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Role Playing (Games) PC Games (Games) Businesses Apple

World of Warcraft Launches 521

Posted by Zonk from the azeroth-or-bust dept.
The last major MMOG launch of the year hits retail stores today. World of Warcraft finally goes live after years of debate, development, and a more than six month Beta test. The usual suspects have details on the game, with Gamespot already having details on upcoming content and Gamespy laying out personal experiences from the test and interviews with the developers.
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World of Warcraft Launches More

World of Warcraft Launches

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  • Mac launch??!?! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:56PM (#10902060)
    1st!

    and i'm really happy that WoW is mac playable at launch date. I don't own a mac, but it's something mac fans will appreciate
    • and i'm really happy that WoW is mac playable at launch date.

      Simultaneous Mac and PC version launches are nothing new from Blizzard. They know Mac users have tons of spendable cash and like polished software

      • Re:Mac launch??!?! (Score:3, Informative)

        by DLWormwood ( 154934 )
        Simultaneous Mac and PC version launches are nothing new from Blizzard. They know Mac users have tons of spendable cash and like polished software

        While Blizzard has always supported the Mac, they were only first able to make a successful dual launch with Diablo II: LoD. They missed D2 itself by a few weeks.

        Blizzard's old modus operandi was to make an initial run of Windows-only discs, then make the second and later pressings Mac/PC hybrid discs. However, at some point, they realized that it would reduce

  • Well I am gonna wait (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DebianDog ( 472284 ) <<moc.elgalsnad> <ta> <nad>> on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:57PM (#10902078) Homepage
    I am gonna go ahead and wait for "patch 1"
    THEN
    say good-bye to the wife and kids for a few months.

  • eve-online 'exodus' launches today as well.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:58PM (#10902102) Homepage
    eve-online [eve-online.com] is also doing their huge expansion titled "exodus" today as well..

    One of the most anticipated expansions in MM games for a while... large download (519M) but not as large as WoW which is 2.1GB

  • Why, oh why.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by MP*Birdman ( 315788 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:58PM (#10902105) Homepage
    didn't I call in sick today?

    It's sitting at home installed, and I'm sitting here at work :(

  • Waited a Long Time for this, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Onimaru ( 773331 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @03:58PM (#10902106)

    I was all looking forward to this game coming out, but City of Heroes snagged me instead. Not that I'm not interested, but I have friends, a supergroup, etc...

    Which brings me to thinking: how long until we get some kind of trade-in service for MMORPG characters? What if I could trade into the WoW universe some portion of the time / XP I put into my CoH character? What if I got a bonus to what I got for each friend I brought along? Seems like a good business to me. You give away something worth nothing for extreme goodwill and extra subscribers.

    And hey, you could even sell the characters on eBay if you wanted! Hehe.

  • Pseudo-BitTorrent (Score:5, Informative)

    by Icarus1919 ( 802533 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:01PM (#10902153)
    Unfortunately I discovered that the WoW downloading client acts as a pseudo bittorrent client, which caused my school to shut down my internet connection for seven days. For anyone else out there who is going to a school with draconian downloading rules (such as University of Florida and their ICARUS client [previously featured on slashdot]), be warned.
    • Was this during beta or post launch. They bittorrent client was only for downloading the game client itself. The WoW patcher is not bittorrent, as far as I know. You should have no problems playing the game post launch.

  • Line at Frys in Fountain Valley, CA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Timber_Z ( 777048 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:02PM (#10902159)
    I Showed up about 11:00pm last night, figured that the line might be half way around the building, Turns out the line went around the building twice, took up most of the parking lot, and then for good measure it went down the street a couple hundred yards. Talking to the Fry's Employee, he said that they had 2 or 3 truck loads of games on the way, but doubted thier would be enough for everyone. The poor guy seemed rather alarmed and stressed seeing several thousand gamers surrounding the store. According to him, the line started forming around 1pm. Although everyone seemed to be in a good mood, I didn't stick around.

  • Oddly lag free (Score:3, Informative)

    by Alcimedes ( 398213 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:03PM (#10902181)
    I was playing a bit this morning on my lunch break. (wanted to snag my SN before someone else did) and I have to say I'm impressed. So far very little lag at all, including the n00b areas. That and they went with a distributed download for the initial patch, and it seems as if they might have done alright estimating bandwidth/demand on the first day.

  • CrazyJim here (Score:4, Informative)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:04PM (#10902204) Journal
    I love Blizzard, but WOW is nothing new.

    Its swamped with quests where you seek out an object/NPC, or kill a sequence of monsters which lowers the tedium some.

    The combat system involves clicking on some action keys, but isn't too complex.

    Graphics are nice.

