Thottbot.com is your friend. Type in a quest name, and away you go :)

The worst are “collect 10 raptor heads” (for instance). Strangely, there are a lot of raptors without heads. Bizarre, huh?

Or you kill some soldier and when you loot him, the weapon with which he was hacking away at you is nowhere to be found :)

@Tummblr – don’t worry about the debate – it’s interesting. Let’s me see what different people like in this game, so I don’t mind having it here at all. :)

I’m not participating much because I just woke up like 2 hours ago. Hey, it’s Saturday. :P

But yeah – getting people to do anything online at specific time on a specific day takes some leadership skills and negotiation.

I haven’t tried any add-ons, but then again I’m using the streaming client which may or may not be moddable. I will look into this.

I noticed the crafting aspect, but I haven’t really gotten into it much. I’m perpetually short on cash so I didn’t feel like wasting time on skills I might never have time to use.

@Steve – yup, that’s what I’m seeing – all the missions are almost same. Also sometimes they feel so futile – for example cleansing the wells near Bloodhoof and Thunderbluff. You go there, you kill all the Venture Co. goons, you perform the ritual and 10 minutes later they all respawn around the wells again. :(

I just started taking every single “kill X of Y” or “Collect N of M” quest I can as soon as I see it. This way no matter where I roam, I might be actually fulfilling someone’s quest. Finding the right guy to report back to may sometimes be an issue, but so far all my quest givers are from Bloodhoof and Thunderbluf which are not that big, and not that far apart. :P

I see your points. Perhaps I am frustrated because two guilds in a row have imploded through clashes of personalities (and, one of the few times when I was not involved in something like that :) ). And I haven’t run a Heroic in weeks (because I can’t stand PUGs). lol

I don’t mind Arenas, and I am starting to take my 70 lock into more and more PvP. But, I still don’t think I like it too much for lower level characters unless I twink them out.

I also LOVE playing around with AddOns…I must admit.

Gah, I wish we could edit comments in WordPress. I’m incapable of writing error-free stuff without editing!

[quote post=”2195″]Oh, and I forgot to mention the other major hobby I have in WoW: tweaking my UI.[/quote]
Wanted to add: It’s amusing that I have “hobbies” within WoW. Isn’t WoW itself a hobby? I think that’s the incredible thing about WoW. It’s almost like a way of life itself. Different people have countless different ways of enjoying the game.

[quote post=”2195″]if you are talking about the coordination aspects of getting a balanced raid together as an intriguing part of the game, I guess there’s a bit more[/quote]
I might have overemphasized the logistics aspect of raiding. Sure, that’s complicated and perhaps “interesting,” to some, but the main attractions of raiding (and arena PvP) are the team and social aspects. It’s a virtual event that you take part in with dozens of other people. It’s a difficult hurdle that you overcome with the help of others, and you are rewarded for it with shiny prizes that help you overcome the next hurdle. Talking about it as a virtual sport is laughable, but it’s very appealing to thousands of people without the skill or time or inclination for team activities in real life. WoW is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things (which is why I quit), but if I had the time, I wouldn’t mind having the warm fuzzy feeling I get from the game. Or maybe I’m just justifying the days, weeks (months?) of my life I spent on the game.

[quote post=”2195″]PvPing is painful, especially at the lower levels when you are facing a team of twinks.[/quote]
I do agree that world PvP and battlegrounds are not so fun, but for the dedicated PvPers, Arenas are shaping up to be a pretty fun and fair environment, no? For a while people thought it’d become the next big eSport.

Also, the late/end game (maximum character level) in WoW is totally different from the early or mid game. Don’t be too quick to judge it. For me, the early and mid games already got me hooked, but after “beating” the game, only the late/end game kept me interested.

