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WoW is polished but unextraordinary
cas3369
Member Posts: 12
I like WoW and will certainly buy it when it comes out. I have a great deal of respect for Blizzard and have always gotten my moneys worth out of their games. I'm sure WoW will be fun for at least a few months, maybe more.
Blizzard never really comes up with any actual new ideas, but they take the ones that exist and do them right. They polish their games to a fine hue and never release them before they're ready. They are an excellent company, but sometimes I really wish they would go out on a limb and try something... I don't know... different.
From my experience with the stress test I can tell that WoW will be a dominant MMORPG because it does all the things a MMORPG is supposed to do and does them better than any other current MMORPG, but it is still just a MMORPG in the classic sense. You will still have to hunt spawn sites, move from level X spawns to level Y spawns and eventually to level Z spawns. You will still have to kill ungodly amounts of basically the same critter, only some will be named "Scurvy X" and others will be named "Fuzzy X" but they will still basically act the same. You will still hit your Auto-Attack key and then a combo of other keys in the course of a fight. Racing colored bars to empty with the mobs. You will still watch progress bars fill up when you craft and have to run back and forth between various machines to do so.
Don't get me wrong, I do these things just as mezmerized as anyone and still enjoy them... for awhile. I just can't help but think that such creative and dedicated guys couldn't come up with a few new and different twists. Why can't crafting and lockpicking be done with mini-games for instance? And has anyone at Blizzard played City of Heroes? That game has an excellent combat system that deserves to be ripped off again and again (you actually have to move around and throw well-timed attacks yourself!)
Like I said, I tried it and I like it and I'll see you in there someday, but I think I have a right to expect more than the same general style of EQ gameplay that I got tired of five years ago and Blizzard, if anyone, should be the guys who make it possible.
...and why, oh why couldn't it have been Worlds of Starcraft...???
Comments
Very polished, and as soon as they get all of their server problems sorted out, I think it will be ready for release. The only thing that jumped out at me about what you said was about the creative developement team doing stuff better and more unique is kind of unfair. Evem if it is late in the beta, it is still beta. Who's to say that they don't have some secrets hed for us up to the day of the release. And for the most part, I am guessing you haven't done many dungeouns or raids, right? I think that's where most of the fun will be. Heh heh heh
He was postin his opinion, J. You don't have to shoot him down about it. And yes, they do have unique monsters and such. Haven't seen scurvy, but I have seen a few.
I'm down with the blizzard love myself, but I can relate to your view.
It's not that they need to take away the hack and slash it's that they need to add more to make you hack and slash less often. For instance in taverns allow players to gamble versus another player with something riding on the line. WoW is amazing, but I think until some company gets this genere perfect they won't expand on any other ideas.
I will say that if any company will do it blizzard will. So many companies hype the release of their game with a future expansion that will change the face of the game, but we all know that blizzard means it. Consider every expansion that they have ever released for any game. All the expansions go gold, which is more than any other company has done. They want a perfect product to release without speaking of future promises even when we know they are in our future.
This game is so great, just imagine what blizzard will make of perfection.
"You can lay on your back for hours and imagine clouds are various animals, but in the end they are just clouds."
Krityc 2/9/04
holla!
[(T+G=W)=Gr*Nf]-S=FoF
T=Time G=Gear W=Win Gr=Grind Nf=NoFun S=Skill FoF=FullofFail
"Hey, I'll tell you what. You can get a good look at a butcher's azz by sticking your head up there. But, wouldn't you rather to take his word for it?" - Tommy Boy
cas3369, I think you hit the nail on the head. While Blizzard has (without a doubt) developed a very fine game, and myself (and many other MMO veterants) will probably buy and play it, Blizzard has brought very few "new" elements to the table. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy playing WoW as much as the next guy. But as a seasoned EverQuest veteran, I have noticed a great number of similarities in their basic design.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing... EQ has been the most successful game in North America for many years. But I too had hoped that WoW would offer me something new, not just a refined version of the same thing. Almost every one of WoW's "new" features are (in some way or another) improvements on someone else's model. And yes, hack and slash will be a part of every game in the genere. But these similarities don't widen the gap enough for people to switch, or become long time WoW subscribers.
Take quests for example... Supposedly, they will be a big part of the game as levels progress. But with the exception of the yellow ? or ! over an NPC's head, little has changed. You still have to go kill mob X, Y number of times, to obtain item Z. It's all very static, and unchanged from any other game out there.
