f13.net

I have been favorably impressed with WoW since I have been in the beta.  I just read a couple articles that speak to many of my fears about the game.  http://worldofwar.net/articles/london2004/ and http://wow.gamona.de/index.php?seite=pp&pid=123 So pull up a chair, get comfy and watch as a spurned fanboi attacks!

First off, we have this gem


Yes, I am sure that offering griefers a chance to have a giant, glowing penis that says I AM TEH KING OF THE GRIEFERS floating over their heads will cut down on griefing.  Excellent knowledge of player psychology there!

followed by:


DANGER, WILL ROBINSON.  Blizzard is already admitting that they are too slow to put out sufficient PvE content.  The day I say "hey, where's the high level content" and Blizzard tells me, "see that guy, MAZTAHSLAYAH over there?  He's your high level content" is the day I leave.



HELLO vintage Asheron's Call.  Where nobody morphs into a cookie cutter, everyone re-rolls into the cookie cutter or quits!  Considering Blizzards complete and utter failure to balance D2 skill trees after, what, 4 years AND the fact that most of the talents haven't been done yet AND the fact that the talents that have been done are balances about as well as D2 skills are AND the fact that the talents that have been done are, for the most part, clearly based on grouping, soloing, or PvP talents (meaning you would need to respec if, a year down the line, your soloist wanted to be a raider or a PvPer or whatever) AND the fact that no-sellback has been a complete and utter failure in other MMOGs that have tried it, this is an extremely boneheaded move.  Why did AC  & AC2 & UO & SWG & AO & CoH decide to allow sell backs?   HINT: it’s not because they are morons and Blizzard isn’t.



Forced localization, even for a while, is asinine and will do noting but damage international guilds.  Especially since...




All that being said, I will buy the game on release and play the hell out of it for a while.  However, my suspicion that the game will be a temporary one for me has solidified into a prediction.

I still don't know why they haven't implemented the curve buy back system.

You know, I think they started doing it SB before I cut off my right hand.

First talent point buy back is free.  Just in case you miss placed one.

2nd point costs 1s to buy back.  3rd point costs 2s to buy back.  4th point costs 4s to buy back.

n-th point to buy back costs 2^(n-2) silver to buy back.

That guy they talked to basically said that the reason they changed the skill system (which I really liked) was to add money sinks to the system.  This is something I feel like Sigaty is going to get reprimanded for saying when he gets back state-side.



This was said in the Professions FAQ:



One thing in those articles that I found interesting was they are still working on thier battlegrounds system, unfortunately the game will ship with a 'simplistic' form of it.  This game is definetly getting rushed the way no Blizzard game would have when the founders were still there.



I do agree w/ Gallo on the fact that giving griefers ANYTHING from griefing, even it if's a perma-pvp flag saying I'm a Gay-Ass Griefer, will only encourage that behavior.  Wouldn't sending thier char to prison when they log out or go idle for 20 mins be a better threat when you gather a certain number of 'points'.  Then they could implement a negative rest state for logging out in prison.

If they force server localization in the first few months, then they HAVE to have a system like FFXI where if you have a 'sponsor' on the other server that can buy you a spot there then you can move your char to a different server.

Wow is just supposed to be EQ dont right.  Of course they are going to make a lot of the same mistakes SOE did.  

It's a MMORPG, and they have never made one before.  Yawn

...and they would have made a ton more money off Starcraft II.

PH3AR my 1337 Kok of Pwning, n00bler.

(http://www.f13.net/schild/wang.jpg)

If you're wondering why I haven't done a writeup on WoW. It's because this little guy wouldn't respond to my emails about press access. To which I say, most immaturely, why is there a 12 year old working at Blizzard?

Oh and his last name is Wang, hahahahaha! That's slang for penis, ahahahhah! Sigh.

Well, they can kiss goodbye to my hard earned euros... I can just walk out the door to socialize with my fucking neighbours, thanks.
You'd think people making online games would have got by now into their poxy skulls what this damn intardnet thing is about.

