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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?
Unfortunately, that is very correct. Blizzard is not writing an MMO for a niche market - they are writing one for the masses, and if that means they focus on the not-so-hardcore MMO population, so be it.
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?
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
"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.
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.
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.
...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.