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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 know this sounds cheesie but the sound track is the city design and soundtrack that accompanies changing certain zones. Walking into Stormwind (The human city) from Elwynn Forest, is a humbling experience. It truly bring's the feeling that this world is truly alive and has a great history to it.
You did the impossible Blizzard. You finally shut me up about Starcraft 2.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
I have played lotsa MMORPG - DSO,UO, EQ, AO, EB, CoH, SWG, AC 1, AC2, and now WOW (crap I look at that its really embarassing)
WoW is very clean for a release title - the only bugs were with lag and database writes when they were at the height of the stress test - just a few days before that it was flawless.
It's a more casual game. Although you can kill kobolds for a level its faster (and more fun) to do quests, some of which make you kill kobolds.
I played the warrior, paladin, rogue, warlock, and mage for a few days each. The thing I didnt like was Blizzard was starting to get into the nerf things mode yet locking you into decisions you had already made (like CoH before they added respec missions).
I think they are going to try to cater a little to the power crowd of EQ, but not to the extent that EQ1 has. There was just a massive amount of content in the first 20 levels...more than any other game that has come out. Massive - like I ran probably 200-300 unique quests - not the script generated crap of CoH and AO.
I had a few CTD problems but few actual in game problems. It humors me that fanbois think a magic version is in the box - its the same client as was in beta just a week behind because of when it went to press.
I think this game really caters to people who don't want to play 10 hours a day like FFXI or EQ1. I played every night and had fun, some people who are in the Gov;t cheese line were ahead of me in level - but I was progressing at a reasonable pace and having fun.
I think there is a big round of class balancing that will happen a month or so after retail goes live. I also think the battle.net crowd is going whine like crazy about PvP imbalances...but its a good game, good company...price is too much at 14.99 a month...but at least you can make lots of characters and play 2 sides, pve, pvp, etc.
I will see you in Azeroth on day one. All of my other game accounts are cancelled already. WoW is good stuff - everyone I talked to in the beta liked the game. I think its going to be a big hit and be a major player for a long time.
Twi