I guess we have to make a few sacrifices for the greater good, eh eh?

Hell hath no fury like a WoW fanboi scorned.

EDIT -- Cause sleep deprivation != memory for cliche addages.

Low latency? Or 'we are to cheap to pay for good infrastructure?'

Anyone explain to me what they need low latency for? Does Planetside enforce server locations? I know ww2ol doesnt and thats two games I can think of that really do require low latency.

Except these aren't mistakes EQ made.  EQ lets you play on whatever server you want, doesn't say "go PvP" when people run out of content, and lets you easily un-do the only significant way you can gimp your character even a little big (picking your spell specialization school).

These are new ventures in fucktardery (see also: 24 hour clock).

Im sure the devs's know, but the suits who write the small print in on the licences and contracts etc that insist on this type of thing know too, buts its irrelevant to them. The corporate complexities of having a global market prevail.

Im part (albeit a non subscriber) of a 60% euro/world and 40% US, 4 year old EQ guild, thats dying faster than its ever done before, players are really bored of EQ now, alot of talk is of WOW and EQ2, and if EQ2 gives them the opportunity to all play on the same server that will be chosen without hesitation. 60 or so people, each with 1-5 accounts, all of which buy expansions and are hopelessly addicted to mmogs, although the income generated is a tiny percentage, im sure my guild is not unique.

He was too busy winning the first Last Comic Standing without being funny.

As has been said before, Bliz isn't some tiny God.  They have corporate masters, and those corporate masters like things like deadlines.  Of course they're being pressured into releasing.

Particularly when VU has shoveled 3 years of money out the door and is working at a loss in games.  They're hearing "OMG I'd p4y 4 thiz as it iz n0w" and thinking, "Well, fuck, everyone else does it.  Let the shits pay for beta." Or discussing the pros & cons and money lost from releasing an 'unfinished' game vs  the cost to finish while golfing or feasting on the souls of babies with Kelly Flock & their other SOE counterparts.

Hey, a possible income source for Funcom: Teach other MMORPG companies how it's possible to have a world-wide game with all (3) servers in the United States, without having to invent excuses about "latency".

What are you talking about? "HEY GUYS, LOOK I'M ASIAN" is funny every time a new comedian thinks it's a joke. HAHAHA YOU ARE ASIAN. I don't give a shit. Get off my tv.

Seriously (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=306676&p=1#post306676).

WHY DAMN WE ALWAYS FINISH WITH HALF A BRAIN?

I don't know if "having very few customers" will become a widely-imitated strategy.

OK, that was a low blow.

You know what I find funny?

The Bliz guy who is quoted is practically new.  He just recently got moved from War3 to WoW.

So, he hasn't gotten the "What I can talk about to press" speech from the blizzard heads.

He's gonna get fired and the dev's are gonna claim that none of this stuff is true.

But unfortunately, I think our italian friend may be dead by then.

That Ant fucker was 100x worse, imo. If that dude didn't suck cock, he wouldn't have a career. Don't need scoobie doo to figure out that mystery.

I need to take a drill to my brain now.

At least he isn't just torturing us. I really think he has gone around the bend.

No, he started around the fucking bend. He's come back again and his English language translation program is collapsing in on itself and creating a vortex in space and time.

Same goes for Final Fantasy XI.  All their physical servers are located in Japan.  And we get great pings here in the US.

I very much like localized east/west servers, but for social reasons. I'd rather have the servers crowded when I'm on in east coast time and looking for a group.

FFXI also is very up front that having one set of servers for three markets let's them stretch their server dollar. There's 3 separate peak times.

lol

Nice.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.

HRose, don't link us directly please.

Here's the reply from Caydiem, the new WoW Assistant Community Manager, regarding the European press tour "revelations":

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=307249&p=1#post307249



Notice there's no clarification/correction about the server situation, talent respecing, high-end PvP-only content or the other issues that really matter (who the frick cares about the weather?).

