What was WOW like 3 months in? (Im not trolling lol, Im new to MMOs)I

[DieAlteHexe]

Wow may have been worse, but it still gained an enormous player base at the same time.

Like i said, hate all you want. The numbers speak.

And wow forums were most definately not like this.

We put up with it because the gameplay an mechaics were great.

 

Yes, and know why? Because it was waaaaaaaaaaaay easier (even at the beginning) than previous MMOs. EQ2 released at same time basically but a lot of people were concerned it would be too similar to EQ and gave WoW a try. And boy, did EQ2 have a rough start as well, worse than WoW.

 

I'm not a WoW "hater", I'm a WoW "was okay but I got tired of the treadmill"er. BC did me in.

 

As for the WoW forums? Did you fall on your head? LOL! WoW General was just amazingly rough. The players, the spammers (one guy actually managed to completely fill the first 27 pages of the forum with really disgusting spam before he was stopped). I "worked" on WoW's forums as an MvP and I remember very, very clearly how awful they were. At least here the mods keep things pretty well cleaned up.

[Ichikitsune]

As much as people here complain about SWTOR right now, WoW was 1000 times worse this far in.

 

Three months in WoW had:

 

1. Looting bugs from mine/herb nodes that would require you to log out to become unstuck from being bent over and unable to do anything.

 

2. When logging out it could take 10 minutes for the "character already exists" message to go away so you could log back in.

 

3. Giant queues that could last three hours or more.

 

4. No meaningful PvP. There were no Battlegrounds yet and three months in the Honor System wasn't even implemented. Literally zero reason to PvP.

 

5. One raid. Yes, one raid that only about 1% of the population could do...if that. Molten Core was only for the most hardcore people in the game. BWL didn't come out for 5-6 months post release.

 

6. Everyone at 60 had the exact same "blue" set as the rest of their class and the same exact weapons. (Really that hasn't changed in what, 8 years? Just epics now)

 

7. No LFG, just a global chat channel that people spammed Chuck Norris jokes in.

 

8. Mobs spawned in the ground and/or in trees so they would aggro and kill you while being invincible.

 

9. People could kite world bosses to cities and wipe out the entire population.

 

10. Zero hybrids. If you were a Warrior, you tanked. Pally, Druid, Shaman, or Priest? Heals. The endgame gear only provided bonuses for those roles.

 

That's just off the top of my head.

 

So when looking back with your rose tinted goggles, remember the horrid crap we put up with for Blizzard to make that game the most popular MMO in history...

 

I lol'd at #9, that was good times.

 

As far as no meaningful pvp, Tauren Mill vs Southshore battles were epic. 80 people going at it just for the fun of it, so many spell animations going off your f.r. would drop in any raid they were only brought to buff.

[Tovenar]

As much as people here complain about SWTOR right now, WoW was 1000 times worse this far in.

 

Three months in WoW had:

 

1. Looting bugs from mine/herb nodes that would require you to log out to become unstuck from being bent over and unable to do anything.

 

2. When logging out it could take 10 minutes for the "character already exists" message to go away so you could log back in.

 

3. Giant queues that could last three hours or more.

 

4. No meaningful PvP. There were no Battlegrounds yet and three months in the Honor System wasn't even implemented. Literally zero reason to PvP.

 

5. One raid. Yes, one raid that only about 1% of the population could do...if that. Molten Core was only for the most hardcore people in the game. BWL didn't come out for 5-6 months post release.

 

6. Everyone at 60 had the exact same "blue" set as the rest of their class and the same exact weapons. (Really that hasn't changed in what, 8 years? Just epics now)

 

7. No LFG, just a global chat channel that people spammed Chuck Norris jokes in.

 

8. Mobs spawned in the ground and/or in trees so they would aggro and kill you while being invincible.

 

9. People could kite world bosses to cities and wipe out the entire population.

 

10. Zero hybrids. If you were a Warrior, you tanked. Pally, Druid, Shaman, or Priest? Heals. The endgame gear only provided bonuses for those roles.

 

That's just off the top of my head.

 

So when looking back with your rose tinted goggles, remember the horrid crap we put up with for Blizzard to make that game the most popular MMO in history...

 

Honestly kiting the world boss dragons into the cities was pretty much the most hilariously awesome thing ever. Don't knock it.

[DieAlteHexe]

Honestly kiting the world boss dragons into the cities was pretty much the most hilariously awesome thing ever. Don't knock it.

 

Goldshire...all the poor noobies. Some of whom didn't even know what had, literally, just hit 'em. I remember being surprised this could actually be done.

[snowmon]

As much as people here complain about SWTOR right now, WoW was 1000 times worse this far in.

