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Reviewers Pile On World Of Warcraft Beta
Thanks to GameSpy for its 'Pile On!' feature discussing Beta impressions so far on Blizzard's long-awaited MMO title, World Of Warcraft. Reactions range from the effusive ("I'm more convinced than ever that this game may finally be the first truly mass-market MMO") through the delighted ("I'm... completely in love with World of Warcraft"), to the ecstatic ("World of Warcraft delivers just what people are expecting: a tight, fun MMOG from a trusted developer.") Elsewhere, a WorldOfWarcraft.com forum discussion has a Blizzard representative mentioning release estimates of early this summer are likely wrong: "Definitely not July. As you know, we never set release dates, but you can expect the beta to run for another 5+ months." But, more importantly, does anyone _not_ like World Of Warcraft?
One of the largest point that seems to stick against people who I game with is that there doesn't seem to be any PVP. I can see it being implemented, but it's just not the competitive game that most people I game with want. Of course, the people I game with are in no case any type of standard or majority, so our opinions don't really count.
How to Speak Leet
Insightful? The game is in beta phase. One of the main purposes of beta is to balance. Now admittedly, Blizzard has a history of having balance issues in the release version of its games, but that remains to be seen for World of Warcraft.
Well, given that the alliance classes are the only ones available at the moment, 6 alliance classes are also available to the Horde, and the game is still in _beta_, I'm ok with there being balance issues.
Well I've been playing this for months. (Yes, I was lucky enough to be an Alpha tester too).
And I've played no other game since I started.
This game is really good. There are still balance issues (but they are not too bad), a couple of classes need buffing up a bit (mage especially).
Hours of my life have been sucked into this game. It's so much fun, I would recomend it to anyone.
Tradeskills are fun, I feel they need expanding a little, but we still are in beta, and changes are happening all the time.
The economy seems to work (unlike SWG), there are money sinks as well as money generators. There has been no inflation (yet). Of course I haven't hit lvl 30 (max) with any of my chars yet, so these guys may have a different take on it.
Two thumbs up. Recommended. Be prepared to lose all your spare time, and half your night to this game - every day.
Seriously, guys, can we stop appending to acronyms?
RPG was okay. MMORPG was obscure, but acceptable. But what, now we have MMMMORPG?
Someone need to kick Old Man Murray out of retirement. The video game world needs that hot, steaming cup of bile to wake it up from its gross, self-congratulatory stupor.
Then we'd know if World of Warcraft was really worth its salt. And be entertained at the same time.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I hope that Blizzard doesn't try to "balance" the game. Back in the day, if you chose to play a wizard in an RPG, you knew the road was gonna be tough, but you'd eventually get to throw fireballs. Nowadays, people complain day and night about the lack of balance in a game. Live isn't balanced, we're not all Zen masters, deal with it.
Wow, I'm shocked. Sign me up for three copies!
Rob
Most high-level content isn't created until near the end of the development cycle. Until you're relatively certain the graphics format, sound format, gameplay ideas, and every thing else are panning out, why fill out content that you may have to redo? Better to focus on your engine and gameplay early on, while filling out the world with Blizzard production level art and design once the technical side is stable. They probably have a few of the God monsters artwork and quests complete (though not balanced), but it is doubtful they are just holding back on the universe. It's Beta because it is not done, and except for bug fixes Art and Level Designs are the last to go in.
You can be pretty sure that the level 65 monster with the big fangs and the ability to throw things will pan out correctly if the level 16 monster with the hunchback and the ability to throw things is working well.
Besides, what do you think they will be doing during the next six months? Strictly playbalance?
The ______ Agenda
Here's a cut and paste of a post announcing a project to run WOW on Linux. It will be official, but officially unsupported.
GadFly joined Blizzplanet as new Linux Community Leader staff member.
He will develop a Linux community and will offer full support on how to play World of Warcraft under Linux. He has a fully playable version running on Wine.
