Aeren

You bring up some good points there Saosin.

By kid, I mean the ages of 10-16, or thereabouts. I wouldn't expect an 8 year old to understand how to play an MMO.

It all comes down to maturity. Stereotypically, adults are far more mature than kids or teenagers. Yes, I'll agree, teens can be mature just as adults can be immature. But typically, adults have a lot more experience and have had the time to grow up a bit and so their conversations in chat channels dont involve linking spells and shouting "Anal!" at the end of it.

For arguements sake, I'm glad we can both agree the WoW community is pretty terrible. While a lot of adults play WoW, myself included until recently, majority of the gamers are teenagers who, quite frankly, haven't learnt the need to respect other players.

While Eq2 has had some pretty bad cases of immaturity (you only need to gloss over flames to see that) its pretty small in comparison to world of warcraft.

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"Keep the metal faith alive. It will come back, everything moves in cycles. We will do everything in our power to keep it alive"-Jon Schaffer, Iced Earth

Andreios

I have played WoW for around 4 years now. I have also casually played EQ2. I like both games. I have only ever seen posts criticising WoW in EQ2 forums and only ever seen players judge WoW in EQ2 in game. I have never seen the reverse. I don't deny their opinions (perhaps some of it is myth some of it fact), just that I haven't had that experience in almost my whole time playing WoW.

One of the first things I did in WoW was turn off general chat. I then joined a guild. I would say that 95% of the players I pug with are mature and knowledgeable. I am an officer with one of the top guilds on the Earthen Ring server and have been doing the end-game raiding in original, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.

Most of the players I play alongside are aged between 20 and 40 and apart from some occasional drama about loot, everyone prepares for raids and approaches the game focussed.

Now, I have decided to quit WoW for a very specific reason related to raiding for achievements (a fairly new game mechanic). I won't go into the ins and outs here, but enough to say that I will be returning to EQ2.

I have quite a few alts, but I guess I will be playing either my Brigand (40), Defiler (45), Coercer (30) or Warlock (25).

Elcora

i'm posting this late, but at the end of rok i had killed everything in game, EVERYTHING, and was board and burnt out. Sold both my 80s and resumed a social life. What i realized that people in game were much cooler then the people i met outside. The goal in game is to make friends and quest and lvl and kill end game stuff when you get there. In the outside world all i met were guys trying to get pussy and girls trying to meet guys to be fathers to there kids. This may be more of a reflection of el paso texas then game play, but i came back. I'm a 80 mythed out templar now in a casual/serious raid guild. I'm happy again cause i can have a social life and still play the game. Thats why i came back because the people are amazing.

I do wish they would make a server where you start from scratch again, cause 1-70 is a lot of fun in this game, and trying to get a group for my 35 ranger is rough!

Aeren

Especially these days lol. I still think they should merge a few servers to make up for the low population. In WoW getting into groups is cake, hardly LFG for 1 min and you can get a tell...Eq2 can take hours, esp if you are new and haven't any friends...

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"Keep the metal faith alive. It will come back, everything moves in cycles. We will do everything in our power to keep it alive"-Jon Schaffer, Iced Earth

Saosin

I disagree I have seen it plenty of times on the reverse in any MMO and a ton in WoW...which is fine. Criticism is what makes MMO's perform to standards which in turn brings a community.

No please go into details of why. This is the reason for the post!

Kantaris

Maelani asn Southernn are both bettyrer

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Andreios

Here is a brief overview of raiding in Wrath of the Lich King:

These are the current raids in WoW for both 10 and 25 man

Naxxramas (15 bosses)
Obsidium Sanctum: Sartharion (1 boss)
Eye of Eternity: Malygos (1 boss)
Vault of Archavon (1 boss)

Naxx takes between 1'30 and 4 hours to clear for a top/reasonably geared and skilled raid group.

Sartharion has various hard modes where additional drakes join the battle, 3 drake Sartharion 10 man being the hardest raid in game at the moment.

A large raid is going to be added in the next patch (3.1) called Ulduar. This contains 14 bosses and will have 10 hard modes. I estimate that this will go live by mid-April.

