My First 2 Hour Impression of WoW

[SirBruce]

Okay, so the stress test is my first chance to beta this game.  I've played for two hours, and my initial thoughts are:

Highly Unpolished.

Seriously, have they even played other MMOGs to understand some of the advances that have been made since 1998?

1. Character Creation - Easy and quick, but missing several key features.  No zoom key.  EXTREMELY LIMITED faces and hair styles and so on - about a half-dozen each.  And no clothing customization.

2. Interface - Strangely backward at times.  Mouse axis for up and down movement is inverted.  Autorun key is Num Lock.  NPC names not visible without selecting them.  Yes, you can change these things in the options... but who would suspect that "show UNIT names" referred to all NPCs?  Nevermind the fact that this should be the DEFAULT to begin with.

3. 60Hz, 60Hz, 60Hz.  My eyes bleed already.  No ability to set the refresh rate.

4. The backpack, inexplicably, does not show up in your character sheet like 99% of all other games, but instead is its own seperate button on the interface.

5. Right-clicking an equippable item from the backpack doesn't automatically equip it.  Instead, you have to drag and drop it to equip.  Thankfully you don't have to select the right slot, but still...

6. There doesn't seem to be any coding to accomodate lag at all.  Yes, I know it is a stress test, but I'm talking simple consistency checks.  For instance, I clicked in one room to sit down in a chair, ran to another room, and 30 seconds later I got teleported back to the previous room to sit down.  Talk about exploits waiting to happen!

7. Not enough of a directed experience.  I handled the initial quests easily enough, but then I had no other quests to do.  Plenty of guys hanging around with !s over their heads, but I guess I'm too low a level for them to give me a quest.  Of course, they won't SAY that... they just stand there, not saying anything, while I'm trying to distinguish between lag and a poor design.

8. So, sure, I could kill stuff to level up to get those quests.  Unfortunately, I'm level 2, and all the stuff around is level 5, or 6, or level 1s guarded by a level 5 or 6.  I tried killing a level 5 deer, and it healed faster than I could kill it.

9. Speaking of which, deer are level 5, but sheep are level 10?  Who came up with this?

10. I tried dragging a passive ability into my action bar, before I realized it was a passive ability.  Okay, fair enough.  But did it give me a pop-up message telling me I'm a dumbass?  No, it just did nothing, leaving me to try to figure out if I'm stupid, or if it's lag, or if I'm doing something wrong on the drag and drop.  

On a positve note, you get experience points for discovering new areas.  Kudos for that.

So, I'll play more later today, but so far I'm very unimpressed.

Bruce

[HaemishM]

I watched my buddy play this a little bit ago.

Lag didn't seem an issue. Dragging a passive action onto the hotkey bar DID come up with a message saying it was a passive action.

It was more polished than Horizons.

[SirBruce]

Perhaps then it's just some passive actions that don't work.  Or, perhaps you're mistaken.

It may be a more polished game than Horizons, but I will say Horizons interface is FAR more polished, if a bit overwhelming in its complexity.

Bruce

[Pineapple]

1. Their character customization is a bit lacking. Really however, all you will ever see of your character after level 10 is the face. The rest of your look will be defined by your gear.

The starting appearance is rather misleading too. The newbie characters look unimpressive. Once you get some gear on, you look better and cooler. Go check out the Tauren and Orc NPCs in Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff and see what I mean by this. The high end gear is definitely cool looking.

2. My mouse look wasnt inverted, and my NPC/monster names were on by default.

4. I like the backpacks like this, because sometimes I want to open my pack without opening my entire paperdoll.

6. The lag you mentioned, you didn't "teleport" to the chair. You actually never left the chair on the server, but were walking around on the map thanks to your client load. This happens in EQ and UO as well, even to this day. However it has been improved more in those games. No doubt the huge crush of stress testing is affecting this. I bet the server is also taking log files, which is going to give you huge lag gaps.

When I play on a regular beta server, this hardly ever happens. When it does, it is when the server is about to puke.

