Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard Announces New Warcraft MMORPG
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "Blizzard Entertainment makers of the enormously popular Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series, have announced their next game: World of Warcraft, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game set in the famous Warcraft universe. Gamespot has an extensive preview available complete with screens and loads of info on the game." It looks very pretty. I still want the Star Wars MMORPG to rock my world tho.
...2004
fear my zig!
Will this be released in the same time frame as Warcraft Adventres?
So I can kill all the stupid Sporks. Stupid, confused trans-utensil twits. Get the operation and pick a team already.
What, me worry?
Considering the maturity(or lack thereof), sore loserness, and utter whining a lot of people on Battle.net, I am thinking twice to even consider getting this when it's out(And knowing Blizzard's release times, most likely be another 2+ years.).
Don't get me wrong, I like Diablo II and the expansion, I just normally play alone
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
what Sam Latigna is working on these days. :)
I wonder if Blizzard will stick with their policy of not having a monthly charge for games, or if they will charge the de facto $10/mo like every other company.
Maybe Sam can change this, how about it?
-- this
Sam Lantinga, author of SDL, was hired by blizzard. Is he working on this title? is new warcraft will be sdl based? if so linux port should be piece of cake.
http://www.sgalaxy.com
I believe it's the first graphical MMORPG.
Shattered Galaxy just came out of beta and is in commercial release since 21st August. Looks pretty good, won quite a few awards at shows.
Blizzard will have its hands full playing catch-up, but it'll probably win the Warcraft fans over just like Ultima Online did and Star Wars Galaxy will when (hahahahaaa) it is released.
I just hope Blizzard won't be like the idiots Electronic Arts were when they forced the Origin developers to drop the Ultima 9: Ascension project for Ultima Online. Can you imagine them putting aside Warcraft 3 for the MMORPG version?
"Though Blizzard Entertainment is still hard at work polishing up its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, Warcraft III, for an early 2002 release..."
Uh huh. "Highly anticipated" is right. Oh look! The vapourware awards from 2000! [wired] Coming in at Number 6, Warcraft III. I love Blizzard (mostly), and I think they do some great stuff, but until it's shipped, it doesn't exist."If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
First Blizzard were "inspired" by the Warhammer Fantasy universe for Warcraft, then they were "inspired" by the Warhammer 40,000 universe for Starcraft.
Were Blizzard once again "inspired" by Games Workshops announcement of a Warhammer MMORPG? It's been said that Blizzard have been working on Warcraft Online for a year. Warhammer Online was announced in April 2000. You do the math.
I am sure that it will be lots of fun, but I was hoping for something new! With the hints over the last couple of days, I wanted it to be a LOTR game. That would have been very cool! But I am sure I will loose lots of sleep over this new game anyway.
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who
...I assume that's what you meant, but it is possible that you didn't know that Warcraft Adventures was cancelled.
Vermifax
Logout
esp if it's Warcraft-style game, with an AI to take over when you leave...
Insightful but Overrated Troll
If this game does go the traditional path of $10/month, I'd guess many of the players at battle.net can't get their mommy to pay for them..
If any of you are looking for a non-3D MMORPG, you should check out http://www.redmoon-online.com :) 3D just isn't my thing for an MMORPG. Too many blind spots that people can attack me in. Redmoon is a 2D game with overhead graphics but it has 3D buildings and whatnot. It's got some really cool features such as armies, a Battle Dimension, 9 characters to play, and about 6 skills for each character. It's being developed constantly and updates to the game are free (as well as the game itself). You do however have to pay a subscription fee on a monthly, quarterly, or bi-annual basis.
2001-09-02 16:02:16 Blizzard announces another Warcraft (articles,news) (rejected)
Hmm. Wonder if this will go to the same fate as Warcraft Adventures.
Still patiently waiting on Warcraft III....
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The gameplay footage looks good, but the CG movie is simply amazing. I wonder how many years until the games look that good.
