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Question regarding starting late.
Let's say I wanted to give WOW a serious run. I obviously see there are 2 expansions out with another coming. I also read from the main site about The Fall of The Burning Legion.. I applaud Blizzard for taking the approach of ever-changing worlds, but to a person starting late do I basically miss out on the epic battles of past expansions?
Do the expansions have a 'time-limit' per say?
Further, does it matter? Are the previous two so obsolete now that no one will run them when Cat comes out?
Guess I'm just wondering if I will gimp myself out of all the past action that everyone has already experienced if I start now? I understand most of the starting areas are about to change which lead me to wondering about all of this.
So simply put, can a person start now and experience everything from all expansions or would one have to hurry before the third expansion wipes most of it clean?
Comments
Starting playing wow now is absolutely no problem.
Wow is probably the most newbie friendly mmorpg that have ever been made.
You can solo from 1-80 if you want. But the amount of new players + players making alts are very high so you will always see other people.
The new LFG (looking for group) system (that puts together group cross realms) will help you find players to all dungeons if you should wish that.
When you hit level 80. You can use LFG system, do heroics and gear up as fast as you wish.
The previous ones are absolutely not obsolete, since expansion one is level range 60-70 and second expansion is 70-80. Cataclysm will revamp the old world (1-60) so if you start playing now you will see both the old world "as it was" + the new when cataclysm hit.
So yes. If you star now you can experience everything from 2 expansions.
Ok. So even if The Lich King has 'fallen' story wise by now...I'd still get a chance to drop him if I wanted? Provided I had the resources, guild and gear to do so? That's my main question. I see things on the main WoW site celebrating victories of battles etc. And I'm thinking "well If I start now, I've already missed something epic apparently."
...Yes, but the reward will be nil.
An example being that when WOTLK came out, even Epic items were quickly replaced by mere QUEST Items..Purples you had worked your ass off for were essentially obsolete once you spent an hour or so in the new zones. That being said, there are still people running content pretty much everywhere except some of the bigger raids which you will be hard pressed to be able to find the people willing to run them.
-BUT (as has been stated) you can pretty well level cap in a Month or Two of Casual play.
I found that it was very hard to find proper groups for most instances. As said, yes, it is theoretically possible for you to get in a nice guild who like running instances, but as there is absolutely NO incentive other than the experience itself (and, alright, a totally worthless achievement or two), even guildies tend simply not to bother. The worst part is that the instances have seriously taken a turn for the worse -- i.e. they're pretty easy and utterly straight-forward in their design, unlike earlier masterpieces such as Stratholme, Blackrock Depths, and Scholomance -- ever since WotLK came out, and those are the instances you WILL find a group for because they give you useful loot (at least until the next patch comes out).
If you like good, varied instancing, don't go with WoW. Go with WoW if you want easy satisfaction, a very casual stroll through the content, and perhaps the endless gear grind at the level cap.
yeah I have read about the mass rage that ensues when an expansion comes out for WoW and how it gimps epic items. I'm willing to deal that as it doesn't bother me as much as not being able to see 'how the story ends' so to speak. I'm mainly in it for the lore and seeing the quests play out. I was afraid once some big bad has fallen, and a new expansion comes along with an even newer big bad, I wouldn't get to experience what others have with the previous big bad lol.
I think you just need to jump in and not sweat about what you missed by starting late. It's like turing on a football game in the 3rd quarter. Sure you missed the first half, but you can still enjoy the rest of the game.
yea if u start now, you will not catchup until the new xpac. and u better not be to slow on gettin to max level after the xpac is released, or u will be left behind. sorta happend to me, i took 8 months to finaly want return to wow and get to 80.
Playing EVE
Played Darkfall, Played Wow,
Sorta in the same boat, though I played WoW before.
Don't want to use my old lvl 60 now though.. either way.
I'm contemplating whether to wait for cataclysm or whether to resub now, level up a bloodelf or so and then start a worg twink on the same server, since apparently you can have both horde & alliance on the same server now.
I miss the old days in WoW.. I know they're gone.. it's just.. I feel like trying it again
Edit: Just had another idea.. I still got my old 60, so, could I create a Death Knight on server different from the one I got my old character on? That'd be a good way to start again right now and experience the whole leveling again when I'm going for a worg twink.
Absolutely. People still kill Ragnaros, even though he "died" in 2005.
I mean. They are instances. Bosses are still there.
Some guilds are fast, some are slow.
Some killed Ragnaros in 2005, some in 2006 and some in 2007.. just as some has killed lich king already (very few) and some will kill him next month.. and some not before end of summer and so on.
And its not difficult to catch up:
When you hit 80, use dungeon tool and run all the normal dungeons (can be done in 2 days).
Then run a few heroics a day for a couple of weeks gearing up to item level 232.
Then join raids at your server. If you behave nicely and make friends, you are soon raiding if that is what you enjoy.
Some mention that its difficult to find people for instances. Well no more. After they introduced the new Looking for group system that picks players across realms, you can find people to any instance 24/7. Even at the middle of the night it just take minutes to join a dungeon.
You would miss out on all of the old content. I do not play anymore but I highly doubt you would find a raid to run the old content with.
You can still give it a go if you like though.
--John Ruskin
You can still kill all the old bosses if you find a group for them, though there is no challenge as there was once back in the day. You can kill the lich king once a week as many times as you want just gotta get amazing gear and a good guild. Soon enough though pugs will be able to have lich king on farm.
yeah I took the plunge and it's DL/stalling now. Thanks for all the answers!
Honestly, If you want to play WOW then WAIT for Cataclysm. Because honestly it will be a different game. The last two expansions basically made the game more and more gear based, but in Cat well its going a bit further than that, starting areas will be different, the stats will be totally redone and more simple. It will be a much more dumbed down version and the starting areas will be ruined and or mutilated to mirror the WAR starting zones, as in battleground zones.. the stating Instances are going to be turned into End game RAIDS so Twinks will be dead, there wont be much for a lowbie to do other than level up to max, I presume that will be level 85 by then.
I wouldn't start until Cataclysm because if you see how wow used to be you will be very unhappy with the changes, but as a new player you wont know the difference.
Since you started installing it already, you can still easily make it to 80 and get the required gear to join people in destroying the lich king. All before the next expansion is released.
Once the expansion is released, you can forget about it. Sure, people will still kill him to get the achievement, however they will do it with a group of level 85 instead of level 80. Looking back at gear changes from level 60 to 70 and 70 to 80 then there won't be much of a challenge if Blizzard continues with this trend.
If you are only interested in seeing the conclusion of a quest or an expansion, you might as well just watch a youtube of it.
If you don't mind it that there won't be much of a challenge left, and still want to go trough it anyway, then ignore my rant
WIth the new Dungeon Finder system you should be able to experience all the old 5man instances without much problem. It certainly helped me run instances on my alts that I used to skip because it took too long to find a group.
Old raids are another matter. To run them 'properly' they require an organized group and people who who what they are doing in there. However, their rewards are obsolete now and the people with experience have run them so many times already that they have no inclination to run them seriously again. So if you want to kill Ragnaros or Nefarion you are prety much left with novelty achievement runs. It certainly will not be the same 'epic' encounter as when done in vanilla WoW.
Ultmately it boils down to what you consider an 'epic' fight. There are still some encounters in teh game that feel 'epic' to me even though I have done them multiple times and now outgear them anyway.