f13.net

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/

Just updated a little while ago, open beta sign-ups will start 'soon.'  

Looks like those "Rumors" about a November 15th date turned out to be true after all.  I expect much gnashing of teeth, as per usual, from the fanbase about how the game is 'incomplete' and 'not yet ready.'  The same as every other MMO release.

And yet another harrowing disappointment because I chose not to listen to them....Or maybe I can get my hands on the Beta and prevent that.

Just stupid.  At the very least they could wait until December 15th.

Bruce

I have a guild of about 50 mostly australia/nz asia pacific.  Still no word on which frickin server we will be 'allowed' to play on.  And doesnt look like we will be able to try the game in beta either.

Romp, while the information is awfully fuzzy, and not entirely internally consistent, this is the best I've seen so far.

http://www.aussiegamers.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=704

Bold emphasis is mine.
Later someone states that his original prediction was May 2005.  Now, guessing this person is a WoW fanboi, meaning, he believes the game releasing as soon as possible(if not sooner) is a good thing...  I'd guess they are trying to hit Nov 15.   Crazy.

--
Alkiera

The web site linked is about Australian access to the game. So none of it actually refers to, influences or reflects the American release date. The question is how long it takes Blizzard to spare a couple of minutes to make the only possible decision regarding Australian access in relation to whatever date they pick for US launch.

ok thats good news regarding Australians.

But I can't see the point of giving us a separate beta if we are going to be on the US West server anyway?  Just let us play in the NA Open Beta and be allowed to play on US West servers at release and I'll be happy.  If we can't play at release then we probably won't play as we are a pvp guild and in a level game if you start months late you are going to find it very hard to get anywhere.

All I know is this isn't the Blizz of old.

Very true.  However, I guess they figure they can get some "leeway" since it is an MMO they are releasing this time around, and at least one tester I've talked to, who I know personally and played much AC with, says he'd pay for the game in the state it currently is in.  Not saying much, I guess, since both of us are Blizzard whores, but there you go.

I do doubt that it's launch will be really problematic beyond the initial krush of 300,000 players trying to register all in the same day and play.

WoW is not complete and it is not perfect. But it is very polished.

(I was in the middle of making a list of games that were far more unstable and unfinished than WoW when they were released, but it was almost all of them, so never mind.)

They need to release this game, if nothing else so my friends who work at Blizzard can, you know, sleep and see their families and stuff.

Heres the latest official FAQ on WOW servers :
Localized Server FAQ | 10/6/2004 6:12:20 AM GMTDT        
 
 
Why are you going with localized servers?

To provide the absolute best connectivity to our game servers, Blizzard has set up dedicated datacenters for World of Warcraft in multiple regions around the world. These local servers provide low-latency, high-speed access to ensure players have the best possible experience playing the game. In addition to providing local servers, Blizzard has established local teams, including game masters, community team members, and technical support staff, in each region in order to provide players with a high level of customer support in their native language. Because of these local teams, customers will be able to have their game-related concerns addressed promptly and efficiently by knowledgeable and helpful support representatives who understand local issues. All of these factors will contribute to providing players with the best possible gameplay experience when playing World of Warcraft on their regional servers.

Conversely, playing the game on servers in distant regions would significantly detract from the quality of the player’s connection and customer-support experiences. This level of service is inconsistent with Blizzard’s quality standards for World of Warcraft and could result in negative gameplay experiences for players of a subscription-based game service.

Nevertheless, we do recognize that players from different regions will want to play together. Unfortunately, because of the current realities regarding local billing requirements, privacy of information across international boundaries, and the aforementioned issues with connection quality between regions, we will be unable to offer cross-regional services at the time of the North America/Korea launch. However, for those players who still wish to play on servers outside of their region, we will look into providing a specific solution that addresses their concerns after launch.

Are you aware how much this issue affects game choice for guilds?

Yes; we've been working with guilds very closely since the beginning of the closed beta test because we appreciate how much they contribute to the game and to the community. One of our top priorities is to ensure that all players enjoy the complete game experience that World of Warcraft provides, and this is why we are strongly recommending that players connect to their local servers when World of Warcraft launches in their region. Regarding guilds specifically, connecting to servers in a non-local region would ultimately result in an adverse gameplay experience for the guild member connecting from overseas, and we feel that this would also negatively impact the members of the guild who are playing locally.


