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World of Warcraft Launches
The last major MMOG launch of the year hits retail stores today. World of Warcraft finally goes live after years of debate, development, and a more than six month Beta test. The usual suspects have details on the game, with Gamespot already having details on upcoming content and Gamespy laying out personal experiences from the test and interviews with the developers.
I am having just as much fun playing the free alpha Wurm Online.
http://www.wurmonline.com
The client is even written in Java so it should be runnable under Linux.
My rights don't need management.
I was all looking forward to this game coming out, but City of Heroes snagged me instead. Not that I'm not interested, but I have friends, a supergroup, etc...
Which brings me to thinking: how long until we get some kind of trade-in service for MMORPG characters? What if I could trade into the WoW universe some portion of the time / XP I put into my CoH character? What if I got a bonus to what I got for each friend I brought along? Seems like a good business to me. You give away something worth nothing for extreme goodwill and extra subscribers.
And hey, you could even sell the characters on eBay if you wanted! Hehe.
adam b.
I Showed up about 11:00pm last night, figured that the line might be half way around the building, Turns out the line went around the building twice, took up most of the parking lot, and then for good measure it went down the street a couple hundred yards. Talking to the Fry's Employee, he said that they had 2 or 3 truck loads of games on the way, but doubted thier would be enough for everyone. The poor guy seemed rather alarmed and stressed seeing several thousand gamers surrounding the store. According to him, the line started forming around 1pm. Although everyone seemed to be in a good mood, I didn't stick around.
I participated in the open beta, and I must say, I was quite impressed. I've played EverQuest, but got sick of the grind after making level 30. I was unfortunate enough to play Anarchy Online on launch, what a nightmare that was. But once it got patched to the point of being playable, it was quite fun. However, it never really offered the community aspects that make an MMORPG worthwhile, so I gave that genre a rest.
Then, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with WoW. I downloaded the open beta client (took me only 4 days) and started playing. I was hooked right from the start. Just getting into the game was a snap, it took less than 45 seconds on my Athlon 1.4GHz, compared to several minutes for EQ and AO. Even creating my character was fun and easy to do, and once I got into the game the environments were beautiful, everything ran smooth (on my dated equipment), and the quests were easy to find and fun to complete. Not to mention the fact that grouping and making friends is a breeze. Unfortunately, the open beta ended 5 days after I finished the download, so I only made it to level 8 with my warrior (and that was with playing one hour a day).
I don't think I'll be buying the game, but the only reason for that is my addictive personality. While I never became much of an EQ addict (though I've seen some of my friends become zombie-like creatures who have sacrificed school, jobs, and even marraiges to get that piece of uber-loot), I can definately see myself getting sucked into this game, and that wouldn't be good for me, my studies, my relationship with my fiance, or our baby daughter. Otherwise, I'd probably be up to level 15 by now!
Get a free Nintendo DS! No BS! http://www.ds4free.com/default.aspx?r=64402
...because I will not be supporting Blizzard in any manner whatsoever so long as they continue the bnetd case. However, I did check out the open beta (couldn't resist!) and was greatly relieved to find out the game isn't that good anyway.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Not saying all MMORPGs have to have a one time fee, that's not doable, but it should be cheaper at least than my crazy webhosting deal I get for like $7 a month. There needs to be an MMORPG price war, but I don't know how one would be initiated.
Quick coffee crazed idea; but I'd love to see a MMORPG client and server frameworkd developed under the GPL, and then the servers would be run by third parties who charge for access.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I wonder... Valve wants to distribute through steam because they make more profit. They're forced to also do retail because they have publishing agreements with Vivendi. I wonder if part of the upfront cost in buying the retail box for a MMORPG isn't due publisher demands? If Blizzard were free of Vivendi, could they release the client for free or at a markedly lower price?
Well, they're trying to fix that by incorporating PvP raid elements in to the quests. If you read this interview with the WoW quest designer, he explains how they tweaked the system due to user feedback. They cut down the amount of collection quests, and are trying for the "long haul" approach to questing.
I was in the beta test, and I took my undead mage to level 25.. Awesome game, but I believe the $15/month is too excessive. I understand what you're saying tho, but I think with the Blizzard fan base, and the stylistic approach they use, it's gonna make money no matter what.
Oh, and they fixed the lag, too..
Not to mention the multiple server farms and extensive updates to the game. I think that if you buy a $60 MMO then you should get the first 60/15 = 4 months free. Or free download with a 4 month contract. Either way. Then I might consider it. But $60 and a 1 month trial is BS. I will not pay that much to try a game out for 30 days. I also feel that a 7-day trial (with rollover of course) would make a lot of sense.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
$15 is a lot if you are a casual gamer.
