And So It Begins (WoW Releated)

[Morfiend]

We knew it would start.

Blizzard hasjust announced the cut of one of the first major game systems. The Hero Class.

We knew they would have to start cutting stuff at some point. Also, this brings a little more credance to the rumor that Vivendi is pushing Blizzard to Freeze code by October and have a November release.

Laught it up schild.

[HRose]

Wonderful choice. No jedis in WoW, please.

EDIT: I've read the thing. Yes, it doesn't look good.

[jpark]

My understanding is that Bill Roper and Blizzard North left when they found out Vivendi was in discussion with Microsoft for the sale of Blizzard.  The deal did not go through - but the damage was done - and Roper and North left Blizzard.

So... what is the speculation on the movtivation behind this code freeze?

Is it to improve Vivendi abysmal quarterly performance (not by realized revenue, but my meeting milestones) or to prep Blizzard up for sale?

[geldonyetich]

We probably haven't seen the last of the hero class.  I imagine it'd get implemented some time later when most of the players are in the end game and just begging for a reason to grind.   However, it's not really neccessary to focus on the end game when people are just starting out.

[Rasix]

This is just standard MMOG development thinking.  Really, we've seen this in just about every level based release to date.  Dark Age thought no one would be taking relic keeps as early as they were; EQ has never had their end game raids ready by the time people were ready to take them on.  But both dev teams thought they had ample time to just add them in later before people got too high.

There's some problems with this approach.  A) Your content doesn't get sufficient testing before going live.  You wasted the opportunity to test this when you had an army of fanbois eager to do it for free.  And B) swarms of people will hit the end game while you're pulling people off feature X to get the bugs squashed that are popping up live or to fix some crucial imbalance or what not.  A lot of people end up standing around holding their dicks waiting for you to deliver on your promises.  This is bad for your reputation, but people don't really quit over either issue.

Just par for the course.  At least WoW is taking their history lessons to heart.

[Riggswolfe]

Honestly I'm not all that upset. I'm enjoying the hell out of WoW and not sitting there wondering if the fun will start when I reach the mythical endgame.

I figured they'd have to cut some stuff, my guess is PvP related stuff will also be moved to after release.

[Krakrok]

My understanding is that Bill Roper and Blizzard North left when they found out Vivendi was in discussion with Microsoft for the sale of Blizzard.  The deal did not go through - but the damage was done - and Roper and North left Blizzard.

Odd. I'd consider Microsoft the lesser of the two evils.

[Riggswolfe]

My understanding is that Bill Roper and Blizzard North left when they found out Vivendi was in discussion with Microsoft for the sale of Blizzard.  The deal did not go through - but the damage was done - and Roper and North left Blizzard.

Odd. I'd consider Microsoft the lesser of the two evils.

Vivendi is among the worst thing ever to happen to the computer gaming industry.

Microsoft, despite my early fears, has been pretty good for the most part. Their worst sin is trying to make everything in their games revolve around some technology of theirs. (Using the zone to log into MMOs for instance)

[Glamdring]

For some reason one of the posts in that thread struck my jealousy cord.

Besides, if I got a Hero class char just before release and it got wiped when release came... Well, I'd be a bit put out, to put it mildly

Do beta testers get to keep their characters at launch?

[jpark]

Odd. I'd consider Microsoft the lesser of the two evils.

The explanation I heard was that the issue was not so much who the potential buyer was (Microsoft) but that such discusssions involving the sale of Blizzard occurred without the knowledge of Blizzard management.  It would be interesting to know the timing - did they leave after they heard about the deal and its collapse or during negotiations?

Beyond the "code freeze" I wonder if the recent exp change also reflects new "influence" on the direction of WoW developement (Vivendi pressure).

"First Call" notes used by investment analysts that be helpful on this issue.  I have still have some contacts in that industry, but that would require a favor to get recent comments on a public company.  If anyone here is on the investment side I would appreciate it if you could peruse the First Call notes on Vivendi:

1.  Do analysts see Blizzard impacting the company's stock?
2.  The timeline of events mentioned above
3.  Analyst estimates of WoW release date and if that has been revised this past month or so.

[stray]

Have any of you in beta hit max lvl yet? How long does it take (on average)? And, more importantly, is it boring to get there?

