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Role Playing (Games)

World of Warcraft - Then and Now 83

Posted by Zonk from the they-don't-stay-the-same dept.
MMORPG.com has an excellent feature up discussing the trajectory of World of Warcraft as it's progressed since its launch day. They touch on the recent honor system features, the added dungeons, and call Blizzard out on their inability to keep to a consistent update schedule. From the article: "So you may ask, 'How well has Blizzard delivered on their monthly content updates?' The simple answer is: they haven't. In fact, a couple months post launch some players challenged Blizzard as to their promise on scheduled updates. Official Blizzard posters denied making such claims but were quickly pointed to their own website where, in plain text, monthly content updates were promised. After some backtracking Blizzard announced that they would not be able to keep to a definitive content update schedule."
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World of Warcraft - Then and Now

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  • Article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 29, 2005 @09:50AM (#12383461)
    World of WarCraft exploded into the gaming world among copious amounts of expectations and accolades. Whether by article or word-of-mouth it's hard to ignore the blockbuster hit that carries Blizzard's signature style of game play. Now, five months into live retail play, we took a look at some of the aspects and how they've progressed since this MMO giant hit the shelves back in November of last year.

    Updates! Updates?
    Many gamers have been floored by the myriad elements that make up WoW, whether it's the stunning graphics, visceral sounds or fast-paced combat. Another thing that excited many gamers at launch was the promise of monthly content updates. Those who have played other MMOs know well the anticipation that can slowly turn into annoyance as long awaited updates and patches drag on for months at a time. The ambiguity of "It's coming soon," seems to have worn a permanent numbness into the gamer psyche.

    So you may ask, "How well has Blizzard delivered on their monthly content updates?" The simple answer is: they haven't. In fact, a couple months post launch some players challenged Blizzard as to their promise on scheduled updates. Official Blizzard posters denied making such claims but were quickly pointed to their own website where, in plain text, monthly content updates were promised. After some backtracking Blizzard announced that they would not be able to keep to a definitive content update schedule.

    What the WoW community has seen in updates since launch has been intermittent at best. Snippets of patches are shown as teasers with only the promise of delivery as soon as they are thoroughly tested. Having seen only two major updates in the five months since launch, many in the community have found their hopes for timely updates fading.

    Nevertheless, Blizzard has recently gone on the record as stating that their timetable of patch rollouts up to this point has been unacceptable. Though they have committed to a more expeditious schedule for patch release Blizzard has stated that it will likely not reach the aforementioned monthly update pledge it made early on.

    Even with a somewhat lackluster turnout speed for WoW's patches Blizzard has delivered rather well on the content. Each patch has seen many positive changes to the game world, including numerous bug fixes, additional quests and dungeon instances, new trade skill recipes and much more. Perhaps the most hotly debated part of any game patch is those changes that affect character classes...

    A Game With Character...
    One of the most compelling aspects of WoW when held up to other MMOs is it's truly enjoyable selection of character classes. From the staple warriors, rogues and priests intrinsic to fantasy to the more unique shamans and hunters WoW offers a plethora of flexibility and enjoyment to its players. Many players identify with certain character classes, playing certain archetypes over the years, from one game to the next. WoW delivers both the classic feel of fantasy with a very personalized twist. Priests that can lay waste with the power of shadow walk beside warriors who are nearly as deadly as any rogue in combat. Mages master the powers of fire, cold and arcane energies...but which one a mage specializes in is a point of personal preference, and every path offers its advantages and disadvantages.

    There are as many different viewpoints on the strengths and weaknesses of a character class as there are players playing the game. The viewpoint that holds the greatest sway, however, is that of the developers at Blizzard. While players eagerly anticipate patches for improvements and variety to be added to their preferred classes there is also the sense of dread that many hold at the thought of nerfs to their class.

    Overall since the launch of the game most of the class balancing has empowered the character classes. Many classes have seen new abilities and spells, most of which add true use to the class as opposed to fluff offered to assuage the player community. Some examples include new

  • Don't worry about the content... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ransak ( 548582 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @09:52AM (#12383493) Homepage Journal
    Content isn't even the biggest concern at the moment. Server/Network stability is. Since the last patch implemented PvP lag times are up across every server. Mysterious server and client crashes still happen consistantly, large scale battles are unplayable in PvP, and the raid lockout bug still isn't fixed.

    They need to get a stable, playable environment up before they put in more content.

