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Spore or Wow subscription ?

I played WoW casually for many years, I had two characters at level 80 and one character at 60. It wasn't that hard and doesn't take too long. Plus once you get one character to max level you can start another at level 40 (I think that is still right).

The steaming trial is limited to where you can go, you can't leave the night elf island for example. You can't trade items or talk in global chats. But that is about it.

Wow is a great game and much better then any MMO out there in terms of depth and quality. But it can suck your life dry. I know many people who lost jobs, wives, etc because of it. One guy I know got kicked out of Berkley because of it and he was on a full scholarship! OUCH.

I second OrangeBox for more casual gamers, it's awesome and Portal is one of my all time favorite games... followed closely by HL1 and 2.
 
I've been playing WOW exclusively since 2005 (prior to this I played Asheron's Call, another MMORPG), and I'm soon going to be discontinuing my subscription.

It's a great game in terms of solo play when you are grinding up to the level max (80 as of right now), but you have to realize a few things:

1. Once you do get level 80, the game starts all over again. Instead of gaining experience, you need to gain gear.
2. Expect to spend two to three times as much time gathering this gear than you took to level to 80.
3. Expect to not be invited to many group dungeons because of a low gear score until you get to this higher level.

The reason I'm leaving now is because I'm having a hard time staying interested. I don't raid the bleeding edge content, though my guild does (and has been quite successful), so really the only thing for me to upgrade are bits-and-pieces here and there from vendors, player-vs-player, etc.

The game is certainly more casual friendly nowadays than it was years ago. With repetition, you can essentially guarantee yourself that you can get the higher-ends of content without raiding itself (though raiding items will always be superior).

If you want, use the wowarmory to look for Disregard on Lightbringer. I have some pretty decent gear and I haven't raided competitively since before the very first expansion pack game out. I play an hour at most maybe 2 or 3 times a week.

The other thing is that the cataclysm expansion has been announced. So once you get up to 80 and start getting all this great gear, remember that the developers will press a giant reset button and basically send everyone back to the infinite loop of gain levels->get gear over and over again.
 
You don't have to convince me. I've decided to go for the Orange box and I will be upgrading my Wow trial account.

And I WON'T get addicted. Discipline is my middle name (that's what I keep telling myself, anyway... :D
 
If you want, you can use Parental Controls on yourself to help keep you playing a preset amount (max 60 minutes, daily, etc) I had a friend that did this is college to keep him on track and it worked for him.
 
Gasu E. said:
What would you recommend if I have 30 to 45 hours per month?
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i really don't think spore is that great of a game. i played through the first 3 stages, and the gameplay was just very simplistic. you just go around eating stuff, adding new items onto your creature, pressing some buttons.

i played wow very intensively, and then realized that it just never ends. every time you complete the current content, blizzard releases more content and it is just like they are holding a carrot on a stick in front of you. you keep grinding until it becomes a chore. for casual users, the world is pretty much empty until you reach max level, and i found it pretty boring to solo and just kill X monsters and run around with very little interaction with other players

games that i've played that are really good and actually worth the time: portal (puzzle), braid (puzzle), world of goo (puzzle), plants vs zombies (puzzle), monkey island (puzzle), left 4 dead 2 (fps, great co-op experience with friends), diablo 2 (rpg, the greatest classic)

i've just become so disillusioned with many games. rpg's and mmo's seem like they take forever now and 80% of the time you spend in repetitive fighting. i'm just waiting for games like starcraft 2, diablo 3 (all my hopes), all points bulletin (cops and robbers mmo) and hoping that they will actually be FUN to play
 
Don't let the time you have change what type of gamer you are.

For me, it's actually better for me to pay for a WoW subscription because it's cheaper than buying a new game, beating it, then buying another one over and over and over again.

Yes, Blizzard releases new content patches every few months for World of Warcraft, and it does require some effort to remain competitive (It would be like going after Ganon in Zelda without the Master Sword, you could be much more efficient with better gear!)...

WoW is much more casual-friendly now than ever before. Once you get past the learning curve (which could take some time as you learn the basics, etc.) and get the hang of it, it's pretty fun now. They also made it so you can remain competitive without having to raid or play for hours a day. I usually pop on for about less than an hour per day to do a daily dungeon, earn my dungeon emblem (which you can only get one of per day), maybe do a player-vs-player battleground for some honor points to spend on PVP gear, and log out for the day.

Like some of the other people that have posted above, I prefer RTS and FPS games, but these are tricky on Mac. Halo, anyone? :)

It also sounds like Valve (Steam) is become more pro-Mac so this will offer a ton of games to you on OSX, but don't forget, you can always boot Windows.
 
