WoW: Vision Problems
How in the hell are you supposed to tell what's going on in this game?Any time you're anywhere near a group of players, you can't even figure out what the hell is going on.
Everybody's running and jumping, and then seven people ride past on horses that are either ghosts or on fire, and then hey, some guy rides past you on a snow tiger, even though the city you're in is located in a temperate or boreal climate, oh and then some guy with huge black/purple armor that is also on fire starts jumping all around you as he screams about how he wants to sell his [Epic Big Cool Thing I found], but he is way overpricing it, and then everyone shouts at him in the general chat and calls him an idiot, not that it even matters because there's no way in hell you could ever find that guy even if you wanted to which you don't.
Did you have trouble reading that?
That's what it's like to run through Stormwind.
Only with more shoulder pads.
LOTS of shoulder pads.
And what's with all the quests that ask you to go get 17 of something?
Hey, terrible bandits are attacking our farm. No, don't help us learn to fight. Bring us back 15 of their bandanas and we'll be fine.
That's an actual quest.
Now that I think about it, it's like 5 quests. Each time they just ask you for different numbers of bandanas.
One lady uses the bandanas to make you a red shirt with no stat enhancements on it.
You just killed dozens of people to get a red shirt.
After killing that many people, I'm pretty sure your shirt would be red anyway.
Honestly, the quest thing is driving me crazy. Every other person is handing you a laundry list of things to bring back to them.
Go find this guy and get a book. Then bring the book back to me. Then I'll have another message for the guy. You run it out to him. Then he'll send a thank you note. You carry that, too.
I'm sorry, but I don't remember choosing a Human Messenger when I rolled up my character.
I wouldn't even do the quests, but they give you so many exp points for them.
Yes, you get exp points for doing quests.
Hell, you get exp points for doing anything.
You can honestly just stumble through the woods and you're going to get exp.
There's a tower you haven't seen before.
700 exp points.
Oh, there's nothing in the tower.
But you found it.
Yes, sir. Good job.
You could probably get to level 20 just off tower finding alone.
And it's not just the towers. You walk three feet west and hit a new area... Boom. Exp.
It's insane.
Sure, you still get exp for killing bad guys (for bandanas), but that's normal.
What's not normal is that you got exp for finding the house of the guy who wants the bandanas.
And got more for bringing them back.
How freaking isolated must your life have been that finding a random house in the woods constitutes actual life experience for you?
You can't put that on a resume.
Qualifications:
- High School diploma
- Computer training
- Able to find random houses in the woods
That's not experience.
That is the opposite of experience.
You are not going to look back in your golden years about the time you found a house in the woods.
If you do, it means your life, as a whole, was a failure.
Failure.
Of course, if you look back in your golden years about the time you found a house in the woods IN A VIDEO GAME that will probably be worse.
OldGuy>> ... And that's the day I explored Westfall.
Son>> Dad... Please stop talking about WoW.
Son>> Mom always hated that.
Daughter>> Yeah, Dad.
Daughter>> That was a terrible eulogy.
I understand that a roleplaying game has to have quests.
That's kind of a rule.
But if you're going to have quests, make them all go in one direction.
If I have to run through that same damned forest one more time, someone is going to get slapped.
Then I'll take their bandana.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 8:32 PM
34 Comments:
Get the addon Quest helper, questing becomes really easy.
When you are level 17 or 18 try to find a group for Deadmines, don't bring anyone over level 25 or it becomes trivial.
Make sure you bring a class that can fear, for that is when hilarity ensues.
Yah.. it gets even better when they send you to the other continent to get items from mobs over there then you have to go back to him and then you have to go back to the other continent to give the items to some other random guy.
Sometimes I think X-2 would be more fun . . . or better yet, an MMO where 90% of the pop isnt emo or 4 (like XI, we just have to deal with the retards. But that's why there's a Black List)
I think Dave's whole point is that questing is TOO easy, and that making EXP is too simple...and that he's learned, in only two short days, precisely why WoW sucks so very badly when compared to FFXI.
It's not the graphics, though they are vastly inferior to FFXI's. It's not the character races/jobs, though once again I say there's no comparison there on which to choose. It's how insanely simple the game is. You're bored within 5 minutes because you've gotten to the end, that's it...there's nothing new. Nothing changes, there's no more depth, that's just it. Fetch stuff. It's Fido's game. Personally, I want an MMO that challenges me, not that makes me feel like a Golden Retriever, which is why the 2 times I played trial versions of WoW I couldn't last past 2 days.