What is the situation for those located in Asia? Will they be able to play on the US servers?

While we have currently only announced our plans for launching World of Warcraft in Korea and China, we can confirm that like players in Europe, players in Korea and China will be able to play on local servers and enjoy native-language customer support at launch. For those who wish to play on servers outside of their region, we will look into providing a specific solution that addresses their concerns after launch.


What servers will the Middle East and Australia utilize at launch?

We're still examining options for the Middle East and Australia and will release more information for these regions as soon as possible.


Will you be restricting North America based on region, also?

As with Europe and Asia, North American players will be restricted to North American servers. Because there are two locations to service players in North America, we will recommend that players there connect to the North American server that is closest to their particular home region for the optimum online experience.

I travel overseas for work/school/military purposes. Will I have problems playing the game?

You should be able to travel and play the game from overseas provided you have an account in your home region. However, network connectivity at such distances is not under Blizzard’s control, and your play experience may vary as you travel, so we ask that you bear in mind that your connection and support experience will most likely not be optimal.

If you're stationed overseas for an extended period of time, we recommend that you subscribe to World of Warcraft in the region closest to you.


If I live in Europe or Asia and have preordered a US version of the game from an online retailer, will I be able to play the game when I receive it?

Players who do not use a method of payment accepted in North America and who do not have a North American billing address will not be able to play on US servers. Therefore, we highly recommend that players in other regions instead preorder the game for their local region and purchase their World of Warcraft subscription when the game launches locally to them. Doing so will ensure that they have the best possible World of Warcraft gameplay and support experience available.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Caydiem -
Assistant Community Manager, WoW
 
You can find the thread here :

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=385040&p=1#post385040

I still want to know: What is it that Funcom, SquareEnix, SOE and all the other "play on any server from anywhere" developers know that Blizzard don't? What leet network skillz do they possess that have passed Blizzard by?

How long has VU owned Bliz?  This is definatly a push by the big guys, who'd like to see some sort of ROI after about a four black hole for money.  No, it's not Blizz of old, it's game-vs-business, and when you're owned by a corporation business will win every time.



I think Faust had it right when he said it was probably to get VU:Europe some box sales on their slips.  If the localization stuff had started a few months ago, and US and European releases had been at the same time you probably wouldn't see this.

As it stands, they've already said if you wait until AFTER the Euro release, there will be some way of playing on the US servers.   You'll just be 5+ months behind everyone else.

AFAIK the EU beta is running with the US english language version, and it was pretty late starting. There's been no sign of the localized french and german versions. So it seems a safe bet that Merusk is right, the whole thing is about protecting the EU market from customers  bleeding to the American market.

Of course there's not much sillier in the world than watching two arms of a corporation battling each other while the customers gets some really unlikely excuses for the chaos.

I suspect they're not announcing an Aus solution because they know that's going to inflame the english speaking EU population even more.

They are stable, but I would question polished. I was getting a lot of <?text> tags and other miscellaneous detritus in the dialogs, quest system and NPC names during the stress test beta. This was from level 1 through 14 with several races. Have they fixed the majority of those? Because from a QA standpoint, that shit is simple to catch (have a tester start a character and go through every single quest to find them), but blatantly obvious to players. Now mind you, it may seem like a nitpick to those coming from EQ end-game and other various MMOGs where there are far worse things to contend with, but I'm a prick when it comes to spelling and stupid little shit like that. If I'm getting into a game and reading about a quest, believe it or not, some formatting tag showing up is a big immersion breaker for me and makes me think "slipshod work". And if that shows through, who knows what's broken in the code.

The word 'polished' is associated with WoW solely because it runs very well. I'll even admit, I could run it on my old computer - which was a piece of ass. This makes the game 'look polished.' One of the first things people ask about MMOGs is "will it run on my system...and well?" The answer is yes. This != Polished. But many people believe it does.

True. Many people severely misuse the word "lag" also. Ah well. What can you do?

Ask for negative ping code...

Sometimes the jokes, they write themselves.

This kind of thing just pisses me off as an Australian.

