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WoW Burning Crusade Delayed until January 2007
Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft, is delayed until January 2007. From the article: 'By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.' While disappointing now, what will this mean for the yearly WoW expansions long term? As Blizzard COO Paul Sams revealed plans in August that 'Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set.' 2008, 2009, ad infinitum?"
My roommate has the BC beta and i've watched him play. Honestly, i'm surprised it's even in beta, i think it should still be in alpha status. Of the 5 or so hours of gameplay i've seen so far, i have witnessed:
/uninstall
1- Loot rolls being won, but the item doesn't go into your bag. The item was 'lost' since he couln't loot the body anymore.
2- Just clicking on a particular elite mob crashed wow to the desktop, twice.
3- There were several mobs that didn't have any animation assigned to them. they were just these floating statues and you couldn't tell who they were attacking or if they were even dead yet.
4- He has mostly tier 2.5 and 3 gear, and is a freakishly amazing pvper, yet he was easily killed by a rogue only 2 lvls higher. he used to be able to just laugh at rogues with his mail armor and shield, now it appears the lvls signify an overpowering leap in stats making it unfair.
5- I don't know about him, but if I had worked relentlessly, giving up my life to get the uber leet T3 armor, and then see GREEN everyday items drop in BC that are actually better the most sought after gear in the normal game......I'd get so bitter i would prolly logoff and uninstall right that second!
I have seen alot more than this, but all i can say is that the game is nowhere near ready for release. They need to realize that it affects over 6million of us now and most of us like it just the way it is. Also, we already have to deal with the dreaded 'patch day' every tuesday where our servers are offine, we can't play and then we get to read about how they changed the game yet again.
This is just my opinion of the game from what i have seen. I mean no harm to Blizz, and i'm sure that with $(6million X $15 / Month) they can afford to devolop the game into truly one for the recordbooks.
GG
I don't mind cooperation with other players. Actually, that's what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, "carebear" games (i.e. games where the game creator makes sure you don't have to feel any hard edges and stuffs you in bubblewrap) support the radically opposite kind of player: The greedy, selfish prick.
... everything! All your gear dropped to the ground, and if you could not get it back within a week, it's gone for good. Quests and encounters that actually REQUIRED you to use loopholes to be successful. There were quests where the dev team said flat out "We don't have a clue how to beat it. Good luck.". And a few more things that made this game simply and plainly unfairly evil and hard. I guess you could not get less "carebeary" than EQ was.
Let's take two very different (from a "carebear" attitude point of view) MMORPGs. EQ (the original one) and WoW.
In EQ, dying meant you lose
On the other end of the spectrum you find WoW. A minor loss in XP, "damage" to your equipment (which you kept) and if you're too lazy to get your gear back, the worst thing that happens to you is more damage to it. In a nutshell, you lose a little XP and gold. Quests are meant to be solved with a pre determined number of players and, let's be blunt here, that can be scripted if you're a halfway decent coder.
Now, when I look back at the playerbase of EQ, I'd be hard pressed to find real assholes. Sure, you had the occasional player or even group that was either loonies or outright bastards, but few of them survived for long. Simple reason: Being a jerk did not pay off. You DID need the other players, if for nothing else then for getting your gear back from the peak of mount whatever, within that certain week. Being a jerk meant that nobody would go out of his way and risk his gear for yours. I've seen raid parties of 30+ people tank their way through days worth of, from their point of view, "needless" quests, just to get the gear of one person back. Because you simply knew that he would do the same, or maybe he even already did.
In WoW... I've seen more jerks, idiots, morons and simple flat out assholes in that 4 months I played it than in my whole EQ time.
That's what I don't like about carebear games. They let you get away with being a jerk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.