Sigh, tried WoW again...

BelgarathMTH

OMG.

Over the past two days, inspired by some nostaligic emotions invoked by watching "The Guild", I decided to try reactivating my old WoW account.

I went in with my old 73rd level druid, now guildless after a six month absence. I started working on the Outlands part of my Loremaster title. On my Earthen Ring server, I swear, I think I was the only player in the whole Shattrath City area.

I quickly tired of "the old grind" all by myself, so I put out some guild requests just to get some in-game guild chat going.

In the first one I joined, there were two other people, including me, one other player who was "trying it out", and the guildmaster.

And, oh yeah, the spammer who joined right after me, and started a stream of obscene language about pedophiles, after the guildmaster tried to say "we are a family guild with children". The embarrassed guildmaster gkicked the obscene spammer three times, and the pedophile just kept rejoining and spamming obscenity. When the guildmaster *finally* figured out how to adjust one of his add-ons, the pedophile simply created a new toon with a variation on the same obscene screen name he was using, and started it up again.

In the second one I joined, the people seemed very friendly, and I thought that maybe I had found a guild home where I could work on my Loremaster title while enjoying some friendly guild chat. Then, I agreed to try the guild Vent with another member. I told her that I didn't have my mic hooked up currently, but that I would try to log in to the guild Vent and see if I could hear her, since she was alone there.

Upon succeeding at that, I was treated to the sounds of her emotionally abusing her two-year old daughter, who kept shouting back obscenities at her mother, as good as she got. I was horrified, immediately shut down Vent, and gquit that guild.

The mortified guildmaster whispered me, gkicked the child abuser, and begged me to rejoin.

After I agreed to that, I was treated in guildchat to the guildmaster reinviting the child abuser, confronting her, and starting to read about the child abuser calling me a liar.

I logged off, and immediately cancelled my one-month renewal of my WoW subscription.

I am traumatized, and this horrible MMO is now sending me to bed crying for the umpteenth time.

I could use a bit of tea and sympathy here from my forum friends, as I have come to see this place as a safe haven, and a kind of familiar home. Thank God for nice people! Mean people suck!

LadyRhian

I'm sorry to hear you had to go through that. ::Hands over a teapot of Jasmine tea, some pistachio biscotti and a pretty china cup, saucer and plate.::

Kilivitz

Sorry about your bad experience.

I played WoW for a short time a few months ago, but had no run-ins with crazy people probably only because I joined a guild formed only by real-life friends.

That didn't prevent me from getting bored with the game anyway.

riyahhassett

RIP WoW. It was fun while it lasted.

recklessheart

Haha, the only thing about this that surprises me is that you played Earthen Ring. I played there too for several years (the teenage years, as you may guess), until I quite a couple years back. Emptier now than it ever was? Was always going that way, I suppose, as I hope the rest of WoW is.

sarevok57

I could never get into that game, to me it just seemed like a mindless grind, never any real feel of accomplishment, always more, always more, never could be satisfied with a conclusion ( I watched my friends play it, and it just seemed boring boring boring eye strain) but once I hit level 7 though with my human fighter dude, and I was like yup, that's enough for me, but its all good, you have the bg series, much more immersive I think and when you play the whole series from the beginning to end ( start at candlekeep, conquering durlags tower, escaping irenicus' wrath, preventing melissan from doing bad things) you can feel that accomplishment and put a smile on your face when you are done in the world of warcraft world I don't think there is ever a point where you can do that, because there is always something better all the time, and it gets to the point where you have to raid a million times to have a chance to become slightly better bleh bleh blah, oi, too much thinkin' , I think I will just stick with my bg series

Mornmagor

See Beamdog? See what you did? You haven't released bg2:ee yet and look what happened!

But wait, it's not their fault. It's Atari's for what they did back then in june and we lost 2 months!

Oh wait, maybe it's not their fault entirely either... Time! Yes that's it! Time is to blame because it's not the 15th of November yet!

Seriously now, i am sorry you had to go through that Bel, but hey, now you're stronger because of it! In WoW i met a lot of people, some were good, some bad, most cared for themselves only(go figure, i know), but i didn't have the luck to meet such wondrous personalities.

Oh well, it's good that i stopped WoW myself, although sometimes it's tempting to go back, i did have some fun with it after all >_>

O_Bruce

There is a reason I avoid mmos like they are the worst plauge. This reason is: people.

FinneousPJ

@sarevok57 I'm not sure I understood your post, but you play BG over WoW because WoW requires too much thinking? For me I play BG because it makes you think more.

scriver

...BG, to me, is comfortable because it requires basically no thought - especially combat - and you can just lean back and relax and every so often you pause and select a spell to throw or plan out new targets for your melee fighters. It's basically exactly my level of casual gameplay without getting boring. The game basically plays itself.

