Well, you're looking at this a bit one-sided, I think.
Yes, CoH allowed you to fly early on, and their character-leveling game was the absolute best I'd ever seen when it launched. But that's all they had. Fast-forward to today and, as far as I know, that is STILL all they have.
It would be very easy for a game like WoW to see those good ideas and incorporate some of them, without losing the other stuff they had built up along the way.
As far as I can tell people play WoW because of either Blizzard's good reputation or because so many other people are already playing it.
Yes, certainly. The latter part is clearly more of a factor than the former, as I see it.
By measure of the actual gameplay, it's one of the worst MMOGs you can find.
That's going to need a definition of 'gameplay'. It is at least as good, if not better than most of the stuff out there in terms of pressing buttons and getting a satisfactory experience. They have mediocre content to play - whether PvE, PvP, AH, whatever - but it all plays reasonably well. So I'll agree with you only in that 'good is the enemy of great', and that WoW as a whole could be a lot better. And it likely would, if it had any serious competition whatsoever. But as it stands 'worst' can't quite be accurate, unless it also means 'equally bad'.
WoW to me was the ultimate decline of the online RPG genre. It's always been sort of the Super Mario Bros. of the RPG world. Dumbed down to the lowest common denominator to maximize corporate profits. People will flame me for saying this, but I'd rather play DDO or LOTRO with the free-to-play model Turbine seems to be doing OK with...
You're mixing the two arguments, without really doing anything about meshing them together. Your points are:
A) Games charge too much per month to play and B) Games are being dumbed down
But you're advocating DDO and LOTRO. Why?
A) - Check. Free to play, at least somewhat. You can elect to pay as little as you'd like, so long as you're fine with restricted access. and B) - Not-check. They're both as dumb as WoW, on the whole. Some ways more so, some ways less, but the net is about the same.
On the one hand you're advocating storyline as a good thing, and on the other you're happy to wreck that for others while you grief them PvP-style.
WoW jumped the shark when Blizzard created achievements and players started to use them as a criteria to participate in a raid.
Gear-score came along and gave the finishing blow.
I have nothing against requiring some prerequisites like completed a lower level raid or have a reasonable gear score. Unfortunately most players who spam the trade channel for a raid pug require that you've already achieved that particular raid instance or a gear score so high that requires you to have farmed that raid repeatedly.
I read an opinion, which isn't necessarily mine by the way, that basically said that Cataclysm was the answer to all of these woes introduced by the new meta-game. The theory goes like this:
1) The talents and values on gear are simplified, making the basics of the game very easy to grasp without help.
2) The difficulty is ramped way, way up. The standing intention now is mana/resource conservation along with the return crowd control. Also, there will be a progression of 'Normals > Heroics > Raids' that cannot be skipped.
3) Two deeply-critical roles are seeing huge nerfs - tanks/healing - while damage is getting a sizeable buff, creating an inherent conflict of interests.
4) Guild are getting rewards, which translate into costs when one leaves said guild.
This is said to result in a climate where you're never, ever, ever going to want to play with people you don't like. Everyone will be dieing together, a lot. Victories will be by the skin of your teeth, and only when everyone is playing at their best. The days of 'one-wipe-and-bail' will be gone, and the players who seek to judge your ability by Gearscore+Achievement won't be worth playing with. You'll be intended to foster relationships with players and keep them around. You'll guild up for the rewards, and you'll focus on doing this stuff together to get more of them. As you do so, you'll work on getting more skill for those that need it, as pugging just won't be a workable idea.
You play it until you've seen all the quests that are easy to get to, maybe try again with a different character or three, but eventually that's it.
The Heirlooms that they introduced with Wrath, and are continuing with Cata, have put an interesting spin on this, actually. Your main character's efforts can now directly result in alts leveling faster through the content you've already seen. There's XP in the battlegrounds now, too, and PvP heirlooms make that a lot easier to get into.
Everyone I know has several alts. Many of whom reached max level during this last xpac. This did used to happen in the past, true, but not to the degree we see it today.