    • ,i>They need to get a stable, playable environment up before they put in more content. I disagree. Not everyone is affected by those bugs. Many people do not give a toss about PvP and are demanding more areas to explore. The rais timers, as I understand, really only affect some of the very high end instances. This bug affects only a fraction of the total player base. More content must be delivered, preferably in a steady schedule.
    • They need to get a stable, playable environment up before they put in more content.

      Yes, because as we all know, game programmers and developers are also network support engineers, desktop support, server support AND to top it off they also answer the phone at the helpdesk.

      So, from what you state, the developers shouldn't do any work until servers and datacenters are tweaked by a completely different team.
    • Personally I know about 4 people now who claimed to have lost levels.

      Somehow they made progress in the game, then disconnection. By the time they rejoined, they lost a level or two.

    • And fix the broken quests. (Enough said there.)
    • I am not sure what type of system you are running but I have only been dropped from the game 3 times in the last 30 days. After I have loaded into a city I have no other lag problems. On the last patch day the servers were packed with people...more than usual which increased the lag but it was still playable. I disagree about the need content every month. They need good solid content and it needs to work if that is every 2 months fine just don't give messed up quests that dont work.

      The people that th

      • I am not sure what type of system you are running but I have only been dropped from the game 3 times in the last 30 days.

        GeForce 5200 256M
        CPU AMD|2500/333 ATHLON XP BARTON R
        DDRAM 1GB|64X64 PC-2100
        MB ASUS A7V8X-X/LAN KT400 RTL
        HD 80GB|WD 7200RPM 8MB

        And I get dropped at least once a session. Usually more, if I'm PvPing or moving around alot. It's gotten to the point now that a boat trip is a 50/50 chance of getting dumped en route. Very annoying.
        • Hmmm not sure what you could do...I run:

          Radeon 9800pro
          CPU AMD 2800+ ATHLON XP
          DDRAM 2GB PC3200
          cant remember my mb while at work
          HD 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB

          and I only get dropped when my power goes out or the server goes down. I play on Hellscream maybe your world is more crowded.
    • make enough compelling NON-pvp content,
      and the load on the PVP will go down.

    • It's funny how I keep hearing from some people "I don't have server problems" blah blah. I can tell you that there is nothing at all wrong with my system setup, and the astonishing instability of the servers (if the login servers weren't down, the game server was) is what caused me to cancel my account. It's a shame too, cause I was having a lot of fun with it. I play City of Heroes and Guild Wars with no issues, and I used to play Star Wars Galaxies with no network issues all on the same connection. Some

  • Typical Marketing Department Booshwah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @09:53AM (#12383497)
    Some guy in marketing thought it would be nice to promise monthly updates without realizing that the developers didn't have the resources to deliver anything like this.

    Happens in every company, and the marketing guys should be held accountable for making such stupid promises.

    • Combine marketing's runaway imagination with the fact that devs always:

      - underestimate the time required to complete each component of a project
      - don't factor unexpected problems into the timeline
      - never allocate enough time for QA

      Now we've got a problem...

    • Re:Typical Marketing Department Booshwah (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @11:05AM (#12384345) Homepage
      You know, as someone who's worked in marketing, I just want to say that most major businesses out there have at least one developer-type person who interacts with the marketing department to tell them "yes, we WILL be able to deliver on this promise".

      Marketers are NOT as stupid as /.ers think. We know damn well that to make promises you can't keep with a product is a BAD THING. It gives negative buzz, and in highly competitive industries where customer retention absolutely relies on such a major thing, you can be damn sure they don't want to screw that up.

      I'd say the blame lies on whichever tech person told them the monthly updates would be feasible.

      • I just want to say that most major businesses out there have at least one developer-type person who interacts with the marketing department to tell them "yes, we WILL be able to deliver on this promise".

        Yes, and that developer-type person is usually a project manager looking for a promotion into marketing, rather than a real developer.

      • Re:Typical Marketing Department Booshwah (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And I've been on the developer end of this situation. I don't know whether it's stupidity, ego, or what, but this situation didn't become a stereotype without a reason.

        I've seen more than one instance where the marketing person says, "That? Oh yeah, of course we can do that! Would you like it to toast bread and bring it to you on a silver platter, too?"

        Ask the developers? What for? They have the magic to do anything! That's what we pay them for, isn't it? Sleep? Vacation? Overtime? A developer doesn't nee
      • "Marketing not always at fault for R&D being overconfident": This would probably be moderated higher on an Internet discussion forum not named after a command line artifact.
    • Overall, the game is in pretty good shape. That's not to say it doesn't have its shortcomings (by a longshot).

