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Second World of Warcraft Expansion Launched, Conquered
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Nov 16, 2008 01:46 PM
from the worldwide-caffeine-shortage dept.
from the worldwide-caffeine-shortage dept.
The much-anticipated second expansion to World of Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, launched on Thursday, introducing a new continent, raising the level cap to 80, and bringing a wealth of new items, spells, dungeons, and monsters to the popular MMO. Crowds gathered and lines formed outside stores around the world leading up to the release. Massively has put together a series of articles for players wishing to familiarize themselves with the expansion, and CVG has a piece discussing the basics as well. It didn't take long for the first person to reach level 80; a French player called "Nymh" reached the level cap on his Warlock only 27 hours after the expansion went live. Not to be outdone, a guild named "TwentyFifthNovember" managed to get at least 25 raiders to 80 and then cleared all of the current expansion raid content less than three days after the launch. Fortunately for them, the next three content patches are each expected to contain new, more difficult raids.
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Review: Wrath of the Lich King 545 comments
Since shortly after its release in late 2004, World of Warcraft has held the position of the most popular MMO, quickly outstripping predecessors such as Everquest and Ultima Online, and continuing to hold the lead despite competition from contemporaries and newer offerings, like Warhammer Online. When World of Warcraft's first expansion, The Burning Crusade, was released, it built on an already rich world by using feedback from players and two extra years of design experience to work on condensing the game to focus more on the best parts. Now, with the release of Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard seems to have gotten themselves ahead of the curve; in addition to the many changes intended to remove the "grind" aspect that is so prevalent in this genre, they've gone on to effectively put themselves in the player's shoes and ask, "What would make this more fun? Wouldn't it be cool if..?" Read on for the rest of my thoughts.
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Everyone who cares.... (Score:5, Funny)
...is in Northrend.
Re:Everyone who cares.... (Score:5, Interesting)
really, how is this stuff that matters?
If the game play doesn't interest you any more, then consider an IT client-server delivery system that manages 11 million customers on a daily basis, each of whom have up to 9 entities per x servers (I don't know how many there are now, but their are 3 major groupings of them) each entity with up to a hundred objects or so each with their own attributes, with those objects involved with a number of transfers, creations and disposals per hours-long encounters, and a similar number of entities living on the server (as PvE mobs).
Think of 11 million customers and the absolutely monsterous OLTP system that allows for all that database management with a surprisingly small amount of lag overall.
If the computer system that supports all that isn't "stuff that matters" then I suspect you may find spending your time on a different forum more profitable.
Parent
Re:Everyone who cares.... (Score:5, Informative)
The raids aren't anywhere near as big a part of WoW as you make it seem. The reason they get so much attention, I think, is because Blizzard's done them so completely and well, unlike other mmorpgs.
New Quests: there's about 1000 across Northrend. (and fyi, the last big patch before WotLK content - 2.4 - added about 50, 30 of which were repeatable every day.)
New Mechanics: that's an incredibly vague term, but there are the new phasing and knockback systems, and the new inscription profession. Also, Blizzard doesn't have a design philosophy that lends itself to including large amounts of whatever to the game. They add in consistent stuff that works with the rest of the game.
The new expansion also adds a new class, revamps two others, adds ten more levels (and corresponding new abilities) for all characters, an entire new continent to explore and see new things in, more crafting options.
And the design on all of this blows away what's come before. The new zones feel really alive - they look fantastic, sound wonderful, and offer interesting and new ways to get around them. Everyone who got off the boat or zeppelin just stopped and went "Wow." for a few minutes. And then we hit the dungeons - the third of the starter dungeons, Azjol-Nerub, has to be played to be believed. It's half an hour of terrifying beauty, of wriggling mummified *things* laying between two golden mushrooms in caverns man was never meant to see, had never seen. You look down vistas swarming with spiders crawling over the most beautiful architecture yet - and then you jump down to join them. It's lovecraftian and slasher-esque and Indiana Jones all at the same time. It's fantastic, and probably the best experience I've had ever in WoW, and one of the best in a game, period.
Parent
Addicts indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Addicts indeed (Score:5, Funny)
Amen. To all you wow players: Shut that computer down and go out get some fresh air. Life is much too short to waste it on playing a bloody game.