[quote post=”2195″]As for crafting, if your idea of “fun” is to run around for hours trying to get together the mats to make one item, of which you need 10 or so, with a 1 day (or more!) cooldown between the crafting of the item in question, then I guess the game is a regular hoot.[/quote]
I’m not a fan of crafting for crafting’s sake (though I know many people who love that, and many other things in WoW I find silly but whatever floats your boat…). However, I love “making money” in WoW, which combines crafting, trading, auctioning, arbitrage. It’s all about buying low, selling high, whether it’s actual products, raw material for crafting, consumables, anything. But isn’t that the same as real life?

Oh, and I forgot to mention the other major hobby I have in WoW: tweaking my UI. UI AddOns and Modifications in WoW can allow you to change the game’s interface and behavior significantly. Tweaking the game to improve my efficiency in raiding, PvP, making money was a never-ending task for me. Actually, now that I think about it, UI AddOns are probably the single biggest reason I kept playing. I’m not a very good twitch video game player, so without AddOns which improved my performance, I would be a very mediocre player. I don’t like being mediocre. With AddOns, I’m awesome. :)

Sorry for starting a big debate, Luke. :P Maybe I should organize my thoughts and blog about it myself instead of rambling in your comments section.

Well, if you are talking about the coordination aspects of getting a balanced raid together as an intriguing part of the game, I guess there’s a bit more. I find that most guilds are not structured flexibly enough to make more than a few disparate groups. As for PvP, crafting, and trading, all of those are the same as the quests: kill x, get y…oh and, I guess, make z.

PvPing is painful, especially at the lower levels when you are facing a team of twinks. Hardly satisfying. And if the Alliance outnumbers the Horde by a factor of 5 or 6, then it makes PvPing that much more frustrating.

As for crafting, if your idea of “fun” is to run around for hours trying to get together the mats to make one item, of which you need 10 or so, with a 1 day (or more!) cooldown between the crafting of the item in question, then I guess the game is a regular hoot. :)

“Except for end game instances, which are simple hack-n-slash encounters, there isn’t much else to the game at all.”

I wouldn’t call getting 25 (previously 40) people to hack-n-slash at the correct location, with the correct timing, using the correct abilities, to the correct degree, while wearing the correct gear, and using the correct consumables, simple. ^_^ (Heck, getting the needed 25/40 people to login to the game and show up at the instance at the same time is a chore.)

I also wouldn’t call PvP, crafting, trading, RP, questing, and a full-fledged economy mimicing real-life “not much else”. :P And I’ve been away for months now. Who knows what new features Blizzard has added in recent content patches.

/rabid Blizzard and WoW fan

The game quests don’t change all that much from what you are experiencing early on. There are 5 basic types: “kill x of some-mobs”, “Collect x of something – either by killiing mobs or picking them up”, “Go kill some-specific-mob”, “Cause something to happen by doing something very specific” (ie: blow up enemy ammo by dropping bombs on them), or “Go deliver x to y”. That’s it. Except for end game instances, which are simple hack-n-slash encounters, there isn’t much else to the game at all.

I guess it might be a good idea to keep things simple initially, so that you don’t hinder your progress by a series of mistakes early on in your career. This way you don’t get into min-maxing before you are comfortable with game mechanics. :P

Welcome to World of Warcrack! Well, I shouldn’t say welcome since I actually went cold turkey after graduation last summer. *tear* I think I’m still suffering from withdrawal…

I was very much obsessed with WoW’s end-game raiding aspect, so I’m ashamed to say I can probably go on and on about the game mechanics in WoW, but I don’t want to spoil things or scare you away. Discovery is most of the fun!

Just a short note regarding min-maxing: don’t worry if WoW starts off without any opportunities to min-max. That will come later, first with talents and later with gear and synergies with other classes in team activities. There is plenty to feed the beast with if you are into Math, min-maxing, efficiency, etc. In fact, I’d argue that every good end-game raider must be somewhat proficient in min-maxing (though many many people also enjoy the game without ever touching end-game raiding or min-maxing).

I firmly believe that the incredible success of WoW can be attributed to its ability to more-or-less satisfy every single type of player: RPers, PvPers, PvEers, min-maxers, collectors, whatever. If there are things you wish were different, just keep playing. You’ll be surprised at what you can do later on in the game.