 

Three months in WoW had:

 

1. Looting bugs from mine/herb nodes that would require you to log out to become unstuck from being bent over and unable to do anything.

 

 

i would just like to say that 7 years in and i still get this sometimes lol

[ferroz]

Obvious troll is obvious. battle.net forums are much worse.

they're about the same now; they were not nearly this bad when wow was released.

[Twaggy]

From my experience, SWTOR had a great start compared to MMOs I played. WoW has been mentioned already, I remember MxO (The Matrix Online) and that game had soooooooooooooo many annoying bugs, some were infact after many years.... NEVER FIXED lol

 

It still held on quite sometime but that's because it was the first (and prob best) cyber punk MMO that came out.

[-Fritz-]

you cant really compare wow 3 months in to swtor 3 months in.

 

 

the fact of the matter is the games release dates are years apart.

 

 

when WoW was released we did not have voice recognition smart phones for sale on every corner, now we do.

 

 

 

you may be able to list 100000 things swtor has over wow at wows release, it doesnt matter.

 

its not 2004 anymore.

 

 

 

it is now 2012 and compared to other games of this generation, its pretty low tech.

[Dawgtide]

~3 months in, and WOW had eclipsed the largest western MMO (EQ) in subscribers.

 

~6 months in and WOW had had become the biggest MMO, period (eclipsing lineage and lineage 2, which were big in aisia)

 

3 months in rift was on update 1.2:

• rift had added a same shard lfg tool and had ironed out most of the major bugs in it's dungeon content.
  
• it had done 2 serverwide world events: river of souls (mostly negative reviews, since the final event wound up fubar) and Spoils of war (mixed reviews)
  
• it had added wardrobe slots (appearance)
  
• it had added crafting based rifts, 2 raids (20 man river of souls and 10 man sliver) to add to the 1 raid it launched with
  

 

It also had a full combat log, a highly customizable UI, and multiple-specs (5 at that point) but those were launch features, while in swtor those are features that are still "coming soon" at 3 months.

 

4.5 months in and you add another raid, another world event, guild banks and free character and guild transfers.

 

I want to clarify a couple of things for the original poster on EQ(Everquest). Yes WOW eclipsed it, but for a good reason.

 

EQ was the ultimate sandbox. It took months to level a character if you were remotely casual. Levels took a long time. Tbey even had hell levels. Also EQ was a raiding game at the end with 40+ people raids to get better gear.

 

So WoW eclipsed it because the casual people of which most are flocked to it. EQ did not fit their playstyle. It was not because EQ was a bad game. In fact, many have wondrous love for the original EQ. It allowed us to explore.

 

If they had kept to their LDON expansion that allowed any group makeup, they may not have lost as many subscribers. But they went for tiered raid progression for hard core players and folks left in droves.

 

SWTOR is easy leveling trust me. It is instant gratification. Just be glad you don't have it the original way in regards to loot and charactersx progression. Also, this game is more story driven for your character. That said I would say the exploration in this game is not the same. There is less "wonder" so to speak.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Dawgtide

[Alcarinn]

As much as people here complain about SWTOR right now, WoW was 1000 times worse this far in.

 

Three months in WoW had:

 

1. Looting bugs from mine/herb nodes that would require you to log out to become unstuck from being bent over and unable to do anything.

 

2. When logging out it could take 10 minutes for the "character already exists" message to go away so you could log back in.

 

3. Giant queues that could last three hours or more.

 

4. No meaningful PvP. There were no Battlegrounds yet and three months in the Honor System wasn't even implemented. Literally zero reason to PvP.

 

5. One raid. Yes, one raid that only about 1% of the population could do...if that. Molten Core was only for the most hardcore people in the game. BWL didn't come out for 5-6 months post release.

 

6. Everyone at 60 had the exact same "blue" set as the rest of their class and the same exact weapons. (Really that hasn't changed in what, 8 years? Just epics now)

 

7. No LFG, just a global chat channel that people spammed Chuck Norris jokes in.

 

8. Mobs spawned in the ground and/or in trees so they would aggro and kill you while being invincible.

 

9. People could kite world bosses to cities and wipe out the entire population.

 

10. Zero hybrids. If you were a Warrior, you tanked. Pally, Druid, Shaman, or Priest? Heals. The endgame gear only provided bonuses for those roles.

 

That's just off the top of my head.

 

So when looking back with your rose tinted goggles, remember the horrid crap we put up with for Blizzard to make that game the most popular MMO in history...

 

 

There is ONLY 1 IMPORTANT Difference... SW ToR is COMPETING with WoW NOW not WoW 8 years ago...