7. Not sure why you are having trouble with the direction of what to do. I found the quests very guiding. They take you from level 1 up eventually through the high levels. Some points in your levelling will have fewer quests, but generally you should have at least 1 quest.

You should get a quest telling you to go to a new area, when your quests in that area are about to all be finished. You get guided to new areas, in other words. It works rather well, so not sure why you have lost your way here. By sure you read the quests fully, and if you see a NPC with a yellow ! above their head then go get that quest.

You should be able to find stuff your level in the newbie area, and then eventually get a quest to do a cave or some such in the newbie area. Then you will get a quest that directs you out of the newbie area.

BTW my sister did the same thing with the passive abilities. They probably need more direction, but their isnt a manual yet so ok to that. She has submitted a few suggestions.

This game isnt for everyone. My sister isnt going to buy it. I am still undecided to be honest. I really want to check out EQ2.

[HRose]

Highly Unpolished.

1. Character Creation - Easy and quick, but missing several key features.  No zoom key.  EXTREMELY LIMITED faces and hair styles and so on - about a half-dozen each.  And no clothing customization.

It's not about polish, it's about a choice. Customization is surely reduced but to keep the game playable in large crowds and still mantain a style throughout the game.

3. 60Hz, 60Hz, 60Hz.  My eyes bleed already.  No ability to set the refresh rate.

Check the options in the text file (.WTF). I never play in full screen anyway. Windowed mode is way better.
Add this to the options of your launch icon: "D:\Games\World of Warcraft\WoW.exe" -windowed
Changing the path, obviously.

7. Not enough of a directed experience.  I handled the initial quests easily enough, but then I had no other quests to do.  Plenty of guys hanging around with !s over their heads, but I guess I'm too low a level for them to give me a quest.  Of course, they won't SAY that... they just stand there, not saying anything, while I'm trying to distinguish between lag and a poor design.

Really strange. It's really HARD to run out of quest at the beginning in the game. When you are high enough you should start to move out the newbie zone. In general the quests push you to do so.

8. So, sure, I could kill stuff to level up to get those quests.  Unfortunately, I'm level 2, and all the stuff around is level 5, or 6, or level 1s guarded by a level 5 or 6.  I tried killing a level 5 deer, and it healed faster than I could kill it.

I don't know if the server is bugged but I can reach level 5 in less than 30 miniutes. Going to level 3 is a matter of minutes and a pair of quests. Perhaps all the players flooding the world are messing the spawns but there should be PLENTY of low level non-aggro mobs.

Can you check how many are on the server? (while in the selection screen try to "change realm" it will show the number)

9. Speaking of which, deer are level 5, but sheep are level 10?  Who came up with this?

Sheeps are critters. No experience from them. You will meet mobs like boars from level 1 till the end. Just switching names and perhaps texture and dimensions.

On a positve note, you get experience points for discovering new areas.  Kudos for that.

Yeah, but is bugged and nerfed. You'll keep receiving useless exp. Getting 100 xp when you are level 15 and above is laughable.

[HRose]

I agree with Pineapple. The interface is wonderful in WoW and extremely polished. What you criticize are doubtful design choices that I find good.

Instead the completely messed and not in synch animation system, with all the bugs (stuck animations) is surely lack of polish.

What I mean is that the game IS unpolished. But exactly where you didn't comment.

[HRose]

7. Not sure why you are having trouble with the direction of what to do. I found the quests very guiding. They take you from level 1 up eventually through the high levels. Some points in your levelling will have fewer quests, but generally you should have at least 1 quest.

And in fact that's the opposite problem. At higher level you'll hit repeatedly a wall. "Your quest log is full". Extremely annoying.

[Nebu]

I had a feeling that the first time someone was critical about WoW that they'd get blasted.... even here.  I have to give SB credit for presenting his objective views knowing he'd get flamed for it.