    This game is one big level grind with Warcraft Lore in it. It may seem fun to some, but I was bored the whole time I betaed it. Maybe they'll introduce fun stuff down the road, but this game isn't what the market is thirsting for.

    • Re:CrazyJim here (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sinner0423 ( 687266 ) <sinner0423@gm a i l.com> on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:17PM (#10902361)
      Well, they're trying to fix that by incorporating PvP raid elements in to the quests. If you read this [gamespy.com] interview with the WoW quest designer, he explains how they tweaked the system due to user feedback. They cut down the amount of collection quests, and are trying for the "long haul" approach to questing.

      I was in the beta test, and I took my undead mage to level 25.. Awesome game, but I believe the $15/month is too excessive. I understand what you're saying tho, but I think with the Blizzard fan base, and the stylistic approach they use, it's gonna make money no matter what.

      Oh, and they fixed the lag, too..

    • Re:CrazyJim here (Score:3, Insightful)

      by twbecker ( 315312 )
      You must not have played many MMOs if you think WoW is one big level grind. At least there are quests, and not just you killing 585,972 mobs to get to a high enough level that you can start in with the "real" content.

  • I was a Beta Tester (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zx75 ( 304335 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:07PM (#10902242) Homepage
    I was a BETA tester for WoW since early January, pretty much one of the very first groups in after it went to Beta level. Despite the pricing issues I have with any MMORPG, WoW was a lot of fun and it is the first MMORPG that I have considered purchasing.

    I haven't made my mind up yet (again, the pricing) but if you're in to that kind of thing, Blizzard has done an excellent job with WoW its nicely polished and as always its graphics are beautiful. Its a lot of fun and very addictive!

  • Wow, you guys must have macros set or something! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Onimaru ( 773331 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:08PM (#10902260)

    The speed of the vitriol about the cost of online games was truly amazing! We got some speed typists here.

    It's a religious debate as to whether or not it's worth it, so I won't weigh in. I'm just amazed that there were people hovering over their keyboards with "OMG I can't believe that anyone would pay $15 a month for something like this more like $0.15 twice a year is what I would pay!" in the paste buffer.

  • Best... MMORPG... Ever! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by couch_potato ( 623264 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:08PM (#10902268)
    I participated in the open beta, and I must say, I was quite impressed. I've played EverQuest, but got sick of the grind after making level 30. I was unfortunate enough to play Anarchy Online on launch, what a nightmare that was. But once it got patched to the point of being playable, it was quite fun. However, it never really offered the community aspects that make an MMORPG worthwhile, so I gave that genre a rest.

    Then, I decided to see what all the fuss was about with WoW. I downloaded the open beta client (took me only 4 days) and started playing. I was hooked right from the start. Just getting into the game was a snap, it took less than 45 seconds on my Athlon 1.4GHz, compared to several minutes for EQ and AO. Even creating my character was fun and easy to do, and once I got into the game the environments were beautiful, everything ran smooth (on my dated equipment), and the quests were easy to find and fun to complete. Not to mention the fact that grouping and making friends is a breeze. Unfortunately, the open beta ended 5 days after I finished the download, so I only made it to level 8 with my warrior (and that was with playing one hour a day).

    I don't think I'll be buying the game, but the only reason for that is my addictive personality. While I never became much of an EQ addict (though I've seen some of my friends become zombie-like creatures who have sacrificed school, jobs, and even marraiges to get that piece of uber-loot), I can definately see myself getting sucked into this game, and that wouldn't be good for me, my studies, my relationship with my fiance, or our baby daughter. Otherwise, I'd probably be up to level 15 by now!

    Get a free Nintendo DS! No BS! http://www.ds4free.com/default.aspx?r=64402 [ds4free.com]

    • Fair Enough... Guess it's my turn (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @05:25PM (#10903235) Journal
      I hopped into the open beta a few days before they stopped taking applications and played my little heart out for near a week. I had a few days I couldn't play at all, but I had one day I played for 12 hours straight so it kind of balances out. Here's what really struck me about the game. I'm not going to mention what everyone else has already said (i.e. you can quest for xp), but I'll stick to what leapt out at me.

      Technical
      The game was fairly smooth but somewhat choppy so I had the detail turned down for most of the test. Come to find out that I can turn the detail settings all the way up in every aspect except for draw distance and get remarkable framerates. My system is no slouch (P4/2.8HT, 512MB, GeForce Go FX5200), but it's still good to know.

      I ran WoW in a window the entire time I played it. It was remarkably smooth, and tabbing in and out of the game never had a problem. Blizzard also thoughtfully coded the game so that when it is not focused, clicking in the window gives the window focus, but the click DOES NOT go to the UI. Thus, you won't try to click a Start Menu entry that disappears out from under you, resulting in you attacking a herd of 840 ravenous orcs just begging for a reason to stomp you like yesterday's grapes.