 

SIGH trolls

[Midichlorien]

13. Stupid itemization. Forget rakata having too much accuracy, imagine being a trooper/BH and having all your end-game gear give you some strength or willpower. Yes, WoW did the equivalent.

 

Willpower gear from MC for shamans I remember :-)

 

Sidenote: shamans were a mp5 class in the beginning, willpower increased only manareg out of combat.

 

WoW had the "we did it first" bonus. They had severe problems with server stability which was caused by a phenomena Blizzard itself couldn't predict, the sheer number of subscribers floating in like a Tsunami. I remember days where I couldn't log in, because Blizzard's own provider was the bottleneck for game connectivity. Some IP ranges were just sorted out.

 

The difference between WoW and SWTOR is another:

 

I cursed WoW for its bugs, for the connection issues, for willpower gear on shamans, but I was addicted from the first minute I logged into this game world. I forgave Blizzard everything and they improved.

 

The question is, why do I not forgive BW/SWTOR?

 

Answer: Because SWTOR is competing with WoW in its current state and with LotRO and with Rift and with GW...I may remark, that all those MMOs have at least a functioning and comfortable UI (or at least some great Addons for that).

 

You may say I am spoiled, I would answer, maybe, but you are the MMO developer, deal with it.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Midichlorien

[DjSnazzyduds]

There is ONLY 1 IMPORTANT Difference... SW ToR is COMPETING with WoW NOW not WoW 8 years ago...

 

SIGH trolls

 

So.... we should... GET A TIME MACHINE? All you're saying is that Swtor should just lay down and die just because WoW is the most massive MMO out here at this time?

 

You must lack adventure.

[Aethusa]

WoW is not an object at this matter cause of age. I don't know the exact release date of WoW but i know it is very old. I played WoW for 5 years.

 

I played Rift. Rift had one of the best starts. But the game itself has negativities. I played Rift for 4 months.

 

Hear me out people. The important thing is ground mechanics. Ground mechanics rule the game or kill it. And SWTOR has really good ground mechanics imo. There is nothing in SWTOR that cannot be solved. They just need some time. Yes year 2012 and yes BioWare is a big company but this is that. Deal with it. SWTOR revealed like this. Nothing to do.

Take a look at first big update's patch notes. I know that update has features that must have been there at start, but didnt...

 

So... Big picture time:

 

Do not get stuck at details which can be changed.

Choose your character carefully and try to find some cool people you can hang out with. I was like you for last 2 months. I changed my server 3 times and levelled 2 lvl50 characters and maybe 6 lower level characters. But i enjoy the game now, cause i found the character which i'm exactly happy to play with.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Aethusa

[Drewser]

they're about the same now; they were not nearly this bad when wow was released.

 

Selective memory...

[Dayln]

WOW at three months was not even close to as good as what SWTOR is currently, peas and apples

[Cernow]

3 months into WoW and most players were still levelling their first character rather than worrying about the endgame. Sure there were lots of bugs, but lots of exploring and fun to be had too. SWTOR has the same fun factor while levelling, but the process is much quicker.

 

Vanilla WoW had a very slow levelling curve and a VERY different feel to how WoW is now.

 

Of course WoW dumbed down the levelling process again and again until we got to the point we're now at, where players expectations of levelling speed means that you can reach the endgame of any new MMO within the first month of launch (within the first week if you're hardcore).

 

This hurts a game like SWTOR where clearly the endgame is not finished or sufficiently polished and there are artificial grinds in place to cover up this fact. Players have not been kept busy having fun levelling for long enough, with the consequence that players are either frustrated by the messy, buggy, deliberately grindy endgame or else are now levelling their 2nd, 3rd or even more alts to 50, just to abandon them at 50 and start another.

 

But that's what you get when you make MMOs all about rushing to the endgame, only to find that that the endgame either isn't finished or is a totally different type of game to what you expected. Usually they have to turn the endgame into a horrible grind in order to slow people back down and retain their subscriptions, having just allowed them to race to the endgame in the first place. It is game design madness.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Cernow

[Drewser]

There is ONLY 1 IMPORTANT Difference... SW ToR is COMPETING with WoW NOW not WoW 8 years ago...

 

SIGH trolls

 

The OP asked specifically what it was like when it launched since he did not get to experience it.

[kharnedge]

Its hard to compare wow to swtor 3 months in because as much as some people hate WOW it gave us a lot of popular staples of MMOs today. The more fare comparison is Rift vs SWTOR I played both at launch and both had a few points where i was ready to unsub.

 

The biggest difference is Rift listened the the bulk of the player base, not just the same 20 people on these forums who yell the loudest. I cant fathom how this game doesnt have a LFG. As it stands if ur in a decent guild you dont need HM FPs, if ur trying to gear an alt or gawd forbid came to the game late good luck getting gear. I have seen the same poor people spamming gen chat in the fleet for hours trying to get a HM going.