And this comes from someone who is posting to slashdot on his laptop as he is skiing down K2 being chased by ninjas while nailing the new Bond chick.
Fixed that little bit of hypocrisy there for you.
Parent
Eventually (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
65 hours... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be outdone, a guild named "TwentyFifthNovember" managed to get at least 25 raiders to 80 and then cleared all of the current expansion raid content less than three days after the launch
They should make them twice as strong as they're "supposed to" be, and drop them say 5% each day. I'd make that competition last so much longer and frustrate these raidoholics, lol.
Re:65 hours... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's actually an idea I've been campaigning for. These raiding guilds like to show off how great they are, yet they're just incredibly dedicated. Your average guild can't even get people to log in for scheduled events on time.
So up the ante, make the raids insanely hard even for pro's. Make them unfair (like Naxx), require a distorted balance of classes, designed to engender social infighting. Give them some really hard problems to overcome inside and outside the game. Plant a few CSR "reps" in these guilds, have them create chaos, fan the flames of egos. Basically get them to play the game like normal people so the dev's can focus on the 99%, not the 1%.
Then gradually ease up as your main player base starts to reach the top. "Patch" content that was "harder than anticipated", etc.
Parent
Rush to completion (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never understood people who feel the need to rush to complete game content. After paying for a game, I like to take my time and enjoy it. I guess maybe people see it as another way of competing with each other? Or is it just obsession?
Maybe I have a slightly different perspective than most. I'm a game developer, so I guess I'm slightly more aware than most of how much work goes into every single game. It's slightly depressing sometimes, because you've put a year or more of work into a product, and you've still only produced enough content to last a long weekend.
Re:Rush to completion (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never understood people who feel the need to rush to complete game content. After paying for a game, I like to take my time and enjoy it. I guess maybe people see it as another way of competing with each other? Or is it just obsession?
If you're this good at warcraft, lording your level above more casual plays is all you've got. You're going to want to reach the top fast!
Parent
Re:Rush to completion (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a sad day when maxing out your character is considered "conquering" the game.
Parent
Re:Rush to completion (Score:5, Funny)
The dating scene?
Parent
Speedruns And Completion (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the speedrun subculture, people can "complete" most classic, deeply loved, games in ridiculously short amounts of time.
Does it devalue Doom to tens of millions of players, many of whom logged hundreds or thousands of hours in it, knowing that someone's managed a speedrun in an hour or two?
Besides, modern MMOs are about a huge number of things interacting:
Have they looted enough of the highest level drops that their players are now fully kitted out in the best gear available? Or did they just scrape by with enough to claim they could do it, only to get slapped down in PvP, next week, by a guild that didn't claim "completion" and is now better equipped?
Have they collected everything they need for their crafters to make the highest end items they also had opened up to them?
Have they gained the new mounts?
How about PvP specific loot? Have they gained the full sets of that stuff that were put there for the huge number of players that don't consider level 80 and a few raids to be the pinacle of the game?
And that's all before you get in to the broader culture of a game like that... mapping things out, raising interesting alts, side quests, etc.
A junior high bully gets to claim he's the most awesomest by having no one who can beat him in a fight. Yet the kids who're on dates, getting in to bands, on the sports teams, even nerdier stuff like winning science olympiads or actually understanding their classes so they'll get great grades in highschool, a great college place and be much better off in life... they're probably not all that impressed that, yes, he got to the top on a single axis. Did he really "complete" junior high as he likes to tell himself?
As someone who's taking his time with WoW... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I just gotta say they missed most of the fun of the game.
Granted, I have one character, a level 36 Warlock, that's taken me something like 3 months to get up to. But you know what? I'm probably having a bit more fun and getting more for my money than the people who have to powerlevel to 80 as fast as possible.
It makes PvP harder for me (as I can't compete with people who twink their guys out with the best gear), and I generally don't go into the instances/raids (I solo most of the time, and my guild is more social than goal-driven), but I get to actually enjoy the art, the people, the economy, and the experience.
Getting to 80 as fast as possible is like trying to ride every single ride at Cedar Point as fast and as efficiently as possible, as opposed to a group of friends who go on what they want when they want.
Which group has more "fun"?
Closed Beta Raiders kill Live content? No wai... (Score:5, Informative)
This story is not news.