      One feature that cannot be emphasized enough is the customizability of the UI using XML. The regular interface is surprisingly bland and you'll run out of clickbar space in your first ten levels (probably your first four if you're a mage). Instead, you can grab an alternate UI (I suggest Cosmos [cosmosui.org]) which is simple to install (unzip the Interface directory to the Addons directory), then restart the game. This adds hordes (hehe) of customization options to the interface, as well as useful features you will wonder how people do without.

      Gameplay
      You can jump. I know this doesn't really seem like much, but it's so fun. It feels like I'm playing Jak 2 or something, jumping through the treetops of Teldrassil like a Bawlz addict on E, marvelling at the amazing colours and visual textures. I myself took great pride in being able to leap from the top of the great tree Aldrassil to the ground, bounding from branch to rooftop on the way down, to land safe and healthy among the 'jumpers' (corpses of those that fell to their deaths). This serves no practical purpose, but it's a lot more fun than walking everywhere.

      Getting around is easy, and you actually get experience for finding new-to-you places. It's not much, but it's free. You can travel by walking, you can fly by griffon, hippogryph, wyvern, or something else, you can have a mage teleport you if you ask really nicely, you can take an underground rail, a ship, or even a zeppelin. It's fun to explore, sneak around, find new monsters, and kill them.

      You can have up to ten characters per server, and I think you can be on 5 different servers (don't quote me on this). Suffice to say, you'll have more characters than you'll need, unless you're some kind of sick weirdo (or you are actually unwell and spend a lot of time in bed).

      The game is very social, but differently so than Final Fantasy XI, which is also very social. While FFXI is social by forcing grouping, WoW is social despite not forcing grouping. I only grouped once, and that because some guy thought I was a chick and I wanted to use him as bait to finish a quest. That being said, every area has various chat channels (i.e. Teldrassil General, Darnassus General, Darnassus Defence, etc) so you can talk to those around you who don't mind random chat, but if you don't like it, you can leave the channel (I guess). Thus, even though I am wandering around on my own, I can still chat with people around me, ask questions, answer them, ask if anyone wants to group for a quest, etc. I can pop in for 30 minutes, chat and kill, and leave. Easy.

      PvP
      I have no idea. I guess you can kill other people. They say it's fun.

      Classes
      The classes are varied, and t
    • ...my relationship with my fiance, or our baby daughter...

      Sounds like you got your priorities straight a bit late... 8-)

      Good for you though. My group of friends online have been very good about my decline in gaming since my kids came along. They always make room for me on the few nights a week/month I'm able to play.

      As my kids get older, I find I'm less interested in games. This coming from someone who has spent the last 20 yrs playing everything he could find. You will probably find that your ki

  • great, but it's a MMORPG still (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow, it looks really pretty. I bet the gameplay is pretty fun too. But you know what the basic problem is: the people. It doesn't matter what kind of look and feel they put into it when the world's largely populated by screaming frustrated adolescent asshats who use "Jew" as an insult, "U" as a pronoun, and punctuate every sentence with "LOL"

    Even if one just avoids people like that and approaches it from a pure gameplay point (that is, game mechanics over character, an attitude that can better bear the
  • Ach, alright! Tilt one back wi' me, laddie!

  • Game/Time Cards... (Score:3, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:22PM (#10902417) Homepage Journal
    Don't forget you can get these if you don't want to pay online especially for young people who don't have credit cards or parents won't let them. Ask your friends, family members, etc. for them as Christmas and birthday gifts.

    EB [ebgames.com] = $29.99
    Walmart [walmart.com] = $29.82

    Are there any more U.S. stores that sell these that I didn't list?

  • Expensive? Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kenp2002 ( 545495 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:25PM (#10902457) Homepage Journal
    Ok for those who complain lets try something few understand, PERSPECTIVE.

    1 Movie: $9
    1 Popcorn and Soda: $9
    Movie Runs 2 hours.
    That's $9 an hour for entertainment.

    Assume for the moment you play an online game 1 hour a day on average.

    $15 dollars a month or $15 dollars for $30 hours.
    That's about 50 cents an hour. .50 9.00 last I checked.

    Now lets add in your DSL\CAble Bill to help this out.

    $60 dollars a month or about $2.00 an hour to play. Still cheaper then a movie.

    To further the study you could factor your inital $50 purchase of the game over, say 2 years to better tune this.

    Even at $100 dollars a month that is about $3.40 per hour and is still cheaper then going to the movies. And thats assuming you can get in and out of the theater for only $18 bucks.

    But, to be fair and balanced, a good quality basketball, football, or baseball setup can run you a 1 time $80 bucks and factoring that over a 2 year period throwing the old pig skin, playing softball, or doing a little boot hockey can be a hella cheaper then a video game.