I mean, I'm irritated that I had to import CoH to play it, but at least they don't tell me that my money is no good. In fact, I pay more to play CoH due to conversion rates. But I'm willing to accept it.

However, when a company goes, "Hey, hold on region X, we'll get to you later on", it just tells me they don't care.  I've seen too many examples of games released much, much later, after the interest has passed (or mine has, anyway). Actually, being denied entry actually decreases my interest, since I'll go and look hard at a game to see if I really want to play it, rather than impulse purchase.

Look, I know that Australia isn't a huge country, but we have a pretty good game playing track record. Plus I've got a credit card, which is all Blizzard should really need to know.  It's not like Australia switched our currency to gum leaves or something like that.

But it's nice to know that we are categorised with the Middle East. After all, Australia sits between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, right?

I said the same thing about Shadowbane in the last two months of beta.

All I can say is this looks like it'll be the only way I'll play WoW.

For those in the Beta, how many months would you be comfortable with before this game is released? 3 or 4 more? Or are we talking a summer next year sort of thing?

You're a population of 20 million and unlike say, France or Germany, you require no changes to the game's language.  Lag isn't such a huge issue that we need to throw UK and Aussie gamers into their own little localized worlds, I personally think it's silly not to have you play on the North American servers.

Especially considering that these publishers are almost all multinational corporations, they should be able to work around regional sales issues without too much difficulty.  This kind of ghettoization based on nothing but geography is fairly dumb.

I think we're talking about people who have become elitist pricks based on their random acceptance into a closed beta, and who like not having to pay money.  That shit goes on forever.

I would buy it on November 15th. The game from low- to mid-levels is ready: it's smooth, fun, and I enjoy it.

But that takes into consideration two factors:

1) I am a jaded veteran of many bad launches, so I expect it. That's probably a wrong attitude to take, but there it is. I know that no game in this genre is released when it's "ready", and there is usually a 3 to 6 month (in some cases, over a year) ramp-up period where the details are hammered out, "balance" is endlessly adjusted, and high-end content such as Jedi ... er, I mean, hero classes ... are finally integrated.

2) I did not play a single character to max level, instead I played all the classes to level 20-30. So I cannot testify to the readiness of the high-level PvE content. Also, I played on the Beta server, so I also cannot attest to high end PvP balance. I will say, though, that the forums talk a lot about high-level instance farming, which doesn't sound good to me, but also sounds like a larger problem that they will not be able to fix before the end of the year. I don't think the corporate whip-masters are willing to wait that long.

I think that they can have everything in the low-to-mid game clean and ready to go by mid november.  That stuff is pretty much done and just needs one QA run.  If you want to powergame, though, I'd be worried about sparse endgame content.

As for "this isn't the Blizzard of old" I say no, because this is better.  Diablo 2 was simply unplayable the week it launched, and it is obvious from the laughable class and tree balance (hi, bows don't even work, but corpse explosion and WW work way way way too well) as well as some of the quests that the game (i.e. the NPCs that lead nowhere, and the actions that suddenly finish 3 quests that you didn't even know you had) was rushed the hell out the door long before it was ready.

Truely, are Blizzard the only MMOLG dev to FORCE players to only play a server in their own region?

I'm stuck deciding whether this is because they are lazy, incomptent, greedy or all three.

I'll buy at release but only because I'm not planning on playing a warlock or hunter (well, I kinda was, but I don't really like either class enough to play them in final after testing them).  Those are two classes that don't have their talents complete or even in.  Realistically, I'd say this game is a good 3-6 months before being 100% releaseable (complete is an illusion with this games..).  Hell, their full PVP implementation isn't even in, but it'll probably take me a long time before I'm ready for that anyhow.



I've yet to come across this playing recently. They've seemed to put a lot of effort into the quests since then.  Of course, I've been playing mostly horde, so if was a specific alliance issue, there's no way to me to verify for you.

That server thing is a bummer.  I really wanted to avoid getting on the same server as Fire of Heaven, Legacy of Steel, and my friends wanted to avoid playing with the lame guilds they know from DAoC.  [/quote]

I like this.  Now, I'm going to come off as a xenophobe here, but after playing on an unofficial Malaysian server for Everquest and attempting to play on battle.net with Koreans, I welcome them being confined to their own little worlds far away from mine.

