Howdy Folks

Just wondering if anyone else is following what Blizzard is up to. Damn! Looks like they've got their proverbial poop together (bleh, no swearing :P )

Beta is starting soon! Can't wait! I want in!!!

www.blizzard.com/wow/ (http://www.blizzard.com/wow/)

I will try it for sure... Only prob I have is my shit ass comp is going to be a bit slow for it... I have a 800mhz Celeron built by Alienware. 512 megs of ram and a G2..=/ I'm also looking forward to Horizons of Dec. 9th

I've got my eyes set on Horizons. I'll soon be building a computer for it. I just wish they would lift the stupid NDA.

I started my real online experience with gaming back when StarCraft just launched... competitive playing and all that, before I was lured into EverQuest.
Warcraft 3 is currently the only game I bother with.

Blizzard and MMORPG is just a matchmake made in heaven to me. I'll definately give it a whirl. The only problem I have with WoW so far is that class wise it's EQ all over again. I'm sick of the whole warrior/cleric/shaman/paladin/ranger/rogue etc lineup. It'd be fun to at least watch some deviations, or some truly unique classes.

Even though they've kept the names of the usual classes (Paladin, Rogue, etc), I see that instead of different classes sharing abilities, that for the most part, each class is truly unique (the druids morphing and gaining the class of the animal they become is VERY neat). They've also trimmed things down. Paladins seem to be what bards and paladins are to EQ. Priests seem to be what Clerics and Enchanters are to EQ. Warlocks are a combo of Necro and Mage, and so on, and so on. Heck, Warriors have their own abilities.

And to top it off, according to Blizzard anyway, their take on soloing is basically, if yer above ground, solo away. Dungeons however is where the groups come in. Unlike SoE that pretty much says that if you want to solo it's at your own risk and that you SHOULD group.

I dunno, it's like all the complaints that peeps have been making to Sony, Blizzard has at least taken them into serious consideration. Check it out, the whole site that is, it should prove to be a very exciting prospect.

all i know is that whatever blizzard comes up with is always gold period

The problem with EQ today is that classes have designed niches where they feel the need to be superior, and whine their asses off when they feel threatened on their "own turf". By the way, while I still remember it, the WoW classes more closely resembles p&p rpgs (where EQ got theirs from as well naturally).

Warriors... tanking. Rogues... DPS. Monks... pulling. The idea is that whatever you play... you have a speciality.

Verant realized the problem with this, but they were unable to escape their niche-ism (new phrase? do I get cred? ^^) and have since attempted to fix it by erasing class boundaries. Druid/shaman "CH" line, giving bards the ability to effectively crowd control, trap disarming spells, the introduction of beastlords as a third slower class etc.

A game where only one or two classes can perform one set maneuver to the point of being desirable to a group is in my eyes a flawed game. At no point should you have to think "we absolutely without a doubt have to have class X or class Y here".

It should always be "hey lets call dave, he's a great guy" even if that'd mean adding a sixth warrior to the group. Sure, I don't protest the concept of group dynamics... I'm just saying that six warriors should be ABLE to make it work, even if it's a slow gig. It should never be the age-old sebilis mentality of "we need a cleric, chanter and an evacer or we're instagibbed".
Something hopefully WoW will be able to see happen with stuff like potions.

Personally i'm just fed up with all the hype about this game, alot of my friends are thinking it will be the greatest game of all time and think me a retard for not agreeing. Honestly, I've watched the pictures, I've read up on their page and I've listened to my friends and I could care less about the game.

Oh and Blizzard's last good game was Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 was one of the biggest let downs ever.

I wonder why they didn't make a Worlds of Diablo instead, that would seem to be alot more fitting, not as much of the cute n cuddly graphics and all that.

They still have the potential for Diablo 3 (though I think that D2 was very disappointing), whereas another Warcraft RTS would be doomed.

Oh and Blizzard's last good game was Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 was one of the biggest let downs ever.

thats because diablo and starcraft/warcraft2 were so damn good they just set the bar to high. and warcraft 3 being a let down? what did you expect?

well i kinda expected a good game for one, warcraft 3 was fun in singleplayer mode and at that not even all the way through, it started getting lame somewhere around where you are supposed to cut down that forest as the orcs.
the multiplayer mode was just lame, either they should have taken out the heroes or let you keep and level one, it also lacked everything that made wc2 and sc fun.

in all honesty, i haven't played the frozen throne but that's just because i don't think you should have to pay for something like that, it should definetly be free. however i'm told it does fix some of the suckiness issues with the game.