[Rasix]

Eh, I wouldn't consider any of the responses flames.  Some of Bruce's points seemed a bit petty or stuff I wouldn't even give a shit about.  And of course Hrose would counter, he's pretty infatuated with the game.  

This stress test is going to be a shitty medium for seeing what the game is like (except on launch day, heh heh).  The lag's going to be horrible throughout, the stupid will be high, and the population density will likely be unreal.  I doubt I'll leave with a good taste in my mouth, nothing as bad as AC2's, but still I don't expect to be blow away.

[Pineapple]

I had a feeling that the first time someone was critical about WoW that they'd get blasted.... even here.  I have to give SB credit for presenting his objective views knowing he'd get flamed for it.

Well I wasnt replying as a flame. Just tossing in my .02 to his post. He does have some opinions that I think a few newbies will share, so that is important that Blizzard know this. First impressions are everything.

I personally think their new player areas are too small to handle their release crush. I also think they will not be able to avoid making their game resemble EQ very much in the high end game. This game wont be for everyone. I have my doubts too.

[HRose]

Eh, I wouldn't consider any of the responses flames.  Some of Bruce's points seemed a bit petty or stuff I wouldn't even give a shit about.  And of course Hrose would counter, he's pretty infatuated with the game.

I'm just discussing. What SirBruce says about the interface is debatable. Other issues about the customization are well-known and again a choice.

He's right about the options. In fact I suggested him to look into the config file. A polished game avoids this.

But he seems to completely forget the rest. I consider the controls and the interface wonderful. For example the ability to control the movement pressing the right botton on the mouse and the camera with the left button.

My impression is that SirBruce is really trying hard to figure out something to criticize and he's actually finding nothing relevant. To the point that has to rant about default options.

[HRose]

I personally think their new player areas are too small to handle their release crush.

I do not agree. It's good to keep things small so that the players can get comfy with the game. That's the purpose of a newbie zone. After two days the environment will be actually too big and it will become a problem.

Obviously this happens in every other game, but the issue is fixed after a few days, when the players will start to spread on the world. What I mean is that is more important to balance the world keeping your goal on the long distance. The important part is about the servers not crashing.

A good solution could be about instancing the newbie zones. So you solve both problems (overcrowd at release and desolation after few days).

[Margalis]

It sounds like most of the complaints are "it isn't like other MMORPGs." Maybe that was part of the point. Inventory handling sounds a lot like other Blizzard games, for example.

[WayAbvPar]

When Fanbois Attack!

[HRose]

Inventory handling sounds a lot like other Blizzard games, for example.

Yes and no. In Diablo the character window is different from the equipment window. But you can equip stuff just by using the equipment one.

In WoW Each bag can be opened separately (you start with one, then you can buy or loot different kinds of bags with different capacity) and you need to drag and drop to the character window to equip stuff.

So you need to cross the screen with the mouse and open both windows. Annoying.

During beta 2 you could just drag and drop an item on an empty bag slot to equip it. Feature that got discarded for absolutely no reason.

[Margalis]

Whether the systems are good, and whether they are different, are two different issues.

If they are just bad, ok, they're bad. But the original post sounded more like different to me. How many times do you see your characters face up close?

Character creation screens often *feel* really cool, but make no real difference.

I would rather have a system where at each level there were a bunch of different things you could wear that looked different and were all effective. Anarchy Online seemed *really* good like that, every single person was decked out differently.

Most of character appearance is armor and weapons. If you can customize those, or have a a wide variety of useful options, that far outclasses things like eye color.

[schild]

I have a new game. Hrose can't talk about WoW for the remainder of the stress test. I don't want to see a single solitary one of your arguments or opinions. Let people decide for themselves and shut your fucking fanboi mouth. You're on dangerous territory.

Edit: I'm dead serious about this. I want people to be able to form opinions without HRose stepping in -  so, HRose - you HAVE TO STOP.

[HRose]

Most of character appearance is armor and weapons. If you can customize those, or have a a wide variety of useful options, that far outclasses things like eye color.

Well, what about height?

