My First 2 Hour Impression of WoW

[Soukyan]

What happened to dynamic quest spawns? Is that only for a select few quests? If so, then as Bruce said, World of WarCamp.

I realize it is a stress test and there are a ton of people in the newbie areas, but the mobs needed for quests were woefully lacking and overcamped and when your main form of advancement is quests, then bottlenecks are that much worse. Not to mention combat has been less than engaging. SSDD.

I still enjoy the style and I do enjoy the quests. I kept rolling characters until I found a quiet newbie zone. This happened to be my Tauren. I was actually able to complete many quests and had quite an enjoyable time of it. So yes, I can see how this game can be fun, however, with no dynamic quest spawns and low mob population, I can see how other players could be a barrier to enjoyment. And in an MMOG, they are supposed to enhance the enjoyment. The problem is that, just like EQ, it's not worthwhile to group at low levels so consequently, nobody bothers and only gets in the way. I hope that Blizzard does a 3 day headstart for pre-orders as CoH did. It will save a lot of newbie irritation and overcrowding.

Overall, not bad, but not as "wow" as I expected. And those who boast the beauty and awe of the high level equipment... well, I'm not into phat lewt as a driving reason to play a game. Thank god there's some storyline in the quests. It still needs some more playtime, but it's pretty standard fare thus far.

[Sky]

I tried killing a level 5 deer

DEER HUNTER ONLINE.

Oh, and goddamn fileplanet straight to heck.

[CassandraR]

I had a fairly enoyable time in WoW yesterday. I got in about 15 minutes after the account creation started and made my account, then logged in to a server with absolutely no lag at all. I greatly enjoyed the undead starting area, had some fun flavor text in the quest menus but it was mostly go here kill/get this and bring it back. I grouped for abit with a friend and that was kinda fun. Even though it was thoroughly over crowded I was able to finish all my quests in a reasonable amount of time also.

I think the undead area is just well polished. I started a troll hunter and a human paladin and found both their starting areas to be lacking. Quests not as easy to find and monsters not as easy to find to finish them. Overall I got my undead warlock up to about level 8 and had abit of fun.

[El Gallo]

IMO, compared to every major MMOG I have played WoW has a vastly superior default UI.  I found it very intuitive, and am happy it is customizable so it will have long term legs.

Sounds like things are too crowded when 10k people start on each server at once.  I presume that is one reason they are doing this stress test thingy in the first place.

I agree with Numtini that, if anything, the newbie experience is overly directed.  I really can't imagine anyone feeling lost at sea in WOW's "my first mmog" style noob game.

Customization is weak and always as been.

If you are upset that WoW has nothing revolutionary, you haven't ever read anything about the game ever.  WoW is not intended to be revolutionary, it is squarely aimed at being "EQ done right."  No HAM system here, sorry.

It's a single player game for everyone until 20, and if you want it can be a single player game to the level cap.   WoWs legs entirely depend on the PvP (not implemented) high level group instances (which have been A+ so far, but there probably won't be enough to keep your attention forever after hitting the cap) and raid content (not implemented) so that's all a toss up right now.

[jpark]

I think it was Schild's spheres of a MMORPG - combat, economy and social.  The latter two may be too early to comment on - what about the combat?  Do you find you have variety?  Or just keep fighting the same way?  Does mob AI offer any challenges?

[Soukyan]

Sounds like things are too crowded when 10k people start on each server at once.  I presume that is one reason they are doing this stress test thingy in the first place.

It's overcrowded when only 1800 people start on a server at once and not all those players are level 1's either. They've got some work to do for that for release.

EQ "done right" sounds about right, but I'm not sure they did it right just yet.

No raid content yet? Only instances for high levels? Ouch. They better push back to November 2005. ;)

[El Gallo]

As for numbers, I heard that there were ~10k accounts per stress server, but that may be pulled from someone's ass.

On the raid content, they say that they only plan on releasing a couple raids for external beta so as not to spoil them.  Whether this means "we only plan on releasing a couple raids for external beta so as not to spoil them" or "we only plan on releasing a couple raids for external beta because we won't have any more done and hope to get them finished before you all start hitting level 60" is up to the reader to decide :)

No raid content is in the beta yet (though I guess you could "raid" higher level instances if you wanted).  The raid/supergroup/wheteveryoucallit group linking system that allows you to form raids is not in yet.

[HaemishM]

I have not played the game, only watched my buddy play it for about an hour. So I can't really tell you how it plays.