Yeah... Expansions should be free. Lets ask Sony about that eh? No wait lets ask relic. No wait... Blizzard. And so forth.

Expansions arent free. The market says people pay for them, so companies charge for them. Blizzard is also pretty much one of the best expansion producers in the gaming industry so I have no problem coughing up less than half a night on the town for a few months added multiplayer gameplay value.

However, battle.net is free. And it's also the best multiplayer gaming platform out there. Without Battle.net Blizzard would be nothing. But automated tournaments, arranged team settings, quick as hell matchmaking... automatic ladder... the guys are fricking geniuses.

As for Warcraft 3... Using heroes is like driving shift... some just can't handle the extra micro. To those who can, driving auto is like chopping off a limb.

Oh and as for the WoW hyping... it's pretty natural. If people enjoy a company's products, future products will be high in demand right off the conveyor belt.

Blizzard has a lot of fans. A lot. Thus the hype. The people anti-hyping it (like yourself) is simply the people who dislike blizzard's style as a company.

Personally, I was hooked on starcraft a lot longer than I was on EQ, and SC doesn't have all the hooks to make you addicted.

The pictures are nothing. You have to -watch- WoW to really get a feel for how alive it is.

The only problem I forsee is the clash between the 12-16 year old battle.net cheaters/gimpers age group and the 14-76+ year old MMORPG crowd. Just reading some of the forums make my eyes cringe.

For the lazy, they're like thousands of Amplifyre's.

Yes, the clash between Blizzard fanboys and jaded EQ players will be interesting. Lets hope mommy doesnt let junior play much.

I'm looking forward to it. In large part so Kivorn and Fandros can sally forth once again!!!

Fandros

I'm just saying that six warriors should be ABLE to make it work, even if it's a slow gig. It should never be the age-old sebilis mentality
/boggles
You are talking about two different concepts here. What a game offers, and what people look for.
I'm pretty sure 6 warriors at "old age" could xp together, of course at cost of huge down time, but still. (at my 60 level time I grouped with sk, necro, ranger and myself as war and we were killing stuff in Chardok)
It has been a long time you didn't play EQ, because it's not anymore "warrior tanks, shaman slows, cleric heals and rogue does damage".
And here is my point, what WoW has to offer but a fancy druid?

anterak, you lammer, log onto icq!

I can't wait.

Well is LoE is just like WoW is it gonna suck

Looking at Horizons...

Hmmmmm

Looks great, but looks like a major rip off of EQ, even more so than Warcraft. I dunno, so many MMORPG's out there heading for the trough. I like the look and feel of WoW and from what I've read from folks who've had the opportunity to play with the alpha version, it rocks. Apparently the common comment is simply "I was playing along, having a good time, then Ding! Hey! I leveled! COOL!" To be honest I can't remember the last time that happened in EQ. /sigh I miss the old days of banded armor being uber, going to Faydwer meant hopping a boat or forking out 10plat for a port and raids were a game of which group could do the most dmg to get exp.

Anterak, I'm not arguing about how EQ is today. But the class-balance issues of the game is the largest block of strife within the whole concept that is EverQuest. Sure, I haven't played EQ in like six months. But I doubt it's turned a full one-eighty on itself.

And no, I'm not talking about two different concepts. Yes, you can make unorthodox groups work in EQ, but the concept is not designed to allow them. You can argue this back and forth, but I think most people would agree that EQ on the whole is designed on the niche concept. People will always strive for optimum, if the game doesnt allow for flexibility in how optimum (how well do warriors really stack on raids?) is achieved, it's a flop gameplay wise.

I like the way WoW is heading for a number of reasons.