These PR people are all about ambiguities and bovine scatology.  Getting a straight answer out of one them is like asking a Politician to tell the truth - NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

He's actually rather tall. Almost 6' I'd say. Anyway, even if he did reply you wouldn't get anything. They've been shutting down press they don't see as positive lately.

Heh, wang.

At least in my opinion, the whole 'having everybody on the same servers' failed miserably in FFXI.  Some people probably think it's working out ok, and it does seem to be improving (to my point of view) as more english-speakers start playing, but it's still frustrating.  Especially for people who play odd hours.  If I don't play at US peak times, I have very few grouping options outside of the Japanese people.  Nothing against them, I'm an anime nut, want to learn Japanese and such...but right now, I wanna play this game, and I wanna be able to talk to the people I'm grouped with.

So, as for WoW, I'm not dissapointed that they're separating the servers.  I do find it a bit odd that they're forcing the issue, and it's definitely going to cut into their profits...but it has no significant detrimental effect on me personally.  At least the morons I group with will speak something that resembles english, regardless of how bad it is.

If I play at all.  Well, I'll try it, certainly; I've tried just about every other major MMOG, but at the moment my sticking around is looking sketchy.  Might have less longevity for me than City of Heroes.

Haemisch, I like the tune, but I think this one fits better:

It's just another set of MMO developers about to take their trip through the meatgrinder.  We've done this dance before, but they still have to go through the steps.

--Dave ($40M budget means they need 400K sustained subscriptions to make the kind of money VU wants....)

Wow is EQ re-done right for the 8th time, and its not like this just leaked to the press yesterday. Its been EQ X 8 since the day it was announced, but that didn't stop everybody from going bananas for it.

It's disappointing to see they seem to be working tradeskills in a very similar manner to EQ - which was a failure their given the lack of item decay and that raid drops were vastly superior.

Bah - I am still optimistic about the game.

/fanboi christened.

WoW doesn't have item decay, but almost off the good items are "bind on equip" (once you wear it, you cannot ever trade it to another player) which performs pretty much the same function in the economy.  The raid drops thing will doubtless be true (though there will probably be uber-items made from drops that can only be obtained on raids, which is pretty much the same thing).

I think that progression-based games will have trouble having apex items being tradeskill-made until they find a way to make becoming a master smith more of a brutalizing treadmill than getting 30 characters from level 1 to max level, through the pre-raid game equipment progression, whipped into a well-oiled machine, and experienced enough to farm the bejeesus out of the things that drop the best loot.  

I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to see that.

Good. That's what you get for taking my spot in the NORTH AMERICAN fucking beta. Jackass.

Because I don't like starting new threads:

Rob Pardo spoke to McIGN about WoW PvP.

It's a pretty good article, written by Pardo himself, it goes how people will pvp and what the rewards will be.

McIGN (http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/548/548588p1.html)

Well said.  Thank you!

Somebody already made Everquest done right.

They named it Everquest.

Read the parts Hrose posted over on Corp. All I can say is, "Sounds like DAoC, except with better grief potential." Removing the instanced battlegrounds, allowing players to kill opposing factions quest NPC's, BAD FUCKING IDEAS. Giving grief points, good ideas, but doesn't go far enough to achieve the intended aim.

How long does it take for a slain quest-giver npc to respawn? I have to admit, although the idea of allowing quest-givers to be slain is distasteful, it does provide a real incentive for higher level players to defend the homelands. I just don't like that it does so on the frustration of the lower level players.

Acutally, in that IGN post, Pardo says that you loose experience for griefing.

It wasn't too disruptive, they don't take too long to respawn (5 minutes maybe).  And if its simply a few enemy guys doing it they are usually wiped out or driven away shortly after the call to arms went through so it's not like it caused to much trouble for my lowbie.

