WoW Endgame Quote

[El Gallo]

Tigole
The Frozen Moses - Blizzard Messiah

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 35
 You won't see any of the end game in this phase of the Beta. We're currently level capped at 30. The level cap for the shipping game is 60.

The raid content is going to be incredibly cool. We have a huge variety of bosses and encounters planned. Many of the raid zones and dungeons are already built. Our artists have completed a number of the uber bosses as well.

As for the design of the encounters, we have a lot of cool stuff planned. There is a progression through the raiding content that will build in scale and reward. We're also shooting to have a wide variety of encounters to keep each raid feeling unique and exciting.

This is one aspect of the game that I am most excited about. While we do have some non-instanced raid encounters, the majority of raids will take place behind guild instance lines. The amount of flexibility instancing gives you when designing a raid is extremely cool.

And let's not forget, raiding will just be one aspect of the end game. There will be max-level single group dungeons, PvP, tradeskilling, and questing to do as well. With that said, we are shooting to have enough raid content to support the end game, even if none of that other stuff existed.

 
Not exactly groundbreaking news, but a worthwhile clarification.

[Ironwood]

Goodness, but WoW is shaping up to really, really suck.

[Numtini]

Instanced good.

Guild instanced bad.

[AOFanboi]

So they are trying to make Everquest LDoN with prettier graphics?

Meh.

[Bstaz]

Tigole
The Frozen Moses - Blizzard Messiah
The amount of flexibility instancing gives you when designing a raid is extremely cool.

Is this a new approach? Let the players make their own content?

I could see this happening, something like the NWN tool set for WOW. Why not, outsrouce you content to the people that pay to play your game.  Yeah most of it would be crappy but you could implement some feedback or rating system.

[WayAbvPar]

Is this a new approach? Let the players make their own content?

That is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying someone to develop original content! =)

[El Gallo]

99.99% sure that he means "you" as in "one" as in "wow, instancing makes it easy for us to make cool raid targets because you damn players cannot just zerg it to death with 70 people" rather than "you" as in "this will let you guys design your own content."

[Abagadro]

Can someone translate that into English for those of us who have never played a game with "raid zones" or "instancing"?

[El Gallo]

Raid zone: think a place that is meant to be done with more than one group.

Instanced zone: think private copies of the same zone.  You and I both zone in to the Rat Lair.  The lairs are identical, but we are in different copies of it.

Instanced raid zones are designed to (a) avoid the "lots of guilds fighting over who gets to fight the rat king" problem and (b) to give designers the power to limit the number/type of people in the zone so they can make the Rat King fun for 20 people to kill without having him zerged by 100 dumbasses.  These are both widely considered to be significant problems with EQ.

[Abagadro]

Ah, thanks.  So "guild instance lines" means that a particular guild is in control of that particular zone/raid and if you aren't in a guild, you will never get to do it?

That seems somewhat lame for those of us rebel individualists.

[El Gallo]

I am not sure how they will handle that.   I presume that if guild A is in an instance, that Guild B could do it at the same time, so there is no "control" issue (they also probably mark the guild as being unable to restart the instance for X amount of time after they try or after they win).  

But whether or not you have to be in a guild to trigger an instance, I don't know.  Even if you can trigger an instance, if everything in there is designed to be fought by 20 people cooperating with each other, your rebel individualist is probably in line for a quick death.

[schmoo]

Ah, thanks.  So "guild instance lines" means that a particular guild is in control of that particular zone/raid and if you aren't in a guild, you will never get to do it?

That seems somewhat lame for those of us rebel individualists.

Instancing implies that two (or more) guilds could be in multiple and separate instances of a zone at the same time.  The same raid experience, the same zone.  Equal but separate.

[Mesozoic]

Ah, thanks.  So "guild instance lines" means that a particular guild is in control of that particular zone/raid and if you aren't in a guild, you will never get to do it?

That seems somewhat lame for those of us rebel individualists.

No, it means that that guild controls that copy of that zone.  You and your guild can enter your own copy of that zone and both Guilds can kill the Uber King at the same time without stepping on each others toes.

Rebel individualists will have to find buddies to raid with, thats standard.