The reason I am leaving WoW

In addition to 10 and 25 man raids and those with hard modes, Blizzard introduced "Achievements". Some people like these, some don't. This feature is likely to continue in game design.

Achievements

In practice, when organising a weeks raiding the leaders need to decide targets. A few months ago this was influenced to some degree by the types of classes available to maximise raid buffing. As groups gear up, this becomes less important.

There comes a time when we decide whether to go for achievements and when to clear the boss quickly (on farm). When polling the raid there is a fairly even split between the two. In other words, achievements split the raid.

I play because I enjoy the cooperation, the strategy, evaluating gear upgrades and beating the boss. Since achievements are an external measure of guild progress now and also a clear aim of many players, the guild and I now have diverging reasons for raiding. It is definitely not what motivates me. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate wipes and learning attempts:

First boss kill: 10 out of 10
Achievements: 1 out of 10

Furthermore, as this is now an external measure of progress I feel sad that I have probably also reached the end of my time with WoW unless I can find a raid group that is as switched on as this guild but emphasise different ambitions. I don’t think that is likely at all.

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Illusion is the first of all pleasures, Oscar Wilde

Aeren

Do achievements serve a purpose or are they just another system to help players compare epeens?

/ponder

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"Keep the metal faith alive. It will come back, everything moves in cycles. We will do everything in our power to keep it alive"-Jon Schaffer, Iced Earth

Andreios

A typical example of a raid achievement is Shocking! Completing this contributes towards Glory of the Raider, which if completed will give a unique mount, the Black Proto Drake. I have no interest in a new mount, but have no problem in principle in helping fellow raiders.

Here's the crux of the matter:

If I help those who are interested in completing Shocking! or some other achievement I will probably:

Have to use consumables to increase stats (self-buffs);
Wipe regularly attempting it with unlimited tries and timescale (thereby accruing a large repair bill);
Have used an evening (or some of it) to do something I would rather not do (I would rather go on a farm run, get equipment upgrades and enjoy a more relaxed evening).

There are estimated to be at least 60 new achievements in Ulduar. If it was 5 then I would have no issue helping, but with so many it will no longer be worthwhile for me to raid.

As mentioned in my previous post, I am not alone in not liking this new feature. I enjoy being in a top raid guild because each person knows exactly what to do, comes prepared and we end up clearing content more successfully (quickly and with less frustrating wipes). I won't find those characteristics in most other guilds in this game. Those that are like that will most likely be going for achievements as that is now the standard by which success is measured externally (as linked earlier).

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Illusion is the first of all pleasures, Oscar Wilde

Nurta

I reactivated a little over 3 weeks ago and here's why:

1. WAR's end game sucked, like REALLY sucked. The depth was lacking in ways I thought for a while I could ignore b/c it was fun killing elves and dwarves but it got very boring.

2. LoTRO, while gorgeous hardly anyone I know likes it and I'm a social butterfly and prefer playing with people. Plus it's painfully slow for me b/c I spend too much time exploring than levelling. I'll still play it though.

3. I hate WoW, not so much the game as I do the CSRs who screwed up Leah's account. Some jackass stole her account, paid 3 months on it but didn't change the password. She called CS, told them and changed the password. 3 months later Blizzard said if she didn't return the money she'd be perma banned or something. After multiple phone calls, faxing proof of her identity, and proving she owned the account b/c she had the serial numbers and payment history they dropped it. But what a fucking retarded bunch of BS to go thru.

4. I like EQ2's lore and nostalgia being an EQ1 player I still love this game world.

5. Some very cool people still play this game, people I've gotten to know from years of playing EQ2. They make the game enjoyable.

6. I actually enjoy taking breaks from the game and coming back to feel like a noob. It keeps the game fresh and rather than being bored with the new content weeks after it comes out I get bored with it right before the next content that comes. :D

7. Lastly and more importantly.... Leah came back first and twisted my arm to return.


I will say I was leery of coming back this time b/c of all the station exchange stuff but I haven't seen it in game yet so I don't know how prolific it is. I hope it doesn't get too out of hand or I just may walk away for good. The idea of paying your way thru a game just isn't something that appeals to me.

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