It's utterly asinine to put the best PvE content in PvP zones.  

utterly.

asinine.

Because if we've learned anything, it's that players police themselves in terms of pvp and griefing.

You'll EVENTUALLY lose experience. I don't think this will be a strong enough deterrent to griefing.

Well, there's really nothing that is sufficient to eliminate griefing because for griefers griefing is the game. They might as well just get that silly idea about people doing PVE in PVP zones out of their heads though. Already seen that one. People crammed themselves like sardines into Spindelhalla rather than get griefed in the far better frontier zones.

It really looks to me like WOW is going to end up being the competition in the DAOC not EQ market to me. The longer the beta goes on, it seems the more and more the PVP is coming to the forefront and that seems to be them following the leader of the players with the feedback about what's actually fun and who's actually interested in the game.

That could actually save the game. I've heard a lot of good things about the PVP, but I never took it seriously because the publicity was that it was not a PVP game.

There will be entirely too much PVE for it to be taken seriously as a PVP game.

Recent news re: WoW seems PvP-centrc because PvP went in much later.  And the fabois talk about it because PvP always generates more forum traffic than fighting hostile stoplights that shit loot and respawn.

I blame Hrose for inventing mmorpg's.

Al Gores son?

Maybe you should read up on Al Gore's role in the development of the Internet (http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/) before rehashing that joke.

I just got into this round of Beta. Expect a full article sooner or later. We'll see if Everquest: Azaroth can hook me.

kekekekekeekekekekekekZERGRUSH^^

Damn you... share plzkthx. ;)

I got an invite as well -- actually, it was pretty amazing, I got a second one by mistake somehow at the same e-mail address, so I gave one of the e-mails to a couple of my RL friends who still failed to get one.

Is this another round of Blizzard beta, or the nVidia thing?

--
Alkiera

Of course schild gets one.

I hate you.

What was the addy the email came from, you know, for spamblockers and the such?

The email came from:
worldofwarcraftbeta@blizzard.com

And of course I got one. I posted a picture of their little fur...errrrrr press relations guy. I'm going to have a review of the download process up in about 5 days. WHEN IT FUCKING FINISHES.

I've heard that if you're behind a firewall you can speed up your throughput tremendously by opening up all your ports - or at least all the ones that are being used by the BitTorrent client.

Or not.

Well, yea. The problem is, I'm on a cable modem. So they are just crippling my whole connection by maxing my upstream. I'm getting about 120kbps up when I should be doing about, oh 20.

New round. The nVidia invites are going out at the same time, though.  Sucks to be my empty mailbox.

schild:

Yeah, they removed the option to limit your upstream 2-3 patches back because so many people were turning it off completly. You might want to try restarting it.  I just loaded up the stress test client (Which *will* patch itself) and I'm getting 387.76 DL/ 7.1 UL.

   Also, make sure your firewall/ router is listening on port 6112 (Bliz's battle.net port) as well as the bittorrent ports. When I opened that one up and rebooted I got the speeds I'm getting now, before that I was getting the same results as you.  (My router had a "Battle.net" setting in the apps section, so that's why I tried it.)

And for a laugh while you're waiting, go check out the whining on the Beta boards from the Battle.net kids.  Blizzard unveiled their newest naming policy yesterday which is retroactive, unlike the previous one.  Complaints about not being able to be 'Barbie', 'MrFunHooves', 'Whee', 'Neo' etc are flying.  Good times.

See, that whole BitTorrent thing is bullshit. I should not have to open any ports on my router/firewall. They can toss up an FTP or give me a download link from a separate web site they could set up solely for the purpose of distribution. I know it's beta and they want to limit bandwidth costs, but ummm... the BT is supposedly a test as well which indicates that they may be considering it for release distribution? Does this mean the monthly fee for the game will be lower since they are minimizing their bandwidth costs? Are they passing that savings on to the customer or are they just giving themselves more profit? Yeah, I'm in an irrational bitchy mood today.