That was my huge problem with WoW, too, when I first started -- the quests made no sense, and why in the WORLD was I being given so much exp for just discovering places on the map?
Yes, Dave, you're very right. You can (and I have) go up whole levels just by wandering around. And the Laundry List quests drove me up the wall -- wait until you hit Darkshire, there's a whole chain of such things where you're running back & forth to get some NPCs grocery list (of course, it turns out that helping him is a very very very BAAAD thing to do, but hey...).
I actually started screaming in Guild chat at that point about how no one in Azeroth could do their own damn grocery shopping.
There's reasons why Blizz made it faster & quicker to get exp -- they want everyone to get into the newer & better content of Outlands & Northrend. They couldn't rewrite the whole original game, so they made it so you get through that as fast as possible.
I'm just waiting for Dave to possibly hit enough of a level to go through Deadmines. I'm just WAITING...
(can you get above 10 in the trial? I can't remember.)
@Chaos (or a minor agent thereof): The level cap for a trial account is 20.
...Dave, why do so many of your fans know so much about WoW?
They aren't...WoW PLAYERS, are they??
In response to Robert, DON'T get quest helper.
It's meant for people that you feed to Jormy.
And questing can get boring pretty fast, but it's basically how you grind exp. WoW=quests. FFXI=painful parties through Valk and then everywhere else.
Yes, I play both games. Ever tried jumping over that log in Windurst? After you play WoW for awhile, you will.
"Qualifications:
- High School diploma
- Computer training
- Able to find random houses in the woods
That's not experience."
Like hell you can! Where do you think the Blair Witch Project came from?
I am going to stick to FFXI. I am proud to say my RDM is now 70! YAY ME!
"...Dave, why do so many of your fans know so much about WoW?
They aren't...WoW PLAYERS, are they??"
[GM]Dave's observations about MMORPs (Massively Multi-player Online Retarded People) transcends any single game. Never having played FF online has not kept me from seeing the truth behind his words, and hearing the exploits of his torture of said retarded people has many a time left me in stitches.
WoW is not evil, any more than Wonder bread is. I used to play WoW myself, but like Wonder bread, I out-grew it.
My favorite is STILL the blog of:
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Excuses, Excuses.
script run ./fish
I still LMAO thinking of that one.
Wow leveling sucks. The real game is when you hit the max lvl and you start raiding 25 men... (in other times it was 40 men) thats the real wow and there you can find a challege....
Leveling is just the way to reach the real game.
It's already been stated. The things written in this blog apply to nearly every MMO. When I say "nearly" I mean that terrible 2d (or worse yet, bad 3d) games from China and Korea that are free to play tend to either attract even more retarded people, or develop in their own way. Somehow, I doubt the players of "Hello Kitty Online" steal items from each other, with the exception of some jerks who think it's funny to do that in a game played by 99% innocent children.
I fail to see how the quests are boring. Most of the time, I'm more excited to just get a quest over with than to be challenged by it. I love delivery quests. If you're into the storyline, letters will often have some hint in them.
And all those fluff quests, while not particularly noteworthy, usually lead to quest chains. After doing a chain of more fluff quests, you usually get something pretty unique.
If you don't feel like connecting the dots, quests later on are more...original. Quest Chains, and quests in the expansions tend to be the most fun. Sure, you have to kill 30 of various types of beasts in Plaguelands before you disguise yourself and sneak into a Scarlet Crusade base to rescue Tirion Fordring's son, only to be slaughtered by Issilen. But that final quest is worth it.
Still, if you take an interest in the story, you'll get more out of it. Like how the Horde at one point had a quest to deliver a box which contains a cure for the plague. The Alliance ultimately gets a quest to retrieve a similar box, in a Horde camp, and deliver to people who end up working for the undead. The quest itself is "run to X, kill anything in your way, retrieve Y, deliver it", but when you connect the dots, it makes for a more interesting quest.
Besides, does Final Fantasy have any quests where you must sit on the toilet until you've removed seeds from your system which shouldn't have been eaten? I think not!
I really laughed at this.
I felt the opposite when I tried switching from WoW to FF XI (I'm off all MMO's now... Uni life bleh).
I couldn't stand pure grinding, and the fact that the quests were so vague (at least to me, probably this could be shot down by better FFXI players).
