Next World of Warcraft Patch Review 95
Via Penny Arcade, a review of the next patch for World of Warcraft on Blizzplanet. The author takes a look at some of the new art being added to the game and examines details of the new honor system. From the article: "The horde slowly started to show up in the area to attempt to protect their territory. I joined a raid group to counterattack, and noticed that each kill where my Priest character helped with fear, word: pain, or healing counted toward my Honorable Kills, even if I didn't directly caused damage or killed. Healing and Fear count toward your kill points."
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't just any patch, it's been highly anticipated for months now. It's supposed to usher in the first massive-pvp 'battleground' within an MMORPG.
Do we live such pathetic lives that this is really News for Nerds, stuff that matters?
Yes.
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, wait, FFXI has a crappy in-game "PvP" game too. So it's not even the first in that.
From what I can tell, Battlegrounds is basically like a Counter-Strike game (two sides with various objectives compete, have hit points, and can damage each other), that happens to take place within an MMORPG.
The only reason it's news is because currently WoW has no en
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:3, Informative)
Battlegrounds is still in development/testing.
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:2)
Other MMORPGs have done massive (way more than WoW can handle at the moment, due to lag issues) PvP longer and much, much better, e.g. Shadowbane.
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:1)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:1)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:1)
This is just a long way of saying "World of Warcraft gets news articles because more people care about it, and it matters to more people than those other games."
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:2)
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:2)
I miss Eve, I just don't miss the griefers who like to park battleships by gates I need to use.
Re:Desperate for content? (Score:1)
Of course not. These things are commonplace, they're expected (well, perhaps not so expected with WoW since the game has changed so little since release compared to other MMOs). But still, the games section needs stories, no matter how trivial. And WoW is at the forefront of a lot of people's minds. So who cares, if you don't like it, let the few who do get their j
I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally, up until now, WoW's PvP system was seen as largely pointless. This provides tangible benefits (and not just OMG POINTS!) to succesful PvP ventures. It should be exciting. Anyone who plays now can test this patch out a bit by copying a character over to the (grossly over-populated) test server. The disadvantage, as I stated, is that there are way too many people on it, and can get very laggy if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. This isn't a major concern for me, though, because the server population is immense compared to an average server, and they've already made another sub-patch to improve performance, with noticable improvement. There's still a LOT of room for more improvement. For example, player corpses should disappear after a certain point, or you should have the ability to not display them. Without that ability, you can run across a field that is just littered with corpses of dead players, and while it's a visceral joy to look at, it's also a huge network performance hit.
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:2)
Unfortuantly they made this claim and the people who play non-stop or since beta have been trying to hold them to it. They were in such a hurry to get the last patch out, that it broke the game for a bunch of users. Check out this 17 page thread about it.. Error 132 [worldofwarcraft.com]
Here is another one [worldofwarcraft.com] if you are really interested.
Another bug that m
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:3, Interesting)
Issue 2) was attributed to 3rd party software. Tricky, but not something any overworked QA department is likely to have a lot of time to troubleshoot variants of.
Issue 3) is one I've noticed several times, but as a priest I hardly ever rez people's pets - the hunters have their own means to do
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:2)
Not too specific, since they claim it's only DDR ram on ASUS mother boards, but then people say they don't have DDR ram. So is it everyone with ASUS motherboards?
Others can't fix it no matter what they do. I ran into this issue, and was lucky enough to find what seems to be a shaky fix.
Lastly, if their QA department doesn't have enough time to test things, that's a failure of their p
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:2)
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:1)
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:2)
Translation: (Score:2)
Translation: You know all that shit that made you leave EverTreadmill and go to WoW for? We have.
Re:I stopped smoking because I've got the patch (Score:2)
Endgame==boring (Score:2)
Re:Endgame==boring (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Endgame==boring (Score:1)
The epic sets I've yet to see more than two of any item even on the server. I'm probably the only one wearing Giantstalker's Bracers on my server.
As far as hunters, yes, it's harder to find 5-man groups, but it's easier for the raid-end game. You're much more desired than rogues for DPS since you hardly die and can do damage to Onyxia throughout the entire fight.
