Poll: WoW - New User Friendly?

[Karloff]

Or not?

With Cata now reality, I've been tempted to resurrect my account. However the PC it was on may/may not have fried, so I may have to reboot the game from scratch.

It suddenly occurred to me, as I gazed into the face of horror, that new users may find this process daunting.

I mean, look at it: Cata needs Lich, Lich needs BC, BC needs the original game. Purely from a cash POV, that's a $70-odd investment (or about GBP50 if, like me, you started playing in the UK), and that's before setting up the monthly fee payment. Not impossible, but still getting up there.

But the loading times!

From memory, the original had what, four disks? Then each expansion had at least two more disks. Plus, of course, the patches. I dread to think how long those would take. Presumably some of them are expansion-specific, which suggests that you'd be patching each time you loaded on a new set.

Edit: I just checked the monthly fee payment, for my own amusement. $14.99 for 1 month recur, 13.99 for 3 month, 12.99 for 6 month, but the last two need to be paid up-front. So if you go for the 3 or 6 month option, then, new user, your up-front payment is either circa $110, or $140. I haven't checked the GBP options, but I think those are roughly comparable. So money could be a factor in your final decision.

Leaving aside all gameplay issues, riddle me this: if you were a completely new user, never played WoW before in your life, would the process - buying the original then three expansions, loading them all on, then loading on all their patches (how long would that take, I wonder?) - put you off playing the game?

 

[Sp3ratus]

Well, the thing is, if I had a friend who wanted to get started on WoW, I'd recommend him to buy the original only to start off. The reason for this is that the content updatede from 1-60 is free, albeit a big patch download. If you really wanted to get into the games, you'd accept the loading and installing time it takes, because it is a huge game. For a new player, WoW has lots and lots to offer, and sure it can seem overwhelming, but I think Blizz did a great new job with the new leveling experience and getting new players integrated into the game and understanding the game.

So yes, all in all, if I or I had a friend who wanted to get into the game, if you really wanted to start, you'd persist through the loading and patching updates, however long it might be.

EDIT: Or you know, instead of just buying the original, buy the Battle Chest instead, which includes both vanilla and chocolate(BC). I've heard rumors of it being updated to include WotLK at some point, but as it is now, it's "only" the first 2.

 

[Vaccine]

Nope, because no one in their right mind would buy all 4 at once.

Old World revisions were free, they don't require Cata, only Classic.

Leveling 1-60 - Classic
Leveling 60-70 - Burning Crusade
Leveling 70-80 - Wrath of the Lich King
Leveling 80-85 - Cataclysm

At most you'd buy the battlechest with Classic and BC, and buy Wrath/Cata as you need them.
People are always under the information that all the fun content is at the end game, that is no longer true, questing in 1-60 is much much stronger now. The weakest questing now would currently be Burning Crusade because it's the most outdated, Wrath of the Lich King questing is also very strong, and Cata being the best.

Also the new preloader lets you download the newer patchs while playing, it just downloads what you need for core pieces and does the rest while you play or as you need it.

 

[Severin90]

Yea been in your shoes a couple of months before, and yea its a dread but actually worth it. Most of the downloading time can be done over night. I didnt have any problems with cd swapping because I downloaded of blizznet. Sure it takes time to download the install files but you can do it while you are away at work or whatever.
The patches is a b***h. Thats the real time killer. It feels stupid because it emplement changes that will be changed in the next patch. Just a waste of time. They should have an updated install pack for downloading the whole thing.
Dont worry about the prices, because of cataclysm they have all been narrowed down so everyone can afford the whole wow packages.

 

[Sixcess]

Not really.

I've been playing WoW on and off for about 2 years. I picked up the original game and Burning Crusade for about £17 for both, and after 2 years I still haven't bought WotLK. Why would I? I'm a very casual player and my highest level character is 56. If I ever make it to 70 I'll buy LK, and then if I ever make it to 80 I'll buy Cata.

Admittedly, having recently upgraded my PC, and reformatted my old one, the thought of that long reinstall process has put me off revisiting Azeroth recently. That, and I don't really have the time to actually play the game when there are others that, currently, hold my interest more.

 

[Random Fella]

I played Wow and actually got the first expansion for it as soon as possible, but I didn't ever buy the other downloads and eventually quit...
Seiously the problem with Wow is the cost, it costs about $25 US to buy one of those game cards and then an expansion for the game wouldn't even cost as much as four months of gaming. Seriously looking at how much Wow costs to play anyway, the expansions should just be free for the poor suckers that play, also this would mean that blizzard could get new customers rather than just the same people who are starting to quit as well. (Sorry about if I got prices wrong I estimate them from NZ dollars). So if I was new I would be greatly turned off from the game and even now would still probably not reactivate my old account... Not that I was any good anyways always getting abuse from those obviously super-cool level 80's

 

[boholikeu]

Or not?