Then that "a Orc" in EQ must have really pissed you off.

Very much so. And I always quickly panned and left MUDs that couldn't bother to correct simple, automated capitalization and text output issues. Of course, on a text MUD, it's pretty damn important to ensure that your text is well-formatted, etc. With a graphical game, such as WoW, it's not as big an issue to players, BUT unless the game can graphically present all the information you need, then text issues are still important. At least to me...

El Gallo, please don't use the words "rushed" and "Diablo 2" in the same sentence.  I simply cannot stop laughing at the thought.



Well, try and remember my part after that about how it is "not saying much, since we're both Blizzard whores..."  I was throwing in my own two cents more than trying to argue that it's ready for release based on the shakiest of data.

Blizzard North != Blizzard. And yea, Diablo 2 was Not Rushed. It was delayed umpteenthousand times. Blizzard North = Arena.net.

I beat the game with corpse explosion in like 3 days. It was a great $50 spent. Thank god I'm a phat lewt whore.

Heh, I played D2 regularly for over three years, until I finally realized they were utilising the biggest carrot-on-a-stick ever, in the form of patch 1.10.  Still, good times.  It makes me afraid of Guild Wars for so many reasons, including the fact that the basic GW "realms" will probably end up as a sponge for all the ex-D2 dipshits that whine about monthly fees like this was 1999.

Ya know, I welcome the d2 bunnies in GW. I can get a team of 8 people I like together. Waste some of them, then go back to playing MtGO or something else. Point is, without a sub fee - I don't think I'll be super attached. I played D2 on and off since it came out and still do. I'm hoping guild wars will be Just Like That.

In my book, something can be late and rushed at the same time.  See: Star Wars Galaxies.  Yeah, D2 was delayed over and over and over and over, but it was still not remotely finished when it was pushed out the door.  There's probably a better word for that, but I am tired as hell.

The point about Blizzard North is well taken though.  I never played any of the 'craft games seriously so when I think "Blizzard", I think "Diablo" or, more specifically, The Butcher growling "fresh meat" as he pounds my noob ass into submission.

Didn't DAoC do the same thing when Wanado (client distribution) and that French hosting company (servers) got the European rights?

I really don't understand why these companies even bother with the boxes.  All they need to do is provide a good chunk of bandwidth for seeding the installs via bittorrent and sell cd keys for $30 a pop.  Conduct everything over credit card, and run all of the servers from the company's country of origin (lag isn't a huge factor in most MMOG's like it is in an FPS).

In one fell swoop they've rid themselves of having to put out a boxed product and having to negotiate distribution rights with a third party.  It's all filthy lucre coming into their coffers with a lot less hands in the pot.

My guess is point-of-sale purchases.  Some poor, unsuspecting soul sees the box on the shelf next to his favorite RPG/RTS/FPS and teh shiny gets him to part with another $50.  

If anyone knows, I'd be interested in seeing what percentage of games are sold by impulse or point of sale methods. The allure of teh shiny is a powerful one.

A game like Ryzom could easily do that. The only people who know about it are those who probably have the capability to allow their broadband connection to patch it overnight anyway. The rest are France and Germany.

WoW has a much higher target for sell through, like on the order of a few hundred thousand units. You don't get that with download-only clients, particularly at Christmas time when you can be forced to bump into it at every gaming outlet with big flashy POP displays and what-not.

SOE experimented with download-only just for an expansion (Ykesha). Notice they haven't gone exclusive download-only since :)

The publishers have obligations to the retailers, because the retailers can't make any money if they don't sell you the box. That's their job.

The developers don't work directly with retailers because there are too many developers and too few retailers, and the retailers like to deal in bulk to get better discounts.

The developers have to get publishers to pay them during the development process, because they like to eat while they work. And the publishers are beholden to the retailer, thus they demand a box. Oh and don't undercut the retailers.

The only people likely to use direct download anytime soon are those who can't or won't get a publisher.

Maybe they expect a truly huge player base, something that a single pipe simply cannot accomodate (hard to imagine that...  it'd have to be millions of players), and so they figured might as well disperse the datacenters.

Eh, who knows?

It's not just a matter of publisher money, however.