But I can tell you that I saw nothing in there that made me in the least excited about playing the game. That's generally not a good sign for me. I saw him play Diablo, and never had a desire to play that game at all. Watching gameplay should at least entice me to play, and this didn't.

EQ done right does appear to be a solid, fair assessment of what I've seen so far.

[Rasix]

I think it was Schild's spheres of a MMORPG - combat, economy and social.  The latter two may be too early to comment on - what about the combat?  Do you find you have variety?  Or just keep fighting the same way?  Does mob AI offer any challenges?

It's Everquest combat.  Or at least it is if you play a Taurren druid to level 8.

[Soukyan]

As for numbers, I heard that there were ~10k accounts per stress server, but that may be pulled from someone's ass.

It could have been primetime West Coast numbers for all I know. I do know that last night at ~11:00 pm EST, the highest populated server was hovering between 2700 and 2800. The rest were between 1800 and 2000 per server.

They might benefit from removing some of the servers for the stress test, although a  server with 2000+ players on it was wicked lagged at around 7 pm EST. Actions tooks around 3 to 5 seconds to complete. It seemed to be this way regardless of the number of players in the immediate vicinity so the whole server was taking a good beating. I believe they may have done some optimizations on the fly though because the performance a couple hours later with 2700+ players was smooth as butter.

[Soukyan]

I think it was Schild's spheres of a MMORPG - combat, economy and social.  The latter two may be too early to comment on - what about the combat?  Do you find you have variety?  Or just keep fighting the same way?  Does mob AI offer any challenges?

It's Everquest combat.  Or at least it is if you play a Taurren druid to level 8.

Anyone else notice that shamen, hunters and rogues have next to no skills/spells purchasable? Are these classes really that incomplete still? And they want to release in November? Warlock seems nicely rounded out though. Looking forward to snagging some of the nastier sounding spells.

[Rasix]

Anyone else notice that shamen, hunters and rogues have next to no skills/spells purchasable? Are these classes really that incomplete still? And they want to release in November? Warlock seems nicely rounded out though. Looking forward to snagging some of the nastier sounding spells.

Same with druids on the skills front. The amount of spells seems decent as you level up.  About one or two new per couple of levels. By 8 I have a decent retinue to rely on.

[kaid]

Um I am not sure what you are talking about with no spells/skills purchasble. I played my shaman to level 6 last night and bought 2 or 3 spells. Shaman do not have their talents in place yet however.

Rogues DO have their full range of skills for purchase as well as their talents implemented.

kaid

[Trippy]

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.

Name, job?

[Soukyan]

Um I am not sure what you are talking about with no spells/skills purchasble. I played my shaman to level 6 last night and bought 2 or 3 spells. Shaman do not have their talents in place yet however.

Rogues DO have their full range of skills for purchase as well as their talents implemented.

kaid

That's kinda what I was talking about. If you go to a shaman trainer, there are only about 8 spells listed total. If you play a warlock and look at their list, they have around 30+ spells in their list. I don't know if this is a bug and all the spells aren't supposed to be listed right from the start or if there are only just a few shaman spells all in all.

[Ardent]

Anyone else notice that shamen, hunters and rogues have next to no skills/spells purchasable?

Except, no.

Play any of those classes into the high teens, and you will have plenty of abililties. As for skills, there are a number of very useful tradeskills to blow your skill points on (I am constantly watching my skill point total, waiting to reach the next plateau to get the next level of skinning/leather/alchemy/etc.)

If you go to a shaman trainer, there are only about 8 spells listed total.

The trainers in the n00b areas have a very limited selection, only about 8 levels worth. Once you venture out to the larger settlements, trainers have the whole enchilada of stuff you can do, all the way up to level 55 (you can't buy them yet, of course, but you can shop for the future).

Being a druid is extremely expensive right now, because you not only have to buy all your normal spells, but all the abilities for your shapeshifting forms as well. Druid = broke. However, Blizz has promised to change this soon, and we will gain abilities from questing.

Be patient, and soon you'll have more spells and skills than you'll need.

As for combat ... I think with any kind of combat against AI, you settle into a groove and stick with what works. **shrug** Again, nothing revolutionary here.

[Liquidator]

I've heard the term EverQuest 1.5 thrown around quite a bit, and I think that is a pretty accurate way to describe World of Warcraft.  Is that a bad thing?  IMO it's not.  I'm having a great time playing.  I'll write up something more detailed later.