You only need to have the original to play the game... so no.

 

[Karloff]

Nope, because no one in their right mind would buy all 4 at once.

Sure, but right now, if you're a new user, odds are you've been attracted to the game by those Cataclysm adds, right? So shiny. So cinematic. All those reviews praising the content. You don't know that buying Cata means you have to have all the others first, not till you get to the store. That's what I'm getting at. Plus, if you're a parent buying this for a kid, and maybe don't know what's going on, seeing this forest of data and disks (plus price tag) may be overwhelming.

 

[Random Fella]

Lol at the kid who gets Cata for christmas but nothing else

 

[Mcface]

Before Cata you had to level through 70 levels of dead, unpopulated content. Now with cata people are leveling up again, so there is a lot to do. its always been user friendly, just more so now.

 

[Karloff]

Before Cata you had to level through 70 levels of dead, unpopulated content. Now with cata people are leveling up again, so there is a lot to do. its always been user friendly, just more so now.

Sure, but that's a gameplay issue. Remember, I'm just talking about the purchase, now. This is before you get to play, when your WoW knowledge is limited to a few screenshots and box art.

Also bear in mind, I'm talking about someone who's completely new to WoW, and maybe doesn't have someone who knows the game talking them through it.

 

[Socius]

World of warcraft have become over userfriendly, everything up to the Heroics in Cata is so easy a 4 year old could do it... If he rolled paladin at least. speaking of wich took it me under a week with casual gaming to get one to Northrend after the lastes patch. It's sad really, because this means we will get more noobish jerkbags ruining the fun for us in endgame. I miss Vanillla.

And yes, the installment is a tiering process, but noone tells you to buy all teh expensionpacks at once, while you should do so because you'll reach 60 in the matter of days if youre not stunned by the beuty of certein landscapes in game. If you're not nerd enough to deal with installing the gmae you got yourself to blame I would say. Though I do admit, it would be a big relief if they actually did something about it.

 

[Delusibeta]

Nope, because no one in their right mind would buy all 4 at once.

Sure, but right now, if you're a new user, odds are you've been attracted to the game by those Cataclysm adds, right? So shiny. So cinematic. All those reviews praising the content. You don't know that buying Cata means you have to have all the others first, not till you get to the store. That's what I'm getting at. Plus, if you're a parent buying this for a kid, and maybe don't know what's going on, seeing this forest of data and disks (plus price tag) may be overwhelming.

Most of which is in the base game.

 

[Hisshiss]

Well actually, I had to wipe my hardrive yesterday, and when I reinstalled WoW, I was in the game playing in about 45 minutes, the new system downloads the whole game in one go, and because of the background downloader, you can actually start playing with only about 10% of the game downloaded, granted it wont run perfectly, some mobs may lack portraits, stuff will spawn slowly, and in a worst case scenario you will get blocked off by a blue magical wall that prevents you from going somewhere while the game power downloads the spot your headed for, but thats rare and generally only takes about 15 seconds.

All in all, I got into the game and managed to play just fine, and it just finishes downloading gradually over the next few days or weeks, depending on how long you spend either on the game or sitting on the launcher so the downloader will work.

The patches Im not sure about, but again, I was in the actual game 30 minutes after I started the first download, so it can't be to bad.

(This is all new to me, just noticed all of it when I tried to reinstall, so its fairly recent.)

Your account does need to be upgraded to a given expansion, but I believe it downloads everything nomatter what, and then just doesnt allow you to go to the zones or use the features of a given expansion unless you get it.

If your not familiar with the setup, you can access your account from battle.net, after you sign in and set up a subscription or trial, there will be a download game client option on the bottom right. Sorry for the long post xD..hope this helps. Also, if it counts for anything, cataclysm has been amazing for me so far, and since literally everything got overhauled, its a great time to gain a new taste for the game.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Having plenty of free time thanks to winter break I decided I'd give it a try again. When I logged in I found that all my characters had been stripped of their gold and posessions.

I filed a petition with the GM to find out what happened and didn't hear anything. Luckily, my level 74 death knight still had his original end of DK starting quest gear in the bank so I grabbed it and decided the only thing I could do was grind for cash to buy gear sufficient that I could actually continue trying to level. I had to waste 10 hours just getting to the point that I could play the game at the appropriate level. After much effort I am now sitting at level 79 (my next best is a level 55 rogue) and I'm close enough to being able to do the end game stuff that I'm actually somewhat excited at the prospect of seeing what the fuss about the end game was all about.