The refinements they have made are very welcome improvements to MMORPG's. But let's be honest - without Blizzard's name, the strong branding of the Warcraft franchise, and the talented artists working on the project, WoW is little more than an EQ clone with a major face lift, and without all the things that make people hate EQ.
I hope that over time, they improve the game design a bit. But I'm afraid the "it's beta" argument won't cut it - it's too close to release to make major changes. Either way, I'll probably still play... But WoW certainly isn't the holy grail that people make it out to be.
-pooka
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Yep, I will play WoW. While I will play another game which doesn't have a grind treadmill and repeated mob killing at the same spot is made impossible.
"Wish" is such a game, moreover, it's skill based like UO.
I seriously don't know what people expect that a new mmorpg should add.
Most ideas have been used up .Personally i rather see improvement on game concepts.
Ok you have to kill mob A to get to mob B.Well thats mmorpg for you.The few mmorpg that dared make levelling dead easy have been the ones to suffer most from people saying "oh i am bored " in a months time.
Seems the truth is you can never satisify the current stock of mmorpg players we have a round.
Thanks for all the good responses.
Just off the top of my head, let me give you an example of how WoW could have been different and much more true to it's roots as an RTS, and therefore broken the mold of MMORPGs if Blizzard had wanted to give that a try.
Instead of picking a server and starting a character, you would create a stable of characters which you could take to various servers at your discretion. Each server would have it's own copy of the world but with variants in the rules regarding various aspects of the game or present specific one-shot scenarios, battles and wars.
Like in Planetside, for instance, logging into a server would put you into a huge combat scenario where some players could busy themselves crafting and building up towns, bases, war machines and defenses while others could organize warbands and raiding parties to attack the enemy factions. Mobs would be an ever present threat and source of experience and loot as in the RTS.
Some servers would be perpetual copies of the entire world as it is in the game now, but with shifting territory control depending on the status of the war. Eventually it might be possible (but VERY difficult) for one faction to actually conquer the entire planet, which would award tremendous bonuses, loot and experience to the characters involved, who could then transfer back to their "stable" and thence on to any other servers to be used again and the world would be "reset" to initial conditions.
Some servers, likewise, could be quite small areas like provinces or islands which would require the players to build villages, towns and forts over the course of days or weeks while launching probing attacks or stealth recon of the other side before the inevitable climactic battles. Sort of a RTS scenario fleshed out to a more realistic scale.
And finally, some servers could just be huge PvE questing, EQ style affairs for players who want a break from PvP for awhile.
Since characters become reusable and movable, they take on the form of a collectible card or miniature game. Since servers become customizable, Blizzard can make special servers and events without having to sweat imbalance issues (as such issues would be inherently temporary). Heck, there could even be special servers which would just be big PvP arenas, or PvP-disabled taverns and bazzars which could be used for trading, socializing or playing-minigames against each other... maybe even a quick game of Warcraft III.
My point is that there are still plenty of good ideas about what to do with MMORPGs that the devs out there need to try out. If I can come up with something like this in 10 minutes then why can't they when they have, what, years to work on it?
Consider this famous quote:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
The reason why people get bored with these games is because they are static and repetative. How are the mechanics of WoW quests different than say, EQ quests? They aren't. I understand that there will be a significant amount of overlap between any 2 MMORPGs... But right now there is 90% overlap - in a genere where people are screaming for innovation and something new. Clearly, this is bad for the industry - as more and more people grow frustrated. These games make huge promises, and when they don't deliver, people quit playing.
I'm not asking for anything impossible either... I want to be given a quest that very few (if any) others are given. Right now, in WoW, every class at a certain level is given the same set of quests. This is compensated by the fact that the quest givers offer items that are usable by various classes - maybe leather gloves, chain belt, and cloth shoes. But what's to differentiate me from the next guy who comes along?
All I'm saying is killing mob A to get item B is ok... Just as long as A and B aren't *ALWAYS* the same for everyone. Perhaps a warrior could kill mob A to get item B, but a Hunter could kill X and get item Y.... Or perhaps, I could be given a quest that is random from a pool of possible quests - not EVERYONE would get the same quest as me. What if I was given a quest by an NPC, saying that crazed rabid dogs attacked the town, and they need to be dispatched... Mobs could be spawned accordingly for *ME* to kill - if anyone else kills one it immediately re-spawns somewhere close by. After collecting their fangs, the NPC could make me a "Wolf Fang Choker" - or something SOMEWHAT relevant to the quest I was given... THIS is the level of dynamic game-play that would truly break the MMORPG mold, and it's shocking to me that nobody has done it...
