f13.net forums - WoW Open Beta

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April 26, 2024, 01:49:06 AM

we're back, baby

Quote from: ahoythematey

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Shannow

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

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

Quote from: AOFanboi

Quote from: Shannow

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Big Gulp

I really don't understand why these companies even bother with the boxes.

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

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

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I really don't understand why these companies even bother with the boxes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eh, who knows?

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce

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Magazines review games when they come out in a box. They rarely review games when they come out for a download.

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Liquidator

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

Quote from: Big Gulp

Quote from: Liquidator

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

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

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

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

A few notes on release date.

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

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

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

4) I have always predicted the end of november.

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Morphiend

I'm with you on this bro.

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

I think we will 2 big patches before code freeze.

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

Quests with bad text?

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

High level content?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote from: Paelos

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

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