Gasu E. said:
What would you recommend if I have 30 to 45 hours per month?
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fry-see-what-you-did-there.jpg


/Was wondering about the original post myself
 
Play Diablo 2, or wait for diablo 3, its free, and its FANTASTIC for casual gaming, its so much fun and its FREE for online gaming.
 
pilot1226 said:
Diablo 2 is free?
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Diablo 2 is free for online multiplayer, and i have an extra game key, so someone could download the game for free at blizzard.com with my game key, any buyers?

Or if you can help me with my mac issue for installing diablo 2 i could give it to you for free.
 
On Amazon UK, buying Wow and Burning Crusade separately is cheaper than getting the battle chest. Any reason why I would pay more for the battle chest (other than the outdated strategy guide) ?
 
Dr. McKay said:
On Amazon UK, buying Wow and Burning Crusade separately is cheaper than getting the battle chest. Any reason why I would pay more for the battle chest (other than the outdated strategy guide) ?
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The strategy guide would be a bit outdated, but I'm sure some of it would be helpful. And WoW separately comes on 5 cd's and takes like 40 minutes to install, Battle Chest comes on one DVD and no idea how long it takes.
 
On the slim chance you haven't thought about it, WoW for 1 year is ~$180. + buying the game itself. You seriously want to spend that on one game? You should buy several games for that, and have lots more fun.
 
Ja Di ksw said:
On the slim chance you haven't thought about it, WoW for 1 year is ~$180. + buying the game itself. You seriously want to spend that on one game? You should buy several games for that, and have lots more fun.
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I had several games in mind : Wow, Spore, Civ 4, COD4, Bioshock, The Movies... (I like different genres).
After repeatedly playing demos of all these games, I found that Civ 4 was really quite boring, COD4 was just another FPS, Bioshock didn't live up to the hype, and The movies was even more boring than Civ 4. I've tried the HL2 demo on steam in Bootcamp and I WILL be buying the orange box because HL2 alone is worth it.

That left Wow and Spore. As Spore's Creature creator trial doesn't give you any idea about what the full game is like, it's kind of risky shelling out for a game which may ultimately disappoint.
I've tried Wow and I know I definitely like it, so no risk there.

The only games I will probably be buying as well this year are Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. So you could say I'm in a Blizzard mood. I've even reinstalled WC3/Frozen Throne on my mac.

And I've got plenty of other games to finish on PS2 and GC : Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime 2, Zelda Wind Waker, Final Fantasy 12, Dragon Quest 8, God of War 2...
 
Sambo110 said:
The strategy guide would be a bit outdated, but I'm sure some of it would be helpful. And WoW separately comes on 5 cd's and takes like 40 minutes to install, Battle Chest comes on one DVD and no idea how long it takes.
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Buy the $1.99 trial DVD at most retailers. It has the full client. Then just go online to upgrade your account... a heck of a lot cheaper.

There are better online guides that are free and up-to-date.
 
You can download the entire client from the Blizzard website. Be aware, though, that this is about a 10 GB download.
 
Spore wasnt terrible, it was victim of hype. people who had never played a computer game before in their life bought spore, and then hated it because it was slow and bad looking on their 2003 centrino laptop with 256 MB of RAM.

Spore is fun and entertaining, now ive never had a WoW subscription, ive played before, but from what Ive heard its hard to stay casual, ive seen the game and came very close to buying it before i found a game called battledawn and wasted a year of my life on that.
 
If you don't have much time on your hands, I'd pick spore... Also if you're on a budget. WoW you must play monthly, and when you quit it's like you threw away all that money and you can't even play the game anymore! If you really are that addicted, and you have the money, I guess you should get it. I have spore, it's great. The creature creator is very cool! I got to the space stage in about 3-4 hours, continuous play. Once you get to the civilization stage it's much more fun. I have tried the WoW trial, didn't get hooked...
 
CylonGlitch said:
Buy the $1.99 trial DVD at most retailers. It has the full client. Then just go online to upgrade your account... a heck of a lot cheaper.

There are better online guides that are free and up-to-date.
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I second this. You'll save one heck of a lot of download time.

I've watched my wife play Spore for about 30 min before I decided I could not play this game on an ongoing basis. No offense to the Spore lovers. It's just my preference.
 
I've decided not to upgrade my Wow trial account. I just don't have the time to really enjoy the game fully.

I've already bought Tales of Monkey Island (ah, the memories) and I've received a mail saying I have been accepted for the Starcraft 2 beta. So I won't be bored to death in any case :D
 
deadwulfe said:
WoW is horrible for the casual gamer. I haven't played in three years, but when I did, I was in a casual guild. So there were always people playing who didn't care if you only had an hour or so of time. It's just not as rewarding when you see 90% of the people around you decked out in gear you'll never have.
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Like many things, games are very subjective. I am about as casual a gamer as there is--I only play WoW and only play by myself--no guild and 100 percent solo and love it--and I've been playing for over 2 years. So you should play the games you enjoy playing and let it go at that.
 
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