Even a silly quest makes the game more enjoyable, because it can lead you to new areas, and its a break in the dull routine of mindlessly killing mobs. Also, quest hubs help one decide when its time to go on to a new area. Out of quests? Find the next place!
the sad thing is, its not fun to start over or bee the new gay in the game, nobody whonts to do and instance whit you, untill you hit lvl 70, and therfor you have to do the boring grinding rutine, well the lor is good when you get past the first lvl´s.
and if you dont have a life, it is posible to hit 70 in 96 houers (play time) if you ar slaking a bit.
yes i am a wow player.
yes i dont have a life (acording to may GF)
and this blog hawe made me play FFXI to.
; ; You're playing Alliance!? Dave! Honestly... >.>
Hop over to Moon Guard. Lots of fun crazy people for you to pick apart. Roll Horde. ^.^ And Stay away from the walls in Silvermoon.. you never know who or whats been on them. >.>
Ashandarei - Moon Guard
I know you aren't really interested in converting Dave, but if it makes you feel better the old "kill 15 of X" or "Go get me 10 Y" Kind of starts to fade away in outland (1st expansion) and then questing is really revamped in Northrend (latest expansion).
I honestly think you should make a level 1 human on an RP server and run them straight to Goldshire. That'd make quite the blog entry :P
If you go into an instance with someone who can fear, make sure YOU'RE the one able to fear and that you'd fine it hilarious. Ending up with a lock with mass fear is NOT FUN. Mobs run, aggro is passed to other mobs. DEATH ensues.
Sucky way to keep money in your pocket, all those repair bills.
Also, Stormwind is one of the most heavily-populated Alliance cities. Try to make your way to Darnassus (the Night Elf city). Things seem to be a bit better there. It's somewhat out of the way, though. (However, that might not be a bad thing).
I had a friend reach 80 by discovering a new area on a way to an instance. Then again, he was probably one mob death away from it anyway. It was just funny to see someone hit the cap that way. Me, I got 4 xp last night from discovering the Undead starting area. Woo! :P
I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if the majority of Dave's readers are WoW players. All MMO's are alike and understanding the frustrations in each one is not new and exciting.
yes the early questing is retarded. Hell blizzard even put it bind on account items which you can send to your low level alts which have a passive 10% exp gain whlie wearing them. And the gear scales with you as you level. They WANT you to level at least to 60 where you can get past the original crap and get into the goodies.
At 80 though, most of the time you sit around SW or Dalaran looking for group/raid while waiting for Wintergrasp (world pvp event) to start or you're too lazy to do your dailies or level your professions.
Most people have cleared all current content and are awaiting the release of Uldar, hopefully it won't be near as easy as the current end game content is.
The questline in general are 1000% better from 60+, no lies, shame you won't see it. I would recommend checking darnassus out or hitting ironforge just to see the different zones. Westfall is still one of my favorite areas, not sure why and yes you have to kill more bandits. Quest chain to get into dead mines to kill VanCleef. First instance you can really do.
See if this helps, Dave:
Under Options, go to Interface, then Camera. There's a slider for Max Camera Distance. Slide that little bugger as far to the left as you can. Exit menu, use your mouse scroll wheel to move your camera back as far as you can. You'll feel a little better. It doesn't work if there's a wall behind you, though, so it messes with you in some dungeons. There's an addon that extends it farther if you need it.
You can turn off general chat/trade chat/whatever annoys you, too.
Unfortunately for new players, they've made quests even easier over the last few major patches because existing players who are rolling their 3rd, 4th, 7th, 42nd, etc. new characters want to get through it faster. You'd completely understand if you'd gone through Stranglethorn Vale a few times, but I'm sure it sucks if it's your first time through. On the up side, as someone else said, you get to the much better Outlands/Northrend more quickly. Shame you won't be around that long, there really is a huge difference.
Dave-
You might want to consider using a font switcher. Like FFXI, the default font is hard on the eyes. I can't find a link to mine right now, I'm sure someone knows one.
Something like this will help a lot (at least I find it does) when moving through a crowded area (like Stormwind, Org, or Dalaran).
Back in the day, it was more exp to level than it currently is, so the exploration exp was really nice and helped the quest grind.
If you enjoy sitting in the same spot for hours while someone goes to get you monsters, then this really isn't the game you want to play. I like that quests give you exp, it varies up the leveling process and makes it easier to deal with. Plus, most quests give you some money and reputation (fame).
Once I made it to level 40 in WoW, I realized how horrible leveling in FFXI really is. I quit FFXI a few months later. It was a good decision.
Next time you're in a major city, type the command:
/leave trade
This will unsubscribe you from the trade channel, which in theory is a channel spanning all major cities for crafters to hawk their wares. In practice, it's a pre-pubescent chat room populated by retards.