Seems like the only people in that thread are catasses and are already twiddling their thumbs...Fuck 'em. If Blizzard is delaying a feature so they can finish up on 1-60 content, I don't see the problem. Sounds more like COH than it does SWG.

[eldaec]

Unless I'm missing something - all the link says is

After achieving the maximum level in the game, players will be able try to become a Hero Class. Becoming a Hero will be very difficult and arduous, since you can only become a Hero until after maximum level, we do not plan to implement Hero Classes until after all of the game content is completed.

...

Hero classes will be attainable only after max. level is achieved, and attaining Hero-class status will be extremely challenging

From this hero classes are just another set of levels.

Not knowing how long the existing levels will take, or how interesting they are/are not makes it somewhat difficult to care about the announcement of more levels or of not having more levels after all.

[Soukyan]

We probably haven't seen the last of the hero class.  I imagine it'd get implemented some time later when most of the players are in the end game and just begging for a reason to grind.   However, it's not really neccessary to focus on the end game when people are just starting out.

Nope, we certainly have not seen the last of it. Just as AC2's Hero system was releaesd post-launch, so too will Blizzard's be. The powerlevelers will max out in about a month or two and begin the bitching about no character development after you attain the top level (irony?).

But then again, everything I've heard about the game so far has pretty much been just that the quests are great fun, so the loss of the Hero system should not detract from the game. Also, I'd hope that if they're going to let beta testers keep characters, they would do a 3 day headstart like CoH did. Maybe not do all the pre-order folks, but definitely give the beta testers a little "gift".

[El Gallo]

I am loving WoW.  But this game will have no lifespan.  Even moderately time starved powergamers will be capped in a few months.  Unless they come up with TONS of good raid content -- and I mean tons as in "as much as the first 3 expansions of everquest" -- before release, that will be blown through pretty quickly too, because it is all instanced (they claim).  Considering Blizzard's glacially slow expansion-generation rate, that will be chewed up and spat out long before the expansions come.

That leaves PvP as an endgame?  Well, Blizzard's main talking head on the boards is the leader of a guild called "Kali Compton".  That should give you a clue as to the juvenile fucktardery that will be WoW PvP.

I can hear it now.  PLAYER: Where's the high level content?  BLIZZARD: See that player "MaZtAh~SlAyAH~69LOL" over there?  That's your high level content.

This is another reason they should never have gone no-NDA though.

I hope I am wrong though.  The low-mid game rocks.

EDIT: I am pretty sure they have said several times the beta testers will get no edge, but may get a gift that does not affect play (like a cool shirt or something I guess).  I am pretty hazy on that though.

[jpark]

I am loving WoW.  But this game will have no lifespan.  Even moderately time starved powergamers will be capped in a few months.  Unless they come up with TONS of good raid content -- and I mean tons as in "as much as the first 3 expansions of everquest" -- before release, that will be blown through pretty quickly too, because it is all instanced (they claim).  Considering Blizzard's glacially slow expansion-generation rate, that will be chewed up and spat out long before the expansions come.

Unless they capitulate and go for an experience point curve reminiscent of EQ to greatly slow the leveling... or make the death penalty an experience point penalty...

[kaid]

I see this no different than swg cutting player cities at release. I have no doubt they will put the hero class back in at a later time but now they are working hard to finish up the level 1 to 60 game and get the hunters done. It takes a lot of work to do a single character class as shown by the hunters. Heros would have delayed release a long time no reason not to just get what they have out and do heros as a post expansion release.

kaid

[Alluvian]

Increasing the exp needs 4 fold to slow the gamers down will result in breaking the whole point of the game which I thought was leveling through questing.  A level through questing game that uses written quests and not random quests will suffer from overly fast leveling because there is only time to make so much hand made content before launch within budget.

[stray]

Unless they come up with TONS of good raid content -- and I mean tons as in "as much as the first 3 expansions of everquest"

....

That leaves PvP as an endgame?

I'm just pointing out the obvious, but shit man, EQ has had like 5+ years to get it right. What do you expect? Nobody can crank out that much content except the players themselves. So unless NWN2 becomes a full blown player run MMO, it isn't ever going to happen again.

[Riggswolfe]

I am level 46 right now with the level cap at 50. About 3-4 people in my guild are maxed. They spend their time farming loot and helping other people level and get mounts.

