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End of World of Warcraft Beta
Today the Beta servers will be shut down, and by next week when the game ships all character information will be wiped from the system. After over six months, the World of Warcraft Beta Test is coming to an end. The test's final days are not without problems. Shiptar writes "Seems that some of the World of Warcraft Forum Moderator accounts were hijacked, and some posts were made deriding the latest patch. There's a discussion on WoW Vault Boards. It's not clear if the Moderator accounts were compromised, or a vulnerability in the forum software was used. The WoW boards have been down since last night."
I downloaded the open beta fully intending to play while it was free and not get into it when the full game comes out.
:(
However, I was totally hooked and will be getting a copy as soon as i can. It should be noted, however, that although the game is great fun, it doesnt have the quite "finished" feel, if for no other reason that there is a lot of imbalance between the classes.
Paladins and Shamans seem to be considerably better than most other classes: some classes, like druid are pretty poor (I speak as a druid, and I love the druid abilities, but we do suck.)
Admittedly, most of the "discussion" on the forums seem to be bitching about other classes being too powerful, and requests to have things nerfed, but there IS a class imbalance. Its not even like Blizzard are trying to keep things balanced, they seem to be taking a more "fix the alliance map, fix this class, fix that class" rather than gradually improving everything.
Also, it takes forever to get anywhere. I nearly quit playing after my second day because i was so bored just walking from place to place; it can take 15 minutes, just walking, to get to certain areas. If you wanted to walk across the entire map, you could be talking about hours.
However, those small points aside, it is a beautiful game. I wish they would make movement slightly faster, but other than that i am in awe, and worship blizzard as gods.
I should also point out as well, i hated warcraft 3 (the skirmish mode, which was the reason i bought it, was insanely hard with no difficulty setting.) so its not like im a warcraft junkie.
Just wish Europe would get Warcraft earlier.
They have done beautiful job with the game, nothing ground breaking its basically the same ol' stuff presented on a silver platter.
The classes do not seem to be completely balanced but all of the classes are fun to play. I have played every single class and I enjoyed them all, For example a druid has a bunch of spells, but also has the ability to tank by changing into bear form which is great!
Problems with the game right now... There have been times of extreme lag. Ofcourse the fanboi's will say that it is a stress test so thats why there was lag. But in my honest opinion that lag is going to exist when the game comes live. There very rarely is a miracle build and I doubt blizzard have one either.
No graphical glitches, no quest glitches (The quests are a lot of fun and a nice alternative to killing 5432 Kobolds to get a level), No crashes
The game is easy but it is fun! Methinks I am going to buy this game....
A truly worthwhile "quest system" should come close to what people expect from a pen-and-paper RPG. True adventures with adventure hooks, clues, the thrill of the chase, and a real reward at the end. After all, in my pen-and-paper days, I don't remember a DM ever telling me that such-and-such NPC needed 8 wolf meats, and that other guy wanted me to deliver someone's beer for 7 coppers. Even my most-hard-up D&D character would never stoop to being someone's barmaid.