 

So here is what is being done Bioware is spending a lot of time creating FPs and very few people play them. Another new FP is coming in 1.2 and i took a poll of my guild when we had about 25 50s on the other night I asked who was gonna run that FP more then once to progress the Ratghoul story. The answer i got was no one.

 

This is just one basic MMO feature that most have built in from the get go and Bioware isnt touching for fear of enraging the hardcore 5% who want a hard MMO that forces you to do mundane things like stand in fleet spamming gen chat or key binding 24 buttons for my Sin rotation because Macros would break the game .... btw no it would enhance it.

 

The lack of .... LFG, macros, raid metrics ... such as damage or threat meters, meaningful (and promised) world pvp, meaningful reasons to run FPs (I have 100s of tionese shards sitting around), lack of DUAL SPEC even in 1.2 when they are introducing rated pvp. These all lead to being bored as **** at level 50. I personally no longer log on other then to raid and if 1.2 doesnt blow me away I'm out.

 

 

Quick edit after my rant, LFG is one feature most games patch in post launch it seems but as rift is my standard to judge MMos post WOW era. They confirmed they were working on something in regards to a LFG pre 1.1 and very quickly post 1.1 we got very nice details about how the LFG would work and when it launch of how did it work. I leveled 2 alts just having a blast questing and queing for instances while "Rfiting" or questing.

 

In SWTOR we are very close to 1.2 withing i would thing 1-2 weeks based on it being on PTR for about a week now and all we got is very minor info on we may put in some type of system at the guild summit.

Edited March 22, 2012 by kharnedge

[Kthx]

And wow forums were most definately not like this.

 

The forum atmosphere has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with a change towards self-entitlement and a disregard for civil discourse.

[ferroz]

I want to clarify a couple of things for the original poster on EQ(Everquest). Yes WOW eclipsed it, but for a good reason.

Eh, wow had quadrupled EQ's subscriptions in 6 months; it didn't just pull in the casuals from EQ, it vastly added people into the genre...it was really the first western game to do something like that.

 

If they had kept to their LDON expansion that allowed any group makeup, they may not have lost as many subscribers. But they went for tiered raid progression for hard core players and folks left in droves.

un... ldon required tank, heals, slower and a good puller (especially in, say, guk); it did not work for "any group makeup" except at low levels. Trash in the hard dungeons at the level cap was a challenge to heal even with a cleric healing and a well geared sk/paladin/warrior (and that's assuming you have a puller that can single pull everything or good CC to instantly lock everything down).

 

EQ had already done tiered raid progression in many (most really) it's expansions: PoP, SoL and SoV definitely fit that, and even kunark and classic EQ weren't too far off.

 

 

That said I would say the exploration in this game is not the same. There is less "wonder" so to speak.

Yeah, the world is kind of flat and un-alive comparatively. There's nothing in this game like the fear of having to run through kithicor at night. Edited March 22, 2012 by ferroz

[DieAlteHexe]

...Yeah, the world is kind of flat and un-alive comparatively. There's nothing in this game like the fear of having to run through kithicor at night.

 

To this day I still use my "wall hugging" skills.

 

And I will NEVER forget Corflunk in Butcherblock Mtns.

 

He pasted me so badly I had no idea what got me.

 

Yep, on your toes in original EQ alright.

 

Then again, I've never completely lost a corpse, equipment and all with no help from the GMs either. Got pounded into the ground and they couldn't/wouldn't pull it out for me. I damn near quit on the spot over that one but happily my guild scooped me up and got me back on track.

[Alcarinn]

So.... we should... GET A TIME MACHINE? All you're saying is that Swtor should just lay down and die just because WoW is the most massive MMO out here at this time?

 

You must lack adventure.

 

Noone said that, but if a game coming out has WORSE AH(GTN) than a game that came out in 2004 had (as availability and how easy it is to use it) it deserves tons of criticism... And if the game dies its obvious why will it die... Because it did not have many features that its EXPECTED FROM MMORPG AT YEAR 2012(2011 bla bla)

[Midichlorien]

Yeah, the world is kind of flat and un-alive comparatively. There's nothing in this game like the fear of having to run through kithicor at night.

 

No high level necromancer or Shadow Knight on my friend list and running through Kithicor at night with only one thought left "don't get killed at a place where you can't corpserun"

 

...the sweat dropping on my keyboard was pretty real, I remember.

[Averran]

Hello everyone,

 

Threads in this forum should be focused on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. We encourage you to make threads or join in on discussions about specific game-related topics but are going to close this thread as it is off-topic.