End of World of Warcraft Beta 64
Today the Beta servers will be shut down, and by next week when the game ships all character information will be wiped from the system. After over six months, the World of Warcraft Beta Test is coming to an end. The test's final days are not without problems. Shiptar writes "Seems that some of the World of Warcraft Forum Moderator accounts were hijacked, and some posts were made deriding the latest patch. There's a discussion on WoW Vault Boards. It's not clear if the Moderator accounts were compromised, or a vulnerability in the forum software was used. The WoW boards have been down since last night."
My experience (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I was totally hooked and will be getting a copy as soon as i can. It should be noted, however, that although the game is great fun, it doesnt have the quite "finished" feel, if for no other reason that there is a lot of imbalance between the classes.
Paladins and Shamans seem to be considerably better than most other classes: some classes, like druid are pretty poor (I speak as a druid, and I love the druid abilities, but we do suck.)
Admittedly, most of the "discussion" on the forums seem to be bitching about other classes being too powerful, and requests to have things nerfed, but there IS a class imbalance. Its not even like Blizzard are trying to keep things balanced, they seem to be taking a more "fix the alliance map, fix this class, fix that class" rather than gradually improving everything.
Also, it takes forever to get anywhere. I nearly quit playing after my second day because i was so bored just walking from place to place; it can take 15 minutes, just walking, to get to certain areas. If you wanted to walk across the entire map, you could be talking about hours.
However, those small points aside, it is a beautiful game. I wish they would make movement slightly faster, but other than that i am in awe, and worship blizzard as gods.
I should also point out as well, i hated warcraft 3 (the skirmish mode, which was the reason i bought it, was insanely hard with no difficulty setting.) so its not like im a warcraft junkie.
Just wish Europe would get Warcraft earlier.
Re:My experience (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I was totally hooked and will be getting a copy as soon as i can.
Why do you think they do open betas? QA!?
It should be noted, however, that although the game is great fun, it doesnt have the quite "finished" feel, if for no other reason that there is a lot of imbalance between the classes.
Paladins and Shamans seem to be considerably better than most other classes: some classes, like druid are pretty poor (I speak as a druid, and I love the druid abilities, but we do suck.)
Admittedly, most of the "discussion" on the forums seem to be bitching about other classes being too powerful, and requests to have things nerfed, but there IS a class imbalance. Its not even like Blizzard are trying to keep things balanced, they seem to be taking a more "fix the alliance map, fix this class, fix that class" rather than gradually improving everything.
Welcome to the world of MMORPG's. This is always the case. If you don't believe me, visit the user boards for City of Heroes (where every class except the Blaster has people saying they love the class but consider it critically underpowered... and the Blasters whine about how easilly they get killed.)
Don't even get me started on the SQG Jedi.
Game balance is so close to impossible, it's best that you just never worry about it, and play the character type which you enjoy most. Who cares if the game comes easier to some people because the munchkin out on the "best" classes. Those are like people who keep Soul Calibur dialed down to the "Easy" setting, even after they've unlocked all the characters. Be proud that you are not like them.
Also, it takes forever to get anywhere. I nearly quit playing after my second day because i was so bored just walking from place to place; it can take 15 minutes, just walking, to get to certain areas. If you wanted to walk across the entire map, you could be talking about hours.
Also true of nearly every MMORPG. If it doesn't take forever to get anywhere, users complain that the world is too small. This often leads to game designers caving in to customer demand for widespread "teleporting" abilities of some sort or another. Maybe WoW will have this sort of thing hammered out by the time it becomes available in the EU.
Merely Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
They have done beautiful job with the game, nothing ground breaking its basically the same ol' stuff presented on a silver platter.
The classes do not seem to be completely balanced but all of the classes are fun to play. I have played every single class and I enjoyed them all, For example a druid has a bunch of spells, but also has the ability to tank by changing into bear form which is great!
Problems with the game right now... There have been times of extreme lag. Ofcourse the fanboi's will say that it is a stress test so thats why there was lag. But in my honest opinion that lag is going to exist when the game comes live. There very rarely is a miracle build and I doubt blizzard have one either.
No graphical glitches, no quest glitches (The quests are a lot of fun and a nice alternative to killing 5432 Kobolds to get a level), No crashes
The game is easy but it is fun! Methinks I am going to buy this game....
Re:had a great time (Score:3, Insightful)
Heretic. How dare you compare MUDs to Diablo. You'll have people believing you don't know the difference between persistent and instanced worlds.
WoW is sharp. As long as I don't get tired of questing, I can see about a year's worth of playing working through various character classes, with just the current content. They're going to have to work to keep my interest for 3 years like AC did.
My problems with WoW have to do with Blizzards inexperience with MMOGs. There is nothing evolutionary about WoW. It's primarily just better graphics on a reasonably built game engine. I can't say that other developers are making any leaps forward either, but it's about time for someone to figure out the whole thin game client/the client is in the hands of the enemy thing. Blizzard has announced a policy of prohibitting external applications or UI modifications that expose more than they intended. If they don't intend for the client to see that, they shouldn't send it to them. This also goes to gameplay mechanics, rulesets should be enforced on the server. And content updates should simply be a database update and occasionally downloading some new images to the client.
Blizzard also came across quite wishy washy during the betas. No official word of whether characters would be wiped until the day that they did it. Most of us assumed it would happen, but they wouldn't say it. No official word about the length of the open beta, or when it was going to start, until it actually happened. I almost cancelled my preorder due to the way they handled OB signups. (they managed to melt every server they owned) They won't even announce the names of the retail worlds, so guilds can't get organized. WoW is going to be a success despite Blizzard.
Probably the only thing that will continue to bug me after next week though is their silly name filters. Character names can only be 12 characters long. No punctuation, no spaces, and proper cased. That, and twitch fishing.
I learned one important thing from their beta board; anytime someone mentions 'immersion' in relation to a game feature, you can just move on to the next thread. There's no useful content. It's like the nazi in usenet thing
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It's a dog, let me finish. (Score:3, Insightful)
Very pretty, but a rehash (Score:4, Insightful)
A truly worthwhile "quest system" should come close to what people expect from a pen-and-paper RPG. True adventures with adventure hooks, clues, the thrill of the chase, and a real reward at the end. After all, in my pen-and-paper days, I don't remember a DM ever telling me that such-and-such NPC needed 8 wolf meats, and that other guy wanted me to deliver someone's beer for 7 coppers. Even my most-hard-up D&D character would never stoop to being someone's barmaid.
Re:Very pretty, but a rehash (Score:2, Insightful)
They receive a quest that says "Walk five paces directly south to coordinate 102, 41 and talk to the bright pink guy with the huge yellow question mark over his head."
Immediately, they go to the General chat channel and say "Where's the bright pink guy?", followed by "What color is he?, and if this is a level 20 or higher quest "How do I talk to him?"
They aren't interested in having fun or playing the game that is there. They want to either beat the game, or get to the part where they can play it like it was CounterStrike.