Lateralus

scriver said:

...BG, to me, is comfortable because it requires basically no thought - especially combat - and you can just lean back and relax and every so often you pause and select a spell to throw or plan out new targets for your melee fighters. It's basically exactly my level of casual gameplay without getting boring. The game basically plays itself.

This is the kind of brilliant mind I want running my country.

Regress Not Stress 2014

SapphireIce101

Yeouch! Isn't Earthen Ring one of those low to medium population servers?

Otherwise, that was just horrible. Abuse of any kind is horrible, and may have some terrible consequences since that kid is learning these horrible things from its mother. I can only hope that the kid won't become a bully, but that is probably unlikely.

My suggestion, if you decide to try again would be to reroll to a different server. Wyrmrest Accord would be my suggestion. Since Earthen Ring is a RP server.

BelgarathMTH

@SapphireIce101, I thought about trying that, but I hate to have to rebuild from level one again, and it costs $25 to move a toon to another server. Blizzard really knows how to rake in the cash from people, I'll give them that.

The sad thing is, I really do kind of enjoy playing the game, when things are going well with whatever people I'm chatting with.

ChildofBhaal599

I've never played many MMO's, but I intend to get into the Elder Scrolls one. I was almost hooked into buying Guild Wars 2 but I like constant progression rather than being the highest level in a few hours. Played SWTOR for a little and it was nothing special at all and I grew tired of so many fetch quests. When I was in about Middle School I remember a pirates of the Caribbean one that was awesome because there was ship combat and stuff. However, the Elder Scrolls one looks almost perfect as they balance MMO with Elder Scrolls. Now I just wish they didn't go for open dungeons, but maybe there won't be too many.

SapphireIce101

@Belgarathmth - I know what you mean, I can barely handle the 85-90 stretch of leveling/questing.

Then, there is the fact that at that level there is only six dungeons to go through, and it starts to get quite...tedious. Then, they re-do like two dungeons, and give them a heroic mode. I was kind of disappointed when Blizzard said they weren't going to add anymore dungeons, and that they were just going to keep making scenarios.

sarevok57

@FinneousPJ I couldn't play world of warcraft because I found it abysmally boring, all it ever seemed like was just grind, grind, grind, games like that have no appeal to me, plus im not a fan of, you need to have 20 other people with you to beat the last boss on the hardest difficulty load of nonsense, some people like that idea, but im not much of a fan of that

RnRClown

I've never played WoW, not even a demo or a trial. Now I'm even more glad that it passed me by.

LadyRhian

@RnRClown I resemble that remark. In both ways.

Night_Watch

=(

I played it for 6 months about 6 years ago. After that I never touched it again. The only MMO I play now is tf2, and even then I turn all the sound off and watch tv or do homework while i run around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Lateralus

RnRClown said:

I've never played WoW, not even a demo or a trial. Now I'm even more glad that it passed me by.

Same here, never played wow. I've only ever played a few MMOs. I forced myself to play LOTRO even though I hate the game mechanics, DnD online...I gave that a chance. Not a fan of turbines nickel and dime approach.

The Secret World is what I am into now, it's the all around best MMO I've ever been a part of and the price is perfect. 30 bucks, bam, done. No monthly fee BS, no stupid turbine points, just pay a reasonable fee and enjoy full content. Worth every penny, my friends and I have been putting in long hours lately with that game.

I love middle earth, and LOTRO got the music right, the story IS ok, the scenery is beautiful. They got a lot right but they really made the game unplayable with their legendary weapon system and various other changes. It's said that with the Helm's Deep (yes the game has been around for 10 years and they are just now getting to Helm's Deep) expansion they are going to re-tool the entire character build. I'll tune in for that, see if my Hunter has become unnerfed and take it from there.

TSW though, is great as is. Highly recommend it.

Drugar

@belgarathmth
That's some godawful bad luck!
I played WoW for four years, almost only met nice people (a few assholes but that was mainly due to arrogance and not outright psychotics like with you).
That totally sucks dude!

Ah well, back to the safety of Single Player RPG's it is. I hear Wasteland 2 is coming out soon...

RnRClown

Thank you @Lateralus for the heads up concerning The Secret World. I have also heard positive things about it from a friend on Steam who has been playing it as of late. It is quickly becoming quite the temptation.

