Large Content Patch To Precede Upcoming WoW Expansion

Blizzard has announced they will be releasing a sizable patch to prepare for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The patch, similar to one they released prior to the first expansion, will include the new profession (Inscription), new talents for each class, and two new arenas. The patch will be up on the Public Test Realm "soon," according to a Blizzard rep, but it will require significant testing before reaching the live servers. Blizzard developers Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack gave a related interview recently to Videogamer in which they mentioned that a graphical reboot for World of Warcraft "may never be necessary." We've been following the development of Wrath of the Lich King for a while now.

Comments

Re:Meh

[craenor]

I stopped playing WOW about a year ago. It was the same thing over and over. Push number, wait for bar to fill, push another number, wait for bar, then loot. Rebuff, and start again. To me, this expansion means nothing. I would be curious to hear if this expansion will cause any players that have left to actually rejoin.

So instead, for entertainment, you read news about WoW and discuss it online. I might have to try that when the server's down or I'm at work...oh wait.

Re:In Other News:

[njfuzzy]

That's not really true in a client-server environment. They can update almost all aspects of the game, and either change regardless of the client, or require the client update for the game to continue to work.

Obligitory Generic MMORPG /. Comment

[VoxMagis]

I played GAME for years - Then I realized that GAME was just a massive waste and only losers/basement-dwellers/twits/sexless-wonders play GAME anymore.

Thank goodness I quit GAME! I can't believe anyone still plays GAME anymore! Everyone should quit!

Besides, NEXT-GAME is the best thing ever! I don't even know why GAME makes news anymore!

Re:Obligitory Generic MMORPG /. Comment

[Chris Burke]

NEXT-GAME sucks and so do people who play it. Everyone who has a brain plays OBSCURE-GAME, it's so much better.

Re:I work with a warcraft widow

[Syncerus]

Maybe if you paid more attention to her character and personality and less to her looks, you'd understand why her boyfriend played WoW all the time.

Just a thought.

Or maybe it's just "you"?

[Moraelin]

You know, if there's one category of people I find mildly amusing, it's the "meh, I played Game X for two years, and thus I have enough experience to say exactly how utterly boring and pointless it is." In fact, only slightly less amusing than the "I played Game X for two years, and then decided it sucks, it's horrible, and only idiots like it." (Admittedly, the OP isn't in the latter category, but you can find plenty of those around.)

Including, yes, such "commentary" as that on Sluggy Freelance.

Here's a thought: If a game held your attention past the, say, 10 to 50 hours an offline game would (with PC ones tending to be the former, and console RPGs... well, at least _used_ to me more toward the latter), then maybe there's _some_ merit in it. If it even kept you there for the "free" month, even playing it at a casual pace, you already saw more content than in 2-3 full price CRPGs nowadays.

There must be _something_ that you must have found interesting or enjoyable there, unless you're trying to tell me that you (and him) are self-hating idiots who punished yourselves for months by doing stuff that was repetitive and boring all along. Obviously not because you were enjoying it, but just, you know, to feel miserable one more month and pay for the privilege.

You're not retarded, are you? I'm guessing you aren't.

Or maybe it's that you'd eventually get bored of anything else, and any other game. Nobody has infinite content, at least until someone invents an AI GM who can pass the Turing test. And nobody has an infinite team of developers, with an infinite total imagination, so each quest and each monster is truly unique. Even then, debatably it's not possible, since there's a finite number of actions and story types that make any sense.

It applies to any other game too. Eventually if you play enough Starcraft or CounterStrike or Oblivion or whatever, guess what? It's starting to repeat itself. Eventually you've seen all maps (or map pieces for games with randomly generated maps), used all weapons, tried all spells, done all quests (if applicable), and that's it. End of the line. It gets repetitive from there. Even before that, exactly in how many ways can you headshot someone in CS or swing a sword at a monster in Oblivion, before it's doing the same things again? Even with a different skin and model on that monster, you're still swinging the same damned sword in the exact same arc, and doing the same block-then-counterattack sequence again. How many times you can zerg rush someone in Starcraft before it's essentially like being an automaton executing the same script over and over again?

At some point it's just time to give up and move on. For some people it's sooner, for others later. But when it stops being entertaining, just move on.

But realize that it's not the game that suddenly qualifies as being sucky, it's just "you". And I'm not saying that in a bad way. It's "you", in as much as you've seen it all, got bored, are no longer interested in it. Fine. Move on.

You didn't suddenly get a revelation about how bad the game is, you just got a revelation about where _your_ limits are. Congrats.

And please lose the preaching. It may look like you just discovered how boring and pointless the game is, and maybe that it's your duty to enlighten others about it. But you only discovered that it just became boring to _you_. I.e., that you're got a human after all. It's not much of an enlightenment to bestow upon anyone else. We were already suspecting that you were human.

Re:I work with a warcraft widow

[_Sprocket_]

Beautiful woman and yet she has a boyfriend who lives in that game. (6hrs a day or more of playing, especially weekdays = living in the game.) MMO's, they're a helluva drug.