They could have made a *little* effort at least to add the three types og heights that DAoC has...

[stray]

Most of character appearance is armor and weapons. If you can customize those, or have a a wide variety of useful options, that far outclasses things like eye color.

Case in point: SWG. Despite the customization you can give your toon in creation, you're still going to look indistinguishable in the end. Last I checked, most of the players I saw were decked out in composite armor. The best you can do is dye your gear. Same with weapons: There's pretty much only one useful choice in each weapon line. Even Shadowbane, with it's god awful graphics engine, was better in this respect.

[SirBruce]

Thanks for the tip about the config file for the Hertz.  However, all those options should be in the GUI settings interface, and they aren't.  Furtheremore, there's no good reason to default to 60Hz when other games know my resolution can suport 85Hz.

I figured out part of my problem wih the "directed experience."  It might be specific to humans, as there's an early quest at the abbey than sends you down the road to a nearby village, which otherwise you shouldn't go to until you're level 5 or so.  So early on I missed all the early quests at the abbey, but then I went back and now I'm back on track with the quests.  Sounds like this is more of a specific quest problem than a general issue.

However, I have a far bigger issue with the game now.  It's World of WarCamp.  All the spawns are static, and the nebie areas are overloaded with people trying to camp mobs to do their quests.  Static spawns are a questionable design decision in today's generation of MMOGs, but if you're going to do it, you've got to have many many many times the spawn areas than they have currently.  They knew what kind of load the stress test and the launch would get... what did they expect?

Anyway, so far I'm not really getting into it.  And I'm not much for PvP, either, so I'm strongly suspecting I'll like EQ II better.  But, I'm going to give WoW the old college try for the next week until I make up my mind.

Bruce

[kaid]

I got about 1 hour to play an ork shaman.

Graphic very nice and smooth I did not notice any refresh rate issues and this is something that usually bothers me.

Character creation somewhat limited but acceptable because as with EQ2 and eq its the equipment that will really differentiate you from others. My ork after about 20 minutes of hunting looked very different than other people I saw just from items from quests and mob drops. At level 4 I already had 3 different pants 3 different shirts a few different weapon types.

Leveling so far is fast and furious got to level 5 in about an hour and most of that was running around looking for quest thingies.

I have to agree that I find it odd that the backpack is not connected to inventory but it took me all of 3 seconds to get used to it no big deal.

Lag so far for me was non existant. I saw no pauses/hiccups or server lag and was VERY shocked by that. Given the nut kicking they are taking it is purring like a kitten so far.

Not gotten far enough to really form much more opinions than that but so far so good I am pleasently surprised.


kaid

[Margalis]

Edit: I'm dead serious about this. I want people to be able to form opinions without HRose stepping in -  so, HRose - you HAVE TO STOP.

I am perfectly capable of forming opinions while other people express theirs. If it bothers you so much, just don't read what HRose writes. Everyone who wants to can just do that.
---

Anyway...I do agree height and general size would be a good thing to have. As far as basic character customization, the things that will last are width/height, racial characteristics (overall build, do you have a tail)...that kind of large feature. Maybe hairstyle and color if people don't wear helmets. But things like tatoos and eye color are really irrelevant in the end.

The mistake a lot of games make is at a given level their is one set of equipment that is clearly the best, so everyone ends up looking the same.

[SirBruce]

I'm being quite honest.  I'm casting a critical eye on things, I admit, but my honest impressions so far have frequently been more frustration than adoration.  The mechanics seem to be nothing new at all; it's all stuff we've seen before, but with none of the little flairs and touches and niceities we've come to see in 2nd generation MMOGs.  One can argue those do not often add much to the core gameplay experience, but the game still seems like a throwback to me.

Now that I'm back into questing I do like it; I enjoy consuming content via quests and the ability to choose your reward is great... although not so great when my two-hand wielding paladin had to take a shield as a reward with no other choice.  My larger complaint is there's not log of COMPLETED quests... so I can't look back and see what I did.  As a completeist, this is very important to me.  It may not matter to you, and that's fine, but it's a big thing for me.

