hit (of my then 110k hp) then instantly hit by an auto and died. That's what I'm looking for! If I'm an idiot, I should pay for it. To me, the threat that I could die if I screwed up made the game fun again.

My 2cents, anyways =) WoW is alot of fun

[HDPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Dox

Not sure where that interpretation came from but anyway!!

As for your comment to Phoenix re: 1month/half epic, it is surprising. I managed to get my Prot Pally alt in full ilvl 346 gear (Heroic blues, min requirement for raids) within 2 days of hitting 85, and picked up ~8 epics in PUG raids the same week. Would have been completely decked within another 2 weeks with badge gear filling any necessary gaps.

Still, it takes a lot longer to get your hands on purples than WotLK. Grinding badge & Baradin gear will only fill out half of your slots, and with the 10/25 raids sharing the same lockout, you have less options as well. It's actually pretty goddamn painful if you're not a Tank or a Healer.

I wished I had your time =). I barely complete the 7 ZA/ZG lock outs for valor badges and I had bad luck on the drops. T___T And the PvE is mainly to swap the points out for Conquest points since I mainly wish to PvP. No one wants to do simple arenas with a gear-less healer.

Having said that, I did manage to go 5-1 with a random hunter (who was also gearless, lulz) and got to 610 rating then he bailed and I never saw him again. WTB arena partner, pst..

[Dox]

Originally Posted by HDPhoenix

@Dox: I don't know if you played Vanilla but Vanilla was far more fun (read: challenging).

I already said (in great detail) that I played since Vanilla closed beta. :P
I was the raid leader and main tank for one of the top guilds on Blackrock Alliance (top 200 in the world throughout TBC and WotLK).

Perhaps you didn't do AQ40 or the old Naxx but they were as unforgiving as shit. And the gear requirements, while a pain in the arse to acquire, forced 40 people to work together as a single unit. It was marvelous, if you got it right.

AQ40 - C'thun was the only challenge in there. Huhuran was a retarded gold sink. C'thun was the first raid in WoW which actually required my guild to communicate on vent. (Calling out stomach %'s)
Cleared everything in Naxx except Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad due to guild burn out. (We spent waaaaay too much time on Viscidus and Ouro instead of finishing off Naxx)

As I said in one of my earlier posts, the only reason people regard Vanilla as so difficult is simply because information wasn't as readily available back then. People didn't know/care about optimal specs and optimal gear. Half the raid wasn't even using mods or hotkeys. People never bothered farming/using consumables. If you step back and look at it again without the rose coloured glasses, it's quite clear that the encounter mechanics were extremely simple. But people often went into them unprepared, whereas people take a much more rigid approach to raiding these days. Take fights like Thaddius for example. So goddamn simple. Yet there was always a few guys in the raid who would be mindlessly mashing Sinister Strike with Daggers equipped, maintaining 5% SnD uptime and wearing their Field Marshal's gear whilst ignoring their polarity completely.

I was on the premier raid guild on Warsong US, and I miss those times. So far, nothing since then compares to it, since they nerfed raid sizes to essentially 10.

Nothing compares to it because it's just the same experience over and over again! The new car smell has worn off and nothing matters anymore except gear and epeen.

Also, the game was made far easier. Chromagus in BWL? 1 person missing a timing = wipe. Pre-nerfed Cthun? We had 3 raid leaders calling their various groups. OMG farking 4-horsemen in old Naxx was my favorite (and most challenging). I suppose I play WoW to "die", to be challenged. TBC and the little I tried to do in WotLK bored me to tears.

Chrommagus was a joke, cmon now. That's nearly as bad as someone else using Nefarian's Shadowflame as a baseline for difficulty earlier in the thread. I mean come on! All you gotta do is wear a cloak and not stand in front of the dragon! If you want to talk about difficulty, try being a Warrior and tanking Tidewalker's adds in SSC or solo tanking Felmyst in Sunwell! That reminds me, pretty much all Warrior tanks in Vanilla were Arms spec. I was like the only guy who ever specced Prot lol. People had no idea what threat was back then!

