I played WoW briefly waaay back in its day but lost interest after a few months. I've been thinking about playing again recently and seeing what the game has become because a 60 day game card happened to fall into my lap. Is it worth upgrading to the most recent expansion or has the game become too large and convoluted for someone as new as me to be able to grasp everything going on now? Any tips on how to approach seeing everything this game has to offer? I understand there's a giantbomb guild so I should probably start there I'm guessing?

There is a free trial, you should probably start with that and I think you'll be able to answer your own question once you wrap that up.

It's true that there's a lot of game to this game but it's easier now to get into than in was back in the day. They make is pretty easy to level and there are enough tutorials as you go to make things easy. Plus there's an endless amount of information online if you ever get stuck.

Also, you can play up to level 20 for free even if your subscription has lapsed, plus every expansion other than the most recent one is included in the game for free after purchase.

Oh that's handy. I think I just had the first expansion when I played before. Is that giantbomb guild still a thing? Would be nice to have some people to chat with and ask questions as I go.

If you own the game you already own all the expansions so the only thing you'd have to pay for (if you already own the game) is a month of game time.

In my opinion the game is still not as good as it used to be. They've simplified the skill trees to the point where they've become meaningless feeling, the gear is still cool but it's always been the sort of thing that loses it's luster if you're playing alone after awhile, and the grind has never been all that fun if you're alone either.

So, I mean you could check it out again if you want but in my opinion if you didn't like it before you probably would like it even less now. Or maybe you'd like the simplification it's gone through. Hard to say. I think it made the game even more dull, but that's me. I still end up playing it for a couple months every time there's an expansion and I get bored. I'm a sucker.

That isn't correct at all, the most recent expansion is never given out for free. He hasn't played the game in years and hasn't bought any of the recent expansions.

No it is true, Warlords of Draenor was very recently (like in the last week) made free for everyone who owns the game. I picked up the game for the first time in 2014, never having gotten deep into an MMO before, and didn't have much trouble getting into it, though I did have some friends that helped me along the way.

My understanding is a lot of changes they have made over the years has been geared towards making the game more accessible. Levels 1 through like 70-80 are pretty easy so as long as you are paying attention to what your skills do and put some thought into your "rotation" (the order you use your skills in). Once you get to higher level/end game there are websites like wowhead and icy-veins that can help you figure out how to best gear your character, what talents to pick, etc.

Since you don't have to pay for game time I would go ahead and give it a shot, doesn't sound like you have much to lose.

As for seeing everything the game has to offer you would have to level several characters to do that. My best advice would be to try out a few different classes, leveling each character to maybe 15 or 20 to get a feel for them (shouldn't take more than a few hours each), and pick one that you have the most fun playing. Then try to get that character up to higher levels because that's where it gets more challenging/interesting, IMO.

no its lame

One does not simply play World of Warcraft. You can only experience it and then go from there. Experiences may vary with side effects ranging from Hypnophobia, severe boredom, and detachment from the real world.

I jumped into WoW for the first time last year and didn`t really have any problems getting into it. I am not a MMO guy but with a few exceptions the game was pretty good at explaining how things work (some stuff it did a bad job of,but that was easy enough to find out online) . It was a good podcast game for a month, but after that I didn`t continue my subscription. As said though I am not an MMO guy, so milage may vary.

@mike: "World of Warcraft's first five expansions are now all included with the base game."

As someone whose played the game off and on since vanilla, there are two things I love about it

1. The initial feeling I got when leveling about the scope of the world and the people that fill(ed) it

2. The community and comradery aspect of being in a guild that gets together twice a week to raid end game content

If you let it, it will consume your life and I know people who have lost families and dropped out of college because they could not budget their time. I treat it as any other video game, and many other people do too.

All that being said, number 1 above has been ruined by the group finder, garrisons, and flying mounts.

Number 2 is the only reason I still play it.

I really like WoW and will likely comeback to it with the new expo, that said I can't play it long term because after playing FF14 I feel like WoW is too archaic

As a person who is a lot older than he was when he first played WoW, I've found that my willingness to form lasting bonds with complete strangers over the internet is a lot lesser than it once was, and only enjoyed WoW as something to do with a girlfriend when I tried to get back into it.

I was interested in seeing what this game is actually like having never played it and wondered a similar vein of thought myself. Taking the suggested advice into consideration I'll most likely give the free trial a whirl at some point.

I'd wait until Legion or at least the patch before. The classes and specs are ALL reworked.

All expansions are free. If you haven't seen any of the content past vanilla (and even that was reworked), I think the world is still marvelous to explore for the first time. I would hop in cold and just take in all the ambiance of that first time seeing everything.

@mike: In addition to them rolling all the current expansions into the base game, they've previously given out free expansions to lapsed subscribers. Prior to Warlords of Draenor being released, they offered the previous expansion for free.

And if you read the story linked by @cornbredx you'll see that you can also no longer digitally buy Warlords of Draenor, it's been rolled into the base game, thus becoming free to anyone who previously didn't own it.

@extortion - I'd say grab a month of time and see what you think of it. The Legion pre-event will be starting soon so there'll be some interesting stuff happening anyway.

This is very accurate. Though killing bosses with a group of cool people will always be fun!

I would say no, but maybe I'm biased. What I used to love about WoW was first most the comradery, and second the skill/research needed to perform well in PvP or PvE. With LFG you don't need to know anyone to run a raid, but you are also running banging your head against the wall with a bunch of randos.

Additionally, talent trees/specs have been neutered. The classes have become homogenized so players can focus on bringing the player and not the right mix of classes. That makes the game easier to be experienced, but it doesn't make it fun/satisfying.

Vanilla WoW was the best, will always be the best. What it is now is just watered down to the max. No point in playing it anymore. Game should just die already.

2016 is a super weird time to start!

I'd honestly only do it if you had friends playing it that you could joint up with.

I think most of the people that still get enjoyment out of WoW are people with a guild or group of friends that all play it. That game is hard to get into solo. You might be better at meeting people and making friends than I am though, so who knows.

If you feel the draw to play it and you already have a 60-day card, then just go for it. Nothing to lose.

I guess what I'm really wondering is how easy is it to find a guild that would be willing to take on someone who knows practically nothing about this game and be somewhat of a guide for dungeons and maybe even some end game content. As an MMO, community is key so how much fun I have depends on me finding a good one to be a part of. My concern is that at this point, everyone who still plays WoW is playing with an established group of players with their established characters and no one really wants/needs to train up a relative noob such as myself.

No

Yes

@extortion: Have you played an MMO that came out since WoW and/or an MMO that is or is based on Everquest?

Congratulations, you already know how to play WoW, the game is explicitly designed to be easy to break into.

I spent a winter break one year in college listening to the GB GotY awards while solo leveling in the Outlands, it was quite relaxing.

@belegorm:

Even if my answer was no, I'm fairly certain I remember enough to "play" the game. I'm wondering how much someone like me who has been away for so long can get out of a game like this that's been around for as long as it has. As the game grows old, so too does the community that plays it. So I'm just not sure how successful I'll be in integrating into a player base as entrenched as WoW. If I'm stuck soloing everything up to the level cap with no one to ask questions or chat with, I doubt I'll make it to the cap.