Leveling in WoW is the most fun I've had in any MMO period. To give you an idea I've played: UO, AC, AO, AC2,DAOC, SWG, COH and I'm pretty sure 1 or 2 others I've forgotten. What makes leveling in WoW fun is that you ALWAYS have something to do. My quest log is constantly full, in fact, I have to abandon alot of quests simply to make room for new ones that look interestings.

Some of the quests are of the irritating "Collect X Woozits" variety but for the most part they're still fun.

In any case, I think WoW will bore powergamers  because they'll miss the point. They'll rush to get to the end because they're so used to the "End=fun" aspect. In WoW by contrast, I've had fun at every single level of the game. That's right no "I can't wait to hit max level so I can start having fun syndrome". Sure, there's a bit of the old "man I can't wait til I can get that piece of equipment" or "I want my mount now!" but in general that's seperate from "these low levels are boring". Another thing to note is that Blizzard has said that leveling will be slowed down somewhat, though not by a great amount.

Blizzard also says they are holding content back for release, including entire "Raid zones". I've heard this quite a few times from many MMO publishers in the past so I'm taking that with a grain of salt for the moment.

I'll be blunt. WoW in its current state would probably be released by most publishers. It would also be terribly fun. Blizzard is holding it back though for at least a few more months to finetune some stuff.

I've finally found my game and barring one or two issues, it's the one I've been looking for ever since early UO.[/i]

[CassandraR]

Overly slow leveling is the bane of my enjoyment of MMOs. I simply cannot focus all my attention on one character. I generally have 3-4 I play off and on and if I can't advance with them at a reasonable rate (80-120 hours to max level, not including gathering equipment, or alterent advancement schemes etc.) Then I quickly lose interest and stop playing. If there is any fun repeatable content at the top im the type that can stay there for a while though. Never understand why people race through a game and quit. If I actually get to the top I'll stay there for a while.

[kaid]

My guess is once they finish the talent system and get hunters up and working and somewhat tested the game will be put gold and shipped. Not to surprising about the Hero thing frankly I am surprised we didn't hear they had decided that sooner. It was probably one of those SWG things where they were hoping against hope that they could get it done before release.

kaid

[Morfiend]

That leaves PvP as an endgame?  Well, Blizzard's main talking head on the boards is the leader of a guild called "Kali Compton".  That should give you a clue as to the juvenile fucktardery that will be WoW PvP.

Actually, their name is "Kali Swarm" they are a fairly dominant allaince guild on the PVP server. His character name is Windy. Kali Swarm like any large MMOG guild have some major assholes, and also some cool people. I was questing (lvl 30 at the time) and ran in to a lvl 50 (capped) Gnome Mage from Kali Swarm. In mose cases this would mean a quick trip to the graveyard, and a short corpse run. Instead, she talked with me a ffew minutes, and let me live, as long as I didnt kill any of the Alliance factioned mobs right there. (little bit of RP).

As to leveling speed. My main is a lvl 36 Undead Warrior, I have 4 days and 20 hours /played right now. My bro who was level 50 had about 15 days played. The cap at release will be 60. Now, you have to take in to account that we play on the PVP server, and some times it can be a LOT slower to level there, due to the other faction raiding towns or stopping you from questing in certen areas. A bunch of people on the boards are crying for slower leveling. I hope they dont do this for two reasions. 1) If you slow down leveling much, it will be possible to run out of quests, leading to spawn camping and shit like that, that sucks in MMOGs and you dont have to do in WoW. 2) if they slow down leveling, it could get REALLY slow on the PVP server.
I did a /suggest just yesterday, that they should double the exp for quests that take place in contested areas on the pvp server. (Contested being open PVP zones).

Fun factor. I agree with riggs. (i thinkit was riggs) who said endgame != fun, in WoW, you are having fun all the time. Even more so that CoH. Take CoH, give all the zones a VERY distinct feel, and make the quests WAY WAY WAY more interesting, and you have a base of how WoW plays.

If any one here in the beta is PVP/Horde, send me a /t Morvant, I am in a really cool guild if any one wants to be guilded.

EDIT.

Code Freeze. They have been talking about a code freeze a month and a half to two months before release, just to do bug fixes and balance tweeks. I hope they do this, as CoH did this and they had a lot more bug free release than say, Shadowbane or SWG who both didnt code freeze untill 2 days before release.