Instead, Blizzard has implemented the same cluster fuk that Verant did with EQ... EVERYONE in the Night Elf town gets the "go kill spiders, get their venom sack" quest. So naturally, the worst xp in the game at that level is spiders, because you are competing with 50 other players to complete your quest. Dumb dumb dumb.
What I'm asking for is not impossible. I'm a software developer - it can be done with the right people, and the right budget. As fun as it may be, I just think there's way too much overlap in WoW. So much that sadly, WoW falls into the category of "me too" MMORPGs....
I hope I'm wrong - there is still time to save World of Warcraft from the mediocre reviews that will follow it's release if left un-changed.
-pooka
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
While it's clear you have a lot of good ideas about what you would like this game to be, I think it's important to point out that this is not, in any way, an RTS. Nowhere do they say it was going to be like an RTS, and there are already other companies putting out RTS-style MMOs, I think Savage is one, not sure on the name, because I avoid anything with an RTS title like the plague. I hate RTS's, and I wouldn't want to see anything about an RTS make it into any MMO that I had a vague interest in playing. RTS's are boring and annoying to me in ways few things in my life have been.
Warcraft is the basis for lore in the game, nothing more. This is an MMO, and I sincerely hope none of your ideas get put into a game called an MMO, because I don't like them. Nothing about "Real-Time" is missing in current MMOs, and if "Strategy" means gathering resources and controlling an arseload of disposable units, count me out. If I wanted to do that kind of micro-management, I would buy an ant farm.
While I agree that there is nothing "new" about this game, only what I would consider the best features of other games done very very well, I completely disagree about what new types of things could have been done. Nothing I would be able to suggest would fit into their dedication to the casual player (can't help but think that stems from their RTS history somehow), so I don't see innovation coming out of this game, other than to teach the rest of the industry the difference between the terms beta and release.
I don't mean to be disrespectful, and I apologize if it seems that way, but I assure you I don't hate you, I just really really really hate RTS's, and I would not be playing this game at all if I hadn't found out it had nothing to do with an RTS.
Habit is not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed down the stairs one step at a time. - Mark Twain
blizzard has its own genre and if it wasnt for them, games wouldnt be what they are today, and i dont know if i'd even play any at all.
Oh, it's no big deal. I'm not a big fan of RTS games myself, although I like story-driven ones like Warcraft III. I was just using some examples to make my point that the MMORPG genre can be taken in new directions very easily with just a few new risk-taking initiatives and ideas.
Consider that if you can move your characters around from server to server (in the same way as Diablo II but without the cheating) then you can have several different servers that cater to several different playstyles, all using the same WoW engine that already exists but with different rules and such. There can be a PvE server with quests and endless mob-slaying... but the same game can also be twisted into a giant strategy game, or a racing game, or a deathmatch game, etc. etc. The possibilites are quite varied!
What the genre really needs, in my opinion, is some risk taking by the developers. They all want to capitalize on the success of a formula, but by doing so they ignore the vast possibilites that can exist in this particular format.
OK, I am trying to understand this guys point. However reading his second post I am now seeing why he wants things his way. Anyway, why do you come to a RPG game expecting it to be like a RTS game? Or did you expect it to be that way since WC is normally a RTS? Well, I am sure once you got in you should have known it turned out to be a RPG version of WC. But let me ask you one thing where I see you contradicting yourself. You said
"You will still hit your Auto-Attack key and then a combo of other keys in the course of a fight. Racing colored bars to empty with the mobs."
Well from what you say in your second post about it being more like a RTS, then wouldn't you see that on a MASS scale? Talk about watching coloered bars empty with multiple mobs.
After re:reading your original post I am starting to see what is really going on here. My opinion of your original post shows me that you really don't like RPG games. Don't feel bad, there are a lot of you out there lost and playing RPG games that shouldn't really be there, well atleast in the Medieval ones (which you have shown me wanting Blizzard to make Starcraft Online rather than WoW). Infact I see this a lot. People complaining about certain RPG's like AC, EQ and UO and then I read on other posts how you think CoH, EvE and SWG are awesome. What is so accinine is that yo don't complain about these games being sword and magic or about the critters, you chop at the mechnics of the game. It is like since it isn't the right time frame of game then you put it down, maybe hoping they will make a Starwars version of AC EQ or UO. Well why don't you just go play your Sci Fi games or your RTS games or your FPS games and stop whining that Medieval RPG games aren't what you want.