Ahhh - the oddity of human behavior. WoW (being a successful example of an MMO) is just another in the long line of activities that impact personal interactions. Ever hear of a "football widow"? Ever really seen a sign that reads "gone fishing"?

Yeah, sure... MMOs and other such ilk touch all these interesting psychological behaviors. But they're hardly unique in the realm of personal interaction (neglected or otherwise).

As for me... in about an hour, I'm going to be sitting down at the computer area with my wife and leveling up some alts. We got matching recruit-a-friend accounts to play with. Re-running all this old content with player classes we rarely use has been a blast.

Re:I work with a warcraft widow

[bigstrat2003]

I don't think you should assume it's either side's fault. I knew a girl who felt like she got dumped for WoW, but I also knew her boyfriend, and knew perfectly well that it had nothing to do with WoW: that was just his escape from the fact that he was in a relationship with a girl who was utterly crazy. If you only looked on the surface, you would say, "That bastard ignored and then dumped his girlfriend for WoW!", but you'd be wrong. It was merely a symptom of the fact that their relationship was toast... if it wouldn't have been WoW, it would've been something else.

Re:Meh

[Anachragnome]

There is a difference between choosing to go somewhere unprepared (Ultima Online)and not being able to go there until you ARE prepared (WoW).

Ultima Online left that decision up to the players, not the developers. Example? Try taking your Level 13 WoW Toon into Sunwell for that fat loot. Not possible because the developers choose to make it so.

In Ultima Online, you CAN take an underdeveloped character into such a place, but only if you had numerous friends there to protect you. Far more logical and REALISTIC. But more importantly, from my perspective, to be able to make that decision myself.

Another aspect is that a player with really good actual SKILL at playing UO can get into places with very little preparation or ingame skills. In other words, that "unprepared" character CAN go into such dangerous places IN THE HANDS OF A HIGHLY SKILLED PLAYER. As such, very skilled players are rewarded with even more freedom. I remember getting my ass handed to me by butt-naked Mages simply because they out-classed me skill-wise. They didn't need the gear. Skill was enough. Granted, that has changed somewhat, but not entirely.

Try taking a butt-naked lvl 70 into Alterac Valley. I assure you that you will not last long regardless of skill.

Re:I can't play wow anymore

[gweihir]

Those who play on a PvP realm, get what they deserve....

Re:Meh

[joelwyland]

Your comments about him being irrelevent are trollish - he does have experience with the product, and decided for himself.

The problem here is that TFA is about an upcoming content expansion to WoW. The people who play WoW are getting some more neat things to experience. He doesn't play the game anymore, he clearly doesn't like it, so this announcement of new content doesn't affect him at all. Yet, he wants announce that he's "meh" about the release of new content in a game that he doesn't play. So who the hell cares if he's not excited about the release of new content. He's not going to experience it because he doesn't play the game... and therefore, his feelings on the expansion are completely irrelevant.

Re:Meh

[_Sprocket_]

OK. Point taken on being free to walk in to danger at your own pace. Although I still maintain that it isn't really THAT much freedom when you're just as likely to be slaughtered (even more so when groups sell their services to lock down a dungeon - the aforementioned goon squads).

As for your naked mage... geared or otherwise, I'm willing to bet the guy still had several Grand Master skills under his belt. That took grinding / training to achieve even if it took a skilled player to put to good use.

Granted - WoW is MUCH more gear-oriented. But I've run in to players that have pulled off really impressive combinations of actions that weren't entirely based on their gear (although trinkets, engineering gadgets, etc. really expand on that). Unfortunately I've also run in to mobile brick walls of gear - so I understand where the comparison comes from.

That's a different topic, but here goes

[Moraelin]

You find it contradictory that people who played game for 2 years would say it is boring, but than again people who played for 2 days you would say that they havent played enough to make a judgment.

Now that's another funny category: the people who feel that their own tastes are the gold standard, and are qualified to tell everyone else what they should like.

Some people like Pepsi, some people like Coke, and some people don't like either. Would you presume to tell them what their taste should be like? Some people like chinese food, some don't. Some people like things very spicy (a couple of coleague are real big fans of extra-hot chili sauce), some of us like it milder. Most people around here seem to be into dry wines, me, I like my wine sweet. Would you presume to tell me that there's something wrong with my tongue? And then there's stuff like favourite colours or clothes. Now there's some variability. Etc.

Then, pray tell, what kind of confusion of mind would drive someone to a conclusion like, basically, "if 10 million people love WoW, and I don't, then I'm right and they're all idiots and need to be enlightened about how boring their favourite game is"?

Again, maybe it isn't WoW, it's "you". It doesn't match _your_ subjective taste. Maybe you're not much into MMOs. Maybe there's something else about it you don't like. But realize that it doesn't say much about anyone else. It's ok. It's not some personal failure or anything. You don't have to fit in with some group or anything. But the same applies viceversa too.

But again, it might be... _polite_ to lose the preaching. You're not the golden standard in game tastes, nor the yardstick by which humanity is measured. It's entirely possible that someone else loves what you hated, and don't need your enlightenment at all.