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World of Warcraft Details Announced

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the undead-and-trolls-and-orcs-oh-my dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The last of the races and classes for World of Warcraft have been released. Check WorldofWar.Net for a good summary of the details." They've added new classes for rogue, priest, and paladin, as well as hero classes for high-level players. There's a few new races as well, such as trolls and gnomes.

41 comments

  1. Could it be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait




    Fucking nerds. Play some real games like Yahtzee

  2. After the freecraft incident? by cleancut · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I wouldn't even consider buying it. Resist fellow geeks! They're a maniacal evil company that picks on open source projects that in no way interfere with their cash flow! Let 'em die!

    1. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, right.

    2. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 2, Flamebait

      No way interfere with their cashflow? Bollocks. Everyone knows, even though slashdot people are blind to the truth that the freecraft project allowed everyone who did not have a valid serial number to play online outside battle.net. That is the fact. Now if you want to make a huge crusade out of it, fine, but the bottom line is that it WAS hurting the cashflow, whether you accept it or not. I know this kind of reasonable thinking is hugely unpopular in slashdot but I guess you can't please anyone...

      --
      Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
    3. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Decaffeinated+Jedi · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I wouldn't even consider buying it. Resist fellow geeks! They're a maniacal evil company that picks on open source projects that in no way interfere with their cash flow! Let 'em die!
      Regardless of the whole FreeCraft debacle, Blizzard remains one of the few game developers out there that consistently deserves the profits it earns. Let's face it: Blizzard makes good games. Exclusively. How many other developers can make the same boast?

      Until WoW, I've never had any desire whatsoever to try out a massively multiplayer game. I might just give WoW a try, though. Why? Because I'm confident that Blizzard will do it right. After all, that's what they do.

      DecafJedi

      --
      DecafJedi
      my weblog: apropos of something
    4. Re:After the freecraft incident? by hibiki_r · · Score: 5, Informative

      You seem to be confusing freecraft, a RTS pretty similar to Warcraft II, to bnetd, an open-source battle.net server.

      It is pretty likely thta bnetd, despite having legit uses, was in some way hurting Vivendi's bottom line. However, I don't see how freecraft can hurt their bottom line at all. What do they gain by killing a Linux freeware game?

    5. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "You seem to be confusing freecraft, a RTS pretty similar to Warcraft II, to bnetd, an open-source battle.net server... What do they gain by killing a Linux freeware game?"

      Well, i think you said it yourself... it was an RTS pretty similar to WC2, and while i havent played it, I have seen some screen shots... its REMARKABLY similar to WC2. If I were Blizzard, I wouldnt want an almost exact rip off with a similar name floating around. (lets face it, if they called it Free Conflict or something, it could be differentiated better than "freecraft" which SOUNDS like a Blizzard RTS)

    6. Re:After the freecraft incident? by vegetablespork · · Score: 1

      Don't forget bnetd, either.

      I voted -1, DMCA wielding jackbooted thugs.

      --

      Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.

    7. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      Exactly. The name and style of the game was a carbon copy of Warcraft.

      As for the open source battle.net server, I can understand why they smacked that as well. They had no control over it. I mean Blizzard are very harsh on cheaters. While the CDKEY means you have to own the game to play it online, there's also the fact that that key is associated with a particular player, meaning if they're caught using a maphack, Blizzard can (and do) nuke their account. Not just the account, but if you're caught cheating, they blacklist your CDKEY so you can't play online. I say more power to them!

      With bnetd, they had no control. Basically it was a case of shut the project down before it got to big, otherwise it would have been a case of the project growing and COULD have led to a free Battle.net, so Blizzard would lose both their anti-piracy measures, AND the ability to control the online experience for players. With no CDKEY checks, it would be impossible to police cheating because if you ban one account, they'll just sign up again, and blacklisting their IP address wouldn't work because a lot of people still have dynamic IP address assignment.

      I'm all for open source, don't get me wrong, but Blizzard shutting down bnetd was the right thing to do as down the line it could have seriously impacted the way they do business, and as far as online play goes, Blizzard are one of the few companies to take cheating seriously, and provide a decent online matchmaking service. (Whereas most rely on Lamespy.)

      Sorry, but this is one case where an open source project needed to be shut down.

    8. Re:After the freecraft incident? by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Note that my idea is not to insult you - unless you consider "raving Blizzard fanboy with no clue whatsoever" to be too insulting. I'm merely dismayed by your misconceptions.