On a different note... if you snag the URL or seed or whatever the fuck they call the referring address used for a BT file, couldn't you just download it using a client like BitTornado? Then you would have control over the uploads, schild. Or is their BT client doing something proprietary enough to make third party BT clients impossible to use?

No, you're absolutly correct to be bitchy about it, because it's bullshit.  They ARE planning to use BitTorrent at release, I saw a dev post about that around the last time they patched.  I've seen - from other players, NOT devs - posts saying they're doing this to reduce the monthly fee.  I've never seen a link to a source, though, so I mark it down as Bnet fanboy bullshit dreaming.

The biggest problem with BT is for the kids at colleges.  No control over their network settings and colleges are wising-up to BT now and blocking those ports.  There's been multiple posts each patch from folks who can't get their routers properly configured, or are behind firewalls run by providers that block or limit speeds on BT ports.  A Bliz rep recently said they'll have an option for these folks at release.  Anyone want to bet which option will get used more often?

I'll wager that the monthly fee is $15 per month ("but it would have been $19.95 if we hadn't used BT as a distirbution method!"). ;)  I could be totally wrong. If they set the fee at 10 per month or hell, even 12 per month, I'll be pleasantly surprised. Plus, I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition months upon months ago, so I won't need to download the damnable thing anyhow. Hell, if they really piss me off, I can wipe my ass with the cloth map. Har!

Yes, they are going to use BT after release.  Many developers at AGC were shaking their heads privately about that one.  How can they be so stupid?

Christ, if they can't afford the bandwidth to host their patches they are going to have much bigger problems post-launch.

Bruce

BT should be faster (and was faster for me up until 2 patches ago when they came up with a new BT client that sucked ass) than a direct download in theory, but I don't think that it is ready for prime-time yet.  If I need to look at my router manual, I'll be pissed, and I am a freakish gamernerd.  This is why consoles will win out in the end, etc etc.

Man, I gotta figure out this BT crap now? Blah.

Found this morsel on WorldofWar.net. (http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=252253)  It basically points to a gamecard sale at gamestop that is 2 months worth for $30.  So you're right, looks like it will be $15 a month.  That's almost as much as my gamefly subscription.  It's getting harder and harder to justify this hobby.  Also, it's listed for sale on the 30th of Nov. like all the other pointers we've seen.

Isn't $15/month standard fare now for MMOs?  I wasn't expecting anything less.

BLIZZARD: Taking the standards of the industry segment and lowering them even further! HURRAY!

BitTorrent in a release product is just braindead. Host some FTP servers, you fucking assholes. While I like BT for downloading comics and such, it isn't exactly what I would want to sink multi-millions of development dollars into.

Merusk: I do not read b.net forums. I have better things to do with my time. Like eat rusty nails.

SB: They are planning to use BT after release?

WHY DAMN WE ALWAYS FINISH WITH HALF A BRAIN?

Oh god no. I meant the WOW beta forums.  I'd suggest dating someone off the Vault forums before I even entertained the thought of reading Bnet.



So gamecards sell for as much as a sub with a credit card? How the hell do you make money on them after the store takes their cut? I always assumed they were a % over the normal cost per month.

Good point, are we looking at a 12.99 then ?

There's markup. WoW will most likely cost $14.99.

At Bestbuy the discount on a 3 Month PlayNC card comes down to like $27. So stores take a good chunk out of it. I'd wager to bet that very few people buy the cards in-store or do just on the first trip to buy the box. Basically they are trying to reel more people in with them.

I believe the publisher gets a smaller cut on gamecards than they do on subscriptions, or some such.  It's the same pie, just divided differently.  Alternatively, they can force the stores to sell them at very low profit... When Sony says 'sell EQ game cards, or we won't ship you the next expansion', you sell EQ gamecards, I'd guess.  Given how much weight sony pulls in the gaming industry, they can exert a LOT of pressure.

