WOW: Levels 1 – 10
My Warlock is at level 10 now. Levels 1 to 7 were boring and frustrating because all I seemed to do for quests was “Kill X number of Y and bring back X number of trophies” or “Deliver X object to Y NPC and report back”. Admittedly, there are a lot of boring quests in any role-playing game, but the slow level progression in World of Warcraft makes it more tedious. Having said that, I hear that the level progression is even slower in other MMORPGs, so maybe my complaint is unwarranted. Levels 8 to 10 were made less boring because Id was helping me with my quests, and it was nice to roam about, quest, and chat at the same time. I felt slightly less satisfaction from my quest completion because he’s more than 10 levels higher than my character, so enemies were killed faster. So again, there are balance issues in my experience. If a game is too hard, I get sick of it and want to stop playing. If a game is too easy, victories are emptier. Having said that, the company more than made up for the low difficulty level.
A friend of a friend was very generous and gave me some gold and bags, and bags make item management so much easier. Before having additional space in my inventory, it was irritating having to freqently return to a merchant to sell off excess crap after wandering around killing things. I wish I could mail gold from my other character, on a PvE server to this character, but even character transfers from PvE servers to PvP servers are not possible. Oh well.
At level 10, I now have my second demon minion, a Voidwalker. It’s a bluish inky/cloudy thing with glowing eyes and colourful bracers. It looks cooler than the Imp, my first minion I really like my Voidwalker, but I didn’t have any time to fight with it in tow because the server shutdown for a while yesterday. And then after that, I’d decided I’d have enough so I played Guild Wars.
Game interruptions are rare in Guild Wars. There have been two times (that I know of) that all the servers in Guild wars were shutdown for routine upgrades and maintenance at the same time, causing interruption in gameplay. They did this once in 2005 and once in 2006 (so far). The game servers been shut down for emergency maintenance purposes once, and it happened when I was at work. So in total, Guild Wars was interrupted twice this year for server maintenance. Because of the way Guild Wars is structured, it is very easy for ArenaNet to take down one or two servers to perform maintenance without interrupting anyone’s gameplay. So being told to log out because of emergency server maintenance in World of Warcraft was a bit of a surprise, since I’d never experienced such a thing before.
I have chosen two Professions, Herbalism and Alchemy. I collect plants and make them into useful things. Initially, I was interested in Tailoring, because being able to make clothes seems pretty cool, and Warlocks wear cloth armour, but I was advised against it. Herbalism and Alchemy are synergistic Professions, anyway. Collecting flowers is kind of irritating because although they appear on the minimap, you have to pixel-hunt for the herbs in the world itself. I feel like I’m playing a point-and-click adventure game almost. I need to make lots of potions so that my Alchemy skill goes up and I can make more useful/powerful potions to sell.
I have been in two duels. One duel was against a Mage of the same level; I think I was at level 7. I defeated him. The other one was against a level 2 Warrior with a fiery sword. I was level 10, and I died horribly, though I did manage to take out half of his hit points. I was surprised that this level 2 person was able to defeat me, but his sword was probably very special or something.
At this point, I still have mixed feelings about World of Warcraft, though they are more positive than negative, which is a change from last time. I am not sure whether I will stick to it after I start playing Guild Wars Nightfall. If I do stop and then start up again in the future, I’ll still feel like a newb, at level 20 or whatever I manage to reach before the end of October, whilst everyone else is all leet and “partially fused with infinity“. It’s not an exciting prospect, but for now I am enjoying the game.
I loved WoW up until the 40′s, then it started to become too much like work. At that point you need to do a lot of instance runs to get good gear and finish a lot of quests, and to do instance runs you need groups, and to easily find groups you need to be guilded or have a lot of online buddies. My play schedule didn’t allow me those options very often so I ended up with crappy gear and tedious solo encounters over and over.
I got bored with Guild Wars a lot quicker, however. I played WoW off and on for 9 months, I barely played GW for a month. GW to me felt like MMORPG-lite, the diet coke of MMORPG, just one calorie, not MMORPG enough! I did like the graphics tho. I have Factions and don’t ask me why I got it, which I’ve spent all of like 5 hours playing. The one great thing about GW is no monthly fee, so I don’t feel like I have to devote my life to it and I can pop in at any time for some quick fun.
WoW requires more of a commitment. I feel gyped if I don’t get in at least 20-30 hours in a month if I’m having to pay $15 for it, so that’s a lot of my very limited gaming time. I will probably re-sub WoW when the expansion pack comes out just to check it out.
I’m still waiting for the MMO which lets you play more or less solo even at high levels and grouping is always optional – or at least more small group. The forced social dynamic is something I’m not fond of in the design – especially if there is a monthly fee.
I’m a bit off of GW right now in part because henchies don’t get you far with where I’m at in Prophecies. Part of my problem with that is that my Monk build isn’t good for PUGs because it’s got some sword skills in it (and not a hardcore regen/res deck). So when I play in a PUG – I end up having to change my style to something I didn’t really want in the first place.
Yeah, I understand the problems of this “forced social dynamic”. I don’t think I would be playing WOW unless someone I knew was helping me and questing with me. I think I might be a bit too wary of encountering idiots in MMOGs…