[Merusk]

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.

Name, job?

eH?

[Trippy]

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.

Name, job?

eH?

That's from the Ultima games. You could interact with all the NPCs in those games by typing "name" and "job" to find out their name and job and if they were important NPCs that would start up conversation threads which you could traverse by typing in additional keywords. Your comment about wanting more interaction with NPCs reminded me of the NPCs in those games.

[SirBruce]

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.

What does that gall you?  WWII Online had a shitty interface.  The second interface was only marginally less shitty.  A third interface is in development, but it won't be perfect, either.  Your point might be valid if I was arguing for "special pleading" but I'm not.

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

I think you're confusing two very different issues.

WoW is in beta.  My posts point to legitimate problems with the game that should be addressed before release.  This is part of my role as beta tester.  I don't mind people posting to explain this aspect or that, but "defense" posts -- basically, saying that the criticisms are invalid -- aren't particularly helpful.  For instance, pointing out that GUI problems can be fixed in a text config file is helpful, but that doesn't invalidate the point that the GUI needs to integrate those various things.

WW2OL, on the other hand, had been released, and my posts at the time were not a "defense" of the product at all, other than to say the game wasn't for everyone.  Most of my posts were along the "helpful" variety; i.e. telling people what 3 buttons to press to fire a rifle sighting down the barrel rather than from the hip.  I was never "defending" that it was too many keypresses; in fact, I thought it was 1 too many.  My defense, such as it was, came in telling people, "Hey, try it, if you don't like it, it's probably not a game meant for you."  I don't mind that sort of response for WoW either, although I doubt its sincereity unless their intention is to really is to specifically target those customers  who enjoyed playing early-EQ1.  And before anyone says that is their intention, well, they aren't here to say so, so you'll understand if I don't take your word for it.

Bruce

[Mesozoic]

Yup.  All about Bruce.

[stray]

So, let's see..What "negatives" have I learned so far?

1) It's not revolutionary. It's EQ 1.5.

2) Level 6 noobs only have about 3 skills

3) Camping isn't as viable as much as quests are. It feels like a single player game.

4) I can't gossip with every NPC

5) 6 faces per race

6) autorun is "TAB"

I'm not a fanboi or apologist, but c'mon guys. Everyone around here has dished out some good criticism on other games. Now it sounds like you were just expecting way too much.

[Merusk]

That's from the Ultima games. You could interact with all the NPCs in those games by typing "name" and "job" to find out their name and job and if they were important NPCs that would start up conversation threads which you could traverse by typing in additional keywords. Your comment about wanting more interaction with NPCs reminded me of the NPCs in those games.

Ah. Thanks for the explanation.  I didn't get the first 'puter until '93 and it was for school more than gaming.  I missed the whole Ultima era.
 
 

I'm not a fanboi or apologist, but c'mon guys. Everyone around here has dished out some good criticism on other games. Now it sounds like you were just expecting way too much.

It's only been a few hours of one day.  Most criticizm of single player games comes after the first week, and MMOs after the first month.  I wouldn't expect anything ultra insightful or damning at this point.  I'm sure there's flaws that'll be bitched about just like every other MMO, you just won't hear about them quite yet.  That's why most of the more jaded among us wait 5-6 months post-release before buying.

[Ezdaar]

So far WoW reminds me more of EQ than DAOC does. The environments are gorgeous but the game is boring as fuck. The mobs spawn in at the same place and same time. The loot is variable so if you need 4 batwings you probably have to kill 8 bats. Combat consists of casting the same spell over and over again.

Some things are really odd. Such as the inventory and paper doll being separate windows. My mage doesn't get any new spells until level 4 or 6 or whatever. I start with two spells and that's it, the next one I get lets me summon food and drink, though I haven't bothered to figure out what they do yet.

The quests I've had so far consist of "Kill 4 bats, then kill 4 rats". Perhaps it gets better later on but I'm failing to see the revolutionary, or even evolutionary gameplay and ideas.

[WayAbvPar]

Has anyone set a betting line on HRose's head exploding? Over/Under is midnight Sunday.

[Furiously]

I played for about 30 minutes last night and they need to work on the newb experience when there are 100 people camping 30 mobs.

[Morfiend]

I see lots of posts about EQ1.5 or EQ done right. To me this is not so. MY EQ experiance is some what lacking I will admit, ad I only played for a month before the downtime made me insane. I would think it is MUCH more like DAoC done right.

A few things I would like to address.