He will release the software, documentation and tutorial files soon. This Tech Support will be an ongoing service at Blizzplanet. Join our forums and the usergroup for future newsletters on the topic.
The service is fully free.
The Blizzplanet service to Linux users is not affiliated in any way with Blizzard.
Gadfly was authorized to pursue a Wow on Linux
development as an independent Tech support project for as long as it is a free service to the community. Blizzard will not offer Linux Tech Support. The service will only be supported by Gadfly and any future Linux Tech Support staff at Blizzplanet.com
Gadfly will develop a shell allowing Linux machines to run purchased Blizzard software. This means every Linux user might possibly be able to buy and play Blizzard games. Again, Linux is an unsupported platform, and Blizzard will not offer Tech Support. This is an independent and initiative-driven project by Gadfly-- an IT Consultant which will be offered non-profit and free to any Linux user. This means you will not
be forced to donate in order to acquire the service. As soon as the package is released
we will need testers that can run Wow on Linux
and Wine. The feedback will help develop a
stable final product for the Retail version of
World of Warcraft.
This is a great achievement by the Linux/open source community and we thank Blizzard Entertaiment and
its legal department.
"Booo!"
"Booo!"
"That was the worst thing I ever heard!"
"It was terrible!"
"Horrendous!"
"Well, it wasn't that bad."
"Oh, yeah?"
"There were parts of it I liked."
"Yeah I liked a lot of it."
"Yeah it was good."
"It was great!"
"It's wonderful!"
"Bravo!"
"More!"
"More!"
"More!"
"More!"
I think you rather mean that blizzard has a history for developing the hardest to balance games on the market and then managing the impossible.
I don't know if you were in the War3 beta test but it was just stunning to read those patch notes. Every patch someone found a overpowering strategy and "cheesed" it to death, in the next patch there would be a seemingly unrelated change to a random different unit and people would bitch that blizzard didn't address the issue xyz. Yet people noticed that they now have an effective counter vs the cheesed strategy.
Another great example were the NightElf ancients ( their buildings can uproot and and become units) the top players in the community said that Night elfs needed something else becuase this is not really an advantage. Yet a year after the release of the game Night elf players started to use these ancients as their main units so much that blizzard had to actually make them a wee bit weaker in a later patch.
I've never seen a company which is a year ahead of its customers best strategys.
Today the games Starcraf ( 3 races ) and Warcraft ( 4 races ) are amazingly balanced. Apart from C&C generals they are also the only RTS gamaes which offer fundamentally different races.
It may not be offically allowed. I'm a bit confused about that now, but there is indeed a project to run WOW on WINE. Here is another cut and paste or go read it yourself here:
h p? p=1093#1093
n e-20040 309-1fc1winehq.i386.rpm?download
http://www.blizzplanet.com/forum211/viewtopic.p
The Cut and paste:
** Blizzard Entertainment does not support Linux in any way, shape or form. This project has NOTHING to do with Blizzard Entertainment, they do not assit in this project, contribute, or provide any information to assit in the development of this project in any way. Blizzard does not condone running of thier products in a linux enviorment, and will not feel sorry for you if you mess up your chacters by doing so! If you run WoW under Linux, you do so at your own risk.**
I'd like to welcome you to the Blizzplanet Linux community.
I celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary this weekend, and had a great time.
I will not be forking if I can help it. As anyone that has spent any amount of time in the Linux community knows, it is better to contribute to the whole, rather than build your own little hole.
Here is where we are at right now:
I am useing the CVS from WineHQ
latest Binary here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wi
Get the source here:
http://www.winehq.com/site/cvs
Note: Remember to check out the ENTIRE source tree, and as always, RTFM (this is what I am useing)
If you need help, post here. Someone will help you.
What works, what doesn't?
In the Alpha, the game will launch, query the realme, login in, create chacters, retrive the chacter list, and enter the game world. IT is very unstable, and kicks one of several execptions. Alpha development is currently dead, since the beta is out, there is no reason I can see to continue this develpment path.