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
I think you are wrong on the business model point. I think you will find that the average user, for a subscription based MMORPG is probably 1 to 3 months. After that, the average player loses interest and drops their subscription. Granted, there is a curve there, where addicted players play for the life of the game, but there are also p
Young and single (Score:2)
jaded view of the world (Score:2)
I think that is a pretty jaded view of the world and the people that occupy it. I would seriously question your viewpoint that 'almost all' of the MMORPG players are young and single. I think there was a study done by PEW or one of those major research groups that recently showed tha
Re:Young and single (Score:1)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
But more importantly...costs per user are ongoing. You'll never make money that way...the hardware and bandwidth are just too much.
Guild Wars isn't trying to make all their money off the initial box sale, however. Not at all. They're going to
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
Very true. An intelligent player will be able to come up with new combinations that work well, but in general with Magic I've seen people just rehas
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Seriously, I hear a lot of people talk about how unreasonable it is to pay for a monthly game, but it isn't like there aren't a heck of a lot more costs on the developers end to support an online game than one that they can just slap on a CD and forget about.
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:3, Interesting)
Paying $15 a month for a game that most people play for more than 15 hours a month is a rip off? What other entertainment do you pay $1 an hour for?
"MMORPGs (not just WoW) are over charging us, guess we should just bend over because we have no say in the matter..." Activism is not a bad thing.
Dude, there are bigger issues in the world than being charged $15 a month to play a game that is hosted on Blizz
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
Granted, but do you file WoW costing $15 a month along with "messed up stuff?". What do you think would be the correct price point for it?
The only reason I would pay per month for a MMO is becaue they host the servers and what m
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1, Flamebait)
What trend is that? Trivial shit you don't need costing less then 3 hours of work a month at minimum wage? Most people make enough to pay off their WoW subscription in the time it takes for them take a shit and go on a coffee break at work.
This isn't the world rolling over while you fight on. This is a million plus people deciding that $15
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
Finally, this isn't about gas prices. This is about a VIDEO GAME. A luxury. This is something that could disappear tomorrow and no one would care beyond a few annoyed addicts. It is something that no one cares if you don'
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:2)
oh the irony.
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Re:Overpriced Gaming (Score:1)
Re:Reality Check (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if you play non-stop and power level. Normal people (ie ones that put in 15-20 hours a week, and are on their first character) take about 3-4 months to get to 60.
Re:Reality Check (Score:2)
That was my point. If you don't play every day, and have other obligations, there is no way that it's "fast" to get to level 60. Even if you put in that much time it's going to take you a few months.
Re:Reality Check (Score:2)
I probably play somewhere in that range, have a family with two kids. Of course, I play with my son, so you can count that as father/son time.
Re:Reality Check (Score:2)
Plus you can have several alts. Now, try leveling the 9 different classes to level 60.
Re:Reality Check (Score:1)
Re:Reality Check (Score:2)
On the 'shortness' of WoW (Score:2, Insightful)
World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2)
I expect it will take about 48 hours from the start of the patch for every instance to be camped and the entrances to every contested zone.
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2)
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2)
Nah, I'm on a PvP server and I run around alone all the time. There isn't as much ganking as you think. Certain zones are more prone to it (ie Strangethorne vale) while others aren't because they are less populated (Swamp of Sorrows). I think after this patch, there will be a lot more ganking. I'm not complaining, I joined a PvP server for this sort of thing.
A
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:1)
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2)
It scales as you go up in levels, I think a level 50 isn't gray to a level 60, but a level 30 would be to a level 40.
Dishonor points are only going to apply to NPC kills at first If I read the patch notes correctly.
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:1)
I guess they justify this as a community-building feature. Makes sense, assuming you are constantly part of a group in non-aligned zones.
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2)
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Sure, ganking is going to go up, but I have a feeling most the increased ganking will come from people that are roughly the same level. It doesn't bother me much if I get to a dungeon and
Re:World of Warcraft: Gank Squad Patch. (Score:1)
I encounter horde constantly, we just leave each
Crap review (Score:3, Funny)
My plan to maximize the WoW experience (Score:1)
(Parenthetical comment to those who gripe that they were able to get to 60 in WoW in two weeks: Don't assume you represent most, or even many, of WoW's 1.5M subscribers. Most people in real life ar