WoW Questions

[Professor S]

This one is definitely on my Christmas list this year, along with a month or so of online charges. A few questions about the charges...

What are the monthly charges for WoW?
Does it come with 1 month free?
Can you use pre-paid cards instead of a credit card? (I don't put my card online anymore since getting companies to discontinue service and payments is difficult to the point of being near illegal)

I also have a question about individuality. My biggest fear is that there won't be enough options for the appearance of your charcter. Are there plenty of ways to differentiate yourself from others online, or do you end up looking exactly like a ton of other people online?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Once last question. Can you use a headset with the game and talk to friends while playing or is it strictly text based communication? Sorry if some of my questions are obvious, but I've never played an MMORPG before.

[GameMaster]

Yes. When you purchase World of Warcraft, you will get a one-month free trial subscription to the game. At the end of that month, you will have to choose from three subscription plans to continue playing the game: a month-to-month package at $14.99 per month, a three-month plan at $13.99 per month, or a six-month plan at $12.99 per month.



Yes, we plan to support a range of payment methods. In the initial launch regions of North America, Australia, and New Zealand, customers will be able to pay their subscription fees by major credit card, PayPal, and pre-paid game cards. Payment methods in other regions will be announced at a later date.



We don't want to overwhelm players with too many choices when they start off. That's why we are concentrating on features that players will notice right away. This will include things like hair style, hair color, skin color, and facial features. Players will of course also get to select their race, gender, and class. The remaining elements of character customization will be done in-game, when players have a better understanding of how the choices they're making will affect their characters.


I couldn't find a direct answer to communication but I believe it's only text based. As are the other WarCraft games.

[Jonbo298]

Monthly fee is $14.99
It does come with a free month
Not sure on the pre-paid card thing. Some MMO's do it (City of Heroes and Lineage II do but not sure on WoW)

From what I gathered when I played the beta, there are VERY minimal options when it comes to clothing/the way you look. You can change some colors but your gonna look quite similar to everyone else unfortunately.

WoW, AFAIK is text chat only. But if you get in a good guild or whatever, there are 2 more known programs for voice chat. Ventrilo or TeamSpeak. Both are good programs but I prefer Ventrilo.

[DeathsHand]

Yeah there aren't toooo many ways to customize your character.. 8 different races, male/female, maybe 10 or so different faces, hairstyles, and skin tones (slight variations... night elves are different tones of purple, etc)... And then of course what you wear effects your appearance a bit like in Diablo II...

Paypal is currently not a payment option, they apparently ran into some troubles getting it to work right, but it's supposed to become available eventually...

And pre-paid game cards cost 30 bucks and come with 2 months of play (so it's the full 14.99 a month, not a discounted rate like the 3/6 month plans)...

And about discontinuing payments, blizzard makes it sound really easy... There's an account management page where you can easily change your payment method, subscription length, or simply cancel your account (although there's a little picture of a sad, crying orc next to that link... Do you want to make an orc cry?)...

[DarkMaster]

Where do you purchase pre-paid game cards?

edit: is there a WoW benchmark? I know my computer can run it, I'd just like to see how well.

[DeathsHand]

Where do you purchase pre-paid game cards?

edit: is there a WoW benchmark? I know my computer can run it, I'd just like to see how well.

Well I havn't been to a game store since the game came out, but supposidly they're sold at any game store... I dunno about Best Buy and stuff like that though...

Dunno about benchmarks...

[Canyarion]

Some races look more like eachother than others. I found that the Tauren all look quite the same. Probably because they're so big, you don't pay much attention to the face/horns/skin color... :unsure:

The undead for example are very diverse. You can give them crazy hairstyles, different face features (no lower jaw, no eyes,...).

All the other races are pretty diverse IMO. You'll have to find clothes in-game, which might be hard.


If you want voice options, you should probably run another program like Jonbo said. But you'll need to add friends first..
Blizzard decided not to implement that because it takes up huge bandwith. And probably more reasons.

:) You'll enjoy this game. :D

[DarkMaster]

ok, various questions.