I think video game companies need to realize something:
Not all of us can guarantee having enough time available to warrant a monthly service fee for a game.
Some of us like playing on our own.
We don't all have Cable or DSL! LAG.
High graphics and bandwidth just don't work well, and it's always slow and irritating. Even Diablo 2 has this problem on Battle.net
Everyone wants to release an MMORPG. The fact of the matter is, most companies don't know how to successfully build and support an online game. They have become too used to releasing it, and that is the end of development. Expansion packs not included.
The things that all successful MMORPGs have in common are, decent customer service, a stable client/world/communication setup, and a "world" rich with content and/or things to do, items to gain, monsters to challenge.
We saw Anarchy Online pretty much crash and burn on release. It was horribly unstable. I had been playing AO since the first public beta. When I heard they shipped version 12.1 in a box I couldn't believe it.
Then we saw them crash and burn again on Customer Service. Do GMs exist in that game? As far as I know there is no phone based support what so ever.
My point is, a publishing company better get it's act together if they want to release an MMORPG. It's a very long term investment. With so many companies producing them, there are going to be a lot of sub-par products, with a few games that actually meet the standards a successful MMORPG has.
It would make us folk a little happier.
At this rate, there timeframe in this is going to be during Starcraft :)
(If your lost, check the homepage, they say it takes four years after WC3.)
This is the trailer from ETCS: Download here. You need DivX codec to view the AVI file. :)
:)
I have to say WoW for this game!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is the gameplay trailer from ETCS: Download here. You need DivX codec to view the AVI file.
:)
I have to say WoW for this game!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
MMORPG is a silly and unnecessarily complicated acronym which will serve to turn off people who don't know what one is. I suggest at the very least simplifying it to MRPG, with the M for Metaverse-like, or some such.
"Great characters"? No mention of it.
"Fascinating stories"? Not mentioned.
"Player-driven plot"? Yeah right.
So, where's the role-playing? As far as I can tell from the article, there isn't any. The trailer didn't show any talking. So, maybe MMOH with an H for Hackfest would be a better name.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
All the MMORPGS or whatever the hell you call them are just GRAPHICAL MUDS. Actually they're something a bit less than MUDS as far as game play is concerned. Until you have a game that is as complex as the best MUDS, its really a waste of stime. So far, i've heard that WoW will PvP protection and you wont loose anything when you die. sound like any other hack and slash games they've made (cough diablo1 diablo2 cough)
Oddly enough, I'd almost put money on it that we see the Warcraft MMORPG released before Warcraft III. Actually, I'd pretty much wager on anything out there being released before Warcraft III.
Maybe I'm not part of Blizzard's intended audience, but although this looks damn cool, when am I supposed to find the time to play all these great games?
It seems the only worthwhile games on the PC any more are these whiz-bang immersive-world internet-enabled games that require 20 hours a week to enjoy, or 40 if you really want to get the most out of them. Where am I supposed to find the time to play these?
Back in the past, there were dozens of great games that didn't take so much time. They were fast, furious, and you could get a lot of fun out of them in a five-minute coffee break. Like Pac-Man, Galaga, and the like. There aren't many "hop on and have fun for a bit" games like that any more. Nowadays, games need commitment.
So I spend most of my time on the PC playing games like MAME.
Am I the only person who has this problem? Am I the only one here who between job and friends doesn't have all evening to chase down the old man who'll tell him to say "syzygy" to get past the rabid monkey guarding the gate to the blue unicorn?
Blizzard HQ (South) in Irvine, CA, has two product development teams. Team 1 is their RTS team, composed of many of the developers who brought us Warcraft II and Starcraft. Team 2 is comprised of mainly new hires (from companies such as Activision and ID) as well as some previous members of Team 1.
Blizzard North is taking a short break after working on Diablo games for six years. They have not announced what their next project will be, but their design team has probably begun story-boarding it already.