[kaid]

Unfortunatly until they finish their talent system and get the hunters in and tested there really is no way for them to code freeze at this point without looking really ugly with imbalances at release.

Code freezes are a very good idea but you have to get the basic feature set in before you can freeze it.

kaid

[Soukyan]

As to leveling speed. My main is a lvl 36 Undead Warrior, I have 4 days and 20 hours /played right now. My bro who was level 50 had about 15 days played. The cap at release will be 60.

15 days to level 50 might be tolerable, but I think it's still pushing it a bit. It took me 30 days /played to get my first DAoC character to 50 and that actually took me over a year, almost a year and a half of casual play. The time played on your character is more acceptable to me, but it might mean that the level grind post 40 gets sickening, in which case, meh. Why the need for exponential increases and diminishing rewards? Anyhow, a comfortable pacing for me would be about 10 days played to reach level 60. That would take me 4 to 6 months to "finish". While I'm not even fond of that slow because I would prefer to be able to max out a character for a bunch of different classes to experience them all, I understand that's something that MMOG developers just won't do. But most players wouldn't even like my 10 days played to level 60 preference either. I guess a lot of gamers just have an excess of disposable time. For the developers out there, I've got lots of disposable income for those who would like to cater to me. ;)

[Morfiend]

stuff

From what I have been hearing on the forums, the avarage /played for a lvl 50 character is around 10-12 days. That is mostly on the allaince side, and it has been proven and stated by Blizzard that the allaince side can level a lot faster. They are planning on brinning the horde side up to par with the alliance. As of yet no one knows what level past 50 is like, but the next patch that raises th elevel cap to 55, should be out some time this week. Also Hunters are to be released, as well as a major update to PVP, and hopefully the Horde/Alliance level speed. This is supposed to be a MAJOR patch. I think if every thing goes well, they will have maybe one more patch before the code freeze. That is IMO why it has taken so long for this last patch to be released.

[El Gallo]

RE: Kali Comption/Swarm. If you go to their website, the guild appears to be named "Kali Compton" but they do use "Kali Swarm" in WoW.  Either one translates into English as "I am a fucking moron" though.  I am sure they have some decent players, but the fact that the biggest Blizzard mouth on the official boards runs a guild with that name does not inspire confidence.  Not to mention the favoritism accusations that are already all over the place.  Anyway, I am going to steer away from WoW PvE, both because I am not much of a PvPer and because of the kind of people I think will be attracted to a PvP game with Blizzard's name on it :)

RE: Content. I play horde/PvE, and am afraid of running out of content before they can make an expansion.  Then again, we haven't seen any of the PvE endgame stuff yet.  I usually play 10-20 hours a week, depending on weekends, so YMMV.  Slow levelling does not bother me as long as I have enough fun content.  The fact that some guy in some zone I have never been to has a sword of asswhoopage does not bother me as long as I have enough fun content.  Hell, I had fun most of the time in EQ when I was uncapped, and the un-fun thing about that period was not "damn, I wish I was capped" but rather "damn, I have run out of fun things to do at this level."  Content is king.

RE: I am a fanboi whore with no dignity.  This game is fun as hell, and was vastly more polished 2 months ago when I started betaing than Star Wars Galaxies was 4 months after it was released, when I quit.  The low and mid game in WoW is about as functional and vastly more entertaining that EQs is, 5 years after its release.  Sufficient content is literally the only long term fear I have about this game.

[HRose]

I'm making a list with the *systems* still missing from the game. And not a wish list, just what they announced.

You'll be scared.

[Soukyan]

I'm making a list with the *systems* still missing from the game. And not a wish list, just what they announced.

You'll be scared.

That's exactly what I thought. Heh.

Gotta keep the skepticism alive.

And Morphiend, thanks for that info. I could deal with 10-12 days played to level 50, I suppose. As Gallo said, if I'm being entertained, it's all good. If I get to a level where I need to grind before I get my next dosage of entertainment, that's where the game would lose me. Thanks again.

[Lum]

the guild appears to be named "Kali Compton" but they do use "Kali Swarm" in WoW.  Either one translates into English as "I am a fucking moron" though.