I would love to be a casual WoW player, but only if it were something in the range of $5-$7, or an hourly rate that would, if used as as much as the average player, would equal out to $15/month. So if the average player plays 40 hours a month, i pay $0.38/hour or so.
As opposed to catering to the retards that think it's fun to have no life, play an MMO all day, and simply flat-out play to ruin the fun for the rest of us that play a few hours a week.
Yes, I think that was tried for awhile on Dark Age of Camelot -- Mordred and Andred. After the first week, each server's population was 10% of the average population of the non-asshole servers.
I read that article as well. Perma-death can be incorporated into a game, as long as sound game-theory fundamentals are observed. E.g.: the normal expected payoff from killing someone should be very negative. Conditions should also be put into place where people can put themselves into extremely risky situations and killing someone else's character can result in a large positive payoff, but only after extensive playtime.
Perma-death is (financially) incompatible with level-grinding MMOs where large-scale PvP occurs.
Vivendi Universal Games lost a lot of money last year, and the year before, and so on. See http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/09/14/news_61073 51.html.
They really need some "wow" to boost the bottom line this year. I'm sure that there was pressure on Blizzard to get this door for the holiday buying season.
Gameplay wise, I thought the quests were better than the auto-quest mulch you find in DAOC and SWG and the UI is fairly easy to use too. The crafting was so-so but at least you could make things that had value. The first ten levels were pretty easy to solo in the beta, but it got a bit harder then. I didn't play much longer because the beta ended.
I haven't played EQ2 but I'm not exactly bowled over by its pedigree. I hated EQ (when I realised that the fun had been replaced with grind and Verant didn't care about the top heavy player population), and I saw nothing about SWG to suggest EQ2 would be any better.
Having said that, I don't think I'd pay $15 for a monthly game either. It would have to be a bloody good game, and it would have to be a free download to warrant me bothering.
For us in the UK...
We cant buy a US subscription, so we have to wait until January for the game to be translated in French and German.
THEN we cant play on the US servers, without getting a US address and credit card and buying a second subscription.
AND the preorder starts on Friday but the only retailer knows nothing about it and the stock of pre-order boxes are not yet in store.
What the hell is the point in paying $15/mth for a worldwide MMPORG when it's not worldwide! I want to play with friends both in the EU and in the US, so WoW is right out the Window for me. All they have to do is make it possible for those in the EU to play with those in the US and bang... they get my money... but no, the bl00dy publisher (Vevendi I believe) are so stuck on making a bigger profit that it's not possible to do that.
They can go to hell as far as I am concerned.
Beep beep.
Check out WoW's resting system... basically if you leave your character in an inn, and log out for 8 hours, when you go to fight you'll level more quickly. It seems they took the casual gamer into consideration (like me). I played the open beta casually and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I hopped into the open beta a few days before they stopped taking applications and played my little heart out for near a week. I had a few days I couldn't play at all, but I had one day I played for 12 hours straight so it kind of balances out. Here's what really struck me about the game. I'm not going to mention what everyone else has already said (i.e. you can quest for xp), but I'll stick to what leapt out at me.
Technical
The game was fairly smooth but somewhat choppy so I had the detail turned down for most of the test. Come to find out that I can turn the detail settings all the way up in every aspect except for draw distance and get remarkable framerates. My system is no slouch (P4/2.8HT, 512MB, GeForce Go FX5200), but it's still good to know.
I ran WoW in a window the entire time I played it. It was remarkably smooth, and tabbing in and out of the game never had a problem. Blizzard also thoughtfully coded the game so that when it is not focused, clicking in the window gives the window focus, but the click DOES NOT go to the UI. Thus, you won't try to click a Start Menu entry that disappears out from under you, resulting in you attacking a herd of 840 ravenous orcs just begging for a reason to stomp you like yesterday's grapes.
One feature that cannot be emphasized enough is the customizability of the UI using XML. The regular interface is surprisingly bland and you'll run out of clickbar space in your first ten levels (probably your first four if you're a mage). Instead, you can grab an alternate UI (I suggest Cosmos) which is simple to install (unzip the Interface directory to the Addons directory), then restart the game. This adds hordes (hehe) of customization options to the interface, as well as useful features you will wonder how people do without.
