World of Warcraft Questions

I want to play WOW, but I have a few questions and I hope my fellow Tropers can help me;

1) If I stop playing for a while, will my account be deleted or can I stop playing for months at a time and pick up where I left off from?

2) If I do start playing will I just be plonked right into the middle of the story or will I be able to start at the beginning and make my way through the game?

1: No. Your account's always there whether you've a recurring subscription or not.

2. Hard question to answer. The story's a little scatterbrained, to say the least. If you're not already a Warcraft fan it doesn't do a very good job of explaining things to you, especially after a major patch very recently that jumped most of the world past a major plot development.

edited 10th Dec '10 12:35:08 PM by Hashil

1: Brilliant!

2: This is mostly what I was concerned about, Cataclysm. Would I be able to play preCat stuff. Because if I can't, it is a complete deal breaker for me.

If you mean wanting to continue the story directly from Warcraft 3, then that is indeed no longer possible. The most recent patch has made it so that everything from levels 1-60 takes place in a world after the Cataclysm occurs, with your character being a new adventurer stepping into this urgent new situation (mostly - Worgen and Goblins actually have the Shattering take place during their early game).

Levels 60-80 are actually prior to it because as Expansion content - and more advanced than the rather ancient vanilla quests anyway - they haven't been updated.

What exactly is it you're wanting? Most of the early game stories do a fairly good job of introducing you to the situation of your character and their race.

Basically, all I wanted was to be able to install the game and start playing as if I had gotten it on release date. But seemingly that's not possible. Oh well.

No, it's not possible. Prior to Cataclysm, it was possible to a certain extent, since most of the original content was still there. Cataclysm updated the vast majority of the original world and that possibility is now gone.

However, it was never possible to completely recreate the experience of playing the original, since the stakes and player base/interests are so different.

Aw really? That's a shame, thank you any way.

Basically, all I wanted was to be able to install the game and start playing as if I had gotten it on release date. But seemingly that's not possible. Oh well.

Trust me when I say that no, you don't want to be able to do that. Six years of MMO design later, almost all of that content was complete garbage — and most of the storyline was created from whole cloth for World of Warcraft and had nothing to do with the previous games at all.

It's an inexpressibly better game now, but by the sound of it, it's very much a no-win scenario for you all the same.

100% agreed. The experience of World Of Warcraft today is so much improved from that early game that I really don't think you should even be wishing to experience the old version of anything.