World of Warcraft question

[TKP]

My nephew has been asking me to play World of Warcraft with him. I have never played it before and have only watched him for a few minutes. I am thinking of joining to be able to play with him. If I do play it, I understand there is something like a $15 a month fee, which is a little high, but I can do.

So, the question is, do I need to buy the game as well? Can I copy the game from his machine? If I copy the game, and pay the monthly fee, is that all Blizzard cares about, or is there some kind of key code the game checks for?

[fastitocalon]

You have to purchase the game and the game comes with 30 days free, after your 30 days are up you have to pay the $14.99 monthly charge. There are free trials out also, I would try one of them first just to make sure you enjoy the game.

[Timman_24]

HALT! Do not do anything yet!

First, have your friend do the "refer-a-friend" program. This will send you a trial account and you and your friend will receive benefits in game for being linked together. The trial is 10 days and you can upgrade at anytime to the full game by either buying it in the store or buying a key online. Then you will get your first month free and your friend will receive a free month for referring. On top of that you both will receive a 3x experience bonus and the ability to teleport to each other when grouped together for 90 days AND after you sign up on a recurring subscription your friend will get a rocket mount.

This is a must for friends playing the game. You will level up extremely fast.

[Trunks]

I second the RAF program. You can get to level 60 in less than a week, even casually playing. The only reason I don't like the RAF program is you level too quickly, especially for new players, and you don't have enough PvP experience by the time you get to a level where you need to make a difference. I personally like playing with new players from the very start without RAF, so they can learn the fundamentals of the game before we get to 50+ instances where everyone is needed to fulfill their class roles.

[Skywize]

I second the RAF program. You can get to level 60 in less than a week, even casually playing. The only reason I don't like the RAF program is you level too quickly, especially for new players, and you don't have enough PvP experience by the time you get to a level where you need to make a difference. I personally like playing with new players from the very start without RAF, so they can learn the fundamentals of the game before we get to 50+ instances where everyone is needed to fulfill their class roles.

Amen brother...even without RAF you level too damn fast IMHO, stupid lowering Xp to level and increasing questing XP like every Xpac If they want new toons to be able to get to the latest Xpac faster then they can always introduce the option to start a toon at 60/70/80 ... I don't like being forced to skip so much content by outleveling instances way too fast...(actually would have prefered to start DKs at 1 :P - I like to learn a class from
the ground up)

On another note, while the game is downloadable from blizzard or other sources you do need a key to create an account. However Blizzard has been slaying people with tons of trial keys included in every xpac (and the original game)...then wonder where all the gold spammers come from

[Timman_24]

If they had kept the old school leveling curve then it would take 10 days to get 60 (which was fast), 4 more to get 70, and then 3-4 to get 80. 20 days played to get to 80 is too much time investment for the average wow player. My first 60 was 12 days played to 60.

I would recommend doing the 3x xp and getting a few toons higher level (the xp bonus cuts off at lvl 60.) A lot of classes don't feel like they do end game until around level 60, so blowing through the levels to get a true sense of the class isn't a bad thing. It would suck if he invested normal leveling into a character only to find out he doesn't like the class.

[TKP]

I signed up under the RAF. It has only been a couple days, and I am level 18 now. I don't put much time into it, but I have my nephew and brother in law who is running me around to get the character up quickly so we can do the bigger stuff together. I will go ahead and get the full version this week.

[Kamakazie]

I signed up under the RAF. It has only been a couple days, and I am level 18 now. I don't put much time into it, but I have my nephew and brother in law who is running me around to get the character up quickly so we can do the bigger stuff together. I will go ahead and get the full version this week.

Are you enjoying it?

[Timman_24]

Are you enjoying it?

I'm sure he is. Warcraft is a blast is: 1.) Its your first MMO and 2.) You have RL friend playing it.

[TKP]

I'm sure he is. Warcraft is a blast is: 1.) Its your first MMO and 2.) You have RL friend playing it.

Yes, I am. It reminds me of the old Hero's quest games.

But, I can understand people's comments about leveling up too fast and not understanding characters with the RAF. I was on 2 hours last night and jumped from level 12 to 16. I will have my nephew over to my house this weekend. I will get caught up on everything I rushed through and didn't learn very well.

[Timman_24]

Yes, I am. It reminds me of the old Hero's quest games.

But, I can understand people's comments about leveling up too fast and not understanding characters with the RAF. I was on 2 hours last night and jumped from level 12 to 16. I will have my nephew over to my house this weekend. I will get caught up on everything I rushed through and didn't learn very well.

Haha, we got to level 60 in 18 hours with RAF. Don't worry, Wow is an easy game so you will get the hang of it quickly.

[Skywize]

Haha, we got to level 60 in 18 hours with RAF. Don't worry, Wow is an easy game so you will get the hang of it quickly.

IMHO it gets easier at 60+, the areas in the Xpacks are fleshed out better with Quests, takes like at most 3 areas of quests to progress to the next Xpac, vastly increased quest XP, instance XP, kill XP...it's fast to get 80.
Even faster once you got a 80 toon since your new toons can
now fly at 60.

[Kamakazie]

With all of this bonus XP being thrown around, why do they even bother with levels at all? WoW is boring, tedious trash and if you need to spend dozens of hours just to get to max level so you can be at "the fun part," then that is some terrible game design.

[Nyron]

Brand new players aren't going to level as quickly as experienced ones. They will still be able to enjoy a lot of the content while they are leveling. The problem is now there is much more content for them to explore so inevitably some parts will be passed. Most of the BC raid content will be passed too.

World of Warcraft is a great game. I played Everquest for years and a problem was that with the addition of expansion packs, eventually it gets to the point where new players feel like they cannot ever catch up. So it is either keep the game hardcore and gradually lose all your players while not recruiting new ones or make a game that allows new players while pissing off some older players.

I like Blizzard's stance. For the small minority of hardcore players (who are also some of the most vocal) they say--go to another game like Lineage 2 or Eve. They don't want those 200,000 players. They will take the 12 million who enjoy playing without having to make it their second job (yes I realize WOW can be a huge time sink too).

[Kamakazie]

I've only ever been able to get up to level 40 in WoW before getting so bored that I couldn't continue. It really is the most boring MMO I have personally played. Bonus points for letting me be a zombie with goggles and a sweet mohawk, though.