How does it compare?

[AJ]

I didn't submit an application to receive a beta account, and i rightfully didn't take one from the ORG network, so as such.. this is for all of you with the beta.

I beta tested for Lineage, Everquest, Shadowbane and a few others.. and i've a fairly solid base of gaming on MMORPGs, as such, i'm somewhat curious how you feel WoW compares with these other games.

To me, Lineage offered an interesting twist on the MMORPG, but failed to take the achievements graphically that others have done. Shadowbane was a tremendous game.. when announced. And has since then been too troubled with graphic glitches, programming mishaps, and server failures. How do you see WoW currently, and where do you see it going?

Does it stand a chance at being an extremely popular game, even outside of Blizzard's regular customer circles? Is it justifiable to pay to play it in its current state, or do you feel we should wait until more of it has been added to the world, and been further playtested before you can reach an opinion?

Share your thoughts, if you would. =]

[Graeme]

Well, I don't have beta myself, but I certainly know a lot about the game, and I do know quite a few people that do have it. I'm also a WoW forum whore, and I feel it necessary to post in every thread in this forum :p, so I'll have a go at answering a few of your questions (to make it interesting, I'll go from the bottom up ^_^):

Is it justifiable to pay to play it in its current state, or do you feel we should wait until more of it has been added to the world, and been further playtested before you can reach an opinion?

It would not be suitable for someone to pay a monthly fee to play WoW as it currently is. Although the gameplay itself (as far as I've heard) is incredibly enjoyable, so much so that it puts other shameful MMORPGs to rest once and for all (SWG . . AC2 . . L2 *sigh*), it still has a long way to go. Thus far the level cap has been set to level 30, so much of the higher level content hasn't even been tapped into yet. Many of the higher level skills and quests, and hell, even the mounts, have yet to be properly tested and debugged.

There have been a few server crashes since the release of beta, though Blizzard has been relatively quick at fixing them. However, I don't think it would be very intelligent of Blizzard to release the game when their servers haven't been fully tested for stress.

In short, although the game looks (graphically) finished, it still has a whiles to go content-wise, and debugging-wise.

Does it stand a chance at being an extremely popular game, even outside of Blizzard's regular customer circles?

Absolutely. From the hundreds of reviews and hours of gameplay footage I've seen, WoW seems to be the next big step in online gaming. Although much of the ideas in WoW were based upon Everquest's original MMORPG idea, I can assure you that WoW will have much to offer, that will make the game unique from many perspectives. It's not even the big things that will make it so amazing, things like:
* Use of instances to avoid needless camping
* Not tying tradeskills in directly with the development of your overall character (to avoid nerfed and useless characters)
* Their ideas on PvP and the dueling system to avoid griefers
* The idea that any class can play solo, or team if they want to

The list goes on. Blizzard is working to make a game that's enjoyable to play for all people, at all times. If there has been one major flaw with the recent MMO games, it's that they depend on us, the players, to make the content, and to populate the world. Blizzard has sidestepped this entire situation, by making quests plentiful and easy to access. They have made areas of the game that can be enjoyable for all people. Playing a MMO should not have to feel like a job. After all, it is a GAME ^_^.

i'm somewhat curious how you feel WoW compares with these other games.

As far as I can tell, the number one thing Blizzard has going for it is the amount of content it has to offer. From screenshots I've seen, there is not a single area in the World of Warcraft that is entirely dead and boring. In other MMOs, you could end up running across a bland-looking desert, from one non-descript city to another for an hour, in order to get a single tradeskill levelled. How fun is that?

How do you see WoW currently, and where do you see it going?

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that WoW will succeed, at least to some degree. The amount of backing that this game already has is remarkable. Other MMOs before WoW received their praise and backing after they proved themselves, and after they had been around for months.

WoW is an entirely different case. It took the support it had from all of its previous games (Diablo II, Warcraft, Starcraft, that Viking one, etc. etc. ^_^), and used that fanbase to propel the development of this game. I remember the day that the new WoW forums were added to the battle.net forums. Within an hour each forum, regardless of its topic (roleplaying, to guild development), had multiple pages of posts.

Already there have been hundreds of guilds formed, dozens of fansites built from the ground up, and quite a few games cancelled in anticipation of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. When the WoW beta application went up, a massive buzz spread over the Blizzard community, as hundreds of thousands of people attempting to submit their application at the same time. Within minutes the servers were down because of the overload of information.

I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen this much hype on a game that has yet to be released. With that said, Blizzard has all they need to make a hit game already. They have the strong fanbase, a great start, great ideas and amazing programmers/developers and artists. I'd find it very unlikely that they could fail now X_x.