I agree that Cataclysm's revitalised punishment for mistakes is a good thing though.

Originally Posted by HDPhoenix

I wished I had your time =). I barely complete the 7 ZA/ZG lock outs for valor badges and I had bad luck on the drops. T___T And the PvE is mainly to swap the points out for Conquest points since I mainly wish to PvP. No one wants to do simple arenas with a gear-less healer.

Having said that, I did manage to go 5-1 with a random hunter (who was also gearless, lulz) and got to 610 rating then he bailed and I never saw him again. WTB arena partner, pst..

I don't have any time, I quit raiding back in ICC and stopped playing altogether soon after Cataclysm came out.

[Dox]

That reminds me, my favourite part of the game was making stupid killshot screenshots and videos lol. My world first Steelbreaker10 video is still on the ftp!

[crAzerk]

@HD and Dox
I'm really enjoying your discussion but it is abit out of point to the original purpose of this thread. If you don't mind, perhaps we could discuss this on another thread? Thanks!

@HDPhoenix
Oh nvm then, I'm not a PVPer haha.

@Dox
Paragorn's world first ICC25m Heroic was epic! They uploaded a VoD of it, including ventscreams at the end and all

For those interested please drop me a PM with your contact details, in particular, your email and/or MSN!

[Dox]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

@Dox
Paragorn's world first ICC25m Heroic was epic! They uploaded a VoD of it, including ventscreams at the end and all

Yer my guild did the obligatory nerdscream on vent every time they'd kill a boss too. It was pretty embarassing to be honest. Like wow, we've slain some pixels, hurray! Anyone would think they just won the olympics.

[crAzerk]

I don't see how it's embarrassing! Downing a raid boss after weeks of wipes is ALWAYS satisfying and exhilarating and myvocabularyfailsme and I don't see how it's embarrassing! Haha. Heck, I'd shout in jubilation if I kill the top few raid bosses now.

It's even better than winning the olympics? Lol. Well ok it's quite different, but to give a similar comparison it's like a high jumper trying like 50 times to clear a pole and finally clearing it

For those interested (read the original post #1) please drop me a PM with your contact details, in particular, your email and/or MSN!

[HDPhoenix]

@Dox: Nice read Reading what you wrote was a good trip down memory lane. Perhaps I'm biased but your points are valid =)

@crAzerk: Sorry to derail your thread! Back on topic, why wouldnt you consider Alliance? If it is a fresh character, you wouldn't have the badges/valor for the heirlooms but if you come Alliance, I'll front you the cash for the guild heirlooms. Its like 3.5k but I have nearly 30k anyways. With the helm and cloak, it'll add another +15% experience gained to your speed, which if you look at it, will probably shave 6-10hours off your lvl 85 grind.

Frankly, since I mainly pvp, alliance has always been better since the Will of Forsaken nerf (their only good racial, really). I prefer shadowmeld from Nightelves for PvP but I always enjoyed Human for PvE. Having a "get-out-of-jail" PvP trinket built in, it is incredibly useful on certain fights. However, if you're just looking for looks, nothing beats Trolls ^____^

Good luck in your search!

[crAzerk]

Originally Posted by HDPhoenix

Sorry to derail your thread! Back on topic, why wouldnt you consider Alliance?

NP! I enjoyed reading all about vanilla/BC WoW, always do, since I've never played it :/

Well because my RL friend is playing on Horde and so if i hit 85 I can raid together with him! And you are a PVP-er anyway, so we wouldn't be playing much together even if I was Alliance
I appreciate the offer though! Real generous of you

And I'm totally clueless with all the guild xp guild achievements guild heirlooms or whatever was implemented in Cata. Have to get up to scratch again .....

For those interested (read the original post #1) please drop me a PM with your contact details, in particular, your email and/or MSN!