Types of gameplay

[TranquilNightElf]

Is it possible in WoW to have a few people under your command, as you the captain become the commander of a bunch of footmen or assorted individual (npcs obviously) and to ontrol them as a tactical team?.
For that matter does any sea-warfare exist where ships can engage in battles with you commanding them at some level.

Also what kind of 'props' are available for general fighting. Could you for example take control of a catapult and let loose a barrage of rocks? Or set alight a ball of flammable material and use that, or cut down a tree to serve as a road block or to destroy a building?

[Graeme]

Hmm, cool ideas ^_^.

Is it possible in WoW to have a few people under your command, as you the captain become the commander of a bunch of footmen or assorted individual (npcs obviously) and to ontrol them as a tactical team?.

Notsomuch. The closest you'll get to that would be a party of other online gamers, where you're the party leader :p. However, if the other people are your friends, you can usually get some mad organization going on.

The one group I had (2 mages, 1 priest, 1 warrior and a druid) had designated polymorphers (also deciding which monsters the mages would polymorph based on the side the monster was running), designated 'scouters' who would scout out and report how many monsters and what types in various enclosed areas, designated pullers, etc. etc. Although the leader may not be able to explicitly control them as he/she would with NPCs, you can still get an awesome system worked out ^_^.

For that matter does any sea-warfare exist where ships can engage in battles with you commanding them at some level.
Sea travel and warfare is pretty restricted as it currently stands. In fact, the devs are still working out the graphic//time spent travelling on a boat (currently the boat operators automatically teleport you to the various locations). I'm not sure if they're planning on putting any ship battles into the finalized game, though it would be pretty awesome :).

Also what kind of 'props' are available for general fighting. Could you for example take control of a catapult and let loose a barrage of rocks?

Funny you ask, because I just recently had to do this with a cannon in an instanced dungeon :p. There was a blocked door, and you had the choice of picking the lock, or setting off a cannon and blowing up the door. Nobody in our group had the lockpicking skill, so we gathered some Defias Gunpowder and sent a cannon ball flying via a nearby cannon ^_^.

As far as other props - the trade skills generally provide a number of props for 'in-battle' items. I know people often use Engineering-made dynamite during battle for various uses (certain dynamites//bombs stun the enemies!).

Certain quests are very in-depth and allow you to utilize a number of different props in order to achieve a number of different things (ie. mages get to be ghostbusters at a certain level). Although the majority of quests follow the 'collect x items' or 'slay x enemies' or 'deliver said item', there are a few neat ones, and it is quite clear that Blizz plans to add quite a few more neat ones - most of which will involve the neat props ^_^.

[Exedore]

Certain classes can control one unit designated as a combat pet. Warlocks and Hunters have this via their pets, and priests have a similar function if they mind control an enemy monster. I haven't played any of these classes, but I believe you get a few basic abilities and actions such as attacking, or casting a spell (most only have one or two spells). Pets also have modes (passive, aggresive, assist, etc).


The Ratchet - Booty Bay boat is being added in the next patch, as is the Ogrimar - Undercity zeppelin. I think the Menethil - Theramore - Auberdine trip will still be the "boat" teleporter. The patch will probably be released next week, so someone will probably post screenshots. The trip should take no longer than 5 minutes, which is about the same time as a few of the longer gryphon trips.

[TranquilNightElf]

These ideas sound promising. ^_^ (but i do hope they put in sea warfare..or even fighting on your gryphon woukd be cool).

Now as you guys play WoW, your chracters level up obviously and you get more xp and items etc etc. Can you actually level up in rank in the world?..I mean I know that Radlin mentioned that many quests will be in depth so to speak but I mean to say will you be able to one day become regent of an area, where, though you still won't hae other NPCs under your direct control, you would be able to cause wars by giving the order to your army to attack.

Are there specific trade routes in the game. Ones that are vital to the economy of a town and hence if bandits cause a road block or mess with it, there will be shortage of goods/weapons in that town leading to rise in prices and stealing and what not..
Hmm I guess I'm thinking a little too ambitiously, but if they implement these types of ideas it would be excellent.

[Graeme]

The thing with WoW is that they've been planning to have 'greater world storylines' that affect the WoW universe in a giant way. They've also hinted that players would be the ones triggering these massive storylines. I would imagine in the future (or at least I hope) Blizz will change entire areas, from faction controlling them, to the look of them.

In the same instance, we'll never ever see gryphon battles :p. That's just my feeling on the matter, but I just can't see it happening. As for sea warfare, I have my doubts, but it may be a world event or something, so you never know.

Since the WoW storyline already has such depth, it has the potential to do many things other MMOs could never even attempt. The sky's the limit with WoW, we just don't know exactly how high the sky goes yet :p. I hope we'll see some grandscale city takeovers initiated by a unique quest action by a user, and I hope we'll see bandits blocking off roads, and I hope we'll see a kajillion other things.

In short, I have no clue if any of these things will be implemented. We'll just have to wait and see. It really depends on how hard Blizz wants to work their dev team after release and how much Blizz is planning to work on patching vs. new expansion packs.

[TranquilNightElf]

The thing with WoW is that they've been planning to have 'greater world storylines' that affect the WoW universe in a giant way. They've also hinted that players would be the ones triggering these massive storylines.
Yeah I heard about the Epic quests, where blizz mentioned(rather hinted) that players would also interacting with Legendry Chracters like Thrall or Jaina.
The game is looking more and more desirable all the time. :)