I didn't submit an application to receive a beta account, and i rightfully didn't take one from the ORG network, so as such..

Why didn't you bother signing up!?

[BSTRhino]

* Their ideas on PvP and the dueling system to avoid griefers

Please tell me more about this idea. From what I hear, you can still go round and kick people in the back if you'd like to, can't you?

Also, I think the greatest part of WoW here is the art, don't you think? The way one city looks completely different from another. Is this typical of MMORPGs? Also, were any cinematics included in the beta?

You know so much about this game Radlin, it's so surprising to hear that you're not actually in the beta. You probably know more than some beta testers know about the game.

[Duddits]

Don't remind him. Canada has yet to get there beta copies yet, or something like that. I'm sure he'll explain it when he logs on again :D

[Graeme]

Don't remind him. Canada has yet to get there beta copies yet, or something like that. I'm sure he'll explain it when he logs on again :D

Close, but no cigar :o. I know a few Canadian, non-fansite, non-friends/family beta recipients myself, actually ^_^. However, the total number of Canadian (non-fansite, non-friends/family) beta testers is VERY low, so it may seem like none were chosen at all. However, this is NOT the case - there were a few (One even posted on the official forums).

I believe in total, there were ~10K Canadian applicants (from what rumours I've heard, it may have been double that, but no matter - just double my final answer if you're skeptical :p) into the beta testing. Now, let's take the rough estimate of 400K people that applied, and plug in the fact that there were only 10K Canadians, and we can conclude that the # of Canadian applicants was ~ 2.5% of all the applicants.

Now, let's take the fact that ~1.5K people (again, no official numbers have been released - this is speculation based on #of people on servers avg'd and taking into account not all people play at the same time) were chosen for the first wave of beta. Let's assume second phase just about doubled that.
|
------> My reasoning being that the second phase will likely incorporate both the horde and the alliance, at the same time, as the horde-only pull has already been completed, and they're doing the alliance-only pull now. They'll need about double their current numbers to efficiently populate and test both sides of WoW.

So we have ~3K people chosen from a total of 275K valid applicants. For those of you too lazy to get a calculator, that's 1.09% of the applicants chosen for 1st and 2nd wave. Now, let's multiply the .025 by the 1.09%, and we get a whopping .027% of Canadians that could have been selected.

Now, here's the kicker (if all my math is correct), .027% multiplied out by 3000 people, is equal to .81 people. So, technically, if we round a bit, 4 fifths of a Canadian should have received beta (going strictly by numbers). Now, with this in mind, the fact that more than one Canadian even touched beta is against the odds :P. If twice the amount of Canadians applied as I thought, we'd end up with one whole person, and 3 fifths of another person.

So, I'm not really upset at all. And mind you, when you read this, a lot of it is assumption and VERY rounded numbers. So don't take it for fact, but trust me, Canadians didn't stand a great chance at getting it.

Please tell me more about this idea. From what I hear, you can still go round and kick people in the back if you'd like to, can't you?

Not at all ^_^. In WoW there will be several different types of PvP actions. I stated things were likely to change for PvP earlier . . . somewhere, too lazy to find it now, mainly because I'm not 100% sure on certain cases of PvP, and I'm not sure if anyone is, to tell you the truth :p.

Case 1: A duel - Likely to be the most popular and most entertaining type of PvP. Two people of the same faction (as far as I know), are able to challenge eachother to duels. If the other accept, you enter battle-mode, and begin attacking. When the loser dies, there are no actual things taken from him (eg. experience, items, etc.). This is done to prevent griefing and whatnot. I kind of like the idea, since you'll still have:

Case 2: The arena battles - Ever see the movie Gladiator? Picture that in a MMO game. People buy tickets to see an event, gladiator style, while two groups of people (or individuals), face in a battle to the death, likely with twists and hazards during the battle. These will be the really fun ones, especially guild vs. guild battles. ^_^

Case 3: Faction vs. Opposite Faction - the only one I'm really not sure of. I'm assuming in larger raid-like battles, PvP will be open, but I'm not exactly 100% sure on a case like:
"Walking through the woods, spot an orc, I'm a gnome, attack, kill, etc."
However, since NPCs are able to attack opposing faction on sight, I'll assume it's the same with PCs. No worries though, as griefing will not be very plausible, since you can always head back to one of your faction's stronger NPC guards.

Is this typical of MMORPGs? Also, were any cinematics included in the beta?

#1 - No, this really isn't that typical of most MMORPGs, or a lot that I've played. Have you tried the Lineage 2 open beta? BLEGH. It's like, running around from one non-descript city to another. There's absolutely no variation. A lot of previous MMO games haven't had much to offer in variation of landscape/cities actually . . .