EQ *was* original. Not good, but original. It was the first 3d graphical MUD of any quality - and so, original.
Of course, whether it's a waste of time (compared to MUDs) or not depends on what you want out of a game. Good MUDs (usually actually MUSHes or MOOs) feature good stories, intense player participation, etc. Good MMOHs feature lots of blowing shit up. Which one you chose to play depends on what you want.
My sole point is that it's not accurate to call WoW a MMORPG, because there's *no role-playing*.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
As a long-time EQ player (level 56 monk as main character, started June 2000), I'm going to have to disagree with your comparison of Diablo II and EverQuest.
EQ has been improved upon, balanced, debugged, secured, nerfed, and un-nerfed ever since its release. When it was first released, it was fun but unbalanced, buggy as hell, hacked inside out, and overcrowded. If you say EQ is balanced, you'd be right... but ask the players who played as Rogues before high damage weapons and strong armor became available for them. Ask them if they felt balanced compared to the Druids who solo'd their way to 50 in a matter of weeks, or if they felt balanced compared to the Necros who used their specialized spells and pets to solo monsters that other classes STILL can't solo at level 60.
The "wow! it's so huge!" factor wears off of EQ. It lasts for a good while, though. Long enough that you decide its worth the $10/month to keep on playing. Its not until you cancel your account and tally up 1 1/2 years of monthly payments, software (and expansion) purchases, and time invested (over 100 days on my main character alone, others I know have over 300 days on a single character), that you realize its just a big "press button, get cheeze" experiment which happens to have some REALLY nice environments and monsters and character abilities for the first 30 or so levels.
Level 30 takes twice as long to get through as any other normally scaled increase (they all take longer, but 30 is twice what it should be). Most people would quit at this point, but they've become immersed enough to see those shiny new toys that are "only 20 more levels". Yah, I forgot to mention that levels 35, 40, and 45 are also designated "hell levels" like 30.
Oh, but you want to see the dragons? You want to go on a dragon hunt with 30 of your friends? That sounds fun, right? Wrong. First you have to go get a whole bunch of additional armor and gear to improve your resistances for the type of breath the dragon has. If you don't, you die. If none of your 29 buddies does, you all die. Preparation is key, and it takes a LONG TIME and a pretty good amount of cash. Then you all have to schedule a time to kill the dragon, since everybody has their own life... hopefully, the dragon will actually BE THERE when you've scheduled your raid, although there's a good possibility that some other group will kill the dragon about 2 hours before you get there (did I mention the most accessible dragons only spawn once a week?). But lets assume the dragon is up... it will now take your designated "raid leader" approximately 3 hours to orchestrate all of the individual players into cohesive groups and organized with signaling through designated channels of communication that will transform all 30 of you into a single, well-oiled machine. During these 3 hours, people will crack jokes, get pissed off at others not paying attention, curse the fact that this is a waste of time. Finally when everything is placed, you bum-rush the dragon and have a 5-10 minute long fight which you MIGHT win if you're experienced. If you have never done this before, you will fail and have to start the 3 hours of prep over again, this time including a corpse retrieval from under the dragon's feet. Its a great adrenaline rush, but nothing different than what I can get by jogging for 30 minutes. And I don't have to prep for 3 hours when I go jogging.
So what's the point of EQ? Simple, figure out the system. Just like any complex system, it will take you about a year to figure out all the parameters, interfaces, levels, customizations, content and context, characters, and MOB AI. This is the draw for ALL of these types of games, and they are forced to make the system more and more complex in order to retain their customers.
So what happens once you lose that sense of newbieness? You realize that it really wasn't a magical realm and the other players weren't really your friends and the game wasn't really all that much fun.
Gimme Diablo II any day of the week. Sit down, kill a ton of monsters for 30 minutes, and quit. Sweet instant gratification, and no monthly charge!
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
For anyone who plays a lot of Diablo.. Do you find it amusing that the characters are either:
1) Standing Still
2) Fighting
3) RUNNING!