      Exactly. The name and style of the game was a carbon copy of Warcraft.

      Errrrrm. It was a program that allowed people to play Warcraft II right off the CD, or build games of their own that resembled WC2 using custom data.

      I would hardly call Freecraft FCMP free data a "carbon copy" of WC2 - it was more like "relentless, unadulterated blasphemy of the most holy name of Warcraft II". It was the answer to question "what would Warcraft II look and sound like if Blizzard had had $2 budget". It was bloody hilarious =)

      Warcraft with Warcraft II data set was a new and improved version of the true classic. But FCMP was a game that belonged to SomethingAwful.com hall of infamy, but it had a decent gameplay so it didn't count.

      Freecraft was similar to intent to Exult (for Ultima VII) - allows playing game on non-sucky platforms, probably with UI improvements. That alone was worth it.

      With bnetd, they had no control. ... so Blizzard would lose both their anti-piracy measures, AND the ability to control the online experience for players. ... Blizzard are one of the few companies to take cheating seriously,

      Hogwash! You had all the control you wanted.

      With Battle.net, you rely on Blizzard to kill the xiit0rz - and while they can and will use the power, they can just as easily abuse it. (In my opinion, permanent ban of CD keys is extremely draconian. Would be a pain in the ass if that thing would be invoked lightly, wouldn't it...)

      In bnetd, you're the master of your own server. Yes, in bnetd, you can lock accounts, and ban users from certain IP ranges. Read the feature list next time, please.

      And the most lucrative feature, of course, would be to run a small server with small circle of users. You can run the server with people you trust.

      And what if there would have been a "free Battle.net"? So what if Blizzard couldn't control it - the people who ran it would need to police the thing themselves. And if not, you'd still be free to start your own server with just as fascist administration as you see fit.

    9. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If similar gameplay is a legitimate beef, then Westwood has an excellent case for suing Blizzard over copying Dune 2000. But it's not, so STFU.

    10. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      I am certainly NOT a raving Blizzard fan boy. In fact I own a grand total of TWO titles they've released. (Starcraft and Warcraft 3).

      If you go back and actually READ what I said, I said blocking an IP address or range of IP addresses wouldn't work. If you block a RANGE of addresses, you would most likely take out other legit players. If you block one IP, fine, just reconnect, bingo, new IP, and go back to cheating. To get a new IP address, all I have to do is unplug my DSL modem and reboot.

      CDKey banning is not draconian in the least. Blizzard do not ban keys without evidence. You submit replays of the game for them to check, and if they see there was cheating (like in the case of a maphack, the cheater heading straight for you on a large map) they can take whatever measures necessary. Kudos to them I say. In fact I have to wonder if you've used cheats before since the only people I've ever seen complain about banning CDKEYS cheat themselves.

      And I fail to see how you can disagree with my comment about Blizzard losing control of the online experience. Did you even READ what I said? With Battle.net as is there is a cohesive online experience. With bnetd, sure you could set up a small server for just your friend... I don't know about you, but I get bored seeing the same strategies over and over again, so that's a not a good enough reason for it to exist. I still maintain Blizzard did the right thing.

      Who would I rather see responsible for online play? A well respected, well funded developer, or the open source community? For a great example of how retarded the situation becomes when the servers are policed by the people who run it, just look into what Playmyth has become. Took the source from Bungienet and started their own server, and it was great, for a while. Now they're power tripping and banning anyone who disagrees with their philosophy.

      In short, people running their OWN servers for online play is the equivalent of the lunatics taking over the asylum.

      Sure, making a profit on anything is "immoral" to a lot of people on Slashdot, but the fact remains that with Blizzard, they rely on their products to make money. They can't start acting like Nazi's and banning people left and right because it will impact their bottom line. Conversely, any open source server is at the whim of the person who runs it.

      Just ask those who have been banned from Playmyth.

    11. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Westwood is Defunct. Thanks for Playing!

    12. Re:After the freecraft incident? by Jad+LaFields · · Score: 1

      Who would I rather see responsible for online play? A well respected, well funded developer, or the open source community? For a great example of how retarded the situation becomes when the servers are policed by the people who run it, just look into what Playmyth has become. Took the source from Bungienet and started their own server, and it was great, for a while. Now they're power tripping and banning anyone who disagrees with their philosophy.

