I hear a lot of people talking about the “new world changes as a feature exclusive to cataclysm. Well that’s a complete misnomer, all the changes to the old world of warcraft are available in WoW, except being able to fly in azeroth, (new feature), level 80-85 zones, and the two new races.
Everything else you can access with a combination of WoW, Burning Crusade, and Lich King. Now if you’re trying to decide if you’ll like the game, I find there are two kinds of people who play it. There are the PvE players, who enjoy a good computer challenge, but never want more.
There are PvP players, who enjoy competing with other people, instead of scripted fights vs Artificial Intelligence. If you like PvE, you will love this game. Many people do. If you like PvP. You will likely be sorely dissapointed, Blizzard’s arena has gotten less popular ever since Lich King was released, because they spend little time making everyone able to compete, and their developers arguably barely understand the concepts of PvP themselves.
Say you like a paladin, because you’re familiar with the lore in D2, and enjoy being a holy warrior, forget it. You’ll be forced to heal if you want to be competitive in pvp, or be a tank (1 hand weapon and shield).
Not cool. Also, if you don’t manage to pick a character that’s part of the flavor of the month comp, you also have a diminished chance of doing well in arena. Also, with the latest patch, they have supremely dumbed down the game.
It is so bad, it almost plays itself. For example, talent trees (the main way you can customize your character) used to have 70 points (one for each level after 10). Blizzard reduced them to 40, so not only do you get less options to customize your character and make it unique from other people of the same class, but they dont even let you go half in one tree, and half in another.
You are FORCED to take specific points in your tree before you go to another one, even if those points are useless for you. Not only that, but whenever a spell is ready for you to cast, a giant glowing square will pop up around it, as if forced to stop just before casting it for you.
It’s supremely obnoxious how stupid they think we are. If you like the idea of MMO’s, or wow in general, get Vanilla WoW, it can be had for $5 at some places, and gives you 90% what you get with Cataclysm, until you hit level 60.
A lot of people give up before they hit level 50, so that would be the best way I’d recommend to try this game before you give them 20 more for burning crusade, 40 for lich king, and 40 more for this game.
With that said, if you don’t mind having your hand held the entire game, WoW might not be so bad for you. For a company that makes over 165 Million Dollars a month from subscriptions alone, and made 1.
1 million profit from just one purchasable in game pet, has terrible customer service. If someone harasses you in game, or you come across a bug hindering your character, expect to wait days at a time to get a 2 minute reply.
(More often than not, these people will say the most mean spirited things, and most players will not report them, because of the antiquated contact system, in which you wait anywhere from a day to a full week to get a reply from Blizzard, and these players will be brazen with the fact that they will not get reported because no one wants to spend the time waiting on Blizzard).
When people do get in trouble, it’s usually a few hour ban, just a slap on the wrist, as nothing is more important to Blizzard than subscriptions, especially since the merger with Activision. This issue has been constant for the last 2+ years, no matter how much more money they make.
If you’re just starting getting involved in RPGs, I would highly suggest picking up Diablo 2 first, you can have the game, a strategy guide, and it’s expansion, for just as much as Cataclysm, and its a supremely better ROI in my opinion.
In summary: Wow has some shortcomings, they’ve been getting lazier on the storytelling recently, and dungeons have been pretty bland, but most people won’t even see that. If you enjoy Killing monstrous creatures, occasional teamwork, and fantasy settings, then this game is for you.
If you enjoy competitive PvP, you should look elsewhere to a game with more balanced gameplay.