Poll - How much HAVE you read before playing?

As a player that often spends 3-4+ hours a day on Path of Exile, I tend to see the same questions every day, as I'm sure some of you also have; good examples to such questions are 'Is game mechanic X viable with character class Y?', 'Is item Z any good?' or 'Where can I find quest entity A or zone B?'. I think most of you would agree that while these questions are born of innocent new-player curiosity, they're mildly annoying to read every day several times. Hiding global chat however is not an option, since amidst the questions and the daily 'PoE > D3' discussions you can still find a meaningful topic to discuss.

So, let's cut to the chase: How many of you have taken their sweet time right here, on the Forums, and have also read the FAQ? And how many of you have never asked Global chat a question about game mechanics/skill and support gems/classes/any other question that's answered here or on the FAQ?

Back when I was new to the game, I spent a few weeks (not an exaggeration) reading up on the game and it's mechanics after my first session playing. With how overwhelming the game can be for a new player, I felt it necessary to understand what I was getting myself into before heading out into Wraeclast again.

I do feel people need to bone up on the game by reading if they are serious about playing. This isn't a "pick up and go" type deal. We'd have a lot less chat spam and forum spam about the same things again and again if players would do even just a little reading.

That's what I've been encouraging most people to do, although my efforts have met considerable resistance in the form of laziness, trolling or just plain 'NUH UH'. I don't think most people realize that this game is indeed hard compared to most recent releases in the RPG genre, unless of course you're using one of the builds that are proven to be easy to play.

With the risk of repeating what Jim_Fear posted, you can't expect to make it very far without reading.

Spent some time reading up on the basics of the skill system and of course currency values. So before I even made a character I knew the chromatic orb recipe and what the valuable orbs were, thus preventing stupid noob wastes I'd be kicking myself for later. As for specific skill mechanics, I just did research as the questions came up.

Before I could get a key (I found PoE a mere month before they started offering beta keys via support packages), I did the whole 'holy fuck this is awesome must absorb all information' phase where you gorge on a game's particulars simply because you can't play.

So I spent days at work fiddling with the skill tree, reading every single word on the site (including the much-missed lore/diary entries describing the various zones of act 1), skimmed the forum, watched all three third party youtube videos I could find (TotalBiscuit and 'WinBoner', multiple times) and basically teased the fuck out of myself.

Once I got a key, I downloaded, killed global and played for a while. After a few days of that, I 'joined' the community both here and in-game.

I definitely read a lot before playing but mostly because I didn't have a choice.

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Charan wrote:

I definitely read a lot before playing but mostly because I didn't have a choice.

Same here,i also found the game from TB by accident, when i joined almost a year ago i was playing with the passive tree a lot and reading on the skills while i was waiting to get a key, then after a few days i was lucky enough to get a beta key from Reaper for which im still grateful

I made my first character, reached Lioneye's Watch, then closed the game and came on the forums to read. I read the FAQ, mechanic's thread and several sticky threads or interesting threads, then explored the wiki and skill tree. Only after that I started playing for real and didn't need to ask anything on chat.

is this game in open beta or still in close beta?

I was asking all about mechanics of things for like 3 days before Charan directed me to the Mechanics Thread on the forums. And I discovered all the vendor recipes which people would talk about too. Good old forums.

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Charan wrote:

So I spent days at work fiddling with the skill tree, reading every single word on the site (including the much-missed lore/diary entries describing the various zones of act 1), skimmed the forum, watched all three third party youtube videos I could find (TotalBiscuit and 'WinBoner', multiple times) and basically teased the fuck out of myself.

I remember pretty much pulling an all-nighter reading all the lore and dev diaries before getting my beta key.

Good times!