WoW Street Date Announced

OneMadOgre writes "Ready or not, here it comes. Blizzard has announced that the World of Warcraft will be released to NA/AU/NZ on November 23, 2004."

Comments

WoW

[weizur]

Whoah I better give my 2 week notice and start stockpiling bawls!

Excellent

[jayhawk88]

That means I get Nov 26 to play this game all day. Thank you Blizzard!

Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[Razman]

Looks like Open beta is going to be fairly short, as it is still be be announced according to the world of warcraft website.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[glowimperial]

Yeah, but it looks lke folks might get to keep their open beta characters.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[Issue9mm]

The final stress test beta has been going on a couple days, and it's supposed to be a week-long, followed immediately by open beta, at which point the stress beta accounts will be migrated over.

-9mm-

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[cowscows]

Yeah, this open beta isn't really a beta in that it's not meant to test anything. It's really like a demo. A few weeks to get us hooked so we'll all go buy it when it hits the shelves. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[satoshi1]

Yea, too many MMORPGs don't let you try the game out before you buy it. They give you a free month or so, yes, but there's no free demo version of the game. In allowing people to play this game in beta a week or so before release, Blizzard will have a lot more people lined up to buy the game upon release, which is always good.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[Timber_Z]

I was one of the Open Beta Testers for Diablo 2,

Man that was a blast.

It was heavily restricted on levels, characters weapons and such, so the super rare stuff then was the stuff "No one " would bother with now.

Also, no one had any clue to what worked and what didn't, so you couldn't go on the internet and find the ultimate build. At least not for several days. And even then there was tons of experminting you could do.

I started playing diablo 2 again couple weeks ago, and man, totally different experience. Everyone has all the best combo's figured out.
Heck even the game algorithons have all been published.

No varity in the game ether, every one just rushes to get to baal, then spends endless hours killing his minons. Only thing that changes is trying out different ways to kill them. (Course almost every possible way has been tried.)

Still I was reading the journels of one guy who went through the whole game without killing anything, that wasn't required to complete a quest.

Now thats cool.

More then got my money out of the game, but after awhile it gets (EXTREMALY) repetative.

Hopefully WoW will keep this from happening.

Heck if they can just put and end to dupes, that would well worth it right there.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[Rallion]

Open Beta starts November 8th. The servers are up -- they're the same ones people are playing on now in the final stress test -- they just have to start allowing new signups.

Re:Open Beta is going to be awefully short then!

[Kris_J]

This could backfire. I've been playing it since my download finished last night and at the moment I've found nothing that makes me want to go out and buy it. In fact, I've started two characters now that have both stalled at roughly the same place. While most of my friends have pre-ordered, I'm *currently* (though this may change) recommending against purchasing the game.

First Patch

[Iscariot_]

And the first update will be ready for download on... November 23rd!

Re:$15/month?

[glowimperial]

If you don't like their payment plan for the level of service you want, you don't have to buy their product. Most hard core MMO players probably spend less than folks who play many different games. In my house we have Gamefly for all of our console games, and we rarely buy PC games, since we mostly play a single MMO. We probably spend less on games than we did before we played MMOs.

Yay...

[Cutriss]

And hopefully that means that the number of gilsellers in FFXI will go down on November 24th!

Less for more

[orthancstone]

If you buy more months of play at a time, it costs less per month.

It is still a lot though. But I'll surely pay up without too much complaint ;).

Introduction Cutscene!

[antdude]

WOW!

Blue's News has links for the awesome introduction cutscene (DivX from World of Warcraft game. Also, FileShack (registration required; free or subscription required) has it. It is about 46.5 MB; AVI; 2 minutes and 49 seconds long).

Apple has this introduction cutscene in QuickTime format (non-saveable) as well.

The introduction was almost like watching The Lords of the Rings movies. Amazing! I can't wait for the free open beta! :)

Re:Introduction Cutscene!

[UWC]

I mean dwarves? Elves? Jeez, gimme a break...