I really like the look of the races in WoW, also as Blizzard has always seemed to have done; I can almost guarantee that your character will be ultra customized, as in, tons of armor graphics, tons of different graphics, and your character actually has the opportunity to look super badass. The classes, although there seems to be less overlapping between then, look like tons more fun to play to me. Druids actually look kinda tight, rather than being "a cleric with leaves" like in eq, as a friend so stated it ;p It might provide for challenging grouping atmospheres, as the concerns have been brought up, but i think there will be various ways around it in WoW. There always seems to be tons of options in Blizzard games. As far as the younger, "amplifyrish" crowd - i think once they realize how much work that a mmorpg actually takes, a lot of them will be scared off, which is why most of them play diablo 2 etc. There you can play for 10 minutes and get something phat by steamrolling old stupid content solo. When they realize you need to co-operate and getting "good" takes a lot of time, most of them won't bother I have a feeling ;p

Btw, kiv and fandros - email me at sirsamanusuke@yahoo.com ;p

i agree with sama about blizzard being very creative with character uniqueness, they like to have alot of particle effects and they go apeshit with those, spell particle effects are cool but i'm really looking forward to the awsome armor particle effects they should have, i'm not keeping up to date with that, but i can't wait to see someone with a sword that has 3 fiery glowing orbs floating around it, or a person who has a cloak of flames that surrounded him with fire (of course i expect all these to be viewable by options)

As for Warcraft 3... Using heroes is like driving shift... some just can't handle the extra micro. To those who can, driving auto is like chopping off a limb.

Exactly people who say it sucks are people who cant handle the extra micro managing (sp?) and be getting there ass kicked. I remember when I first played it I hated it because I couldnt keep up. It wasnt like my good ol starcraft, I was saying the same thing about heros how they should take them out. But once you get the hang of it its a great game to play and the heros rock, you just gotta now how to handle them.

Would be cool if they had an image importer where you import a pic with face etc in certain spots and pending gm approval everyone who looks at your toon sees your fact (even if it is a little distorted =]

Would be difficult...because you'd have to download the texture for every individual face for everyone within a certain radius. Can you imagine the lag in a bazaar-like situation?

it could be upon request, as in your profile, and not physically part of the character

WoW has it all ...

I haven't seen a MMORPG that has smoothly degrading performance.

Ie:
Imagine if when your graphics card couldn't hack it, instead of lag you just got textures and models that started simplifying themselves?

In a crowd of 1000, you'd just see generic faces. With 5 of you all alone in a sparse dungeon, all the details would show up.

I'm looking forward to WoW.

I was also looking into WarHammer Online. It seems to be directed toward more adult audiences. I mean, I watched one of the videos and there was blood, also a lot of the monsters look to be more out of a horror movie than a game.
www.warhammeronline.com

I wonder if WoW will put my comp on his knee like SWG. I mean whats the point spending so much time on nice graphisms (and not in designing content/gameplay) when huh no comp can turn it on fully.

I tried to play with ALL options full ( shadows/flora/full clip plane in 1600X1200 etc) and my comp went down to like 8 fps IN the nature with nothing around me. Now even turning all options off in 1024x768 I haven't been able to break 24 fps ( the point eyes doesn't make a diff anymore) in town. I have a configuration very high end and I have to get used to 14 fps if I eventually want to turn some options on so it doesn't look like Everquest.

I m looking foward for WoW I just hope they don't waste time on super graphism no one can put on instead of gameplay and content (high end especially they tend to not even design it before release). Now its blizzard so it might be fine :)

WoW's supposed to run "well" on a p3 800mhz with 128mb RAM.

SoE games are coded by halfwits. Of course SWG eats your computer alive. Imagine how bad EQ2's gonna be. They keep revamping graphic engines left and right, yet still can't even get it on par.

To be honest, I really do hope that WoW delivers. It would give me great, wonderful, heck, sexual satisfaction even to see SOE get knocked off as king of the MMORPG hill.

All this time, SOE has pretty much said "Do it our way, or /snicker, go somewhere else". EQ2 is a result of nobody listening at Sony, some of these expansions are just boring money grabs. Heck the expansions that have come out in the last year have pretty much wiped out any flavor this game had. (Actually ran into a person that didn't know what West Commonlands was, bloody port books). I dunno, I see EQ going the way of the Great Auk (look it up), but it can't die until something new and fresh comes along.

I've had great memories in this game, and will continue to do so until I stop playing, but once I find something better, I will not pay two different companies to keep me entertained. There can be only one.

Check it out, they just released their info on their tradeskills.

www.blizzard.com/wow/town...ills.shtml (http://www.blizzard.com/wow/townhall/tradeskills.shtml)