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WoW: Wrath of the Lich King Release Date Announced
Mini-Geek and many others tipped news that Blizzard has announced the release date for Wrath of the Lich King , World of Warcraft's second expansion. It will be in stores on November 13th in the US and Europe. They've also released details about the contents of the Collector's Edition. Wrath will be preceded by a large content patch, which will expand the talent trees and include many of the gameplay changes set for the expansion (including the consolidation of spell damage and healing into 'spellpower,' achievements, and a new profession). The patch was installed on the public test realm yesterday, and the current patch notes are available.
I'm a part of the beta right now, as well as a few friends and guildmates. Sure, there are bugs now given that it's beta, and I don't expect it to be bug-free at release, but... given how many fundamental things are broken right now (continents crashing regularly, critical talents for some class builds not working, etc), I wonder how they plan to have this out in less than two months.
Then again, I'm a sucker, so I'll be buying it anyway.
As the other poster commented, $800 is a great deal for 4 years of entertainment. You can go on cruises or trips to resorts that will cost you more than that after only a week or two, and the only things you'll have to show for it when you come back are a sunburn and a t-shirt.
Or, to compare that price to other video games: let's say that your average single player action game provides a max of 20 hours of entertainment, and your average single player RPG provides a max of 40. If you play a mix of the genres 10 hours a week (perfectly reasonable for a casual gamer, and way under the norm for a "hardcore" gamer), you'll go through an average of 1 game every 3 weeks. With a typical game costing $50, you'll spend over $1700 on games in two years. WoW is way cheaper than playing single player games.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The price of pressing and packaging discs is negligible, especially with the economy of scale that they're operating on. They're guaranteed sales to retail chains by the hundreds of thousands; a massive, lump sale like that looks a lot better on the spreadsheets than a steady trickle of downloads, and moves the strain of demand off their servers and network.
Our friends at ManaPotions.com would beg to differ.
All entertainment is based on the assumption that you enjoy the product being sold to the point where you're going to pay for it. Comparing the cost per hour of various forms of entertainment is a completely valid comparison.
For example, let's say you go to a 2 hour movie for $8. The cost is $4/hr. Likely the enjoyment from one hour of a movie is going to be more than one hour of playing WoW. However at $0.34/hr WoW is hardly a good comparison. Is approximately 24 hours of WoW just as enjoyable as a 2 hour movie? If the 24 hours of WoW are likely to be more enjoyable than a 2 hour movie, then WoW is the better deal since you're getting more satisfaction for the money you're spending.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
My response to the upcoming expansion has been to greatly reduce my time spent playing. It just seems like the current game has lost some of it's charm now that a chunk of new content is on the way. I'm sure that when the expansion hits I'll spend a huge amount of time playing it, but until then I'll focus my spare time on other entertainment options.
I'm no warrior guru, but I'm pretty sure that instant attacks don't affect your swing timer, so hamstring and pummel (both currently and in WoLK) waste no swings at all.
In addition, I suspect that the pummel and hamstring do no damage changes are because they are now off the global cooldown, which is really a plus (they do next to no damage anyways).
Oh, and mages and druids could care less if frost nova/entangling roots did no damage. Would be better for both of them. Frost nova would no longer break cc, and entangling roots would no longer cause itself to break early.
I rigged up a "desk" such that I can use my computer while I pedal my stationary bike. (the bike doesn't fit anywhere near my regular desk.) Works pretty well. 300 kcal/day easy just playing WoW. It would even be a decent CV workout if I actually cranked it, instead of the leisurely rate I do.
I'm sure you can do something similar with a treadmill, but first you have to take the boxes off of it and get it out of the basement. Probably wouldn't work with a rowing machine, weight bench or bowflex (but taking the boxes off of those and the drying clothes off the bowflex would be a good start though.)
More music, fewer hits
Unless you really have friends in the game, or it continues to be fun, just quit.
I used to be guild leader of a guild in almost exactly the same spot (we had killed Kalecgos), and I realized sometime after the Sunwell patch came out that I was just waiting for an opportunity to quit.
WoW is one of the best games of its kind ever, but you can't play it forever unless you have the right people there with you and you really enjoy it. Otherwise, you will spend too much time for too little return.
I'm going to try and get a beta key, so I can at least get a look at the new art and the DKs and then I'm going to call it quits permanently. WoW may be better than most of the competition out there, but only until you have played it out.
There are other games out there, perhaps not as good, or of a different sort, but honestly, they don't have to be Game of the Year to be entertaining, they just need to be different.
Don't stay just because you think there is nothing else. There's always an option.
Consider that:
- Blizzard released the WotLK right after Mythic released their new trailer.
- Blizzard announced the WotLK release date the week of Warhammer's release.
- Blizzard copied the achievements system from the Tome of Knowledge and attempted a world PvP zone with Lake Wintergrasp (I say "attempted" because it's fun for maybe 10 minutes...).
- Blizzard is re-running its Shatner and Mister-T commercials.
They do indeed seem surprisingly reactionary. Having played Warhammer's early release this weekend, I think I can understand why--it's a surprisingly good game with the potential of drawing in a lot of players, including casual players, which was what WoW was originally lauded for before it turned into a grindfest. Also, fuck the Arena.
No, $800 for one game is not a great deal at all. There is not enough effort put into it on the development side to justify such an extravagant price tag. Furthermore, if you can be entertained sufficiently by playing just that one game for hours and hours then it is quite likely that you can be perfectly entertained with less expensive options, like Neverwinter Nights or Diablo II or a ball of yarn.
I'd rather sit in the basement playing games. But then that's my opinion of a good time. YMMV
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!