I find it immensely amusing that this comment was moderated "Troll."

Re:Introduction Cutscene!

[The-Bus]

No, the Apple movie is saveable. Just right clicky link here.

Re:Oh hell! Now I have to decide

[fanboy19]

Here is some data for you. The WoW games are going to come with region codes built in. Meaning, if you buy a North American version of the game you can only play against or with people in North America. Many gamers are protesting WoW because of this. The reasoning behind the protests is that a majority of clans out there are made up of gamers from all around the world. Putting a region code in a game that restricts gameplay with other regions would make it so these clans can't play together. All in all, a pretty shotty move by Blizzard if you ask me.

November 23rd!

[Aggrazel]

They're releasing it on the 41st annaversary of Doctor Who!? HA! They will fail utterly, everyone is going to be watching hours of Doctor Who marathons and won't even think about playing a silly video game! ...

I'll ... go ... sulk in my geek corner now.

Not Yet Ready

[HeavensTrash]

I've been in the closed beta for some time, and seeing this announcement earlier today made me cringe. There are TONS of things yet unimplemented and I don't see them being put in by the 19 day release. For example:

Paladin/Hunter talents haven't been put in the game yet. Other classes have had talents for a while and have had time to test/rebalance... Pally/Hunter will be thrown in and then instantly nerfed at retail because of no time for testing.

Warlock pets aren't finalized yet.

Battlegrounds aren't in whatsoever.

Hero classes have yet to be put in as well, and blizzard won't give any information on them.

Racial traits aren't in yet

No raid content yet.

Tradeskills aren't complete yet

Horde lacks quests and content, especially high level content

Numerous quests still missing rewards/are bugged

I was upset to hear Closed Beta had ended as soon as it did - Honestly Vivendi is rushing this one out the door to compete with EQ2. Blizzard usually takes their time in games and are notoriously late, but... Guess it's gonna be just like every other MMORPG where the first 6 months are a paid beta test.

All that aside though, WOW in it's current form is STILL the best MMORPG out there. Crazy

Re:Not Yet Ready

[NaugaHunter]

I'm also in closed beta.

They test everything in house, and they've had these talents for some time. They will get a tweak if in two weeks it's obviously unbalanced, but it's not as if they just came off the blackboard yesterday.

Again, they've tested Battlegrounds internally. Basically most of the testing here is for PvP balancing, which we've been doing for months.

Hero classes aren't until level 60. They have a couple of months. (I'm not getting into a power leveler vs. casual player tangent, but keeping a casu

Racial traits are in in internal builds and have been for a while; they've been commented on the boards by Blizzard employees.

They've said repeatedly on the boards that they weren't sure if they would show raid content in the Beta, as they want to keep it as a surprise.

Trades skills, warlock pets, Horde content, unfinished quests - going to play the 'internal build' card again.

Before I get labeled a Blizzard apologist, I too was surprised at the suddenness of this announcement, though I'm starting to think they've known for a while but didn't want people to slow their testing with a possible character wipe coming. But on the flipside, with 90% of an intended release done having your internal testers testing the last 10% is not that bad. You have thousands test everything until you get to the point where what you are changing can actually be tested by dozens effectively. Then you release it with a couple of weeks left to check for gross problems, and you're done.

I will agree that there are a couple of things that didn't get done (e.g. weather), but I think the few things that you've listed that are needed by launch will be there.

Re:$15/month?

[Rallion]

Plus $50 for the game to start with... I can't play this game enough to justify the cost. Looks like they are taking their cues from the cable companies.

Actually, they're taking cues from their players, and from other similar games.

If everybody played WoW, well, it wouldn't work -- the servers couldn't function at release-quality if they did. The goal isn't to get as many people as possible, it's to make the most money possible.

Not too impressed actually

[Alcimedes]

I played the Beta for a while. It was fun for about the first week. Then, the grind started to get to me.

I know a lot of people seem to like this type of game, but really the fact is I don't want to feel like I'm working while I'm playing a video game, and to me most MMPORG's feel like work, not play.