Bruce

[whyblizzardwhy]

omfg i hate blizzard now they had to go and make a mmo chatroom and job instead of starcraft 2 gay ass broken genre i cant believe anyone likes to grind quests and kill monsters pointlessly for 12 hours

[Romp]

Most of character appearance is armor and weapons. If you can customize those, or have a a wide variety of useful options, that far outclasses things like eye color.

Case in point: SWG. Despite the customization you can give your toon in creation, you're still going to look indistinguishable in the end. Last I checked, most of the players I saw were decked out in composite armor. The best you can do is dye your gear. Same with weapons: There's pretty much only one useful choice in each weapon line. Even Shadowbane, with it's god awful graphics engine, was better in this respect.

I dont see why so many games make everyone look so similar in the end.  Like Shadowbane for example.

to my knowledge 2 of the first big mmorpgs are the best ever at this, UO and AC.  You should be able to customise your appearance through dyes etc or at least there shouldnt be optimal or 'class' armour that everyone tries to get.

[Ardent]

1. Character Creation - Easy and quick, but missing several key features. No zoom key. EXTREMELY LIMITED faces and hair styles and so on - about a half-dozen each. And no clothing customization.

Yes, we have been spoiled by City of Heroes. I don't see this changing in WoW before release.

2. Interface - Strangely backward at times. Mouse axis for up and down movement is inverted. Autorun key is Num Lock. NPC names not visible without selecting them. Yes, you can change these things in the options... but who would suspect that "show UNIT names" referred to all NPCs? Nevermind the fact that this should be the DEFAULT to begin with.

The interface is very easy to customize. I changed my autorun to R, and my /tell reply to Backspace, because I run a hell of a lot more than I reply to tells.

I actually really like that NPC and monster names don't appear above their head automatically. It's easier on the eyes, methinks.

4. The backpack, inexplicably, does not show up in your character sheet like 99% of all other games, but instead is its own seperate button on the interface.

Press B to open your backpack. Press Shift-B to open all your backpacks at once.

5. Right-clicking an equippable item from the backpack doesn't automatically equip it. Instead, you have to drag and drop it to equip. Thankfully you don't have to select the right slot, but still...

There were a lot of complaints from early testing that people were right-clicking to equip something while they had a vendor window open, and accidently sold what they were trying to equip.

6. There doesn't seem to be any coding to accomodate lag at all. Yes, I know it is a stress test, but I'm talking simple consistency checks. For instance, I clicked in one room to sit down in a chair, ran to another room, and 30 seconds later I got teleported back to the previous room to sit down. Talk about exploits waiting to happen!

This definitely sounds like a stress test problem. The normal beta servers do suffer from occasional lag ... not as bad as you describe here. Lag does seem to be getting worse, though, not better.

7. Not enough of a directed experience.

Looks like from your later posts that you figured this one out. If anything, I think WoW is TOO MUCH of a directed experience. Taking one character through the quests is exciting, but when you've been in beta since January and are on your fifth or sixth character, the thought of killing those same 12 boars again makes you sick to your stomach.

So, I'll play more later today, but so far I'm very unimpressed.

That was my first reaction as well, but then again I react that way to every MMORPG I play.

WoW is flawed and by no means revolutionary, but give it a bit of time and it gets under your skin.

[schild]

omfg i hate blizzard now they had to go and make a mmo chatroom and job instead of starcraft 2 gay ass broken genre i cant believe anyone likes to grind quests and kill monsters pointlessly for 12 hours

Not as funny as the last gimmick, kthxbye.

[Margalis]

to my knowledge 2 of the first big mmorpgs are the best ever at this, UO and AC.  You should be able to customise your appearance through dyes etc or at least there shouldnt be optimal or 'class' armour that everyone tries to get.

Since MMORPGs are full of min/maxers, avoiding optimal armor is pretty difficult. You have to think about how to offer different sets of equipment that are all useful in their own way.