--
Alkiera

Yeah I've figgured it'd be $15 for a while. I just found it odd they were selling gameards at $30.  I then put 2&2 together and also remembered gamecards are multi-month.  I would guess the store is getting the cash normal subscribers would see as a discount on the multi-month sub.

You'll also find there's more people paying with gamecards than you might think.  Degernates like my sister-in-law who have ruined their credit so thouroughly that the bank won't issue them a debit card, much less a credit card, for example.  She buys gamecards for SWG & bought them for EQ.  Kids below 18 use 'em as well since they can't have bank or credit cards issued in their name.



Which would work for Sony, but I dobut it'll work for VU. Dunno though.

I'm still hung up on this Bittorrent shit. If they are distributing patches like this, it is definately the number one way to get me to hate your shit. If Arena.Net can afford to let a bajillion mo-million bananafana fopillion people stream Guild Wars for a single weekend event (and then again in October) fucking Blizzard can afford FTP servers.

What a bunch of cheap assholes.

Bingo.


And in concept BitTorrent should be faster than a straight download, but I can pull 10 simultaneous streams from a newsgroup server and fill up my entire 3Mbps downstream. I've yet to see BT come close to matching that. Hell, even straight HTTP downloads tend to come down to me at 400-800 kbps. I'm just not sold on BT yet.

I am not sold on BT either.  If Blizzard pulls it off though, I would imagine the rest of the pack will soon follow.

Me too, thus my earlier comment. Is there an option not to open up the upload ports and serve files? I don't dig that kinda thing. I'm old fashioned or something. I just want to download, dammit. It's not like I'd be a paying customer or....oh wait. Someone needs a new ferrari?

In the context of raising questions about WoW...

Some contacts I have that were uber in EQ are longtime WoW beta testers belonging to an "uber" guild.  In answering questions about the game I was told that their guild has a big demand for Priests and Warriors.

?

I thought WoW was going to make these classes "fun"?  If this is really true, how come, just like in EQ, there appears to be a shortage of priests and warriors at the high end of the game?

They are fun.  Well, at least the first 15 levels that I played.

I would imagine their in high demand because now one wants to evolve into the TauntBot2000 or the UberSpamHealer.

I believe Warriors are in the top 3 of most common classes. Maybe what they wanted was Defensive Specced warriors, who are boring as hell to play.

Priests are in the bottom 3 of most played classes. So yeah, they are always in demand.

I think I remember a stat showing that warriors were far and away the #1 class.  However, there are a lot of people who play warriors but don't really understand class roles and don't want to tank in groups.

Priests are rare.  As a Horde player, I rarely see them.  Part of that is no doubt due to healer stigma from EQ CH chains, exacerbated by the kind of people the Blizzard name attracts (who want to ROxxOR and that means damage!).  Also, for the Horde, only 2 races can be priests, and one of them (trolls) is the least played race in the game because a lot of people think they look stupid.

Not just the bottom 3. According to the stats that were posted (Somewhere.. Here, Corp, WoW boards? I forget.) they're THE bottom class. The question is why.

Most proabably it's because support classes are always in the minority. They're not very prestigeous classes in any MMO, and people seem to like the flashier classes.  Priests are the worst case because, as with every other MMO to date, the masses start out trying to play it like it was EQ.  (don't get me started on people wanting to single pull in COH) Which means that priests = boring as hell, since they're relegated to the 'watch the hp bars, not the combat' minigame.  Even the people who enjoyed being clerics in EQ got bored of that shit fast, so I'm not surprised they're avoiding the healer types now.

If you look at CoH and EQ you tend to find a lot of tanks in the newbie areas.

This class frequency changes a fair bit by mid level imo.  CoH may be less clear - but in EQ tanks are the initial popular choice for most people.  Put another way - if you have an alt you like to play with that is not your main and you have never been serious about - that's the warrior avatar you log on with.