That, and the PVP aspect of it felt very broken. The classes had serious balance issues, and level was almost everything. (i know, it was beta, maybe it will get better but i'd be surprised).

Dunno, but after playing games like Vendetta for a while, I see less of a reason to the WoW angle. Vendetta does something that every game should aspire to. The better skilled player wins the battles, not the highest level player. A very low level play can clean up against much higher level unskilled players, which is how it should be.

Guess I just don't have to time to dedicate to get to be one of those highest level characters running around, and I'd rather not get my ass handed to me just because someone doesn't have a job and can put 10 hours a day into a game.

Re:Not too impressed actually

[Richard Whittaker]

The better skilled player wins the battles, not the highest level player.

That's the difference between an online game and an online role playing game. In an RPG the player (that's a real person) takes on the role of a character - it's the characters skill and level - NOT THE PLAYERS - that is supposed to determine how good the character is at things (fighting, for example).

Remember:
Player : the actual person playing the game, this person doesn't necessarily actually know how to shoot a gun, fight in melee combat, pilot a spaceship, etc.
Character : The in game "person" that the player controls. This should be considered a completely seperate persona that is not necessarily related to the player in any way. A single player can "posses" multiple characters, who may actually have opposing agendas, goals, etc.

That's why it's called a role playing game.

Perhaps this kind of game (RPG) just isn't for you - many people hate them and want their own skill to make the difference, but thats not how an RPG is supposed to work - the characters skill is everything. In an RPG, the way a players skill comes into play is in knowing how to make use of the characters skills in any given situation.

Re:Collector's Edition

[DigitalDemon617]

The collector's edition comes with the game on CD's and on one DVD. I assume you can just give them one of those to install for the friend trial. Then they just start paying afterwards. I think I heard that the Stress Test 2 version and open beta version will be the retail version, so those that buy a boxed copy and played in the open beta will just have to use their new key and won't have to reinstall.

Pricing Strategy

[Dinoysis]

One thing I would love to see for online games would be more variety in pricing strategies. For example, I am not a hardcore gamer, I tend to pick up games, play a lot of it for a week or two, and then move on. Now, if the game was good, I will probably come back in 1-2 months and play some more. My style of playing games makes MMO games very unappealing because on the monthly subscription costs. What I would love to see on MMO games is something where you pay $10-15 or whatever if you want to actively play a game. However, if you're going out of the country for two months, or you don't want to play the game for a few months but you're still interested in playing the game in the future, you could pay something like $.50-$2 to merely store your character. One would not be able to play the game, without making your account active (the $10-15 a month charge), but there would be very limited cost to the game when I'm not playing it.

Now there are a few more issues to work out, i.e. you can't play actively for two days, then go to storage for the next 29 days in the month, then go back to active for 2 days, etc etc. But there should be a workable solution for companies. Sure, they want us to keep paying the full charge, but if it's between cancelling my account for good, or paying $.50 a month if there's a chance I might play in the future, I'll definitely pay the $.50 for the chance I can keep my lvl 30 character for a few months..
Oh well.. I doubt we're going to see any improvement in the payment plans, so I am just wishing..

Re:$15/month?

[NaugaHunter]

The $50 upfront pays for the past ~4 years of development, printing, boxes, advertising, etc.

The $15/month goes towards active storage, backups, GM/support, internet fees, and, most importantly, active development and fixes.

Here comes the math: Over one year, WoW would cost $50 + $15x12 or $230, which would break down to just over $20 a month if you only play one year. How much do you spend on movie/game rentals, concerts, books, or whatever entertainment you do in a month? Hell, one nice dinner with drinks could cost 20 bucks. If you end up playing just 5 hours a week, you're active entertainment cost is $1/hour. Given that a movie cost $7-$10 for ~2 hours, and you aren't in charge, it works out pretty well.

Sorry for that math rant, but it's kind of pointless to say 'can't justify the cost' if you don't actually do the math.