My first day of WoW

With a lot of free time on my hands, I yesterday decided to try out WoW - and thus playing it for my first time since the Open Beta way back.

So after downloading the 10-day trial version of the game, that's what I did...

First steps

After picking my realm (more bout that later) I created my character!

Well, I like buffing and healing others and have always enjoyed the various healer classes in other MMORPGs, so playing a priest was a rather obvious choice for me.

Preferring the alliance that left me with a couple of race choices, and I picked a night elf.

After going through some tutorial quests and learning the game it all seemed pretty nice - lots of quests guiding you through the world.

What surprised me a little: After a couple of hours of gameplay I was level 17. I recall my main char in the beta being 20'ish in the end, so this was some pretty fast leveling! The quests reflected this - most of them seemed to be marked as 'green' difficulty-wise.

And they indeed were pretty easy... expecting at least some challenge soloing as a priest, it was rather irritating to see me kicking bosses without any of them ever getting through my shield.

For now I'll assume this is due to my level. I read somewhere that it gets tough for priests to solo round level 25. Let's hope so =)

Am I late for the party?

When it came to picking a realm I didn't put lots of thought into it, and I'm beginning to regret it.

"Well, you don't like PvP and you probably shouldn't start on an RP realm knowing nothing about the game world. Furthermore you absolutely hated the crowded cities of Guild Wars, but you wanna meet people."

So a PvE one with a Medium population it was. I picked a random one - the good ol' "that name sounds kinda nice" principle.

Let's say, "Medium" seems to be a rather broad term. In my first couple hours I saw like 2 other players - considering it was a Sunday afternoon, that was hardly what I expected.

I'm not the hardcore leveling raiding player but a more casual one, so seeing no one to socialize / team up with was rather disappointing :(

I was expecting it to be more like the beta I faintly remember - not crowded, but a couple of people in every area.

(Granted, Stormwind was quite the exception with dozens of players at the auctioneer...)

Trial accounts and what they aren't allowed to do

As WoW was the first MMORPG I played a trial version of, I didn't put much thought into limitations of such accounts. Being used to trial versions of other software I assumed it to be a full version with an annoying reminder to buy the game ;D

Then again, I didn't bother at all when it told me "Trial accounts can't use that feature" when I tried to buy something at the auctioneer. Understandable - trial accounts could be abused somehow I figured if they were allowed to buy/sell stuff

When I tried to post a simple chat message (yes I finally managed to find another player! ;)) I was baffled.

"Trial account's can't use that feature."

Did I do something wrong? Was I accidentally trying to use some advanced chat feature or channel?

After checking all the buttons and options I was certain - I wasn't. Trial accounts don't seem to be allowed to post chat messages.

I'd assume quite a large percentage of users that base their purchase decision on the trial are planning to play it more casually.

Taking away chatting from them is quite the blow - not being able to chat somehow hampers the... you know... chatting experience xD

The last difference I've found so far was when I tried to post this on the official Blizzard forums. Turns out you're only allowed to do so when paying for the game ;D

Summary

After my first day of WoW the WoW trial, this is what I take from it:

- Restart on a server with a high population. A shame considering all the game time that has been wasted, but it's no fun with no one around

- Priests aren't really what I had expected. Quite good at fighting and only moderate buffing and healing skills. Their skills don't seem to be that interesting either - they all seem to break down to heal x or increase some stat by y.

- Decide soon whether you wanna play WoW or try out some other MMORPG soon. Not being able to chat sucks!



So yes, that's how I experienced my first day.

Remember, it's just an opinion. Feel free to disagree ;D|||welcome to the club :-)

about the chat thing ...

thank the countless gold spammers and the lame idiots who buy their stolen goods for that. They're the reason why you can't do that.

sad, but true|||A nice read, takes me back to my old days a little. I do disagree with the majority of your conclusions, though, pretty quickly drawn, I think. A couple of comments:

For starters, it isn't exactly correct in any game to compare a beta with a version that's been out for 6 years, let alone an MMORPG which changes a lot over that kind of time. One of the things that changed is that questing and leveling became a lot easier since the beginning days. Soloing any character is never really tough anymore, the challenges are more to be found in the multiplayer part of the game, the instances and dungeons.

Encountering two people in a few hours of playing is highly exceptional, but I suspect your choice of race has something to do with that, more than your choice of server in any case. Even though it's not so bad as before, Night elves are still quite secluded from the rest of Azeroth. Darnassus, their capital, is by far the lesser visited one (maybe Exodar is on par with that). If you visited Stormwind or Ironforge at 8 PM, you'll know what I mean.

And even if you were in a supposedly more crowded part of the world, one session of gameplay, even a few hours long, isn't exactly representative for the entire game. A population of high doesn't mean that you'll meet a lot of people, and a population of low doesn't mean the world will be next to empty. It's not that simple. There are things like factions (Horde/Alliance ratio isn't included in the population indicator) and playing times to consider. In my experience, most people play in the evenings and at early night. I have characters on a supposedly High population server and I have characters on a Low population server, but I enjoy questing a lot more on the High population one, since strangely enough I don't meet as many people there. And yes, I'm antisocial like that.

And about the trial accounts blocking chat messages... I am fairly sure you will be a lot more understanding when you are playing the game for a while. I personally shudder at the idea of gold sellers being able to use trial accounts to advertise their wares. Just like any other MMORPG, this game is plagued by RTM, real money trading. Gold is a big market and there are numerous gold sellers advertising their crap in the game. Blocking trial accounts from using chat features is a necessary evil in order to limit the amount of spam a bit.

So, nice first post for a newcomer, but you do seem quick to draw conclusions.

That said, welcome to the game and to the forums!|||priests get really cool skills later; you just start with the basics|||Thanks you three! :D

Fortunately I haven't seen any gold spammers yet, but I guess it makes sense that they'd spam far more with free accounts, as banning wouldn't be a problem.

I'd just wish that they'd limit the disabled chat functions to the global channels (like trading, guild recruitment and whatnot)

If folks are close enough that they can hear regular chatter, I suppose bots could just as well send a whisper to everyone around! xD

Oh, and you're quite right snowieken, my conclusions were pretty quick drawn - it was just my first impressions turned into statements ;D

A lot more people seemed to be around as well yesterday - it's at an imo quite enjoyable level to be honest!

Dunno if this is due to the areas I'm in now or it was just bad luck on Sunday (or good luck yesterday), but yeah :)

The auction house still seems a little ignored though - prices seem ridiculously high. Even those crafting materials also sold by NPCs are at like 15 times that price when bought in an auction.

And let's hope priest skills get more diverse indeed! ;D

With me now getting more and more talent choices, it at least seems my character is becoming far more interesting =)

So beware, I might stick around and thus you'll probably meet me ingame sooner or later! ;P|||The prices are sky-rocketing now because everyone is levelling professions right now. Either on there mains or on alts, and there are quite a lot around with the new races that are available now.

The Night Elf lands are indeed not quite as popular as the other zones. I'm not sure what level you are right now, but I'd advice you to go quest in Redridge Mountains (lvl 15 - 20) if you can. The zone is - imho - possibly the coolest low level zone right now.

Priest skills get more diverse and fun at higher levels. This is the case with all classes really.

Have fun and keep us updated :)

-H|||Quote:








but I'd advice you to go quest in Redridge Mountains (lvl 15 - 20) if you can. The zone is - imho - possibly the coolest low level zone right now.



-H




I'll agree with that. Just started playing sunday. Loved the "Spy" quests, and the tank of course XD

Glad to see some more people are just starting out :) Just hit level 30 an hour ago, been having a blast! Good luck to you!