Most people buy these games in boxes in stores.  That's just a fact and you cannot escape from it no matter how much your highly informed brain wants to tell you, "But, but, delivering bits via downloading makes so much more sense!"  And you really aren't going to change this.  A few games have been good enough to get impressive numbers via download alone, but this is still always less than what they could have gotten having a box on the shelf.

Publishers also act as a filter.  If your game is so great, why CAN'T you get a publisher?  People feel an item is more valuable when they have paid for it.  If your $50 box is on a shelf with other $50 boxes then, hey, this game must be worth $50.  If I buy it, I'm going to try like hell to MAKE it worth $50, to justify my purchase.  But if I pay half that for a CD key and a download, suddenly the value of my purchase is reduced, and the good I received in return is far more intangible.  I know it is stupid, but that's psychology for you.

Another factor is how the industry print media works.  Magazines review games when they come out in a box.  They rarely review games when they come out for a download.  If they do, it will usually be months after the fact, if the game is very popular.  You won't get them to do exclusive previews 12 months prior to launch of your download-only game.  If your game is so great, why don't you have a publisher again?

And for MMOGs, the issue almost becomes moot.  Because the box sale to a MMOG is only a fraction of the long-term monthly revenues the subscriber would generate.  So who cares that the publisher gets most of the money off the box?  The retail channel is basically a way of advertising your product to a broad audience and enabling them to make a purchase.  They real money comes from your service revenue after that point.

Bruce

Right, because magazines are paid for not by subscriptions, but by advertising (whose value is determined by subscriptions).  Publishers, as part of their services, advertise, so magazines will cater (read: whore) themselves to the pubs.  

My brother-in-law's entire job for 3 years was to smooze specialty mags and get his company's product free advertising (mention in articles, product placement, etc), with the total dollar value of that advertising being many times his own salary.  Different industries may have slightly different types of relationships, but it's still the case that specialty mags are red light districts.  But it works, and consumers eat it up.

The reason people buy boxes for MMORPGs is because after they quit the game in disgust and uninstall the putrid thing, it takes about six months to a year for the bad memories to fade and make you optimistically (and foolishly) think, "Maybe it wasn't so bad, I should reinstall and see if my friends still play". And it's easier to reinstall from the disk in the box than to redownload or try to scour your CDRs and find which one you burned the backup to.

While we're on the subject of WoW.  I'm sure this is a long shot, but is anyone with a fast upload speed willing to zip/rar/etc up their WoW client and send it to me, please?  I upgraded my PC last night and stupid me forgot to back up my data that I needed to keep.  Anyway, the Blizzard downloader is a pile of crap and I'm gettng a lousy 3kb/sec and I'm on a cable modem - easily capable of 350kb/sec+ download speeds.  Well if anyone will oblige me, I would appreciate it.

Use Bittorrent.  Go to Suprnova's site, the installer is there.

Thanks for the tip but I already checked Suprnova and the only thing that they have is the Stress Test (Beta 5) client which has no seeds and a broken link and the Beta 2 client (which won't do any good because I would just be prompted to patch with the Blizzard downloader again after install).  Unfortunately, Fileplanet isn't serving the Stress Test client anymore, otherwise I could just download that from them real quick and then use one of the many torrent links on the WoW beta forums to download the 300meg beta 5 --> beta 6 patch.

I think I cheered when Blizzard North collapsed. The Diablo-II game mechanics and balancing, their seeming inability to recognize exponential scaling effects, just scared me.

I don't see any serious game mechanic flaws in WoW (not in beta). I'm disappointed they wimped out on the rest mechanic, they still haven't solved the problem of the healer becoming the slave of his mana pool and they need to nerf soul stones as a way of content skipping but the game will still be playable without these.

A few notes on release date.

1) The avarge lenght of time between patches is 1 month.

2) Blizzard dev started there would be several patches before open beta starts.

3) the last patch was only 1 week after the previous.

4) I have always predicted the end of november.

5) I would pay for the game right now, but thats becasue I am having a lot of fun, and I dont play a druid or hunter.

6) The next patches better be damn good. If they are, the game COULD be ready for release by the end of november.

7) Do we think they are going to get several patches, and open beta, and have the game shipped by nov 15? I doubt it.

