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World of Warcraft - Wrath Of the Lich King Is In Alpha
simrook writes to tell us that World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, has entered closed alpha testing, as reported by WoWInsider. Wrath of the Lich King, which we've discussed previously, will raise the level cap to 80 and introduce a new class: Death Knights. World of Warcraft remains the most popular MMORPG on the market with over 10 million subscribers. WoWInsider notes, "Various players are being invited to check it out, under a strict NDA."
ugh level to 80?
i mean i hear all the time how easy 60-70 is, supposedly, but man it's a pain if you're a casual player like myself. 62 and i need 600k to level or whatever. i have lost my motivation to play much.
But how is this news? So it's getting closer to release... it was closer to release yesterday than it was the day before, too.
If it was an open alpha, that would be different. But nothing really changes, apart from increase hype from stories like this.
If you're in the closed alpha, I think there's a good chance you already know and hence this news article is old news. Hell, they're probably never going to see it, since they're probably playing it even now.
To those who AREN'T in the closed alpha this can only serve as a tool to help those who are flaunt their exclusivity.
In short: I don't see the point? Well, other than it's WoW and has made Blizzard billions of dollars.
Yes, I know, offtopic. But it just seems like for the past couple of months the Games section has been primarily ignored - even through things like the release of Smash Bros. Brawl, a game that was worthy of a story when it was delayed but apparently not when it was released.
I'm glad to see Games stories like this making something of a comeback, but after checking the front page, a front page story on an alpha release of an MMORPG? Seriously?
I'd love to see stories like this limited to the Games section, but a front page story seems a bit much.
On an ontopic note, I wonder if this new expansion will get me interested in playing again. Probably not - I kind of ground myself out of MMORPGs. I've found that, if I'm forced to grind, I like portable games much better. I can grab the DS or PSP and grind for 10 minutes during lunch break or some downtime at home, but I can't manage the several hour commitment that an MMORPG requires.
I kind of wish some other company would do something interesting in the MMORPG space, but then I remember the Sony's "NGE" and the ever-so-innovative Square Enix "you can't pick your server" system and realize it's probably just as well Blizzard remains on top.
But even so, I'm still basically WoWed out, expansion or not.
Because it's a subscription game, and if a player dies, there's a good chance they'll say to hell with it and quit. They're not worried about making a game that doesn't go stale, they're worried about keeping money coming in.
How would it make the game not get stale? Rerunning the same quests in lvl 1-20 zones over again because you accidentally ran into a couple bears you couldn't handle?
Not too mention that many of WoW's encounters almost guarantee you will die the first try or second try until you get your strategy down (especially in instances and raiding).
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Oh boy.
OK, first off "it works in Counter-Strike" isn't a fair assessment. It's not a permadeath for a character that you've poured days/weeks/months of your life into.
it would prevent the game from getting stale - guess what? when your character dies you have to (*gasp*) PLAY THE SAME GAME OVER AGAIN! How is that NOT stale? In a permadeath situation you get to relevel in the same leveling spots, with the same quests, and grind the same bullshit you were grinding before.
solve the grind problem - do you even know what the "grind problem" is? Removing the grind is the only way to solve the grind problem. Permadeath is only going to cause characters to (*gasp*) grind to their original level AGAIN! That's just grind-tastic.
it works for Nethack - because Nethack is built around a game mechanic that makes it unique from World of Warcraft: the entire game is a random dungeon. World of Warcraft is a static world (aside from the expansion packs). If Nethack was the same dungeon, with the same monsters, the same story, the same items, the same skills, it would become very tedious to play.
it works for a variety of MUDs - people who play these MUDs are fucking psychotic.
it worked in almost all pencil-and-paper RPGs - because you didn't play the same campaign over and over and over again. If you did play the same campaign with different characters until you beat it, you a) missed the point of having multiple campaigns and b) have a serious OCD problem. Oh, and c) never experienced having your level 19 warlock die at the hands of a bastard GM.
Unless you change the core mechanics and introduce a random story generation algorithm, Permadeath would be the single most mind-numbingly annoying thing you could introduce into a modern game.
1984 called, they wanted to let you know that the gaming industry left you behind.
And JUST when I thought I was done with WoW. Honestly, a crack addiction would probably cost less - I might spend more money on it, but I'd also have more friends and more free time.
Leveling in WoW is easy; getting the best equipment from raid dungeons or pvp can be very, very hard. If there were no more expansions, the vast majority of players would never be able to finish the existing content, so that's not the real problem.
No, even if you had permadeath (like that's a fun idea in an RPG that takes hundreds of hours to get through), you'd still get bored of the same old content, and want something new.
From what I've seen, Warcraft merely provides context for a social scene. If leveling up your character really was all that the game had to it, most people would tire of it long before even hitting level 14.
However, it's the social aspect that makes it fun. It's the same idea as a family vacation; the importance is the shared experience. By insulating yourself from the social interactions in the game, you've essentially lost the real reason most people find the game to be fun.
In summary: the social aspect is what makes the game fun. The rest of the game is there merely to provide context for the social interactions.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
What just kills me is that they plan to have Death Knights for both Horde and Alliance. Wonder how they're working out the story for that one.