This is my interpretation of the apparent abundance of warriors at the low end of the game - and their absence at the high end.  At level 35 as a healer in CoH and at level 63 as a warrior in EQ - that was my observation.

I am thinking WoW will be the same.  Warriors will be popular in the low to mid levels just like EQ - and disappear thereafter.

Depends on what they get as they advance.  A friend of mine and I talked about this phenomenon once.  His contention was that people drop characters whose entire purpose in the game can be replaced by programs.  Tanks in CoH, warriors in EQLive fit this to a T.  You could have a bot that spams Taunt and be as effective in combat as a live human being. Their entire purpose is standing there getting beat on, nothing else.  The same for clerics with bots set to cast heals at certain health bar %.

If WoW suffers from it, it will be because the encounter designers lacked the imagination to come up with mobs that can be defeated by tactics other than a defensive talent warrior with a holy talent priest healing them.

Or 90% of the population cannot come up with any other strategies than to get a def. warrior to taunt while the mage blasts him and the priest heals the warrior.

Let clerics be Old Testament ass-whuppers and just let players have healing potions, fer crissakes. Oh, I forget player-interdependence requires someone to be a bitch.

I've grown more and more disillusioned with the whole idea of in-combat healing and aggro managment as more MMOG's have come out and repeated this tried-yet-not-true formula. Surely there is some better way to simulate combat than have one person whose sole purpose is to be someone's meat puppet while everyone else beats on the mob who is oblivious to their stings. The whole idea of taunt aggro breaks down completely, IMO, when you start talking about combat with non-self aware creatures, like say beetles or some shit. Sure, I could see taunt working on a foe worried about his honor, but not on an animal trying to kill you for food.

The idea of healing while in combat I think just makes the whole thing even more laughable.

Ever been to a bullfight?

But again, until the bull is enraged, it will respond to other pain stimuli. It will kick, swing it's head, etc. at the toreadors(?) that poke it with sharp pointy sticks, and in MMOG terms, swinging its head has to be implied as an attack. The charge at the matador is "style" attack that requires "stamina/mana/power" to build up. Other than that, it's relying on the instinct of attacking the thing which last attacked it.

What Hammy is saying is we need a Rodeo Clown class in Rednecks Online. Got it.

Good point about the focus of mmog mobs, their single-mindedness, they're always focused on one particular person in a very primitive manner. Even in the primitive combat system in Fable, I actively engage several opponents at once. More could be done, but then, that could be said about most systems in mmogs, I guess.

I never really thought of "taunting" as actually taunting the critter by calling it's momma a whore.  I always thought of it as an abstract/unexploitable/simplified replacement for position, blocking, attacks of opportunity and whatnot.  That's probably why it never seemed stupid to me.

I don't know, if you want group cooperative strategies, you need to apply some formal structure to group roles.  Is tanking/damage/healing the only workable model?  I guess not, but the games that don't have that model (Diablo, Asheron's Call) have very mindless grouping mechanics (basically, everybody solos) because there is only 1 class in those games (the tankdpser).  I don't want a game where the difference between fighters, clerics, mages and rogues is that one does slasheyhurt, one does holyhurt, one does firehurt, and the other does stabbyhurt.  Zerg ahoy.

WoW is already a step or two down from EQ in the defined roles department, since there are really only 3 roles (the puller, CC, and debuffer roles are much, much less important in WoW).  As a consequence, your average WoW group is a disorganized joke compared to an EQ group, but a tightly conducted orchestra compared to your average D2/AC group.

I mainly play a tank in WoW and have enjoyed it.  It is harder in most ways than tanking in EQ, because you are usually tanking multiple mobs with different abilities at once, and you also have various debuffing and utility responsibilities in addition to aggro generation.

Consider though, that combat in MMOG's is really so mind-numbingly simplistic and abstract as to be hard to actually add any kind of strategy too. I mean, the act of swinging takes no effort; it's a button click. Yes, this has always been because of lag issues. But take a game like Metal Gear Solid 2 and its swordfighting interface. Swinging the sword uses a right stick, and depending on which way you move the stick, you have a number of different swings and thrusts.