1) Can you pick the server you want to be on? if not, how can you get your friends to join your server?

2) Can you pick the city that you live in? (I'm trying to relate this to FFXI) And if you can, do you have to live in the city of you chosen race's home? For instance, if I be a night elf, does that mean I must live in the night elf home? or can I choose to live in ironforge or something? (again, just trying to relate this to my ffxi experience)

3) is your chosen job set in stone? can you change at any time? any penalties to changing jobs?

4) I'm thinking along the lines of something in FFXI... is there anything like sub jobs or advanced jobs? how does your job evolve? are you encourage to stick with that one job the whole way through, or can you switch around and learn different abilities?

5) for the love of God, please tell me there are no level cap quests.

6) Does it cost extra money to make multiple characters?

7) I'm thinking of being a Hunter. Can anyone tell me how they're respected by other players in the game? such as, do they get a lot of party invites? are they valuable? etc.

any extra info you feel like throwing in, have at it.

edit: one more question I forgot... do you need to use a CC in order to play the free month you get? like, can I just go out, but WoW, install it, and start playing right away on the free month?

[Canyarion]

1. You can pick your server. Ask your friends which server they are on, because you can't switch servers without losing characters.

2. I don't think you can really get a home. Perhaps you can in the Role Playing servers though.... But I've heard nothing about it.

3. You can choose 2 (out of like 10) primary jobs and 3 (out of 3) secondary jobs. You can change your job at any time, but you'll lose your experience in the abandond job.

4. Yes, you can specialize within jobs. Like when you're a forger, you can specialize in axes. You can still make swords and armor, but your axes will be much better (the best in the game) than your other products.

5. level cap quests? :confused: What does that mean?? You don't need to be a specific level to do a quest. You just have to find it...
Sometimes you can do a quest with like 5 (or 40) guys that was meant for 1 (or 5) higher levels.

6. No. You can make like 60 characters, on multiple servers.

7. If you want to be a Night Elf hunter: please don't. :( Everybody chooses that. But in general, hunters are very versatile. They have a pet that servers as a tank (damage absorber) and have nice ranged attacks. Magic effects can be added to your ammo.

8. Ehm I'm not sure, but since there are multiple ways to pay, I don't think you need a credit card.

That was fun. You're welcome. ;)

[DarkMaster]

About the servers, what types of different servers are there? like theres role playing ones (according to you), ones for pvp, ones without pvp, and other stuff... are there servers with everything? how does it work exactly?

Just to make things clear, when I talked about jobs, I meant classes and not professions. Just in case you didnt realize that.

Heh, level cap quests, the less said about those, the better.

also, is ram a huge issue for this game? I have the exact requirement of ram (256) so I'm just wondering if maybe I should pick up another stick. would it make a big difference?


thanks for answers to questions.

[Canyarion]

Ah ok. You can't change classes. You'll have to think carefully about that.
It wouldn't be practical anyway, because you need to train a lot of things of you class. If you could switch, you'd have to start over a lot of things.

75% (at least in the beta) are normal servers. 20% pvp and 5% rp.
They're basicly all the same... You can also pvp and rp in the normal servers.
But in the normal servers, you have to 'turn pvp on' by typing /pvp. In the pvp it's always turned on.
I think the rp servers are just to make it easier for roleplayers to find eachother. Perhaps they have extra stuff, I don't know.

Edit: I don't know about RAM, but especially when there are a lot of characters on screen, you could use it. :) RAM isn't that expensive anyway.... right?

Edit2: +rep for considering WoW. :p

[DeathsHand]

I think some of what canyarion said was a bit off... So I'll answer your questions again :sneaky:

1. Yeah you pick your server, but once you pick it your character is stuck there (for now at least, I think a looot of people aren't happy with that and I don't see why blizzard couldn't change it somewhere down the line)... But you can have multiple characters on multiple servers...

2. Each race has a specific city they start out in, along with a capital city... But fairly early into the game you can go to another race's area and even do their quests... (For example, orcs have easy access to the undead area and vice versa via the zeppelin)...
Basically you can go anywhere and do any quests as long as it's on your side (horde/alliance)...