      In short, people running their OWN servers for online play is the equivalent of the lunatics taking over the asylum.

      I come from a different direction about all this, and the above comments left me scratching my head. I play Day of Defeat, a Half-Life mod, online very often. There are no official servers.

      Everything is player-policed, and it works often enough to ensure a good time. I learned which servers are good about banning cheaters and stopping team-killers and which weren't. And lest you think that this was a tedious job, it wasn't. It didn't take very long, largely because most of the servers are good, well-run servers by people who care.

      Now, this might be because DoD has less cheaters and assholes than say, CS, but I imagine that there still are some well-run servers out there, and that they advertise themselves as such (NO CHEATERS/HACKERS YOU WILL BE BANNED!!).

      I feel like you've gotten so used to Blizzard's safe little play environment that you can understand what we in other genres and other games take as the natural order of things: the "lunatics" run the "asylum", and those who do a good job become popular and easy to find.

      --
      [SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
  3. I couldn't have said it better myself by Tim_F · · Score: 1, Troll

    Every dollar you send to Blizzard simply allows them to pull more stunts like that which they pulled with Freecraft. Next they'll be going after Wine and the Starcraft emulator.

    1. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by Hedonist123 · · Score: 3, Informative

      They're never go after wine or starcraft emulator because you need a working version of their games with a cd key that you PURCHASED from them. The reason they went after freecraft is because it was easy to play on without a cd key. It hurt their bottom line, and I say good for them that they shut it down. Blizzard is one of the few conmpanies that produces quality games on each and every release (wel, almost, Diablo 2 didn't really do it for me) and they deserve every dime they make. I am glad they shut down a service that allowed freeloaders to profit off their hard work. hed.

      --
      http://goldysmom.blogspot.com
    2. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh know! I'm gonna support Bliz's copyright on one of the best series of all time?

      What a commie... er... capitolist freak I am!

    3. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

      Your post seems to have vaguely troll like tendencies, but you make a good point for the most part.

      It sucked when they shut down Freecraft, but it was understandable. Hell, the name alone warranted some kind of smack (the developer wasn't smart for choosing *craft as a name).

      Blizzard do consistently churn out quality titles. One of the few developers that seems to GET how games should be. IE, NOT RUSHED!

      WoW is the first MMORPG that could tempt me. Not sure I could afford it (wait and see how much it costs I guess), but GOD does it ever look tempting!

    4. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by fireduck · · Score: 1

      Every dollar you send to Blizzard simply allows them to pull more stunts like that which they pulled with Freecraft.

      conversely, one could look at it as every dollar you send to blizzard simply allows them to create more quality software. Blizzard is one of the few developers who consistently makes quality software. People are still playing (and demanding patches) for software than is upwards of 5 years old. This type of quality / replayability / addiction is rare in the computer game world. so why not reward it?

      every company has a legal department that is going to fight against something that the community produces. the question, i suppose, is how egregious you as the gameplayer feel this particular action was?

    5. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by Corporal+Tunnel · · Score: 1

      I totally agree. I never heard of the freecraft thing until the articles about it being shut down. I found some screen shots of freecraft and I thought, "wait a minute, that's warcraft 2, not freecraft!" I've been a blizzard fan since warcraft 2, and so far I'm only disappointed with diablo 2 and that starcraft ghost is console only. freecraft deserved to be shut down, and WoW is looking fantastic so far!

    6. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by acceleriter · · Score: 2, Informative

      Freecraft allowed importing of WC2 graphics from a user's legitimately owned copy of WC2. The screenshot you saw was probably from someone who did that. Of course, with your 600,000+ user ID and mixed posting history, I can't tell if you're trolling or just plain ignorant.

      --

      CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

    7. Re:I couldn't have said it better myself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your logic makes GamerFreeloader12323 Cry!

      Shame on You!

      Next time just flame his butt rather than prove him wrong!

  4. Blizzard Makes Quality Games. by LordYUK · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hands down, I have never not had fun with one of their games. Regardless of what their legal department does (which they probably have zero control over, since Vivendi most liely makes those decisions) I will always buy their latest and greatest...

    WoW, I cant wait!!

    --
    This is my sig. Its pathetic.
  5. crap article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article reads like it was written by someone in third grade.