1) grouping / single player online:
At early levels, solo is a bit more viable, because the mob killing exp of a quest give you a good chunck of your level. Once you hit lvl 12 or 14, and move out from your first "Real Town" to the second town. The quests get a bit harder, and it makes grouping much more fun. You CAN still solo most of the quests, but its more fun, and easer to group.

2) AI, and combat:
At higher levels the mobs DO get a lot more interesting. Yes, a lot still just "rush, attack, dead" but a lot more will act like their class. For example, caster mobs will do their best to keep distance from you, using roots and snares, then casting from range. Shaman type mobs will drop nasty totems, then root you, and run out of range. Some Mobs, when reaching half life, will yell for friends, or even run off to get their nearby friends. In these cases, you best has a snare ready. Is it the best AI around? no. But its a lot better that the early level mobs.

3) UI:
I have never had a problem with the UI. I LIKE how backpacks work. Also, of note, there is a program called cosmos, its sort of a UOAssist, and it is KILLER. The blizzard dev team has taken note of this, and has been slowly adding the features from cosmos to the UI eash patch. http://www.thottbott.com You will love it. More so at higher level for the added bars and stuff. As a warrior, typically the call with the fewest skills in a mmog, I have 4 FULL bars of skills and stuff I use in combat.

4) Social and ecconemy:
Again, this is addressing higher levels, and maybe needs work. Latesly I have seen a lot of people gathering at Orgrimmar (the orc city) because thats where the auctioneer is. It is a main social hub and trade hub. in the later levels, crafting stuff is really badass, but a lot needs rare drop materials to make, so there is a lot of material trading. Can the ecconomy support a full trader character? Probably not, but you could sure spend a LOT of time doing it.

[schild]

Yup.  All about Bruce.

He started the thread, munchkin.

[Mesozoic]

Yup.  All about Bruce.

He started the thread, munchkin.

And that changes things how?  The thread title still suggests a WoW discussion, not a SirB one.

[schild]

Yup.  All about Bruce.

He started the thread, munchkin.

And that changes things how?  The thread title still suggests a WoW discussion, not a SirB one.

I'm arguing semantics here, but comeon:

MY first 2 hour IMPRESSION of WoW. It's about Bruce and his IMPRESSIONS of a game. Don't make me pick sides like that. Please.

[schild]

...

I'm confused. How does this not sound like Everquest? Can someone anywhere please give us hard proof that they have completely removed themselves from being an Everquest clone?

I'm starting to believe that the problem with MMOGs is that they are compared to EQ because it is so far reaching. There's no real way to not be an EQ clone. Hell, even Eve Online had some EQishness going on. And That's Just Sad. Perhaps EQ is the best we can hope for...I'm going to slit my wrists now, kthx.

edited to add that second bit.

[Nebu]

I'm not a fanboi or apologist, but c'mon guys. Everyone around here has dished out some good criticism on other games. Now it sounds like you were just expecting way too much.

I don't think that anyone is expecting "too much".  I think that given the HUGE reputation and cash flow assets that Blizzard has that they had an opportunity to do something more than produce "EQ_only_better".

I am sure that WoW will be an improvement over EQ in many ways... I just think most of us here want something more interesting.  That's why the disappointment.

[Mesozoic]

 
I'm starting to believe that the problem with MMOGs is that they are compared to EQ because it is so far reaching.

I'm starting to believe that the problem with MMOGs is that they are aimed at people with no particular abilites but lots of time.

Every possible challenge (the need to "twitch," the need to group, the penalty of death, the need for close coordination between group members, etc.) is simply seen as a barrier to fun that needs to be removed.

I remember in CoH where I picked up a timed mission.  Right afterwards, something came up and I had to log off for the day.  I logged back on the next day, knowing that the mission was a bust.  I went back to the NPC; she told me that I hadn't really completed the mission but I still did a good job.  

???

Then she gave me some XP, and that was the last time I ever cared about a mission in CoH.   Welcome to the feelgood society, where everybody wins.

[Numtini]

It's not revolutionary. It's EQ 1.5.

If I could ask, and this is serious though it's obviously also a slam, but where do you get the .5 from. I saw 1.0

[schild]

It's not revolutionary. It's EQ 1.5.

If I could ask, and this is serious though it's obviously also a slam, but where do you get the .5 from. I saw 1.0

The graphics are better.
It seems to be more quest driven.
It's not Everquest 1.

Oh, wait, I see what you're doing here, heh.