A lot like Diablo II...
Doesn't anyone walk anymore?
That is why they are so popular. There are times for Baldurs Gate, and there are times for Diablo. Simplicity is not inherently a bad thing, especially when it comes to interface and gameplay (look at all the good old classic games, even simpler than diablo and addicting as hell...even old school tetris still grabs a few hours from me everyone so often)
--Jubedgy
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis hebes
Does anyone know if John Cash (ex-id) is working on this title?
The most wildly popular MMORPG has to be Ultima Online, or the most addicting. With all it's flaws it still was one of the best games in the world. The game lacked any advanced graphics possible, all 2D. The game had the best gameplay ever. It's not about the graphics with a game that has so much interaction with the world around it. These companies are trying to build 3D worlds that still don't compare to the UO world. I'd play UO again, but then I'd be out of a job and lock myself in a room all day.
Ultima Online, Everquest, Asherons Call... and now more fantasy?
Why?
Why not something science fiction, whether full on sci-fi or even near future settings?
Who else thought of NetHack when they saw the acronym for that title?
You zap the Wand of Wishing. You may wish for an object.--More--
For what do you wish? Box of World of Warcraft
l - World of Warcraft box
a
What do you want to use or apply? l
You start playing World of Warcraft...
Oh wow! Great stuff!
Does anyone else find it amusing that Blizzard is already announcing a sequel to a game that they haven't released yet?!?
I still want the Star Wars MMORPG to rock my world tho.
The official Star Wars MMORPG FAQ is updated from time to time. (I like this FAQ: "2.13 Will I cast twin shadows on Tatooine?" "We are remaining true to the continuity of the movies, so only one shadow is cast on Tatooine.")
They're saying "second half of 2002"; patient, a Jedi must be.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Perhaps a better comparison would have been ...
If you want an in-depth CRPG, go grab a copy of Arcanum now.
http://sierrastudios.com/games/arcanum/
The Baldur's Gate series just don't cut it ... I enjoyed them, but there's no way I would play through more that the twice I have on each. OTOH, I am 70 hours into my first run through Arcanum - female half-orc diplomat-tech (smith/gunsmith/firearms master). I'm probably about 75% of the way through, if I'm lucky I've received about 30% of the available side quests, and I'm already planning my next 4 characters ... (think I'll go with a male elven mage - then maybe a half-ogre thief ;)
Warcraft is not a CRPG. However, World of Warcraft may well be a good online CRPG. Personally, MMORPGs don't appeal to me though ...
That just means that they had the inkling of the idea that they might want to create "world of warcraft" game in 1999, so they bought the domain for $70.
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
Finally, an MMORPG that might be worth getting. I was so looking forward to the Middle Earth one, then Sierra suffered a seg fault or something, canceled the game, and very quickly became a completely irrelevant company. Blizzard is probably the only game company I implicitly trust to come out with kickass games. They sure do take a long time about it, though. It's true that the whole fantasy theme has been a bit overdone, but I don't think that the Starcraft 'universe' really fits with the whole MMORPG concept (though it'd be cool to play a Zerg queen and shoot broodlings into other players...).
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
..Warcraft Adventures ?
After WC 2 came out, there was a game called "warcraft adventures" in development at blizzard; there was a lot of marketing hype around, too (of course). The basic idea was to create an "interactive adventure" in the warcraft universe. It should have had a kind of "comic look and feel", as all characters + the gaming environment looked comic style (no polygons inside).
It was silently axed some time later, cant remember the reason though.
Maybe they couldnt get over that, because basically its the same idea transferred to todays standards (3D, MMORPG).
The concept is made all the more exciting when applied to the Warcraft setting--one of the richest settings ever made for a computer game.
What the hell are they talking about? Warcraft and Warcraft II were brilliant games, but what storyline and immersive world are these guys thinking of?
