I played a level 30-40ish something druid back in the day and got bored, but now I'm looking to play a game at night after I've completed all the stuff I want to do in the day. It would be mostly to relax and converse in a MMORPG setting, however I am competitive and could see myself looking to progress. Is it worth it for a noob to get into this game? or is it on the way out?

This xpac is much better than the last one (at least IMO), but things seem to be slowly dying. Pick a high pop realm and you won't notice, but there are plenty of dead servers.

There are plenty of things to do in the game now. However, if serious progression raiding is what you think you're going to end up looking for, I would honestly advise not playing. First off it's going to take you a while to get up to 90 and then geared up, especially if you're not familiar with how things work now. I would say you probably couldn't even be ready to raid until the next raid at the absolute soonest, and I wouldn't count on that. Without heirlooms (which increase xp gained, but you need high level characters to get them), I imagine it would probably take somewhere around 5-10 days of playing time just to get to 90, likely on the higher side if you're not familiar and if your goal isn't to level as fast as possible. If you're only playing a little bit at night, that can take a very long time. Then you need to get gear, which can take a very long time, and again even moreso for someone not familiar with the process. After you have gear, you need to find a guild to raid with. You won't be able to just jump into a good guild, because no one is going to take someone with absolutely no previous raid experience. So you'll have to work your way up from the bottom, which there's no telling how long that could take. You would basically be looking at the earliest you could be in a serious progression guild (IMO) would be toward the end of the next expansion, at which point the game will be even closer to dying. This all assumes you just play maybe a couple hours a night, if you don't work or go to school and just play 10+ hours a day like I did for a few months, the beginning stages of this timeline could be moved up, there isn't much you can do to speed up moving up the ladder as far as guilds go though.

If you want to just play casually, maybe raid with a casual guild that is more focused on having fun than killing bosses, there is plenty to do in the game now and I don't see a reason to not play if that's your goal. But I wouldn't bother trying to get into it now if you want to be more serious.

(this is all from a PvE perspective btw, I don't really know how top-end pvp works as far as how long/what it would take to be on a serious arena/RBG team)

thanks. Ya i'd definitely be a more casual player. I love PvP, and i used to do battlegrounds at 19 as a tinked char and that was a lot of fun.

FWIW you can now get heirlooms by joining a lvl 25 guild, though I think it costs like 4500 gold to buy them

True, I think that's just the pants/helm/cloak though, no chest/shoulders/weapons but its been a while since I've bothered to look at anything related to leveling so I could be wrong. And 4500g is a bit of a steep investment for a new player if they don't have a friend willing to give that to them.

WoW is definitely on it's way out IMO, it still has quite a few few years left in it though.

I only play arena nowadays and the only thing I can comment on is that everyone has got a lot better at arena the last few expansions, the average skill level is a lot higher now. For a new player to get high rated will take a ton of work/practice and you will need some decent experienced partners.

I would personally suggest not playing it, I think there are better games out there to invest your time in.

I can't comment on PvE as I haven't entered a raid since TBC...

I think the game is as good as it's ever been right now. It's definitely a lot of fun, and there's more than enough to do if you want to relax for an hour or two each night. Daily quests, pet battles, LFD, LFR, Battlegroudns/Arena, exploration, running through old raids, achievement hunting, collecting pets and mounts, on and on. topher is right in that if you really want to gear up and be competitive in raids, it's going to take you a good while at 90. Several weeks at 90 until you get rid of the pesky blues and 476's.

However, if you want a fun and casual thing to do for a few hours a night, there's plenty for you to do. If you aren't used to end game, then leveling really is a lot of fun. The zones you once knew have been completely revamped. Questing from 1-60 has been redesigned to be faster, more engaging, and easier to be honest. Even without Heirlooms you should still feel relatively OP at low levels compared to quest mobs.

The game is a lot of fun right now. There's more to do than there ever has been before. Pandaria is an incredible continent. That being said, WoW can be as much of a time sink as you let it be.

Ultimately just remember this one piece of advice: When you hit level 80 and the time comes to make your choice - choose Mount Hyjal.

This is all true. Thanks to guild perks, on a high-pop server you can roll a lvl 1 alt and have multiple guild invites before the opening cutscene even finishes, but you have to get the cash somehow. Probably need double gathering->guild championing tabard->lots of LFG for AH bait to get it reasonably early. I had a friend shovel me the gold, but with just herbalism and auctioneer was able to buy pretty much everything else myself despite playing almost exclusively with Enlightenment + 3 heirlooms.

The guild perk that adds to XP and rep gains certainly helps all of the above too.

I don't know your guys' stance on this type of stuff, but isn't it still viable to purchase a character and then pay to transfer it to a high pop server. You can use the excuse at first that you played a lot with one of your friends a long time ago on XXX server, just got back into the game, leveled up on that server, and transferred away because it was dead, etc.

If you have your old account you could get someone to send you a Scroll of Resurrection. That will upgrade your account to the Cataclysm expansion, give you 7 free days of play time and give you a free lvl 80 character.

If you don't have your old account info you could start a new account and do the Recruit a Friend promo. You and the person who recruits you get 300% xp when you are questing together, up to level 80.

Yup, if you do start to play, you definitely need to make use of one of the promotions above!

you get a free level 80 character????

If you use the scroll of resurrection on an account that has been inactive since March 4, 2012 yes you can get a free level 80 character. You can either boost an old character on the account or make a new lvl 1 character and boost it.

1. Get someone to send you a SoR
2. Make a lvl 1 on a high-pop server
3. ????
4. Profit

If you decide to play and don't take advantage of either SoR or RAF, you're def doing it wrong

i have an account from back before the expansion days i'm pretty sure.
How do i get a scroll of resurection? Do i need it before i resume my account?

Yes you need it before you resume the account. Someone with an active account will have to send you one. I'm currently unsubbed, PM nofear and maybe he can send you one.

Yeah, just PM me you email address that you use to log into WoW and I'll send you one.

You will probably have to update your account to a battle.net one

easily agree, have been playing since TBC and the game has never been as good as it is right now

^ :S You guys don't PvP much?

Probably because besides world pvp in vanilla, pvp in WoW has always been aids and always will be aids.

yeah, I should have said that from a PvE point of view it's the best it's ever been, I pvp very casually.

I haven't PvP'd in 5.2, no.

Lol at this :S PvP in vanilla was a joke, everything was so unbalanced, 90% of players were clicking backpeddlers, all you had to do was get some nice gear and bind a few spells and you could faceroll anyone, watch World of Roguecraft ^^ I would agree that World PvP in Vanilla was the most fun I've ever had playing WoW, but it would have been a lot better in TBC (when it was more balanced (resilience)) if they didn't introduce flying mounts and portals etc everywhere.

Arena (2's or 3's) past 2.2k or 2.4k is a whole different game...

swifty