I'd have to agree with you on the WoW graphical content being a great selling point ^_^.

#2 - No cinematics were included in the beta >_<;;. Ah well though, just before beta we got two quick movies. I'd still like to see one like the really early game-previews.

Edit: Just remembered that each character you make gets a starting cinematic (depending on race/starting area), including things currently happening around the world, and people around the 'cinematic area'. ie. You can see your friends in-game in your cinematic, if they are around the starting area ^_^.

You know so much about this game Radlin, it's so surprising to hear that you're not actually in the beta. You probably know more than some beta testers know about the game.

Haha, thanks ^_^. It's been a year's endeavour for me now :p.

[BSTRhino]

Wow, thanks Radlin! That's much more detail than I thought was even available!

I'm impressed that I just read, Blizzard is going to redesign the layouts of the cities! I bet those cities are pretty big, that must be quite a task. Especially to do with the graphics thing we talked about, they have got to consider that when designing the cities.

I really like that Arena battles feature. I had read about it, but I didn't realise the scope of it until I saw how hundreds of people could come along and watch. That really does seem quite world like, I imagine it would be so cool to be cheering for your favourite fighting guild.

I believe faction vs faction will not be frequent, but only appear during certain times of the storyline. I'm so excited over World of WarCraft! I just hope my computer is fast enough to portray so many people in such a small space.

I'm sure there are other questions that will pop up in my head.

[SterlingRat]

One of the things that Blizzard usually does (at least it seems this way to me). Blizzard does not do things that have 'never been seen before'. They simply tend to do more of what is good and get rid of what isn't.

I really can't think of anything Blizzard has ever done (except the ever-changing dungeons of the origional Diablo) that did not appear in another game. They will keep the same in this. Instancing is very popular in other games, so Blizzard will have instancing.... just add more. Limited PvP works well in EQ and others, so Blizzard will have more options for PvP while still not allowing it in the general populace... again, giving us more. Epic quests, Guilds, useful trade skills, potions, group linking for raids, changing storylines, lots of MOBs, lots of items, and lots of quests are all present in other MMORPGs, WoW will just give us more of them in a better package.

A Ford Focus is not a bad car, but all the same general components (Engine, Wheels, Brakes) could create a 2004 Ferrari 456 GT. I prefer to drive the Ferrari... especially when the prices are actually fairly close :D

[AJ]

Hrm. A good informative read, I must say. ;)
Any other information you'd like to share?

[Graeme]

Hrm. A good informative read, I must say. ;)
Any other information you'd like to share?

Eeep! Well, I could go on for days, but I reckon the most important aspect of WoW would be this:

The gnomes have the best dance in all of MMOG dance history!
http://www.imageshack.us/img1/9756/HAHA.jpg

On a side note, if you have any more specific questions about the game or gameplay, I'd be happy to answer them ^_^.

[Nikola]

I wanted to ask can I kill friendly unit and when open beta comes out and is it true that on august 15 the game comes out!!!

[Graeme]

I wanted to ask can I kill friendly unit and when open beta comes out and is it true that on august 15 the game comes out!!!

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by, "Can I kill a friendly unit?". My short answer, assuming by friendly you mean of the same faction, would be no. However, as I stated above, you will be able to participate in duels with them, as well as fight in arena-style battles (neither of which result in a 'real' death and both of which have to be agreed upon by both parties). If you were referring to friendly NPCs, I don't believe you can kill them.

On this note, there have been rumours of specific roleplaying, PVP, etc. servers (If I can recall correctly, Kat made a post on the official forums hinting that Blizzard may put up another server), however I cannot really verify or falsify the rumours. In fact, even if there was a specific PVP server, it may just extend the limits of Faction Vs. Faction PVP.

As for the August 15th rumour : the game release date has not yet been announced to the public.

RPardo stated (posted here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=6729&P=1&ReplyCount=7#post6729) that the beta will last 5+ months. Although 5 months from when he made the post does happen to be August, I can almost assure you that retail will not be available for August. There's still a LOT of work to be done, a lot of stress tests to be made, and a lot of finishing details to wrap up after all of that. My best bet would be that retail is available for Christmas.

Just be patient, it'll be worth the wait ^_^.

[Battlecruiser]

Please tell me more about this idea. From what I hear, you can still go round and kick people in the back if you'd like to, can't you?
You mean like people will follow you around and keep annoying you? Forget it, I see that Radlin already answered it. Anyway will there be massive sized wars where people folow commanders and attack others or will it be a one on one type of thing.