Also, the optional RealID system means you can play on another server and/or faction without anyone wondering if you've quit the game...
Huh? You realize that you don't have to add ANYONE to your RealID list right? Nobody has been added to my RealID list, and so nobody "stalks or harrasses" me.
This is how we know that the Coward is being dishonest. Anyone even remotely familiar with it realizes that none of the 'DANGER DANGER' stuff came true. Anyone touting it as true today is either not a player or is deliberately being false - probably both are true, actually.
Honestly I would have thought the guys in Marketing would have pulled this for the 23rd - their sixth anniversary. My only guess at this point is that they plan their 4.0.3 'sundering' patch on 11/23 instead. But genuinely, I would have imagined that they would pull towards that date, even if there were major bugs left to be fixed.
I'm an on-and-off player since Beta. I play in within my social circle, mostly, so I'd have to say that we'd simply rather be on WoW than on Facebook. We can work together towards a common goal, 'hang out', and simply share a hobby. My vendor's rep is into WoW, too, so we can swap stories from time to time.
WoW is a lot like the new golf. Nearly everyone has either played it, or has heard of it, and can at least carry on a conversation.
So, the gameplay is part of it. It changes a lot from xpac to xpac, and keeps things from getting too stale. This keeps the community that you'd naturally attract otherwise.
Real ID lost me. I don't play online games so I can be stalked and harassed, and by failing to make privacy and security a priority from the start, you ruined any chance I'd trust you to handle it right,.
So I won't give you money.
I'm sure you miss me.
You're a liar. And you likely work for the competition, to boot.
When WoW deploys a new patch, they have 10 million people trying to get it at once in order to be first in new instances.
Your point is valid, but I'd like to pick a nit. Your number is false. They don't have '10 million' trying to get the same patch at the same time for a number of reasons:
1) They purposefully stagger releases between their regions.
2) Seven million of those are Chinese, and are using a highly modified (and thusly differently-patched) version of the client.
As I said, the point is still valid - 3,000,000 is still a large number. But I am annoyed how people continue to count subscribers who were legally forbidden and therefore unable to even log in to the game for nearly a year. Some of them shifted to Taiwanese servers during this time, but certainly not all.
And never mind the number of people leaving and not returning, the extremely high cancellation rate amongst free trials, Blizzard's inability to identify multi-box accounts, etc. I'm only referring to the Chinese market and their ban on visible bones which blocked them from Wrath for a very, very long time. Note how their subscriber numbers never changed during this time...
Humans have rights not because of the genetic codes in our cells but because of our individual experience, potential and the investiture of others.
I see where you're going, logically, but legally speaking you're not correct. Intercourse with a human corpse is one example. Cannibalism is another. Abortion is yet a third, though to an agreeably less distinct sense.
Material from humans has a greater value than other flesh and bones normally would. That's a simple fact.
Reproductive material that might produce a viable human, even more so - and understandably so.
I know you're being flippant, but the pro-abortion lobby does in fact exist. They're glommed on to women's rights pretty bad, but logic starts to fail when we consider that half of those fetuses they're hoping to kill are likewise female.
Either way, as I am no longer an embryo, these advances seem relevant for therapies using stem cells which may be developed by the time I'm old and need them.
Yes, this. And it never would have happened without all the uproar/dissent over the embryonic stem cells. People were hoping all along that it would be possible to continue this research without creating a market for human offspring, and it seems steps are being taken in that direction.
It's a good day for anyone but the pro-abortion crowd. (And yes, I mean pro-abortion vs merely pro-choice, as in the industry profiting by the practice and its allies.)
But even if you weren't, this is the WEB. There's not some kind of print-and-ship delay at work where that sort of thing is anything but pretentious. Thusly, still completely mock-able...
If you'd read it, you'd see that the author doubts Twitter was actually that vital to the effort. As a supporting question, he wonders why they weren't speaking in Farsi.