      1) The new honor system has encouraged camping of foreign cities, killing of quest givers. This has the effect of causing the newbies headaches while trying to get those first 20 or so levels.

      2) Most of the servers are heavily biased in favor of the Alliance. Its a constant headache on my server (Cenarius) but most of the non-pvp servers suffer from it as well.

      3) Most of the classes don't have
    • Booshwah? Do you mean bourgeois?

  • Server Outages (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mrbaggs ( 864520 )
    Speaking as a former WoW player, the server outages were a far bigger issue than content updates. Constant lag and queues made me quit playing WoW. I think that the servers are the issue that they are currently focusing on more than content updates.

    • Re:Server Outages (Score:3, Insightful)

      by cassidyc ( 167044 )
      Speaking as a current WoW player, I have experienced none of the problems that you speak of. And as yet haven`t explored the whole world of azeroth and therefor am in no state to complain about the lack of content.

      Sorry. But this proves why people who don`t have any problems do not say anything, it is otherwise incredibly boring reading such comments.

      • Re:Server Outages (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Slime-dogg ( 120473 )
        Speaking as a WoW "veteran"... I can say that it is extremely easy to change servers and roll a new character. I have never had to wait in a queue, and the only time where I experienced prolong downtime was on that one patch day, for which I was reimbursed. One day out of five months is not bad at all.
  • Lack of content updates is secondary. The real serious problem is the continued instability of the servers and network.

    The WoW service frequently has unplanned outages, slow performance, server crashes, rollbacks (where you lose X minutes/hours of play development), and occasionally actual bugs.

    Anyone who denies this or defends Blizzard's track record here simply doesn't play often, or plays on one of the rare low-population servers.

    And despite seeming like an obviously useful option, Blizzard has been
    • Let me preface this by saying that I play a couple of hours a day (more on weekends) on the Earthen Ring server, which is hardly low pop.

      The WoW service frequently has unplanned outages, slow performance, server crashes, rollbacks (where you lose X minutes/hours of play development), and occasionally actual bugs.

      I have never had the service go out on me or the server crash. Ever. They've had extended downtimes with their routine maintenance at times, yes, but other than that nothing unplanned. There a

    • Re:The More Serious Problem (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Anyone who denies this or defends Blizzard's track record here simply doesn't play often, or plays on one of the rare low-population servers.

      You have no idea what you're talking about. I play everyday 4+ hours a day, more on weekends, on Sargeras a High Pop server, and I have NONE of the problems you speak of.

      I mean we all had problems at launch and through February... but for the most part in March and April I have had ZERO downtime other than the scheduled ones... of course there are exceptions here

    • Anyone who isn't experiencing these issues simply isn't playing often, isn't playing on a moderate/high pop server, or isn't willing to concede that a previously high quality game company has slipped.

      I think you need to get your head out of your ass, and stop trying to speak for a community bigger than you can probably count up to.

      I have logged around...hmmm...120-130 hours in the first 20 days ive ownd the game on Argent Dawn, possibly the most heavily populated RP server on the US realms, and apa

    • The WoW service frequently has unplanned outages, slow performance, server crashes, rollbacks (where you lose X minutes/hours of play development), and occasionally actual bugs.

      I haven't seen much of this lately. There was a 2-week period where our server was unplayable for several hours every night, but it's been cleared up. The biggest issue right now is that if you land at Tarren Mill, you are going to die 15-20 times. The entire area is under constant attack, with rogues camping the graveyards and

  • A few things (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Godai ( 104143 ) * on Friday April 29, 2005 @11:20AM (#12384520)
    First, the article is wrong about Battlgrounds. Blizzard has recently stated that they WILL be in the next patch, not the patch after next. My guess is that means ~3 weeks; figure a week or two before we see the test servers back up sporting Battlgrounds, and a week or so after that for the patch to go live.

    Second, while stability is still an issue where large scale PVP is ocurring, overall stability has been pretty good in my experience. I'm on Arthas -- one of the most populated servers -- and it's been at least a month I think since I wasn't able to log on immediately. I had a server reboot in the middle of an instance run about a week ago, but that's been it in the last few weeks.