It's not the graphics, though they are vastly inferior to FFXI's. It's not the character races/jobs, though once again I say there's no comparison there on which to choose. It's how insanely simple the game is. You're bored within 5 minutes because you've gotten to the end, that's it...there's nothing new. Nothing changes, there's no more depth, that's just it. Fetch stuff. It's Fido's game. Personally, I want an MMO that challenges me, not that makes me feel like a Golden Retriever, which is why the 2 times I played trial versions of WoW I couldn't last past 2 days.
Personally, I would suggest that you actually play the game before you sound like a complete idiot (that will happen regardless, don't worry).
The entire point of the massive number of insignificant quest that give you high experience is to keep it from getting boring from grinding your way to level 60 (At which point quests are less retarded). Most non retarded WoW players will tell you, if you can find one (And it's not like any other MMO has a different ratio of retards to decent players. Maybe smaller numbers, but simular ratio), that WoW starts when you hit the endgame. Then you start running raids, doing arena pvp and battlegrounds that are interesting, and everything else that's entertaining in the game.
If that's not your style, then don't play it.
FFXI is on the list of MMO's I will probably never try, because there isn't a trial version, and if I just wanted to grind.
And if I just wanted to grind, I'd play maplestory.
not sure how many times you have re-rolled but my advice is to stop. no one likes playing the most retarded levels in the game multiple times.
my advice to having fun in the game is to roll hunter or warlock (horde. and for race the best startzone is bloodelf for drops and xp, but if you go orc or tauren you have a nice starting area with easiest transition to the cross roads. which is where i found the game started getting fun.
oh and about XR chat...i cant decide if im sorry or if it is awesome....
The main reason I don't like WoW is the entire game is way too easy... and by the entire game, I mean the entire game, including endgame. Raids in WoW can't even compare to the fights you get in FFXI.
To TJ:
A level 1 human female on an RP server.
Even more fun.
It's not 'so much xp' tbh. It becomes very trivial later on.
Levelling 1-70 has been relatively trivialised. The game started with maxlevel 60, so with it now at 80 the previous levels have been accelerated so the experience doesnt take monumentally longer. You'd be looking at 16+ days (at a guess) played for the best speed run 1-80s, by the guys that bleed from the eyes to do it, were the levelling not made a bit easier.
Also yet to encounter a game where the quests werent the same boring shit. The outlands quests are a bit quicker and/or better tho, mildly more entertaining.
All of the quests in the human starting area are pretty much fedex quests, come to think of it the best starting area is the dreanai one.
@Fulluphigh: There actually IS a trial version of FFXI. I saw a huge stack of discs for sale at Gamestop for two bucks. Picked one up once a while back, but I had such a hard time with the control scheme I ended up abandoning it. Like [GM]Dave, I'm too used to my controls being a certain way.
Unlike [GM]Dave, the controls I'm used to aren't used in only one MMO, period. =P It's really designed for a gamepad and I don't have one, but I've been considering giving the 360 version a shot.
He's probably just on the trial and doesn't have access to Draenei nor their starting area.
I, personally, enjoy the human zone. It may be nostalgia talking, but I want to shoot myself in the face when playing through the Night Elf starting area.
Also, I still can't believe anyone would complain about free XP to grinding. At least there's some flavor text, or an elite mob, etc. If you are bored by it, then it's just like grinding. Except more experience points.
I also feel that with the 1 week time limit and the level 20 cap, the final summary is still just going to be "FF forevahs, WoW sucks. I have a gay man crush on Sephiroth".
...ok, I added that last part.
And if I just wanted to grind, I'd play maplestory.
...I play MapleStory.
...I'm going to go get myself a nice dog collar T.T
Seriously? You complaining about FREE exp from explorin? O_o
Blizz probably put it in to encourage people to explore areas.
And to be frank the exp gained from exploring isn't much. It's a "token" freebie.
As for questing... It's as fun as you want it to be.
For me it beats solo grinding the same mobs over and over again with no purpose in mind, or having to wait around trying to get a group together.
Half the fun of questing is (at least to me) is the quest text, it tells you want is going on around you, what state the world current is in. You get to role play a little I suppose.
Oh yes, you can right click a guys name in the chat window to whisper him, you don't have to physically select him.
Or just type "/w guysname mymessage"
If you really have to physically target someone, just type "/tar guysname"
What WoW calls Exploration points, I always called Lost points. "Hey, I'm lost." "Have some free points!" The best is when you ding of lost points. That always made me happy.
You think its hard to see in StormWind? Try playing a healer in a dungeon fight. /wipes sweat from brow.
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