Logically the Scourge is its own faction, but I think the Horde/Alliance dichotomy is so hardwired into the WoW codebase, it'd be impossible to add a third faction.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
WoW and SC2 have completely separate developers, art teams, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about WoW impacting SC2 (or, vice-versa SC2 impacting WoW).
present day... present time... hahahaha...
Diablo II also had... saved games. I mean, seriously. Permadeath is OK when you can save the game and try again. Imagine every time your character died you had to start over again from level 1. Most people would never even see the stage 4 area Diablo lived in, let alone fight him if they had to restart the WHOLE thing every time they died. If you're talking about the multiplayer hardcore ladders, well a) I always thought those people were nuckin' futs, and b) the whole point of the ladders was to get as far as possible before dying. Hardly anyone ever beat the game that way. You played single player and/or non-permadeath multiplayer to see the content and get good at the fights before you ever tried the ladders.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
No, it doesn't. Consequences aren't fun. I've played multiple MMOs with consequences, and I've played WoW. I would *NEVER* play one with again- its fucking annoying. Its one of the reason I quit them.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Ehm... what is a hobby if not an "entertaining waste of time"?
I mean, are you seriously contending that building model railways is not a hobby or that it is something more than an "entertaining waste of time"?
If it is not a hobby, then your definition of a hobby is quite different from what most people use it as.
In the end, passing time (and wind) is what life is about. The universe does not pass value judgments on the way you spend your life.
Your perception of reality is what determines whether you are living life or squandering it.
That said, IMHO, playing WoW is worse than having a meaningful relationship with another person, and better than drinking yourself into a stupor every weekend in the hopes of finding a meaningful relationship with someone.
As a matter of fact, you can thank the profitable World of Warcraft franchise for bankrolling the development of Starcraft II.
I agree that it's not grinding if there is challenge present. I lost count of the number of hardcore characters I took through Diablo 2, and they were always fun right from the Den of Evil all the way up to Bhaal. Thing is, permadeath wouldn't be much of a challenge because world PvE in WoW is a complete joke and you could even bypass the difficult quests. And no, permadeath on a PvP server would never be implemented for reasons which I believe are quite obvious.
:wq
FYI, World of Warcraft HAS "stateful shared quests" which remain active until completed by any character, which then triggers a different quest. They've had several world events such as this (not sure if Sithilius was first?), and in BC they now have several other world quest events and world quest cycles that depend on the world-wide progress, as opposed to single-character progress.
Funny how you seem to know all the secrets to making a MMORPG "fun and interesting and genuinely massive", yet none of the companies that make these games can figure it out. When are you releasing your amazing new MMO so I can experience your great work?
Death needs consequence if you want people to avoid dying.
I agree that the result of a world having no consequences to dying is absolute absurdity, however, most players seem to think that consequences to dying kills fun, and as long as the masses think that, no game will be as popular as wow without having carefree deaths.
Can't speak for the others, but in Nethack your death usually comes within the hour, or if you do really well, within several hours. You groan, check out your high score, and start again. Plus the game is mostly about handling random situations, so a replay of levels 1-n isn't going to feel too repetitive (others may disagree).
> In Eve, fair combat is almost unheard-of - very few players are willing to risk
.sig of "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you haven't done your homework."
> losses when the odds are only 50/50.
Ironically, this is highly realistic. One poster on their boards even has the
A fair fight you barely win = disastrous losses for your side. And half the time you'll lose completely. It is not the situation to be in in a fight, only barely more acceptable than going into overwhelming odds.
In the Battle of Britain, I think they considered 30% loss rate in an air battle to be unacceptably high, yet they were in such dire straits they exceeded even that, going nuts on zergling production.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
> FYI Blizzard invented a game like this. Its called 'hardcore Diablo 2'.
I'd love to see a hardcore realm then. I don't even play PVP, but I think it'd be an interesting game. Unfortunately I also think it'd be full of nothing but Holy Paladins with a bubblehearth macro on a hotkey.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
The real problem with that setup is that the "i have all day to game" demographic is usually just bored teenagers. So once they control the towns, the currency, and the quests you'll end up logging in and told by "GnarrlyDude" to "fetch me a burrito of knowledge for an advnaced twinkie." Thats the best case scenario. Most likely it would degenerate into a Second Life fetish fest.
WoW works for the exact opposite reasons. Its centrally controlled, quests and mobs are in-game, etc.
Dont get me wrong. ToA sounds like heaven to me, but you need some serious role-players and people dedicated to running this thing well. I doubt your average WoW player could fill those shoes. I would imagine this would only work with lots of "players" who were actually employees and some pretty strict filtering, censorship, and lots of bans and kicks.
I think he means 'gunk' as in 'you didn't get the really shit attempt at a joke'.
2: Who said it was a secret? City of Heroes was designed to be an amusement park. World of Warcraft was designed to be "warcrack." These were choices made by those companies, for justifiable fiscal reasons. The only possible thing that could keep either Blizzard or NCSoft or CCP from doing an immersive, player-driven PvE game is the likelihood of failure in trying something new.