    • Re:Expensive? Bah! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @05:27PM (#10903266) Journal

      But, to be fair and balanced, a good quality basketball, football, or baseball setup can run you a 1 time $80 bucks and factoring that over a 2 year period throwing the old pig skin, playing softball, or doing a little boot hockey can be a hella cheaper then a video game.

      Are you suggesting that we have to go.... outside?

      Ick.

  • What they need is a game like this with VERY fast leveling but only one life. You could play one day, build up, PVP, etc...then start again next time after you die. Whacking bunnies or bats for weeks at a time takes too much of a chunk out of my life. I keep hearing how people get sucked into games like this so deep that they neglect family, friends, a life, and just stay locked in a room for days playing. At least having a fast-level server as an option would bring people like me into the game and prob
    • There's a single player version of the game you just described. It's called Nethack.

      And no, Nethack addiction is not easy to deal with. There's a reason I don't install it on my machine unless I see a period of months with nothing to do.

  • Putting aside my complaints against Blizzard for the bnetd debacle, I did take part in the Open Beta for this game. I must say that Blizzard really does have a very good game here, one that was able to keep my interest and not be boring after a couple of weeks (unlike EQ and DAOC).

    The game's presentation is top notch, as to be expected from Blizzard.

    If or not I'll purchase the retail copy. Well, I still have reservations about giving them my cash for their pursuit of the bnetd case. That and no matter

  • I was a beta tester... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @04:48PM (#10902760)
    ... and I'm not going to be buying this game yet, perhaps not ever.

    I tested the game for around 8 months and logged more than 35 days and several hundred suggestions, alongside countless bugs.

    The bottom line is that the game was released prematurely, to the detriment of the product.

    In the week before release, Blizzard completely revamped two entire classes (warrior and paladin), and in the process made the previous months of testing these classes in high-level content completely meaningless. There is a new "queue" system, which controls access to actually getting onto a server and playing. Despite assurances that the queues would not be visible in retail, new players are finding that they have to wait for over an hour in a queue before entering the game.

    Battlegrounds, PVP rewards, and the honor system were supposed to be in place months ago. None are actually implemented yet.

    Raid content was added, but of such obscene difficulty that groups of 40 players with the best gear in the game got absolutely thrashed. Limited success was generally achieved only by spamming abilities that will probably be adjusted in subsequent patches (druids and moonfire stun).

    Hero classes, once heralded as a different sort of end-game, distinct from the raid encounters, have not been mentioned officially in months and may never appear.

    Why was the game released before it was ready, by a company that has earned a reputation of never doing that? I have it on fairly good authority that Vivendi offered Blizzard employees profit-sharing if the release happened before the end of the year.

    Blizzard's post-release support has traditionally been extremely spotty, though they are no different in that regard from the rest of the industry. Before now, however, their saving grace has been that the game was actually reasonably close to finished before it hit store shelves.

  • European situation sucks ass (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @05:03PM (#10902961) Homepage
    For us in the UK...

    We cant buy a US subscription, so we have to wait until January for the game to be translated in French and German.

    THEN we cant play on the US servers, without getting a US address and credit card and buying a second subscription.

    AND the preorder starts on Friday but the only retailer knows nothing about it and the stock of pre-order boxes are not yet in store.

    What the hell is the point in paying $15/mth for a worldwide MMPORG when it's not worldwide! I want to play with friends both in the EU and in the US, so WoW is right out the Window for me. All they have to do is make it possible for those in the EU to play with those in the US and bang... they get my money... but no, the bl00dy publisher (Vevendi I believe) are so stuck on making a bigger profit that it's not possible to do that.

    They can go to hell as far as I am concerned.

  • Grinding ? Questing ? Who cares ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LouSir ( 681838 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @05:26PM (#10903255)
    Those that play and complain about grinding out levels or crappy questing really need to analyze why they are playing these games in the first place. I play to have fun. Sometimes I find it fun to mindlessly sit there and swat at rats for hours on end. Most of the time I don't. When I don't I stop playing or find another game to play. WoW is more fun for me because the journey (leveling) is more important then the destination (uber toon). I enjoy trying to get there in WoW. The quests are fun and the terrain/graphics are enough to keep me coming back. I guess that's why I also ride a motorcycle. Because sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination. Who wants to get there fast, I'm enjoying the ride. LouSir

  • The server queue have really long lines right now. (Score:3, Informative)

    by sir newton ( 755451 ) on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @11:36PM (#10906426)
    The server wait is unreal. I logged in at 9pm and there is an 820 ppl long line waiting to get in to the game. It is now 9:30 pm and I still have a 430 position in the queue. I think they are having a pretty rough launch. The ppl on the official forms are pissed. I hope I can get on soon.

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