But then I got a message from Blizzard telling me the investigated my account and found that, since I already had piles of loot and whatnot that they could do nothing to help me. Apparently I was supposed to do nothing but sit around and pay for the subscription while they took a week to respond to a question that was little more than "What happened here?". I did not ask for charity, I did not ask for a restoration. I just wanted to know what had happened.

Suffice it to say I was angry enough at that outcome that I have canceled my account and I will not be paying them again for the privileged of having a simple question ignored only to be told that the proper course was for me to do nothing until they got around to checking it out.

 

[Anaklusmos]

Please remember that if you have bought all four (Vanilla, Bc, WoLK, Cata) that you only need to pop in Cata which has Vanilla, Bc and WoLk on it (Plus Patch 4.03 but not 4.03a) and then that takes only 30 mins to download and then the 20 minute patch and you're ready to go.

If it was a new player I would just get Vanilla and try that out, you get 1 month free, and you can download all the patches overnight, that way I can find out if I like it, and then make a big investment into it instead of investing into it before I like it.

 

[viranimus]

Ok.. Unless I misread this, I am highly confused.

First off, If you have an existing account why would you build a new account and voluntarily repurchase the game? Just because you had a PC tank on you doesnt mean you have to rebuy the whole game to use it on a different PC. Just reactivate your old account and fill in the blanks of what ever expansions you didnt have. Even if all you had was CORE wow, its still better to not pay for that much of it.

Secondly, Discs in MMOs are basically just a formality any more. Basically your predominant method of installing an MMO and WoW IS included with this, is downloading the auto installer. Download and installation from a broadband connection, usually takes a little less than a day before your 100% ready to play. So its not a huge investment of time and effort.

 

[LtWiesel]

1. new users had never a better start, the new starting zones are awesome, you get enough q rewards to buy all the important stuff like mounts and dualspec and after 5 years the old world is finally full of other players lvling with you.

2. 5 disk classic 2 disk bc etc, was before dvd got the norm...you can buy a bundle with bc, wotlk, cata online and just download the 6gb you need, also it´s cheaper this way

 

[Communist partisan]

Or not?

With Cata now reality, I've been tempted to resurrect my account. However the PC it was on may/may not have fried, so I may have to reboot the game from scratch.

It suddenly occurred to me, as I gazed into the face of horror, that new users may find this process daunting.

I mean, look at it: Cata needs Lich, Lich needs BC, BC needs the original game. Purely from a cash POV, that's a $70-odd investment (or about GBP50 if, like me, you started playing in the UK), and that's before setting up the monthly fee payment. Not impossible, but still getting up there.

But the loading times!

From memory, the original had what, four disks? Then each expansion had at least two more disks. Plus, of course, the patches. I dread to think how long those would take. Presumably some of them are expansion-specific, which suggests that you'd be patching each time you loaded on a new set.

Edit: I just checked the monthly fee payment, for my own amusement. $14.99 for 1 month recur, 13.99 for 3 month, 12.99 for 6 month, but the last two need to be paid up-front. So if you go for the 3 or 6 month option, then, new user, your up-front payment is either circa $110, or $140. I haven't checked the GBP options, but I think those are roughly comparable. So money could be a factor in your final decision.

Leaving aside all gameplay issues, riddle me this: if you were a completely new user, never played WoW before in your life, would the process - buying the original then three expansions, loading them all on, then loading on all their patches (how long would that take, I wonder?) - put you off playing the game?

Ever heard of the leagal "fake" wow? takes more space but is free, also private servers.... won't cost you shit but I dunno if private servers are leagal.... I think so.

 

[Karloff]

Ok.. Unless I misread this, I am highly confused.

First off, If you have an existing account . . .

Secondly, Discs in MMOs are basically just a formality any more . . .

Well, remember the original question wasn't about what I'm going to do to solve my problem. The question was about a hypothetical new user who knows nothing about WoW beyond the box art, nor do they have an experienced player to talk them through it. They wouldn't have an existing account.

Even accepting that the d/l time isn't severe (I wasn't aware that the patching was as easy as it seems to be, judging by previous posts - but Lord spare us, at what point did we come to accept that 'a little less than a day' on broadband was acceptable d/l time?), what about the actual purchase? Remember, you, new user, don't know anything about this game, really. You know it exists and that's about it. Then you're faced with a forest of expansions plus the dollar cost. Does that put you off, or not?