TwentyFifthNovember is a guild made up of Nihilum and SK-Gaming (aka Curse). Both guilds had members that experienced Naxxramas at level 60 (when it was originally released), and most of the bosses in Naxxramas (retuned and re-released for level 80) are largely unchanged since that time. Both of these guilds had very significant presences in the Closed Beta, where this raid content was available for anyone who could gather enough players. Many of them killed these bosses for weeks and months, before the game went live. The slight differences between these bosses at level 60 versus these bosses at level 80 is minor enough that even those who DIDN'T see the retuned content would still know how to get past it.
Raiding in World of Warcraft is more about skill than gear (although there are a few hard gear checks, such as needing 8.5k HP to survive Naj'entus area-effect nuke). These guys certainly are skillful, but there was never any doubt that they would steamroll all of this content as soon as they hit 80. The slightly bigger concern is that they managed to get 25 members to level 80 in ~65 hours of gameplay. Still, with the first 80 after 27 hours, it wasn't unexpected. People were hitting level 70 in Burning Crusade in about the same amount of time, and once the strategy for doing so was optimized, anyone (with a lot of time, and/or friends) could grind out the levels.
One thing to note is that these guys don't yet have the ultra-rare achievement awards, for example:
http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=2138 [wowhead.com]
Heroic Glory of the Raider involves a series of moderate to very hard challenges in Naxx, with the reward being an exclusive Proto-Drake mount. Until they get that, it's not news.. and even if they do get that, they've STILL got the qualifiers mentioned earlier.
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Funny)
The only thing better than grinding to 80 is vicariously experiencing the grind through the achievements of strangers.
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously - how many areas are just the same area over and over again with different graphics? The towns and mountains and such are in different places, but by level 10 you've pretty much seen all the gameplay there is to see.
I predict Northrend will have individual monsters slowly roaming back and forth over small areas of ground. Occasionally there will be a few monsters standing together. Virtually every quest will involve killing X of them. To step things up, you can kill difficult elite monsters while in a group. The combat will be so simple that an 8-line perl script can do it.
When you try to imagine the game without the graphics, you realize how little gameplay there actually is. It might be feasible to make a nethack-style game that captures every element of WoW gameplay, but that would be a very dull game indeed.
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Funny)
The combat will be so simple that an 8-line perl script can do it.
Considering you could write an operating system in five, I guess that's pretty complex.
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Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Funny)
+7 Charisma
-100 Social Life
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Insightful)
Blizzard spent how much time making this expansion, and then it all got run through in less than 30 hours? That's nuts.
Nobody "ran it through" in under 30 hours. What some people did was say "we beat what we consider the important bits, so we call the game beat". A good analogy would perhaps be completing the Terran campaign in Starcraft and saying "I beat the game, because what matters to me is the Terran campaign". SK/Nihilum probably skipped much of the "leveling" content, decidedly skipped most instances, and rushed straight into the raid game.
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't demolish new content. They demolished content they've been playing for months on the beta server.
Parent
Re:Please keep me informed (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Athene (Score:5, Interesting)
To be precise, it was Darus, another Paladin, that they were power leveling. Athene and the other people in the group didn't get any XP at all during the experiment.
Athene did a full half hour video report on it on his website [worldofathene.com], including the part where his whole party were disconnected by Blizzard GMs and got their accounts suspended temporarily.
It seems to me that Blizzard were monitoring the attempt throughout, and in the end decided that the game wasn't meant to be played this way after all and decided to break up the party. Maybe they were afraid of the publicity that would come out if Athenes group claimed the record. Perhaps they thought it would look bad, that the game that they had spent years to produce was demonstrated to be beatable in less than a day.
Parent
Re:Athene (Score:5, Insightful)
He went into instances with friends, left group, tagged all the mobs, then let them do all the damage. since those mobs were designed to be taken down by a group, they gave lots of experience. And he got all of it. Anyone who doesn't call it cheating has a pretty conservative definition of the term.
I know what he did, and what he did not do. He did not hack the game. He DID ask permission to play in that way, and was granted it.
That's why it's not cheating. Call it something else - gaming the system, powerlevelling, exploiting even. But since it's not against the rules of the game, as set out in software, and it's not against the rules of the game as set out by the GMs - remember, he asked! - it's frankly not cheating by any definition, other than possibly a stupid and jealous definition.
Parent