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Author Topic: Fanboi attacks WoW!  (Read 41422 times)
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Reply #70 on: September 23, 2004, 09:01:18 AM

Quote from: MrHat
Found this morsel on WorldofWar.net.  It basically points to a gamecard sale at gamestop that is 2 months worth for $30.  So you're right, looks like it will be $15 a month.  That's almost as much as my gamefly subscription.  It's getting harder and harder to justify this hobby.  Also, it's listed for sale on the 30th of Nov. like all the other pointers we've seen.


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

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Reply #71 on: September 23, 2004, 09:01:34 AM

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


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

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

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Reply #72 on: September 23, 2004, 09:06:10 AM

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

SB: They are planning to use BT after release?

WHY DAMN WE ALWAYS FINISH WITH HALF A BRAIN?
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Reply #73 on: September 23, 2004, 09:13:11 AM

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


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

Quote from: MrHat
Found this morsel on WorldofWar.net. It basically points to a gamecard sale at gamestop that is 2 months worth for $30. So you're right, looks like it will be $15 a month.


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

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Reply #74 on: September 23, 2004, 09:22:13 AM

Quote from: Merusk

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


Good point, are we looking at a 12.99 then ?
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Reply #75 on: September 23, 2004, 09:25:48 AM

Quote from: MrHat
Quote from: Merusk

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


Good point, are we looking at a 12.99 then ?


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

At Bestbuy the discount on a 3 Month PlayNC card comes down to like $27. So stores take a good chunk out of it. I'd wager to bet that very few people buy the cards in-store or do just on the first trip to buy the box. Basically they are trying to reel more people in with them.
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Reply #76 on: September 23, 2004, 09:26:20 AM

Quote from: Merusk
Quote from: MrHat
Found this morsel on WorldofWar.net. It basically points to a gamecard sale at gamestop that is 2 months worth for $30. So you're right, looks like it will be $15 a month.


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


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

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Reply #77 on: September 23, 2004, 09:36:54 AM

Quote from: schild
There's markup. WoW will most likely cost $14.99.

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


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

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

Quote from: Alkiera
Alternatively, they can force the stores to sell them at very low profit... When Sony says 'sell EQ game cards, or we won't ship you the next expansion', you sell EQ gamecards, I'd guess. Given how much weight sony pulls in the gaming industry, they can exert a LOT of pressure.


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

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Reply #78 on: September 23, 2004, 09:44:52 AM

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

What a bunch of cheap assholes.
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Reply #79 on: September 23, 2004, 10:27:53 AM

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

What a bunch of cheap assholes.


Bingo.


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

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Reply #80 on: September 23, 2004, 11:07:08 AM

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

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Sky
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Reply #81 on: September 23, 2004, 12:22:25 PM

Quote
I'm still hung up on this Bittorrent shit. If they are distributing patches like this, it is definately the number one way to get me to hate your shit.

Me too, thus my earlier comment. Is there an option not to open up the upload ports and serve files? I don't dig that kinda thing. I'm old fashioned or something. I just want to download, dammit. It's not like I'd be a paying customer or....oh wait. Someone needs a new ferrari?
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Reply #82 on: September 23, 2004, 12:54:34 PM

In the context of raising questions about WoW...

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

?

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

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Reply #83 on: September 23, 2004, 01:53:44 PM

Quote from: jpark

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


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

I would imagine their in high demand because now one wants to evolve into the TauntBot2000 or the UberSpamHealer.
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Reply #84 on: September 23, 2004, 02:00:53 PM

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

Priests are in the bottom 3 of most played classes. So yeah, they are always in demand.
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Reply #85 on: September 23, 2004, 02:29:18 PM

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

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

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Reply #86 on: September 23, 2004, 02:33:54 PM

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

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


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

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

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Reply #87 on: September 23, 2004, 05:09:46 PM

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

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

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

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

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Reply #88 on: September 23, 2004, 05:25:56 PM

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

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

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

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


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

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

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Reply #89 on: September 23, 2004, 06:04:02 PM

Quote from: Merusk

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


Or 90% of the population cannot come up with any other strategies than to get a def. warrior to taunt while the mage blasts him and the priest heals the warrior.
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Reply #90 on: September 24, 2004, 06:58:21 AM

Let clerics be Old Testament ass-whuppers and just let players have healing potions, fer crissakes. Oh, I forget player-interdependence requires someone to be a bitch.
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Reply #91 on: September 24, 2004, 07:44:57 AM

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

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

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Reply #92 on: September 24, 2004, 07:58:02 AM

Quote from: HaemishM
IMO, when you start talking about combat with non-self aware creatures, like say beetles or some shit. Sure, I could see taunt working on a foe worried about his honor, but not on an animal trying to kill you for food.


Ever been to a bullfight?
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Reply #93 on: September 24, 2004, 08:00:28 AM

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

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Reply #94 on: September 24, 2004, 08:55:26 AM

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

Good point about the focus of mmog mobs, their single-mindedness, they're always focused on one particular person in a very primitive manner. Even in the primitive combat system in Fable, I actively engage several opponents at once. More could be done, but then, that could be said about most systems in mmogs, I guess.
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Reply #95 on: September 24, 2004, 09:50:05 AM

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

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

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

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

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Reply #96 on: September 24, 2004, 09:54:01 AM

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

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

But it will be.

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Reply #97 on: September 24, 2004, 10:44:05 AM

Quote from: HaemishM
I mean, the act of swinging takes no effort; it's a button click. Yes, this has always been because of lag issues. But take a game like Metal Gear Solid 2 and its swordfighting interface. Swinging the sword uses a right stick, and depending on which way you move the stick, you have a number of different swings and thrusts.


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

In MMO's it's just a passive stat, but it should be an active skill (as in Ninja Gaiden, Fight Night, any fighting game, or even Fable). Of course, I'm not sure how the idea of meat shields and healers would fit in a system like this, but who cares. Those archetypes are bullshit anyways. In the real world, you don't take hits. You try to prevent them. As for healers and healing, like someone else said, potions will do. There's strategy in that as well.
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Reply #98 on: September 24, 2004, 01:48:01 PM

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

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

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

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

But in the end it still comes down to aggro management in groups.  And when you have a group that works well together it's a lot of fun.
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Reply #99 on: September 24, 2004, 02:00:07 PM

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

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

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

I saw this a ton in eq as well.


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


kaid
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Reply #100 on: September 24, 2004, 02:55:03 PM

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


From all accounts, after the first 30 levels, it becomes a SpamHealBot9000.
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Reply #101 on: September 24, 2004, 03:24:51 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"  HaemishM.
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Reply #102 on: September 24, 2004, 04:27:44 PM

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


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