You might think "I'll offer one set of armor that raises attack power, and one set that raises defense power." But every attacker will choose A, and every Paladin type will choose B.

Part of that has to do with the fact that MMORPGs typically don't have a place for a jack of all trades. If you are the class that heals, all your equipment is plus healing. If you are the class that takes hits, all your armor is plus defense, etc.

I think if you start having mages have to defend themselves and bonk some people one in a while, and make paladins have to try to inflict damage every so often, you can make those choices a lot more varied.

If I were designing a MMORPG, I would try to make it so that every class would take hits, even if they didn't screw up. It just shouldn't be possible to totally avoid taking damage. (Obviously some would take hits more often than others.) And every class would have some use for long range attacks (or most, anyway) and the at least occasional need to jab something with a pointy stick.

As a mage, a choice between +magic armor and +defense armor gets a lot more interesting if you know those Kobold Archers you are going to be fighting will be gunning for you.

[SirBruce]

1. Character Creation - Easy and quick, but missing several key features. No zoom key. EXTREMELY LIMITED faces and hair styles and so on - about a half-dozen each. And no clothing customization.

Yes, we have been spoiled by City of Heroes. I don't see this changing in WoW before release.

It's not just City of Heroes.  Compared to ever other recent-generation MMOG -- AC2, SW:G, CoH, etc. - it offers an extremely limited selection.  Fine, we can't specify our waist size and the length of our nose; how about having more than a half-dozen faces per race/gender?

2. Interface - Strangely backward at times. Mouse axis for up and down movement is inverted. Autorun key is Num Lock. NPC names not visible without selecting them. Yes, you can change these things in the options... but who would suspect that "show UNIT names" referred to all NPCs? Nevermind the fact that this should be the DEFAULT to begin with.

The interface is very easy to customize. I changed my autorun to R, and my /tell reply to Backspace, because I run a hell of a lot more than I reply to tells.

I changed my interface as well -- not the point.  The point is if they'd learned anything from other games, their defaults would be more sane.  You have to realize that a lot of potential customers are stupid and if it's not immediately obvious to them they will not enjoy the experience.  Unlike most geeks, who enjoy trying to figure out what arcane steps they need to go through to bend something to their will.

5. Right-clicking an equippable item from the backpack doesn't automatically equip it. Instead, you have to drag and drop it to equip. Thankfully you don't have to select the right slot, but still...

There were a lot of complaints from early testing that people were right-clicking to equip something while they had a vendor window open, and accidently sold what they were trying to equip.

Which just tells me right click to sell to the vendor was wrong.  Drag and drop, or some other interface paradigm, is preferred.  I will grant that one probably sells more often to vendors than one equips new items, but this sort of thing breaks established UI conventions.

This definitely sounds like a stress test problem. The normal beta servers do suffer from occasional lag ... not as bad as you describe here. Lag does seem to be getting worse, though, not better.

I think some people missed my point here.  The point was not "OMG LAG" because that can be fixed.  The point was the program doesn't do a good job of HANDLING lag.  The solution to heavy warping is not only to eliminate lag so it doesn't happen, but also to do better coding so the amount of warping under heavy lag is minimized.

Bruce

[Morfiend]

I'm being quite honest.  I'm casting a critical eye on things, I admit, but my honest impressions so far have frequently been more frustration than adoration.  The mechanics seem to be nothing new at all; it's all stuff we've seen before, but with none of the little flairs and touches and niceities we've come to see in 2nd generation MMOGs.  One can argue those do not often add much to the core gameplay experience, but the game still seems like a throwback to me.

Now that I'm back into questing I do like it; I enjoy consuming content via quests and the ability to choose your reward is great... although not so great when my two-hand wielding paladin had to take a shield as a reward with no other choice.  My larger complaint is there's not log of COMPLETED quests... so I can't look back and see what I did.  As a completeist, this is very important to me.  It may not matter to you, and that's fine, but it's a big thing for me.