3. Yes the jobs you pick are set in stone... So you usually wanna know what you wanna be before choosing... You don't have to know this at the very beginning of the game though, you choose jobs after getting a little ways into the game and finding the required trainer...

4. As far as I know, there's no specializing in jobs, they advance with an overall rating... And that rating increases by using that certain skill... Skin animals and your skinning skill goes up, cook and your cooking skill goes up... But after awhile, 'recipies' give you less of a rating boost (eventually not giving you any at all), so you'll have to learn/find newer things to make...

5. And I dunno what you're talking about with this one either...

6. Nope

7. Canyarion, lay off night elf hunters! :p I havn't noticed there being more hunters than there are other classes within the night elf race...

8. You have to set up some way of future payment to set up an account, so you'll need either a credit card or a pre-paid game card (or eventually paypal)... pre-paid game cards are non-returnable once they've been scratched off,, but credit cards aren't charged until the free month is over, so if you don't like the game you can simply cancel your account...

As for servers, RP servers have a strict set of rules... You gotta stay in character, and no using the general chat for random chatter... Meaning no crap like "LAG LAG GLGAGGG IS ANYBODY ELSE LAGGING!??!1" or if everyone had a nice christmas... But other than that, it's the same game... I guess just less distracting for those who want to be 'in character'...

I personally prefer the PvP servers, for the potential of an amazing PvP experience... However, at the moment they're plagued by level 27-30+ assholes with nothing better to do (you get nothing for PvPing, at least not at the moment) camping around contested territories traversed mainly by level 15-20-ish characters on the opposing side... Which ends up being an easy slaughter for the 27-30+ people...

But I read somewhere that eventually blizzard will impliment an honor system, rewarding players for doing PvP, and penalizing those who kill much lower level people... Along with other things that give me high-hopes for PvP servers in the future...

[Canyarion]

Well, he meant classes, not professions. So you have to pick that one before you start.
And in the beta, you could unlearn professions.. :confused:

There was also specializing, I'm pretty sure they stuck with that. :)

[DeathsHand]

There was also specializing, I'm pretty sure they stuck with that. :)

Maybe my blacksmithing just wasn't a high enough level on my orc?

Was there specializing in leatherworking? My leatherworking is like 160, and so far (along with the recipies I can get at a higher level) it looks like it's just whatever the heck leatherworkers can make, they can make... No specialization... Quivers, ammo pouches, armor, gloves, belts, boots, shoulder pads anything...

As for unlearning professions... That's not the same thing as unlearning talents, is it? I figure the unlearning talents options at your class' trainer is specifically for talents only (which BTW, is like Diablo II's skill tree for those who don't know) so I havn't really checked into it... Other than that, there doesn't seem to be any way to unlearn professions...

[Canyarion]

I think you can unlearn professions in your character screen. There should be a button 'unlearn this profession' in the skills tab.

Specialization starts at like level 250... Perhaps 200, I don't know, I only read about it.
www.worldofwarcraft.com :)

Edit: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/professions/

For leatherworking, the subclasses are: Dragonscale, Elemental, Tribal.

Edit2: This page doesn't say much about specialization.

Edit3: "Specialization

At high levels, players have the ability to specialize as an Armorsmith or Weaponsmith. Additionally, Weaponsmiths can specialize as Swordsmiths, Axesmiths, or Hammersmiths. Decide what is more important to you such as weapons vs. armor. You'll be able to create specialized items that are very powerful and likely valuable."
:p

[DeathsHand]

Ok that's why I havn't heard anything about it yet... It probably starts at 200, since that's when you can become an artisan...

There's something else to look forward to... And another decision to make >_<

[DarkMaster]

What server are you on? I might be on tonight, if only briefly.

[DeathsHand]

What server are you on? I might be on tonight, if only briefly.

My main character would be the central server Burning Legion...

aaaaand I have an orc on some other eastern server but I forget it's name... Something with an M...