Article posts 'October 4 2010' as the publication date... Unless I pulled a Rip Van Winkle at my desk just now, we're looking at news FROM THE FUTURE!!!:)
uhhh...Myth removes commercials entirely remarkably well. Who the hell watches their favorite TV shows at the time the channels dictate anymore anyway?
Uhhh, what does this have to do with Smart Sound? Commercials were but one application of the concept. Channel surfing was another. In the digital realm it would mean changing between recordings and expecting them to play at close to the same volume. And I'm here to tell you, this doesn't really ever happen.
I assume we'll have the same shrill cries on here of "WALLED GARDEN!! RESTRICTIONS ARE BAD!! WHAR FREEDOM AMAZON WHE!!" and Amazon will be added to The Official List Of Evil Companies That Hate Software And Freedom And Puppies.
Or is it only bad when Apple does it?
So you're not seeing the difference between:
A) A vendor offers a single device that uses one tightly-controlled source of applications and B) Devices from various vendors are offered that can access a variety of sources of applications (and one of them is tightly-controlled)
i bet in the future we'll see android phones won't run apps just because it's from a store the carrier doesn't approve of
So your argument, essentially, is that maybe someday we might see an example of a single vendor (out of many) doing what Apple does to every single device it sells?
Even if they ALL did it, you'd still only be at the level of 'same' rather than 'worse'.
Excuse the phrase, but 'no shit Sherlock'. They've got the exact same hooks into every single online network: XBox Live, Steam, etc. And anything they didn't have would only be one NSL away.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you're looking at this a bit one-sided, I think.
Yes, CoH allowed you to fly early on, and their character-leveling game was the absolute best I'd ever seen when it launched. But that's all they had. Fast-forward to today and, as far as I know, that is STILL all they have.
It would be very easy for a game like WoW to see those good ideas and incorporate some of them, without losing the other stuff they had built up along the way.
As far as I can tell people play WoW because of either Blizzard's good reputation or because so many other people are already playing it.
Yes, certainly. The latter part is clearly more of a factor than the former, as I see it.
By measure of the actual gameplay, it's one of the worst MMOGs you can find.
That's going to need a definition of 'gameplay'. It is at least as good, if not better than most of the stuff out there in terms of pressing buttons and getting a satisfactory experience. They have mediocre content to play - whether PvE, PvP, AH, whatever - but it all plays reasonably well. So I'll agree with you only in that 'good is the enemy of great', and that WoW as a whole could be a lot better. And it likely would, if it had any serious competition whatsoever. But as it stands 'worst' can't quite be accurate, unless it also means 'equally bad'.
WoW to me was the ultimate decline of the online RPG genre. It's always been sort of the Super Mario Bros. of the RPG world. Dumbed down to the lowest common denominator to maximize corporate profits. People will flame me for saying this, but I'd rather play DDO or LOTRO with the free-to-play model Turbine seems to be doing OK with...
You're mixing the two arguments, without really doing anything about meshing them together. Your points are:
A) Games charge too much per month to play
and
B) Games are being dumbed down
But you're advocating DDO and LOTRO. Why?
A) - Check. Free to play, at least somewhat. You can elect to pay as little as you'd like, so long as you're fine with restricted access.
and
B) - Not-check. They're both as dumb as WoW, on the whole. Some ways more so, some ways less, but the net is about the same.
On the one hand you're advocating storyline as a good thing, and on the other you're happy to wreck that for others while you grief them PvP-style.
Very disorganized rant, IMO.
Sort of, but you can't equip any of it until you're 85. How does one get time to level to max AND grind up a bunch of points in only seven days?
I'm not expecting there would be anyone to queue against for such a person...
WoW jumped the shark when Blizzard created achievements and players started to use them as a criteria to participate in a raid.
Gear-score came along and gave the finishing blow.
I have nothing against requiring some prerequisites like completed a lower level raid or have a reasonable gear score. Unfortunately most players who spam the trade channel for a raid pug require that you've already achieved that particular raid instance or a gear score so high that requires you to have farmed that raid repeatedly.