The "story" of Warcraft (and Warcraft II) was dead simple: somebody ripped the fabric o' the universe a new one and orcs poured out from the hole eager to kick human ass. Now it's up to these humans to kick orcish ass before the orcs can kick human ass. Either the humans seal the hole, or the orcs kill the humans.
What immersive setting did I miss here?
Read my stuff.
The WoW FAQ is somewhat less than informative...n -PC-hardware) port?
For what platforms will the game be available?
The game will initially be available for PCs.
Wow, that helps. They do forget that not all the world's a Windows box, don't they? Where's the (Linux/BeOS/*BSD/QNX/other-fave-thing-that-runs-o
It's a MMORPG, it's 3D and it's sci-fi. See this site for more info.
Hmmm, sounds like they are trying to catch up to neocron. funny if they would release earlier... neocron is getting pretty "popular" even though it hasnt even been released yet (WOOHOO! go NFF), and blizzard is obviously seeing all the hype about the new MMORPG scheduled to be released only in 4-6 months. There is obviously already a trailer for the game, and a beta. Now all the people who led clans in CS, can spend all their time posting on neocron forums and requesting bullshit requirements of their clan members like at least X posts a week (i mean GOD DAMN!! the game's not even out yet!) ;-)
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
...that worked on a quest-based CRPG set in the Warcraft world (now, I guess, it's the "World of Warcraft") for a couple years before abandoning the project because they couldn't meet their own standards.
Don't expect them to release this unless they can do it right. (This is a good thing.) So don't get your hopes too high. If it doesn't come to fruition, it will be because they couldn't make it as fun as they thought it should be. If it is released, it will probably be late. (Blizzard has a reputation for taking the extra time to do things right.)
It will probably also be very good.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
They could've just been snapping up any domains with "Warcraft" in the title. If "worldofhalflife.com" is registered, does that mean Half-Life will come out in MMORPG format?
Doubtful.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
About 95% of the target audience for MMORPGs has access to a Windows computer. An additional 5% gain in revenue cannot justify the cost and maintainance of ports to alternate platforms.
Normally the servers are lagged to all hell, the game is vastly unbalanced (future patches just serving to unbalance the game further), most of them are fairly poor in dealing with anything more than "kill things and get more powerful" (aka questing and plot and rpg value are serverely lacking) In many of them, you spend almost half your time walking or running somewhere. In fact some games like Ultima Online had you doing monotonous tasks like building shit like chairs and tables for hours just so you could get money to buy stuff. At least the text based MUDS of old had pretty good rpg value with clans and semi-balanced play and people who new how to roleplay rather than simply log on and gain xp for a couple hours and log off. Bah.
Magius_AR
More to the list:
Ultima Online
Everquest
Asheron's Call
Anarchy Online
WWII Online
Lineage --- NCSoft
Dark Ages of Camelot --- Mythic
Earth and Beyond --- Sierra
Fallen Age ( on hold ) --- Netamin
Tabula Rasa --- Destination Systems
Star Wars --- Sony/Verant
Any others?
David Byrd
CEO - 21st Century Tech., Inc.
URL: http://www.nite-surfer.com
See our Illuminated Keyboard
The time frame is 4 years after the end of WC3... that leaves a lot open, seeing as WC3 isn't out yet, of course.
Very true. The 13 year-olds will probably quiet down a bit... What would be really nice is if a Code of Conduct were to be enforced, so the next person that says "Gay people are stupid." gets banned.
Alright, so Blizzard makes some of the best games I've ever played. I'm a rabid fan of Diablo, Diablo 2, D2X, Warcraft 1 and 2, Starcraft, and Brood War. The fact remains: Battle.net sucks. I'd use a more polite word, but none come to mind... While I'll be getting WoW, because the game will more than likely be amazing, we all need to get used to 15-20% packet loss from overcrowded, underpowered B.Net servers. Maybe, just MAYBE, they will upgrade their servers to accomodate all of the users, but I'll have to see it before I believe it.