Gameplay
You can jump. I know this doesn't really seem like much, but it's so fun. It feels like I'm playing Jak 2 or something, jumping through the treetops of Teldrassil like a Bawlz addict on E, marvelling at the amazing colours and visual textures. I myself took great pride in being able to leap from the top of the great tree Aldrassil to the ground, bounding from branch to rooftop on the way down, to land safe and healthy among the 'jumpers' (corpses of those that fell to their deaths). This serves no practical purpose, but it's a lot more fun than walking everywhere.
Getting around is easy, and you actually get experience for finding new-to-you places. It's not much, but it's free. You can travel by walking, you can fly by griffon, hippogryph, wyvern, or something else, you can have a mage teleport you if you ask really nicely, you can take an underground rail, a ship, or even a zeppelin. It's fun to explore, sneak around, find new monsters, and kill them.
You can have up to ten characters per server, and I think you can be on 5 different servers (don't quote me on this). Suffice to say, you'll have more characters than you'll need, unless you're some kind of sick weirdo (or you are actually unwell and spend a lot of time in bed).
The game is very social, but differently so than Final Fantasy XI, which is also very social. While FFXI is social by forcing grouping, WoW is social despite not forcing grouping. I only grouped once, and that because some guy thought I was a chick and I wanted to use him as bait to finish a quest. That being said, every area has various chat channels (i.e. Teldrassil General, Darnassus General, Darnassus Defence, etc) so you can talk to those around you who don't mind random chat, but if you don't like it, you can leave the channel (I guess). Thus, even though I am wandering around on my own, I can still chat with people around me, ask questions, answer them, ask if anyone wants to group for a quest, etc. I can pop in for 30 minutes, chat and kill, and leave. Easy.
PvP
I have no idea. I guess you can kill other people. They say it's fun.
Classes
The classes are varied, and t
Those that play and complain about grinding out levels or crappy questing really need to analyze why they are playing these games in the first place. I play to have fun. Sometimes I find it fun to mindlessly sit there and swat at rats for hours on end. Most of the time I don't. When I don't I stop playing or find another game to play. WoW is more fun for me because the journey (leveling) is more important then the destination (uber toon). I enjoy trying to get there in WoW. The quests are fun and the terrain/graphics are enough to keep me coming back. I guess that's why I also ride a motorcycle. Because sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination. Who wants to get there fast, I'm enjoying the ride. LouSir
Guild Wars is going to do it with more frequent expansions, every 2-3 months IIRC, direct download for about $30 each (So they get all the money, instead of letting distributors and retailers get a piece). While you don't "have" to have the expansions, if you want to be competetive (and they're making PvP seem like a very important point), you will buy them. That's pretty close to the monthly fee other games charge. You just don't know that's what it is.
This will sound dumb to some(and most people shouldn't care), but since then I haven't decided if its morally right to play a game that advocates gangland violence. Vice City was my favorite game of all time, with the good vehicle physics, car chases, quests and storyline.
Yet I didn't buy San Andreas because I have moral issues with playing a villian. I think its wrong to get joy out of running over people, assasination, and prostitution, even if its just fantasy. Its sort of sick to have a desire to shoot RPGs into random people's cars. Now I still really want to play the game because I know its quality, but the morality of it all is at question for me.
Beyond my own personal debate... I think a lot of thought needs to go in to how games like these could affect America's youth too. When I was young, I played Atari and they had rules against violence. Now there are 5 year olds growing up, doing virtual bank jobs, giving them an ego boost that they can do criminal acts. I don't have the answers, maybe just default back to it being the parents responsibility.
God spoke to me.
Not always. EQ2 was almost flawless. Same with CoH and DAoC.
.. unless you marry a girl who loves games. My wife and I play everything from Tetris Battle Gaiden (via ZSNES over our network) to Ragnarok Online (wizard+priestess == ownage) to Wheel of Time (with friends) to Tales of Symphonia (on the Gamecube).
A non-trivial percentage of our monthly budget goes into games and gaming simply because it's something we both enjoy doing. I can't imagine being married to someone who -didn't- love playing games...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Tip for the compulsive gamer: never ever buy a game when it first comes out. It'll get cheap eventually, trust me. Minus the very odd exception (usually only limited edition boxes of games I've been waiting a long time for), I never have to pay more than $20 for a game, and sometimes as low as $10 or so! All you have to do is stay 6-12 months behind the curve of what is the latest and greatest. The additional bonus is that, at least for PC gaming, this saves you money on hardware too, because you don't have to upgrade as often. Buying games for half the price means you get twice as many to play for the same amount of money. You'll have so many games to play, you won't mind waiting the 6-12 months for the stuff that just came out.