Bruce

I guess this isnt quite so releated to you but do /suggest and give them your feedback. They have stared countless times that they have people who read EVERY /suggest. Also, I know for a fact, several people, myself included, who have used this, and seen their ideas implemented in the next patch.

Is it perfict, no. But I am having a lot of fun.

[Morfiend]

I have a new game. Hrose can't talk about WoW for the remainder of the stress test. I don't want to see a single solitary one of your arguments or opinions. Let people decide for themselves and shut your fucking fanboi mouth. You're on dangerous territory.

Edit: I'm dead serious about this. I want people to be able to form opinions without HRose stepping in -  so, HRose - you HAVE TO STOP.

I dont think any one here is gullable enough to not beable to form an opinion becuase HRose likes and enjoys WoW, and can refute a lot of Bruces points. Does it sound fanboi? a bit. But still, maybe a good mocking is in order, not threatening.

[Merusk]

2. Interface - Strangely backward at times. Mouse axis for up and down movement is inverted. Autorun key is Num Lock. NPC names not visible without selecting them. Yes, you can change these things in the options... but who would suspect that "show UNIT names" referred to all NPCs? Nevermind the fact that this should be the DEFAULT to begin with.

Numlock is the default autorun in EQ.  If you're targeting that market, it makes the most sense to use default keystrokes that are familiar to them.  In fact, I found most of it so familiar that I was frustated by things like the backpack not being on my toon interface, "I" not being inventory, and CTRL-<num> not swapping me through my hotkey panels.  (Though I'm getting used to and beginning to like the 'b' key thing. )  I agree that some things were changed from the 'conventions' just to be different.  That "I" thing really bugged me until I switched it.

Overall I'm finding the game just beautiful.  I took a whole hour off of questing just to wander around and explore. I much preferred Darkwood to the Night Elf starting city.  The tones are more earthen and 'feel' better to me. The newbie area/main city felt a little too 'toonish to me.

  My biggest complaint with the game is it feels hollow (At least at level 9). Like a big beautiful sugar shell. There's all these NPCs but you can't interact with them unless they're questers. For example, there was a night elf I found wandering between the largest city's (Darnassus?) druid/rogue training area and the lake.  He walked to the shore and sat down, but clicking on him produced nothing. I'd like some stories from NPCs like this, or even a "I can't talk, I'm on patrol" from the sentinels wandering around.

Overall I'm enjoying it, but after a 6 hour catassing session last night, I can't really see subbing to it long-term.  The criticisms I've seen that it's a single player game with other people seem to hold true.  I didn't have to group at all, for ANY quest and I was quite able to get my rewards/xp and get to level 9 PDQ alone.

[kidder]

Hrose--Where might you be taking your future posts about WOW?  PM me the links.  I want to keep up with what is going on in WOW.  Thank you.

[Numtini]

Seriously, have they even played other MMOGs to understand some of the advances that have been made since 1998?

That is pretty much my summation of WOW right there. It's Velius era EQ in gameplay design and technology.

Not enough of a directed experience.

That's the opposite of my experience. I felt like I was in a fully directed single player game. In fact, the intense directed experience frankly hurt my feelings of immersion a great deal. To me it had far too much direction.

Generally speaking, you don't get the quest to go somewhere else until it's time to move on. I never played human. I did orcs, night elves, undead, and, of course, gnomes. I remember one of them I got a quest that sent me to a far too hard area which turned out to be questionable directions that got me to the wrong place with the right, but higher level monsters.

I really didn't like the game. I had a full invite but I gave it back to the woman who gave it to me to pass on to another friend. I was bored after a single weekend.

[Big Gulp]

I haven't played WoW, and I haven't seen it played.

That said, it galls me to see Bruce taking anyone to task about a shitty interface when he was one of the main WWII Online apologists out there.  If you want to point to shitty interfaces, lack of customization and bugs galore, look no further.

I understand that you had a financial dog in that fight, but really, your credibility is suspect after defending that abomination.