One month of WoW Europe

I'm now playing World of Warcraft on the European servers for one month, so it's time for a look back. Just some thoughts in random order:

In one month I reached level 36 with my main character, and have a level 10 and a level 8 alt. No other MMORPG I played offered that sort of speedy advancement. Up to now I like this speed. But I know that some people are "stuck" at level 60 (mainly on the US servers), unwilling to start over, and complaining there isn't enough to do at the end level. I consider that only as a minor problem. I think Blizzard is losing less customer that get bored at level 60, than SOE is losing customers which get stuck half-way up the level curve. "Lack of end game" is less bad than "treadmill grind".

This morning, before I went on a shopping spree for resources, I had 40 gold pieces. More than I ever had on the US server, and mainly earned with selling smithed goods. I don't know if that will keep on earning me money as the economy evolves, but it is already a good step towards the 90 gold I'll need at level 40 for a mount.

The mounts are probably the main driving force of people buying WoW gold for real world money. IGE just started selling gold on the European servers. 100 gold on Runetotem, PvE, Horde, cost $119.99. 100 gold on my US server, Icecrown, PvE, Horde, cost $29.99. Age difference between these two servers is 3 months, so in 3 months gold is losing three quarters of its value. That is a 3-month inflation rate of 300%, or 1200% annualized. Not a stable economy. IGE/EBay is just a way to measure this inflation, the effects of this inflation are hitting people that never buy or sell gold as well, in the form of higher auction house prices.

Up to now my server has been remarkably stable and free of lag. But I got French speaking friends who are playing on my English language server because they say the French servers are overcrowded. And apparently the PvP servers are a lot more crowded and have problems with lag and login queues. But no major server outage in Europe yet. Meanwhile Icecrown, being part of "the 20" servers which have most of the problems on the US side continues to be highly problematic. Well, my account there runs out end of this month.

It is hard to say which of my two guilds is nicer, the US guild The Echelon, or the Euro guild The Order of the Rose-Croix. But the Euro side wins hands down in the "more fun" category, just because they are in the same time zone as I am. Thus I'll stay on the Euro servers, and ditch my US characters and account.

I have heard people say that WoW is not a very social game, because it doesn't force players to group, thus leading to everybody just soloing. I can't confirm that. While the game *can* be played in a completely unsocial way, that would be the unsocial players fault. It is easy enough to find a group, will get even easier with the next patch, and the game does not put up too many obstacles in your way if you want to group with your friends who don't have the "right" level or "right" class. And if you join a good guild, like I did, World of Warcraft becomes a very social experience indeed.

I infected at least 4 people who never played a MMORPG before with the WoW addiction. My wife, and 3 guys of my D&D group. That never happened with any other MMORPG I played, and is a clear indication of how accessible World of Warcraft is in comparison with the other MMORPGs.

World of Warcraft is patched rarely, but then with huge patches. The next patch, v1.3, is announced for next Friday, the 18th of March, on the Euro servers. Probably next Tuesday on the US servers, as Tuesday is their regular maintenance day, and Friday is maintenance day in Europe. I'm looking forward to the patch because it brings a good number of improvements to the warrior class, which will make me gain more rage in a combat, and also will give me more damage when I spend this rage. I'm also looking forward to the meeting stone system, which will try to get groups for instances going. In principle I'm all for the UI improvments, but these improvements are all features that I already have installed via the Cosmos UI mod. Thus I'm a bit anxious of how much work it will be to sort this out on my computer.

So, all in all, the first month of WoW Europe for me is a huge success. I can't remember when I last had so much fun in a game, or was so addicted to one.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:28 AM Permanent Link