I read an opinion, which isn't necessarily mine by the way, that basically said that Cataclysm was the answer to all of these woes introduced by the new meta-game. The theory goes like this:
1) The talents and values on gear are simplified, making the basics of the game very easy to grasp without help.
2) The difficulty is ramped way, way up. The standing intention now is mana/resource conservation along with the return crowd control. Also, there will be a progression of 'Normals > Heroics > Raids' that cannot be skipped.
3) Two deeply-critical roles are seeing huge nerfs - tanks/healing - while damage is getting a sizeable buff, creating an inherent conflict of interests.
4) Guild are getting rewards, which translate into costs when one leaves said guild.
This is said to result in a climate where you're never, ever, ever going to want to play with people you don't like. Everyone will be dieing together, a lot. Victories will be by the skin of your teeth, and only when everyone is playing at their best. The days of 'one-wipe-and-bail' will be gone, and the players who seek to judge your ability by Gearscore+Achievement won't be worth playing with. You'll be intended to foster relationships with players and keep them around. You'll guild up for the rewards, and you'll focus on doing this stuff together to get more of them. As you do so, you'll work on getting more skill for those that need it, as pugging just won't be a workable idea.
Or so the theory goes, anyway.
You play it until you've seen all the quests that are easy to get to, maybe try again with a different character or three, but eventually that's it.
The Heirlooms that they introduced with Wrath, and are continuing with Cata, have put an interesting spin on this, actually. Your main character's efforts can now directly result in alts leveling faster through the content you've already seen. There's XP in the battlegrounds now, too, and PvP heirlooms make that a lot easier to get into.
Everyone I know has several alts. Many of whom reached max level during this last xpac. This did used to happen in the past, true, but not to the degree we see it today.
Also, the optional RealID system means you can play on another server and/or faction without anyone wondering if you've quit the game...
Huh? You realize that you don't have to add ANYONE to your RealID list right? Nobody has been added to my RealID list, and so nobody "stalks or harrasses" me.
This is how we know that the Coward is being dishonest. Anyone even remotely familiar with it realizes that none of the 'DANGER DANGER' stuff came true. Anyone touting it as true today is either not a player or is deliberately being false - probably both are true, actually.
My best guess as to the timeline:
10/12/10 - Soft-Confirmed date of the 4.0.1 patch. This will be client and class/mechanics changes only.
10/26/10 - End of Beta
11/23/10 - 4.0.3 'Sundering' patch containing world changes, but not perks like Goblins/Worgen, etc. This coincides with WoW's sixth anniversary.
12/07/10 - Cataclysm proper, as announced today...
12/14/10 - Rumored start of Arena Season Nine
The thing that's odd to me is, why start an arena season when nobody is geared to take part in it yet??
Honestly I would have thought the guys in Marketing would have pulled this for the 23rd - their sixth anniversary. My only guess at this point is that they plan their 4.0.3 'sundering' patch on 11/23 instead. But genuinely, I would have imagined that they would pull towards that date, even if there were major bugs left to be fixed.
I'm an on-and-off player since Beta. I play in within my social circle, mostly, so I'd have to say that we'd simply rather be on WoW than on Facebook. We can work together towards a common goal, 'hang out', and simply share a hobby. My vendor's rep is into WoW, too, so we can swap stories from time to time.
WoW is a lot like the new golf. Nearly everyone has either played it, or has heard of it, and can at least carry on a conversation.
So, the gameplay is part of it. It changes a lot from xpac to xpac, and keeps things from getting too stale. This keeps the community that you'd naturally attract otherwise.
Real ID lost me. I don't play online games so I can be stalked and harassed, and by failing to make privacy and security a priority from the start, you ruined any chance I'd trust you to handle it right,.
So I won't give you money.
I'm sure you miss me.
You're a liar. And you likely work for the competition, to boot.
When WoW deploys a new patch, they have 10 million people trying to get it at once in order to be first in new instances.
Your point is valid, but I'd like to pick a nit. Your number is false. They don't have '10 million' trying to get the same patch at the same time for a number of reasons:
1) They purposefully stagger releases between their regions.