[Mesozoic]

Goodness, but WoW is shaping up to really, really suck.

Based on what?  The presence of raids?

[Joe]

No, based on the fact they're trying to replicate an endgame that took three years to finally not suck. Again, this game is going to blow hard, and I have history on my side.

[Paelos]

I can honestly say I don't mind instancing or guild oriented lines to major raids. What I do mind is having these raids get larger than the 20-30 people mark. If they are planning on making the "cool" raids be something that can only be done by 50+ groups, there is no way in hell I'll ever get to be a part of one, or so history dictates due to my time schedule.

I can organize 20 people and get them moving to accomplish something in under two hours unless the content requires more killing/traveling time, but I can't do the same with 40 anywhere near as easily.

All that said I'm happy that they are focusing on higher-end content because that is something SWG never made an incentive, unless you count grinding as end-game. I get the distinct feeling by the lack of discussion on PvP that it will be god-awful for 6 months to a year before it finally gets balanced, incentivized, and retooled at least once. The question will be if I can enjoy the other content in the game while I wait for that function to be ready, or if the other content will just make me not care much about PvP (which is unlikely). In any case, if WoW remotely resembles the suck-fest that is the DAOC-ToA expansion, you will not find me wildly supportive. All the same, I'm watching Beta closely for nuggets about melee, crafting, mining, and PvP which I love. Also, I really hope they don't try to get too screwy with guilds like SWG did. KISS should be the mantra there.

[Numtini]

"guild" instancing is stupid because it just means you're going to have people quitting their guild, joining a guild, going back to their original guild just to help on a raid. It's a silly thing that is a needless and predictable irritant.

Instancing doesn't have to be private btw. It sounds like that's what it will be in WOW, but AO instances public dungeons. If they get overcrowded, they create a new one. But it's multiple groups and complete strangers inside. Best of both worlds.

[Mesozoic]

No, based on the fact they're trying to replicate an endgame that took three years to finally not suck. Again, this game is going to blow hard, and I have history on my side.

So in your opinion a better answer from Blizzard would be:  Raids are hard so we're not going to try, please enjoy our high-level fishing endgame.  

Potential players in a PvE MMOG (yes, its a PvE MMOG) want to raid.  You're asking Blizzard to shoot themselves in the foot.

[HRose]

In any case, if WoW remotely resembles the suck-fest that is the DAOC-ToA expansion, you will not find me wildly supportive.

ToA is an hymn to the grind. It's completely built around "grind" as a concept. For now WoW is built around a treadmill, but NOT around a grind. Even the highend PvE content seems aimed to fun and ease of play instead of just catassing.

What scares me is still the PvP but the PvE should be fun and not revolutionary.

[Abagadro]

I guess what I was referring to was the inability for an "ad hoc" group of 20 people to go on a raid with no guild affiliation.  Maybe that will still be possible.  I like pick up groups better than guilds.

[HaemishM]

Oooooh, Tigole is talking about raiding. Yeah, I want to play that game.

Oh wait, I did, in 1999.

[El Gallo]

I presume (well, hope) that they will flag people on an individual rather than a guild basis to (a) let Abagadro's Team Libertarian have a go at it and (b) keep people from changing guilds to re-farm instances.

And Joe, please tell me you weren't implying that Luclin raids are better than Velious ones.

[Raven]

Obviously WOW is a mmorpg for players who love EQ, but hate SOE.

The biggest challenge (in my opinion) for any developer is how to deal with power gamers. Those people burn though content at an amazing pace, and then threaten to quit if more content isn't added quickly. The devs have no choice (with bean counters breathing over their necks) but to add raid zones, in order to keep the power gamers happy and paying.

Will it even take a week for the first WOW players to max out their main character?

Raven

[Alluvian]

I refuse to pay any attention to a press release that uses the word 'cool' that fucking much.  How informative it that?

I can see him on an interview:

So, tell me about character creation:
"It's really cool."

Okay, and what is the treadmill like?:
"We set it up and designed it to be incredibly cool."

Allright, what is the endgame?:
"Raiding like everquest, with instancing like everquest... BUT its like really extremely COOL!"

Death penalty?
We here at WoW don't like lame death penalties, so we made sure our death penalty is COOL.  It is really awesome dude.