    Frankly, I think the ungodly lag in places like Tarren Mills will slowly decrease as people piece together how little honour they get from large scale, one-sided town-raiding. It's far more efficient to form small posses and find a decently populated area to 'farm'. It's tricky though, since killing anyone a second time is worth next to nothing. Once people realize that too I think we'll see people sweeping the globe rather than haunting a particular quest area (unless it's a throughfare that promises a steady stream of new victims).

    I haven't seen a serve queue in even longer, though I hear queues were cropping up on the new servers they just opened yesterday. Apparently that's typical on new servers for a day or so though.

    Anyways, YMMV, but that's how I've had it lately.

  • Thoughts about Instancing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vjmurphy ( 190266 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @12:04PM (#12385143) Homepage
    First, let me say right off, I haven't played WoW nor do I plan to (too many games competing for my time as it is). But I have been playing City of Heroes and Guild Wars.

    City of Heroes has instanced missions, but there are other zones that are free-for-alls. Works relatively well, I guess.

    Guild Wars has instances for everything other than city zones and PVP areas (I guess, I've only been playing a little while).

    I guess I don't get why people would want to play a MMORPG, but also want instances to make it into more of a Not-So-Massively-Multiplayer ORPG. I always thought that Everquest was kinda cool in that everyone was competing/cooperating with one another (and yes, I know the inherent problems that come with that: camping rare spawns, etc).

    Guild Wars seems to go even further, basically making a game that has a bunch of different lobby areas (Cities) that allow you to join up for adventures (with up to 8 people). Is Guild Wars really a MMORPG, then (discounting the fact that no MMORPG is actually a RPG, really)? Now, I haven't done any PVP, so maybe that's where the MM part comes in, but it seems a little odd to me.

    Not that I'm not enjoying the game: it's nice, simple, and cheap.
    • Instances are a good thing.

      They are only used in the highest or most unique dungeons in-game.

      The reason instances are great and why the newer MMO's are adding them is because it makes the game fun.

      One thing that was annoying when playing an MMO before they came about with instances was taking a nice group and heading to a dungoen for some quests or just to farm and finding everyone else already there.

      Instead of running through the dungeon and exploring and enjoying the story/quest and hav

    • I played City of Heroes through to the level cap and have been playing World of Warcraft for about 3 weeks. I also played a couple of the Guild Wars beta events.
      In City of Heroes all of the missions are instanced which works fairly well but at the cost of those mission areas not really feeling like "real" places. You can't revisit them, they are just a doorway that opens while you have the mission. Once the mission is over the instance is gone.
      While World of Warcraft has instanced dungeons, most of the ques
  • ...give people lots of free content when they can sell them expansions. I'm not trying to troll or anything, I just thought thats how the market is these days...

  • compared to other mmo's... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by j-joshers ( 880017 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @12:41PM (#12385566)
    World of Warcraft is doing alright. Ive played SWG, EverQuest, and Ultima Online in the past, and honestly the biggest response people would get from those games is a big TS. Blizzard has been pretty damn generous with giving people extra days when the servers are having problems, and server stability *has* improved. And the amount of content so far delivered is nothing to sneeze at, its a lot more than Ive seen in the other MMOs Ive played in a six month time (SWG has basically been in beta since the game launched ~2 years ago, so I dont really count it, WOW was in much better shape). I really think Battlegrounds are gonna change the dynamic of the game, and almost give it a Planetside-style capture/control gameplay element. I really cant wait for it to happen.
    • Yeah it always amazes me when people bitch about Blizzard support. This is the company that almost totally retooled Diablo LOD with a patch 2 years after the games initial release. Starcraft patches have gone on even longer. I've said it before, but I challenge anyone to find me a major game company that supports their titles better than Blizzard.

      And you hit the nail on the head: the game just had it's 6 month birthday. Let's give them a little time people, Blizzard has never disappointed up so far, they

      • Re:compared to other mmo's... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NOspaM.gmail.com> on Friday April 29, 2005 @04:28PM (#12388006) Homepage
        Here's the fundamental difference between Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft: Each person who has been playing WoW since day one has paid over a hundred bucks for the privilege through the six-month mark. Each person who played Diablo 2 from the beginning paid $80 (D2+LoD) to the 1.10 two-year mark. Anyone playing WoW from launch to its two-year anniversary will have paid - barring expansions and/or monthly rate increases - almost $400.

        I don't play WoW (I'm playing City of Heroes and am not one to go in for multiple MMOGs), but your comparison in terms of support is invalid.