In the beta:
Launching the game useing the -uptodate switch kicks an execption, I'll post it later.
Once I can launch the game properly with out all the hacks, I will be able to begin troubleshooting the execption in addition to my standard beta testing duties via Windows. (remember as a beta tester you are obligated to test the game under the supported OS's, NOT linux. Do not log any bugs you may find while running WoW via Wine, And never violate your terms of use!)
That is about it. I also am going to start parellel testing the WineX builds from transgaming. I have downloaded the source, and will build it tonight. I will post the results here.
Here are the details of the systems I am using:
Intel P3 933 and 1.33 ghz
512MB RAM
Nvidia GeForce4 ti4600 128MB's in both running latest drivers.
Fedora FC 1, current.
SuSE Current distro
Ok all. That is it for now... more later.
Gadfly
Not even "old school" pen and paper RPGs are balanced when you look at distinct classes. Frankly, the issue of balance is usually an overreaction by the players. Having coded for Muds for many years, everyone wants the advantages of their class *plus* what everyone else has.
Running a mud for some time, our technique for determining balance was pretty simple: capture the "time between levels" of the players. Simply log the play time between each level for each player, and number of player deaths during that time. Sort them out by level achived, race and class. A little bit of statistics will show any unbalanced classes pretty quickly. It will also show your better players: they will level any class faster than average.
After doing this for a few years, we could calculate the level rates like clockwork. Yet, even with this "level playing field" the whining continued. My final realization: there is a level of "background whining" which reflects upon the players personality, not upon your game. Learn what this level is, and you only have to worry when the whining breaks that level.
Sig under construction since 1998.
The Devs have commented that they will be raising the level cap as they complete enough areas/mobs/quests for that level to be fun. If I remember correctly they said they didn't have quite enough dungeons previously to put the cap up.
They plan to raise the level cap to 35 for the next push. With 5 months to go, I'm sure they will have plenty of time to raise the cap to the same level they plan on having it set for retail.
Blizzard is very good at making games that are rock-solid, highly balanced, and immensely fun to play... alone. And the Beta is going to be a blast, at least at first, because everybody on it is overjoyed to be playing this lovely game with everyone else. Once the general public gets their hands on it, things may not be so pretty.
How does Blizzard plan to handle griefing? Has anyone in the Beta tested the degree to which they can make other players miserable? This is where Old Man Murray's review of Asheron's Call was so helpful - it pointed out, with dramatic effectiveness, that it was quite possible to follow the rules of the game, not attack anyone, and still bug the hell out of other players. Until the general public - including the hackers, griefers, scammers, spammers, trolls, and general scum of the Internet - get in on this game, it won't be possible to truly evaluate the gameplay experience.
Happened to a lot of people when FFXI went live in NA. Several people from the Vault boards quit the game because they felt it was impossible to establish any sort of level playing field. Sure, not everyone is going to feel competetive, but it's like taking someone who's just learned to play chess, and throwing him in a tournament. That person's hopes are going to be crushed, and it's unlikely they're going to see the better players as something to strive towards.
No, no, those are called Koreans. It's easy to confuse them with Starcraft players; in fact several newer dictionaries list them as synonyms.
Penny Arcade had a hint at a major weakness (in my eyes). I read it as them suggesting that they wanted to play with their girlfriend, but in order to do that they had to limit their own play, so she doesn't become a "support" character. (Site's down, else I'd grab an exact quote).
That's one of the major failings of all MMOGs I've seen thus far, except perhaps UO. That real-life friends can have a lot of trouble trying to keep up, and once one falls behind, they are pretty much screwed unless they can play a lot of catch-up.
I'm waiting for the day a game comes out that allows for players to take breaks/vacations/do real life stuff, and still be able to play with their friends. So far all they've done is make it very difficult. (I do have personal experience with this, not just blowing smoke)
You misread me, or I wasn't clear. I don't expect to be at the same level. I'd like to be able to play with my friends, regardless of the level difference.
