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Blizzard's World of Warcraft Beta Goes Live
craenor writes "Perhaps the most anticipated entry into the increasingly crowded PC MMORPG market, Blizzard's World of Warcraft, has just reached the live Beta stage, for those select players lucky enough to be picked. In a distinct change from the existing trend in Beta tests, they are not going to require NDAs for participating players, and everyone will have read access to the official Beta forums while testing takes place." The WoW site includes a basic game FAQ for beginners, and BitTorrent is now live as Blizzard's Beta distribution method of choice, as the mentioned earlier on Slashdot Games.
...among geeks, is WoW the most anticipated MMORPG, but the most anticipated MMO among the general populace was Star Wars: Galaxies, and we all know how that turned out. But, then again, Lucasarts and Sony are pretty hit-or-miss, but Blizzard has a flawless record. Still, beware the overhyped crap.
It's interesting how they will turn to some open source alternatives for file distribution (Torrent), alleviating the strain from their network, but vehemently attack others who try to improve the gaming experience and lessen the strain from their network.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I remember when that first came out it ran like crap over bnet and they weren't expecting it to be as hard on their servers. Are they gonna test this with like 10,000 people and open it up to over 1,000,000 when it's finally released and realized hey this wasn't such a good idea we should have done more testing?
...Is precisely the reason why the best thing to do whenever a game like this is released is to wait a few months before buying it. In addition to the advantage of seeing how the hype meshes with reality, there's the added advantage of having the later version patches available. Let other people find the bugs for you. The prestige one gets as an early adopter just isn't worth the monetary price or less-refined level of quality that comes with it (IMO).
Sono koro, bokura wa, sore ga sekai no shinjitsu da to shinjite ita.
Another thing that seems rather inventive is the death system, where upon your death you become a ghost and wander/go resurrect yourself.
I haven't seen the videos yet, but the way you describe it doesn't seem that inventive. In Ultima Online, when you die, you become a ghost and have to wonder around and look for a healer to bring you back to life. Once brought back to life, you can go back to your corpse and grab your stuff, assuming someone else hasn't looted it.
Or at least that's the way it was when I played a few years ago.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I can't speak for everyone else (amazing that), but I'm still "boycotting". This particular game wasn't anything I'd go for anyhow, but..
Belief is the currency of delusion.
This image brings up an interesting subject.
Why the hell are most hand held weapons (swords, clubs, etc.) used by characters in 3D fantasy games as big as themselves? Do game developers have any idea how heavy a sword that big would be?
Ahh, ok, it's a magical sword. That explains it. Too bad the other swords marked as "not magical" are as big and carried the same way.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
I for one was never at war with them, they create awesome games.
People need to stop thinking of Slashdot as one big collective with the same thoughts and goals. Its a website full of unique people, they think differently.
Some of them are upset over bnetd, others couldn't care less.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Is a Linux port planned? I don't care wether it's Transgaming working to make it a "5" on WineX or a company doing the port or Blizzard themselves providing a Linux client, but it is one of the first game I feel like I'm gonna miss :(
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Oh, please. Most games companies would quite happily sell their proverbial grandmother's kideneys or daughters into slavery rather than do the right thing. Blizzard, however, is an exception.
Time after time, Blizzard has chosen to let a product launch date slide rather than release an incomplete or buggy game. And time after time, when those products have finally been finished they've turned out to be masterpieces.
Can you name one bad game that Blizzard has made? Can you name another developer that has released three games that have free online multiplayer play that are as popular as Warcraft III, Diablo II and Starcraft? Heck, Starcraft is almost six years old now and Blizzard still supports it! There are even people playing the first Diablo online at Battle.net and how old is that game now?
Blizzard objected to bnetd because it allowed people to play online without CD key verification (ie, without needing to buy a copy of the games concerned). When you consider that the initial purchase of those games (and the almost unnoticeable banner ads on Battle.net whilst you chat) are the only source of income that Blizzard has, it's hardly surprising that they weren't too keen on an online service that directly threatened their existance.
If Blizzard has big $ signs permanently on its collective mind as you suggest then perhaps you can explain why it lets people play its games online for free rather than charging a single penny for the privelege?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
you may remember them as the company that used the DMCA to kill bnetd and tried to kill freecraft?
Unlike MMORPGs, Blizzard only has the sale of their games to provide revenue. They provide BattleNet free of charge, and it is superb. While bNetd was great and all, it DID make it so people didn't have to buy their game and have a unique cd-key. Having played D2 for a couple of months now (and getting thoroughly addicted to online play on BattleNet), I'm certainly in Blizzard's corner...their games are superb and people should pay what they're worth.
Could the bnet thing been handled better? I dunno, I didn't hear all the inside info, but I seriously doubt that Blizzard wants to release their cd-key algorithm, and since that's the only way I can see them being happy with bnet, I don't see another way they could have handled it.
--trb
You may want to learn a little more about this before you talk about it - you're hurting people that don't deserve it.
First, Bnetd never had wc3 support - before or after the beta release. You're thinking of a different project.
Second, Warforge, the server project that did provide wc3 support, wasn't doing anything wrong.
Third, Blizzard's beef should have been with the crews that cracked the protection built into wc3, thier beta testers who illegaly distributed copies, and their own developers that built a system that was cracked so easily.
None of this, that or the other had anything to do with bnetd, except that Blizzard sicced the DMCA on them.
They aren't going to even have a PVP server?
How exactly do they expect to get the DAOC players, the AC Darktide players, the original UO PVPers, etc., who feel that it is more important to have something to do other than play a stupid single player game with IRC?
The "heros" aspect was newish, but I think it detracted from the game, really. If I want to play an RPG I'll play an RPG.
What bothers me is that after all these years of RTS games they still don't have the improvements I was looking for after playing my first. Specifically, ways to avoid micromanagement. I want
- User definable attack priority lists. I want to be able to tell each unit, or unit type, or group what priority to assign to which enemy types.
- User alterable aggression levels.
- The ability to set the level at which my damaged units will retreat and get healing.
- User definable "response zones" so that I can establish a rapid reaction force and order it to aid any attacked unit inside its response zone, or to ignore attacks in certain areas.
- The ability to order units with special attacks to bloody use the damn attacks so I don't have to fricking micromanage each damn unit's special attack. WC3 at least gave you the ability to set *some* specials to work automatically, but it wasn't very specific. I'd like to be able to order my special units to use X amount of their mana/energy/whatever for defense, Y for offense, and Z for support. Again, on either an individual basis, a unit type basis, or a group basis.
None of this requires true AI, none of this is impossible for today's programmers. Some of what I want existed in the game Dark Reign (aggression levels, for example). Why has the actual mechanic of playing RTS games been left unimproved since day one? If I want a game where I have to be twitchy I'll play an FPS game. I don't want to micromanage anything. That isn't strategy.I figure that its much more important in a *strategy* game to set proper "standing orders" than it is to individually tell each and every grunt specifically what to attack. The commander should be thinking about the big picture, where to expand, what unit mix to use, the broad strokes of the attack, where to put forward staging areas, where to place support units (repair bays, etc), not focusing on individual units.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Companies like MMORPGS because of zero piracy (everybody have connect to a central server to play) and everybody have to pay to play it.
Oh, and good luck building your own pirated server lol
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?