  6. This just in... by saladpuncher · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Union of Standard Generic Player Classes scored another victory today when it was announced that World of Warcraft would allow rouges, priests, and paladins.
    "This is a great win for us", announced Ulog Beg, President of USGPC. "Could you imagine an RPG without people like fighters, wizards, or thieves? It would be chaos!"
    This win represents the largest gain for the union since Morrowind in 2002. Also involved in talks with Blizzard are the Union of Standard Weak Creatures (representing large rats and skeletons) and the Union of 'Ye Ol English' which hopes to make everyone use words like "sire" and "liege". It is unknown whether the Union of Undead has approached Blizzard yet but many industry insiders agree that they will.

    Yes, yes, I am just being sarcastic. I'm sure the game will rock. Although I didn't enjoy Warcraft 3 as much as I had hoped I think Blizzard has a great track record so far.

    1. Re:This just in... by tiled_rainbows · · Score: 3, Funny

      My Lord, mayhap thou wast beinge japesome, but verily thou dost have a goode point.

      Forfend that I shoulde suggest that originality might be a goode thinge for it's own sake, for 'pon my troth I am a believer of the creed 'If broken itte be not, then attempt ye not to fixe itte'.

      However, I cannot believe that alle fantasye RPGs neede to bee as constrayned in thier imaginnings as they do in troth appear to be.

      Whatte parte of 'fatasye' doo thse brayne-addled simpletons notte understande?

      --

      evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
  7. New Races by JonBob · · Score: 0

    Insert lame joke about trolls in WarCraft and trolls on Slashdot here.

    1. Re:New Races by jafuser · · Score: 1

      Insert lame joke about trolls in WarCraft and trolls on Slashdot here.

      If you think that's bad, you should see the jokes about a lack of nerfs in SWG, as contrasted with the abundace of nerfs to SWG. =)

      --
      Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
  8. No need to wait by laiquendi · · Score: 1

    Just play DAoC, looks like it's pretty much the same thing.

  9. Most important line of the article by skyknytnowhere · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, not that article, but the site:
    "Blizzard wanted a MMORPG where the player felt legendary and heroic from the first day."

    This is exactly what most MMORPGs currently lack, the feeling that you character serves no purpose in the game, and that you need to do a whole lot of stuff to get higher. If you enter the game feeling like a Level 1 Hero in WC3, and then work up to being a Level 40 Hero... well, thats exactly the kind of game I can see myself playing. The goal of the game should be to ensure that I'm having fun from the start, and that my fun either scales, or changes in perspective/paradigm as I play. It looks like they're aiming for that here.

    I didn't think I'd ever pay to play an MMORPG again after Planetside, too.

    skye

    1. Re:Most important line of the article by FileNotFound · · Score: 1

      I think that feeling like a "hero" at level 1 will be the downfall of the game.

      I played Everquest for years from level 1 to 65, (No it does NOT take years to get 1-65, 4 months casual).

      Thing is, you feel totaly worthless untill lvl 55. You're wearing junk, you miss 60% of the time, you swim slow, you can't tell north from south etc.

      But that's exactly what makes leveling to 65 worth it, the desire to become a "hero". You WANT to be a powerful char and you want to have good gear and a good guild and so on. Feeling that you have those things at level 1 would not make me want to play.

      Fact is that about 6 months after I joined a truly outstanding guild and we defeated some of the most powerful mobs in game, I quit. There was no more "purpose" behind it. I had all the skills I wanted, I had gear that would have made me drool 6 month ago and which then seemed absolutley unatainable. But with all that gear and levels and the sense of being a Hero I felt that I had 'beaten' the game.

      Raids are not that much fun when you don't much care for the gear that the mob drops.

      Sure there is the community, and I miss it, but without the desire to play EQ you cannot be a member of a guild as you will not be happy raiding and so on.

      What I'm saying is that games need to be chalanging and difficult and you need to progress from a nobody because thats what creates the sense of achievment and the urge to play.

      I have been worried from the start that the blizzard WOW might be a "carebear" universe, I suppose my fears were justified.

      EQ had also suffered the attack of carebears as has UO. Sure I was happy with the graveyards and the easy transportation of the last 2,3 expansions. But the truth is that months after I felt that EQ was losing the "feel". It is not the same anymore when you get from one continent to another simply by clicking on a stone. The sense of distance, the emersion, the thrill of it all is lost. I still remember the horrors of being a newbie and trying to get from Qeynos to Freeport (Think of it as a trip from San Fransico to NY) by foot at level 16. I remember how it got dark in the Karanas and that was before they patched the darkness, as in it got REALLY dark, you couldn't see anything. I remember trying to walk up a thin path on mountain on the way to high hold in the rain, in the dark, and being chased by bandits knowing that if I died I'd have to walk back to this spot naked.