    • I really think Battlegrounds are gonna change the dynamic of the game, and almost give it a Planetside-style capture/control gameplay element. I really cant wait for it to happen.

      Do you think with the 3 to 1 Allience vs Horde numbers, the battlegrounds will be balanced? Certainly the neutral territories right now are not.

      • Ahh... I dunno, really. Considering Battlegrounds are Instanced, Bliz might be able to tweak the numbers that way. I really dont know how theyre gonna do, but Im holding onto hope, dammit.
      • They will just cap the Battlegrounds like they do the instances. No more than 30 per side, no fights if the difference in numbers is greater than 5.

        Wouldnt be hard for them to keep some semblence of fairness in battlegrounds.

  • Slower content updates does not Hurt casual player (Score:3, Informative)

    by aka_big_wurm ( 757512 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @12:56PM (#12385725) Homepage
    I dont play 24/7 so the highest player I have is a lvl 30. So the lack of monthly content is not hurting me. I am sure there are many more like me.

    Now for the servers, they do seem to be down alot, keep them up and lag down and I will be happy. I am 90% happy now.

    And manybe work on the honor thing somemore, Its not honorable to gank low lvl players doing there quests.

  • Wow Churn... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Friday April 29, 2005 @01:01PM (#12385762) Journal
    I've been a WoW player since it came out, even an officer in the 4th largest guild on the Bloodhoof server. I play a Rogue with a warlock alt and a new druid.

    Being a horde player you have a smaller population, so less people to instance with. And the change of getting ninja looters, who will steal on bosses, hench the change to master loot on all bosses.

    PvP is lagtastic, and offsides. Alliance normally has a 2:1 ratio, but with guards, help kinda helps. And when a true zerg 5:1 sometimes, they just storm tarren mill and take the city and camp the graveyard. So, at times, it really is crap.

    Highend instances are not Rogue oriented, so after spending 5 months getting my guy to 60, I find out that I should of rolled a Priest or Warrior is rather depressing. But time will tell, but blizzard doesnt answer questions much, other than making people change names. They actually made a guy named "Hellcow" change his name, and disbanded a group called Euthanasia. Rather nazi like behavior of the GM's lately.

    There is no player growth other than reach level 60, farm your armor/weapon, reach 300 on your 2 selected professions. The include cooking, firstaid and fishing for everyone. Boring......

    No trophies, everyone looks the same, they are trying with new weapon graphics, which is helping some. But it would of been nice if at least some of the taruens the size of houses where not all the same size.

    So, it has major issues, balance between horde vs alliance is a big problem. Also not being able for you to see friends on other servers is a big problem. Since it seems everyone I know is on a different server. Really its 2005, the technology exists to have people across servers play together. And before someone says they cant, I work at a telco, ive use and seen technology that can do this. Its possible, some MMO's already do this.

    What I like, good graphics, good movement and fighting combat. Even if the lag sucks, its good. Not total FPS style, you dont aim as much.

    But, I'm gonna try guild wars, and got a free EQ2 account in the mail from fileplanet.

    BTW, other than patches breaking cosmo's a UI addon, they have added most of its functions, other than a CLOCK (With localtime), and a RAID addon, you almost dont need them anymore.

    They are trying I give them that, I just wish they would of explored more than the really boxed in RPG feeling you get. Great graphics wont keep people around when every new game has great graphics.

    Who know, time will tell how many people churn. (I like using a telco term for MMO's, YEA)

  • Personally this makes complete sense.

    Problem: Lack of new content
    Solution: Slow players down with server instability

    Seriously though, why would you think that Blizzard's solid history of long time periods between releases would magically shorten...some PR person said we're going to instantly change our habits because it's an MMO?

    I've always liked Blizzard, but the fact is they take their time releasing content/patches/expansion packs because that's the timeframe required to fine tune it.

    As muc

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • wow isn't really that great. dunno the deal with it. they lie cheat and steal just like any other mmorpg company. they hire incompetant people, and they make outrageous design choices. (giving lvl 60 players HONOR for killing lvl 45's who have zero chance of defendign themselves amongst many things).

    yup just another ignorant group of designers.

  • Look into medievia.com, way too many zones, something differant to do everyday, many aspects to the game, players can reclass and retain most of the previous classes' skills. There are clans, now clan-ships that will get very interesting. I saw WOW but it seems boring. med is text only, but its like the matrix, you don't see text after a few hours.

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