No, it's just history.

http://www.kali.net/">Kali was the IPX emulator used to play Warcraft 2 over the Internet.

http://www.expectnothing.com/">Geoff Frazier, who goes by "Nebu" now, used to go by the nick "Shlonglor". He wrote the definitive Warcraft 2 strategy page and was one of the most famous War2 players on Kali (he beat me the 2 times we played). Blizzard hired him to work on their web site because, well, they wanted him to do what he did for Warcraft 2 for their other games. He's basically responsible for the Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 strat guides on battle.net.

And no, I'm not sticking up for him because I'm his Compton buddy or in his guild or anything like that. Just that for some of us old farts Kali wasn't just the Hindu goddess of death. You can get a pretty good idea for exactly how much of a gentle, caring person Nebu is from his http://www.expectnothing.com/faq.shtml">FAQ. Thankfully, being gentle and caring isn't a requirement for working on MMOs, or I would have had to find a real job.

[Nebu]

http://www.expectnothing.com/">Geoff Frazier, who goes by "Nebu" now, used to go by the nick "Shlonglor". He wrote the definitive Warcraft 2 strategy page and was one of the most famous War2 players on Kali (he beat me the 2 times we played). Blizzard hired him to work on their web site because, well, they wanted him to do what he did for Warcraft 2 for their other games. He's basically responsible for the Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 strat guides on battle.net.

For clarification: I am not nor have I ever been this particular "Nebu".  I am, however, the "Nebu" that used to be an area designer for several small but popular Diku muds "back in the day".  Whoever the guy is, please have him tell all of those rabid WoW fanbois to quit dry humping me everytime I post somewhere.

edit: spelling and punctuation wtfpwnd me

[Trippy]

RE: Kali Comption/Swarm. If you go to their website, the guild appears to be named "Kali Compton" but they do use "Kali Swarm" in WoW.  Either one translates into English as "I am a fucking moron" though.

At least they are upfront about being a Zerg guild.

[El Gallo]

It's almost like you can't make snarky, uninformed one-liners around here anymore.

[Trippy]

As of yet no one knows what level past 50 is like, but the next patch that raises th elevel cap to 55, should be out some time this week. Also Hunters are to be released, as well as a major update to PVP, and hopefully the Horde/Alliance level speed. This is supposed to be a MAJOR patch. I think if every thing goes well, they will have maybe one more patch before the code freeze. That is IMO why it has taken so long for this last patch to be released.

I think you mean "feature freeze" not "code freeze". In any case, I seriously hope you are wrong about that. Only two of the classes have their talents in place and it's going to take more than one more patch after this upcoming one to bring the classes into even a resemblance of balance in my opinion.

Edit: Fixed the quoting

[HaemishM]

Any guild with the word "Compton" in its name in a fantasy-themed MMOG deserves all the derision it can get, whether they are nice to their mother or not.

[Riggswolfe]

Talents all need to be in before a code freeze can take place. Right now only warriors and mages have them. Rogues and Priests are next. Probably after that will be Paladins and Shamans. Then finally Warlocks and Druids. Hunters last of all because they'll be new.

After all of that and fixes to make griefing harder and such they'll probably code freeze. All I know is I'm having a hell of a good time. Got my character to 48 now, will hit 49 tonight or tomorrow and have 2 tradeskills almost up to the artisan level. (Equvialent of Master in SWG).

WoW is it for me. I might give EQ2 a whirl, but really, you guys are scared of B.net fanbois ( a concern I think is blown out of proportion, they're the group whining about having to pay), I'm concerned about Sony having the capability of making a good MMO. EQ never really impressed me. SWG was like being assraped by a Wookiee with cat hairs on his dick.

I've watched the videos for EQ2 and the characters looked stiff and the combat looked boring and overly reliant on autoattack. After playing a warrior with 4 taskbars needed (battle stance, defense stance, crafting, and bezerk stance) I am a little leery of an EQ-clone warrior who stands their bored out of their minds.

I only have one complaint about high-end WoW play right now and that is that it is turning into the "Perfect group" model. One warrior. Two priests. Two Mages.

That said, a group of 4, me included, took on the hardest Mob currently in the game and won last night. Group was a warrior (me), a priest, a mage, and a druid. So maybe it's the mentality of the players (alot of whom come from EQ) more than the content itself that is forcing this group dynamic.