      I remember falling of a boat in the middle of the ocean and swimming onto an island for at least 40 minutes only to find that it was an ogre island and that they don't much like me. I got killed by then and I remember how happy I was when a high level char offered to help me get my body back. I remember how godlike he seemed when he killed 3 ogres without as much as a scratch.

      When the fear and the challange left, so did my desire to play.

      Shadowstump/Strass - Mith Marr

      --
      In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
    2. Re:Most important line of the article by skyknytnowhere · · Score: 1

      "I still remember the horrors of being a newbie and trying to get from Qeynos to Freeport (Think of it as a trip from San Fransico to NY) by foot at level 16. "

      I remember doing that with my friend at 7. We got mauled by a lion halfway there a few times. When we finally made it we jumped up and cheered. Then the bastard went and drowned in the sewer.

      *coughs*

      Right, but someone like me, who doesn't have an infinite amount of time to sit on the computer playing a game, who wants to have his fun *now*, not in 4 months, is not served by this level treadmill stuff. I love games like Neverwinter Nights, and take great pride in crafting "The Perfect Character" time and again, and I can pick up one of my characters and fiddle with it. But I want to have a measure of fun throughout my character's life, not just at the end of it.

      For a while I tried AO, but I found it too frustrating. Killing hundreds of tiny monsters just to get an incremental upgrade.

      I tried Planetside last month. I really, really enjoyed it. It was almost exactly what I had hoped for, and was a great deal of fun even if I wasn't willing to devote hundreds of hours to it. The problem was the lack of new content/high level content.

      I'm hoping WoW will fix the problems in both ideas, by giving me fun stuff to do starting at level 1, and giving me more/better things to play with as I level up.

      skye

  10. Finally! Consistent math by Allaran · · Score: 4, Funny

    " The factions in World of Warcraft are set. There is no changing fractions, there is no mixed groups. " If anything has bothered me about previous Blizzard releases, it's been those unpredictable fractions. At last, we can be free of Quarterlings and Third-Orcs!

    1. Re:Finally! Consistent math by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks! Fixed it. -OneMadOgre@worldofwar.net

  11. Wish I could play War3. by torpor · · Score: 1

    I have a German copy of the War3 for OSX, and I'm an English speaker. I live in Germany, bought War3 the moment it was released here and was thoroughly disappointed that I couldn't change the language to English...

    I don't know why (DVD's?) but I expected to be able to.

    If anyone wants to trade a valid German War3 CD for a valid English War3 CD (OSX), please feel free to contact me... I've considered EBay and the like, but its a bit more hassle to go that route ...

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  12. Hi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I'd just like to drop a warm thanks to everybody that's happily going to buy into this after knowing what happened to bnetd and Freecraft. You are the weakest link in the concept that voting with our dollars will stop the corporate threats to open source and the public domain and demonstrate a level of short sighted self-indulgence that aptly explains why technologies like DRM will be so successful so long as they come bundled in a 90s era game that pushes a few thousand more polygons through your card per second.

    Just keep buying. It's a matter of time until you're paying by the hour for this stuff, and by then you'll have helped bury any of the fledgling alternatives to either the games or the servers they now require to play on. But the games will look REALLY GOOD.

    1. Re:Hi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open source does not always = good. Get it through your head. They didn't go after them because they were open source, they did it because they were not creative to come up with their own ideas. If they had some sort of legal ground to stand on, then they could have fought. Go find an original open source game.

    2. Re:Hi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Silence troll, go back to your bridge.

    3. Re:Hi. by acceleriter · · Score: 1

      Yes, yes. Thank you all for helping to fund the War on Freedom.

      --

      CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

    4. Re:Hi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bnetd and freecraft are to open source what napster and kazaa are to downloading legitimate music files

  13. The important questions, here... by TheGreatGraySkwid · · Score: 1

    We must know...will the gnomes have little pointy red hats? Will they live in gardens and on lawns?

    Most importantly...can they be smashed into thousands of little ceramic pieces when hit with clubs, run over by vehicles, thrown great distances, etc., etc....

    --
    The Humblest Mollusk on the Net