MMOG combat doesn't HAVE to be simplistic; it just is. Granted the type of interface I'm talking about is more twitch-based, but that shouldn't be used as an excuse for making brain-dead combat anymore.

But it will be.

I'm all with you on wanting to see more fluid attack controls, like MGS2 or perhaps Jedi Knight 2, but I don't think that's all that's needed for a less braindead combat system. The number one problem isn't necessarily that combat and/or attacking isn't fun. It's defense that isn't any fun.

In MMO's it's just a passive stat, but it should be an active skill (as in Ninja Gaiden, Fight Night, any fighting game, or even Fable). Of course, I'm not sure how the idea of meat shields and healers would fit in a system like this, but who cares. Those archetypes are bullshit anyways. In the real world, you don't take hits. You try to prevent them. As for healers and healing, like someone else said, potions will do. There's strategy in that as well.

Back to the derailment a few posts back.  In the stress test I played primarily a priest.  And it's a lot more complicated then just spamming a heal.

There is the damage shield placement, healing, damage from DoT's and spells.  Which spells are insta cast, which aren't.  it's a funner whack-a-mole then it was in EQ or DAoC.

It takes a priest a lot of work to get the basics down of when to heal, and when to damage shield, and when to decide that it would be better to nuke it down, because you have a better chance of finishing off the mob then getting a heal off.

My one gripe is that the time listed on the spell for casting time is so far off it's bullshit.  If a spell says it takes 2 seconds to cast, in reality it's going to be somewhere from 4-7 seconds.  I don't know if it's lag between your client and the person you were trying to heal or server lag or what, but it was a big factor in keeping people alive.

But in the end it still comes down to aggro management in groups.  And when you have a group that works well together it's a lot of fun.

One thing that keeps primary healers rare in many games is the blame factor. You have a very needed and often very tough game of healing folks and pacing your mana use. When things are going good people do not notice you. You do not get warm fuzzy comments like the nukers do for big damage hits.

The only time people notice you is either when you screw up or people screw up badly enough you cannot target and heal fast enough to keep up. Then you get blamed no matter who did what the priest/cleric always seems to get the blame.

So mr blaster aoe nuked a group of purple mobs its the empathy defender who did not heal him fast enough is the one who gets the blame.

I saw this a ton in eq as well.


So add a thankless role to a non flashy profession that often has to be undergunned offensivly to prevent them from being a mage/tank you get a really rare template.


kaid

From all accounts, after the first 30 levels, it becomes a SpamHealBot9000.

Kaid I gotta disagree on that - it's not my experience healing can appear to be a thankless role.

When I play a MMORPG I want all the political power to get shit done - and be a casual player on top of that.  How do you get the best of both worlds?

Cleric.  Be pure healer (it's not just a job, it's an adventure... :)

The pure healing role commands great power.  When combats are easy - as they invariably are in CoH (and WoW?) - the extra healing allows folks to take risks.

The point was made above about the lack of discipline in WoW grouping vs. EQ.  That is a concern - I am just not convinced there is much to the game beyond healing and tanking (crowd control appears to be one add only; pulling not an option really etc.).

The best way to enjoy a treadmill group oriented game (insert MMORPG) is to be a healer if you like to get stuff done and are a casual player.  I learned my lesson as a casual warrior in EQ - I won't repeat it.

For any casual player the best class in WoW is a priest imo.

The only game I tried to be a "real" healer in was as a Doctor in AO. This was around release time. I'm not sure if it was being a healer that bothered me or the shitty state of the game at the time. Maybe a bit of both. However, as a casual player I like to solo from time to time, usually more often than grouping. As a pure healer you are stuck grouping for the most part because you do not have the offensive ability to solo at will. The only thing offensive about a pure healer is usually the smell of the person playing them.