2) Seven million of those are Chinese, and are using a highly modified (and thusly differently-patched) version of the client.
As I said, the point is still valid - 3,000,000 is still a large number. But I am annoyed how people continue to count subscribers who were legally forbidden and therefore unable to even log in to the game for nearly a year. Some of them shifted to Taiwanese servers during this time, but certainly not all.
And never mind the number of people leaving and not returning, the extremely high cancellation rate amongst free trials, Blizzard's inability to identify multi-box accounts, etc. I'm only referring to the Chinese market and their ban on visible bones which blocked them from Wrath for a very, very long time. Note how their subscriber numbers never changed during this time...
Humans have rights not because of the genetic codes in our cells but because of our individual experience, potential and the investiture of others.
I see where you're going, logically, but legally speaking you're not correct. Intercourse with a human corpse is one example. Cannibalism is another. Abortion is yet a third, though to an agreeably less distinct sense.
Material from humans has a greater value than other flesh and bones normally would. That's a simple fact.
Reproductive material that might produce a viable human, even more so - and understandably so.
History likewise shows numerous examples of people dieing. This doesn't mean that tacos often kill.
That's a non sequitur.
Otherwise, we're just bandying about our opinions, aren't we?
I know you're being flippant, but the pro-abortion lobby does in fact exist. They're glommed on to women's rights pretty bad, but logic starts to fail when we consider that half of those fetuses they're hoping to kill are likewise female.
Either way, as I am no longer an embryo, these advances seem relevant for therapies using stem cells which may be developed by the time I'm old and need them.
Yes, this. And it never would have happened without all the uproar/dissent over the embryonic stem cells. People were hoping all along that it would be possible to continue this research without creating a market for human offspring, and it seems steps are being taken in that direction.
It's a good day for anyone but the pro-abortion crowd. (And yes, I mean pro-abortion vs merely pro-choice, as in the industry profiting by the practice and its allies.)
Okay, you're totally raining on the joke parade.
But even if you weren't, this is the WEB. There's not some kind of print-and-ship delay at work where that sort of thing is anything but pretentious. Thusly, still completely mock-able...
If you'd read it, you'd see that the author doubts Twitter was actually that vital to the effort. As a supporting question, he wonders why they weren't speaking in Farsi.
Article posts 'October 4 2010' as the publication date... Unless I pulled a Rip Van Winkle at my desk just now, we're looking at news FROM THE FUTURE!!! :)
Bill Maher quoted fratricide statistics of greater than 50% for modern forces. Didn't fact check it, but it makes 10% look teensy.
there has been no government interference here
And you know this, how?
In what way are those not business decisions?
uhhh...Myth removes commercials entirely remarkably well. Who the hell watches their favorite TV shows at the time the channels dictate anymore anyway?
Uhhh, what does this have to do with Smart Sound? Commercials were but one application of the concept. Channel surfing was another. In the digital realm it would mean changing between recordings and expecting them to play at close to the same volume. And I'm here to tell you, this doesn't really ever happen.
I assume we'll have the same shrill cries on here of "WALLED GARDEN!! RESTRICTIONS ARE BAD!! WHAR FREEDOM AMAZON WHE!!" and Amazon will be added to The Official List Of Evil Companies That Hate Software And Freedom And Puppies.
Or is it only bad when Apple does it?
So you're not seeing the difference between:
A) A vendor offers a single device that uses one tightly-controlled source of applications
and
B) Devices from various vendors are offered that can access a variety of sources of applications (and one of them is tightly-controlled)
Seek help.
i bet in the future we'll see android phones won't run apps just because it's from a store the carrier doesn't approve of
So your argument, essentially, is that maybe someday we might see an example of a single vendor (out of many) doing what Apple does to every single device it sells?
Even if they ALL did it, you'd still only be at the level of 'same' rather than 'worse'.
Excuse the phrase, but 'no shit Sherlock'. They've got the exact same hooks into every single online network: XBox Live, Steam, etc. And anything they didn't have would only be one NSL away.