I understand I won't be as effective. In most games, you can play alongside higher level players, but you won't get any experience or any loot. There's no incentive to play with your friends if they're way up there in levels.
In some games, like FFXI, the "penalty" for having different levels is extreme once you get 3 or 4 levels out. You could play 4 hours a day, but if your friend plays 5, you won't be able to play alongside them (unless you don't mind letting the gap widen even further). I think that is the problem.
I honestly can't remember if this was something I read in a preview somewhere, or in a "Some game should include this" rant somewhere. (I feel like it might have been the latter, and on Penny Arcade.)
A nifty sollution to the problem of not being able to play with higher level friends would be the ability to do temporary apprenticship with higher lever characters. Say a level 10 hooks up with their friend, who has been playing longer and is a leve 30. The level 10 would get some sort of temporary stats and skills bumps, putting them to the equivilant of level (say) 20 or 25. Combined with a game written to allow characters within 5 or 10 level of each other to work effectively together, this would allow lower level characters to still play with higher level characters, and gain experience from it - suitably modified so they get a reasonable amount for a level 10 character and not a level 20 or 25 character.
Thinking out lout now, the system could even be built so the level 10 character doesn't imediatly jump to a temporary level 25 upon apprenticing with their friend, but does it over the course of 5 or 10 minutes, and it can only be done (for example) 6 hours out of every 24. This allows friends to still play together for (what I think) is a very reasonable amount of time, but not abuse it by having tons of level 1s running around with level 99s.
Just some thoughts. Sorry I don't know remember where the origonal idea came from, cuz it's not mine.
-Trillian
...is that they build staircases to nowhere. ...and then what? In Diablo's case, you move on to Nightmare and Hell. The exact same game, only with tougher monsters and phatter lewt. You keep leveling and finding cool shit, so for a while its OK. But eventually you beat the game a second and third time. Then what? Keep looking for phatter lewt and more levels! So you start with the Meph runs and Pindle runs and Baal runs. Over and over and over, all in the search for more levels and the uberest gear in the land.
This hit me hardest with Diablo 2 (+LOD). You start off, the game is great, everything is new and exciting, skills, equipment, quests... you're completely wowed by it all. You keep playing, and quests start to become rehashes of other quests (eg: Kill x, find y, bring item to z), but you keep playing because you're still leveling and finding new and exciting gear. And then, the magical night comes: You beat the game. Congrats! A winnar is yuo!
I used to be mad into Diablo, always looking for the perfect character and the l33test equipment setup. And then one day I realized just what I was doing, and how pathetic it was. I'd willingly jumped off the campaign, the grand staircase, right into a pit of boring and stupid. Fortunatly for Blizzard, their druglike secret formula is frequently strong enough to keep players splashing around in a shithole post-game indefinitly. But eventually I looked around and realized where I was, what I was doing, and how Bliz had duped me into getting there. And I guarantee you I will not be going back.
Which is why i'm concerned about WoW, and why I have yet to subscribe to a MMORPG. Now i'm sure Blizzard will craft a masterful MMORPG and a great story, and reviewers will shower the game with praise... but as long as Blizzard (and indeed, most MMORPGs) continue to neglect the giant question-mark that is the post-game, I won't willingly fork over ANY of my cash for their game(s). Bliz could create their best collection of quests yet, but as long as the game still remains a staircase to nowhere... i'm not climbing it. Sorry Bliz.
It isn't absolutely confirmed but since there community rep Kat likes to tease with her inside knowledge I would call it close to being "offical"
:)
o w- general&T=9560&P=1&ReplyCount=16#post9 560
Here's the cut and paste of the post:
--
We will have some special rule servers, but have not yet determined what ones we'll create.
It's quite possible that our next beta server will be PvP.
~Kat
--
Go here to read the thread yourself:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=w