My only other ventures with the MMO (if I understand the definition correctly) world have been with Guild Wars 1 and 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the original for a time, although never pulled the trigger on any of the expansions. The sequel ticked all the right boxes, but I only played it for a few weeks.

Diablo 2 is the only multiplayer game I ever became "addicted" to. Diablo 3, not so much, even though I enjoyed it for a brief period.

I have been yearning for a multiplayer experience for a while now. Often have I spent time browsing the 'Free to Play' category on Steam, considering Lord of the Rings Online, or DC Universe, for example. I haven't had too much free time in the past few months, thus I have yet to test drive any of those available without any fee what-so-ever.

Path of Exile is one I have been checking in on, that is released really soon.

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud

ZelgadisGW said:

There is a reason I avoid mmos like they are the worst plauge. This reason is: people.

I thought most people knew this? I mean...MMO's...that's just begging to get into a depressed mood.

Lateralus

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud said:

ZelgadisGW said:

There is a reason I avoid mmos like they are the worst plauge. This reason is: people.

I thought most people knew this? I mean...MMO's...that's just begging to get into a depressed mood.

Sometimes it's fun to play the game together with your friends.

elminster

Tried getting into wow awhile back. I only got to maybe a level 30 druid (played with a friend). It was interesting but just really wasn't enthralled enough to want to continue paying for it monthly.

reedmilfam

MMO's are (for me) complete ugh. I completely avoided them until TOR, which I played for a few weeks (only). Playing it, I completely confirmed all of my assertions regarding MMO's and cured myself of any curiosity regarding other MMO's. If I ever get a wild urge to play one, I'll run Guild Wars, walk around the town and see all of the avatars dancing in their underwear as their players try to line them up in a way that looks sexual.

Sigh.

Michail

I consider myself a somewhat experienced MMO player. WoW, Age of Conan, LOTRO, DDO and now Neverwinter. Joined guids and kinships, left them or got kicked out (once), joined another. And I have to say the WoW community was always just about the worst out there. Too pvp oriented, too antagonistic, too immature to chat with. It felt to me like a social network with a game as an add on, and guess what? Just as in real life, most people have no manners, are annoying, too opinionated etc. You have to create a circle of friends, and you can't do that in WoW.

The DDO community was by far the best (dnd attracts older or more serious people i guess). Neverwinter not so (yes, it is dnd themed, but it is pvp oriented and there are many immature powergamers).
LOTRO depends on the server and film release time (yes, a new film ruins the community for a while, even though it helps in the long run), but large kinships attract more serious people (on my server at least). Being almost exclusively pve helps.

So what about people in MMO's in general? Mostly young people. Younger in certain games. Mostly more immature in certain games, regardless of age. People that can actually sustain a discussion tend to concentrate on a specific type of MMO, story oriented and almost always pve instead of pvp. And if they can't form a close circle of friends they may opt for single player rpg games, like Skyrim or Baldur's Gate. Which is to say, they will opt for a form of interactive fiction. MMO's have all the pros and cons of everyday interaction. If you choose to interact with youngsters, you have to expect immature behaviour. If you want to find better people in a game like WoW you have to be patient, and regretably, if they abandon the game it may mean that you have to leave with them.

Sorry for the wall of text.

Corvino

I've had some good experiences with WoW and TOR guilds. I generally only really guilded up for endgame content though, and deliberately went for PVE over-18 guilds. Once you've been involved long enough you'll get a say in recruitment anyway, so you can have a stable, self-selecting group and can avoid undesirables. It's often better to recruit someone undergeared or a bit inexperienced who you get on with and train them up than get an experienced raider who is a jackass. Teaching manners is harder than advice on rotations, builds and gearing.

Naturally you get a fair bit of bad taste in chat channels in cities and low-level areas. I don't recall anyone advocating paedophilia though. My ignore list was probably longer than my friends list for the duration of my subscription.

Battlehamster

WoW = W.O.W.

What
Occurred
World?

Pretty much everything you listed is why I dropped the game after a friend let me play a demo account. I got to about level 6 and was completely unable to interact with a society like that. Its a game and way too many people blow the seriousness level out of proportion.

That game could REALLY use a flying giant miniature space hamster.

Awong124

I never play any game that requires an ongoing paid subscription. It puts too much pressure on me to play constantly to feel like I get my money's worth.

Razor

You have my sympathies...
I played WoW Many years ago. It was fun, the animations were nice but, I felt the game was designed to waste "my" time. I stopped for the sub, I admit, but eventually even if it goes F2P Iam not going back. Theres better out there, WoW shows its age and the way its designed makes me wonder "why waste more time on this". So yea, wow community is bad but to me it wasnt even the reason to stop.