Fucking braindead idiot.  Why they let him out of his cage to ook at the other monkeys is beyond me.

[Sloth]

Obviously WOW is a mmorpg for players who love EQ, but hate SOE.

The biggest challenge (in my opinion) for any developer is how to deal with power gamers. Those people burn though content at an amazing pace, and then threaten to quit if more content isn't added quickly. The devs have no choice (with bean counters breathing over their necks) but to add raid zones, in order to keep the power gamers happy and paying.

Will it even take a week for the first WOW players to max out their main character?

Raven

Its very easy to level early on, i got up to level 7 in about 4 non consecutive hours. However you can only get up to level 30 right now. 31-60 might be a DAOC curveball they threw between 40-50. Right now most people are of the opinion its a fast leveling game but since no one, not even the alpha testers have seen what life is like after 30 its hard to say.

[Mesozoic]

Will it even take a week for the first WOW players to max out their main character?

Hard to say, since the current level cap is 30 and the announced final cap will be 60.  We know that it typically takes longer to get from, say 50 to 51 than it does to get from 20 to 21.  The question is how much harder.  There are certainly level 30s out there now, but the rate of exp gain is still fluctuating.  From the official forums:

I started playing in Alpha at the start of the alliance push, in exactly 2 weeks without ever playing the game before, I hit level 30 as a Rogue.

but also

It's much harder to solo than it used to be. They also raised the amount of XP needed to level.

so who knows.  Note that  the XP change implied above isn't necessarily an OMG SLOW THEM DOWN thing... Bliz may have accelerated alpha leveling to test mid-range content and then set it to something closer to normal for beta.

[Riley]

the majority of raids will take place behind guild instance lines.

 
That statement right there is kind of scary.  It looks like this game is uber guild or bust.  Maybe thats not real different from EQ and DAoC, but it sounds like now you won't even have the option of tagging along.

[Fargull]

Hmm...

Sounds like a precursor<- to the end content.  Overall I like the impression, but not the timeline.  However, since it is instanced, I can see the option of getting a schedule to try and tackle it as the old sunday night DnD fest.

I still like the WOW I am seeing, more so than any other game on the table now.

[Mesozoic]

I get the impression that you'll be able to very easily ruin WoW for yourself if you read too much about the quests beforehand.  I feel like I'm reading about a movie I haven't seen.  I don't want to know anything about these quests until I do them.

[Sloth]

the majority of raids will take place behind guild instance lines.

 
That statement right there is kind of scary.  It looks like this game is uber guild or bust.  Maybe thats not real different from EQ and DAoC, but it sounds like now you won't even have the option of tagging along.

if its guild only now, I bet with enough complaints they'll change it and institute visitor passes of some sort or keys like AO

[pants]

The biggest challenge (in my opinion) for any developer is how to deal with power gamers. Those people burn though content at an amazing pace, and then threaten to quit if more content isn't added quickly. Raven

Imho - they should let em burn out.  Power gamers are a very small, vocal, high maintenance part of a user base.  90% of people take months of normal playing to get to where the catasses get in a week or so.  So let Furor rant and carry on about lack of high end content, watch him threaten to quit 2-3 times and not do it, and just concentrate on the vast majority of your player base.

Of course, Tigole is in the dev team, so this may be a waste of time even thinking about this.

[Jon Carver]

and then threaten to quit if more content isn't added quickly.

Threatening to quit is a playstyle choice.  I'd guess that a very high percentage of the people who threaten to quit never do.

If everyone quit who threatened to, the MMOG space would be a barren wasteland.

[Romp]

hmm so basically WoW is a carbon copy of EQ with a bit of extra stuff.

I would have expected something more from blizzard

[Riley]

hmm so basically WoW is a carbon copy of EQ with a bit of extra stuff.

I would have expected something more from blizzard

The cartoon version, with a less harsh death penalty and more "fun" (read easier).  But they have an undead race and exploding sheep, so thats something.

[Neph]

hmm so basically WoW is a carbon copy of EQ with a bit of extra stuff.

I would have expected something more from blizzard

Yeah, just like FF11 is a carbon copy of EQ. -__-