Based on what the majority of players will experience before Christmas, do you think it's better for Blizzard to launch before Christmas? If so, then that's releasing before Thanksgiving to be on shelf for Black Friday or thereabouts.

I'm with you on this bro.

The big thing that you have to admit is that SoE will have more improvements much faster than Blizzard will.  For me at least, the patches do not come fast enough.

I think we will 2 big patches before code freeze.

I haven't been on here for a while. But I tried to put a lot of concern to rest on the other site, and I'll do the same here.

Quests with bad text?

I play Alliance, but in my entire gametime, I've encountered maybe 10 quests with mispellings or unclear information. I'd say almost all of them have been fixed, except for one I found yesterday.

High level content?

Err... I've played a Priest to level 53. For high level quests (post 45) I have:

Burning Steppes
Searing Gorge
Badlands (some)
Tanaris
Feralas
Un'Goro Crater
Western Plaguelands
Eastern Plaguelands
Felwood
Winterspring
Azshara
Blasted Lands

Of those, the last four probably need a few more quests to be worth visiting for more than a level. Though Blasted Lands has the tools for the world altering quest, opening the Dark Portal. W/E Plaguelands were just added, and need to be touched up. But they are damn good zones.

On top of that, post 45, you have the following dungeons/instances to check out:

Zul'Farrak
Sunken Temple
Blackrock Den
Lower Blackrock Spire
Upper Blackrock Spire (need to collect seals from bosses to get into, most people won't)
Stratholme
Scholomance (not in yet)

I think there is another I'm forgetting. All of those have quests and items associated with them, and all have their own interesting bosses.

As far as classes go, the truth, and I emphasize that anything else is likely whining, the truth is the only class in a bit of release day trouble is Hunters. They solo awesome. But as far as groups go, they have no role. Their skills are solo skewed. The pet doesn't add much in a group of 5. So why bring a Hunter? I don't know if talents will be enough. They need some completely new abilities... they may not be 100% on patch day.

In comparison, druids and warlocks were mentioned in this thread. Warlocks got 2 of 3 talent lines, and let me tell you, they freaking rock. There was a big backlash from mages because, oh my god, another class can do a lot of damage with spells and offer utility benefits too (portals, soulstones, pets, mana/healthstones.) Warlocks may be lacking one talent tree as of today, but they are by no means unplayable or boring. They are completely awesome.

Druids, on the other hand, as a Priest, I'm completely envious of. Using their talents, they can spec to become just as effective healers as I can. On top of that, they can wear leather and can shapeshift into a bear (tanking), a cat (rogue skills) or a seal (swim faster) and they get travel form (+40% to movement... the level 40 mount is +60%.) Priests are still better emergency healers and can rez, but man. Druids have tons of versatility and in some instances can be better healers (in groups where the tanks are phenomenal.)

What else is there to look into? Yes, PvP system isn't in yet. Fundamentally, it sounds cool. For about 8 hours after the last patch, the honor system was in, and boy did PvP conflict erupt like I haven't seen in any other MMORPG. They took it out because it had some flaws (killing someone 7 levels lower than you gave you an honor hit, even if YOU were attacked, and honor reset everytime you logged out) but it's definitely quite cool to kill a bunch of Horde and then see your name as Major So and So.

What's Blizzard totally screwing up on? Hero classes ain't making it, and the localized server idiocy. It's just like when Raph tried to argue that SCS was a good idea for SWG... and not just a business motivation. No, I'm sorry, we are not idiots. At least we the jaded can see right through these things.

Final thoughts: Paladins will get buffed from talents and will be useful. Hunters will need some damn fine talents to be useful in groups, or new abilities. There is more than enough content to powergame your ass to 60. PvPing is fun, and relatively balanced at this point in group combat (solo is still kind of a mess, as a Priest I SUCK solo.)

This game (coming from the view of a beta tester) is ready to release with one more major patch (2 talent lines, last talent tree for Warlocks, new abilities for some classes post 40, addition of quests to some high level zones, tailoring/leathworking revamp, PvP system added)... so figure around... drumroll, November 15th.

I'd prefer to see it released spring of next year myself. I think though, that if it were to be released in November it'd be alright for the most part. I'd expect alot of patches in the first few months dedicated to nothing else but balancing however.