Arguing that you have to hunt and kill a bunch of creatures and watch health meters go up and down and do quests where you go from point a to point b. Well, what do you want them to do, take out all the creatures and leave one so you can kill it over and over. Or take out the health bars so you can one shot every critter? The bars are there as a measure not part of the RPG. About questing, what should it be like? Not going from one place to the next? I think they did that to get you to explore tha land, whihc I notice a lot of people don't even know how to do. Where is buxxbox ### ...OMFG The first one is 5 feet from where you came in on the hippogriff. The second he even tells you is south down the beach from Aub. What do some of you do, stand at the edge of town and if you don't see it you start spamming the general chat so someone will tell you so you don't "HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME"?
cas3369 All you see in the game is the mechnical end of it. You shouldn't be seeing that health bar as anything except that you are either dying or the monter you are fighting is dying. As for the same critter, yeah, stand in one spot you will see a lot of the same. Ever try to explore? I have seen a ton of different critters in the game that I haven't seen in any other MMORPG.
You know what I see in WoW. I will tell you...As a Night Elf Hunter I see there is trouble in the land. Their are poeple that need my help and even real players that need my help and visa versa. I listen to a lot of peoples stories and if they all linked together then I would start feeling like I am in a single player game where eventually it will end. With most stories not tieing together I am getting "THEIR" story. Plus if you pay close attention you start to see the dynamics of the "STORIES" do somehow relate to another. Also I see myslef as a Hunter, I can skin animals as I leave them for dead, I am able to aid someone with bandaging them with my first aid skill. I can lay down a camp fire for all to come and feel the spirit so they can heal and revive better. No other MMO have I played to date has let me really play a role as a Ranger (Hunter) as WoW has. Now, I haven't played all the other roles yet, however I have seen what all we can do which seems very nice.
You can say well all it is , is a grinding, rinse and repeat of skills, talents and trade. Well if I was one like you I guess I would then race to get to the highest level, never stop to read any story and just get the "VERY BASICS" to the quests so I could get just the info needed to do the quest (remember stopping to read quests will only slow you down). Plus another benefit is to SPAM the HELL out of the general chat begging all where to get the item as you run the standard direction of the quest location and yelling out to all nearby if they want to do the So and So quest with you so you can beat it even faster. You never see any part of the land, you are the ones that demand that you put FFA (Free For All) on as for coin split. Why because you are a RTS gamer where the goals are to get to the top and claim OWNAGE. Or claim you are GOD in the world. Then you give yourself the right to brag, right to be an A$$ and stick your nose up high putting yourself above all others so you can get your temporary Self-esteem in a virtue world. Then you come back on these boards with that so called inflated self-esteem acting like you got all the answers, but yet you don't say anything to show your ideas are better. Infact you don't even put up with any ideas except that RPG games should be a RTS game.
All I have ever seen out of people like you is the same thing over and over again and that is a Arrogance/Ignorances all rolled into one.
There is no grinding in most games, it is how you play it. A lot of things have changed over the past 5 years since EQ release and they are the mechanics. If you can't see it then you are looking too much on the surface in how they display it to you in the GUI.
There are a lot still to be implemented in the MMO genre and a lot of it is preferencial. One guy may want more individual questing while another says no we need questing to be for parties because it is a MMO and MMO's are based on community. So others say they they don't care about individual questing but they want a more intellegent questing system. We will see it all come, but at the time being it would be too much for more thhan 50% of the systems out there so it won't be implemented. Some stuff is just too much even for a shard/servers to handle and would lag with more than 500 people in it. Maybe that is one thing that will be added to D&DO since they plan to only peak at that number. There are reasons for everything. However, don't think a lot of the devs out there are so stupid to leave out things that you would want in it. If they can do it they will put it in if it can work without major problems. Trust me, they want your money and they know if they do what the majority wants then they get the majorities money.
It is getting VERY OLD to come on boards like this seeing so many sit on their butts acting like they know what will make games better. Everyones a crittic, but most of you don't know the first thing about how to develope a game. Infact it takes way more than one to develope and even within that group only one really knows what the heck the outcome will look like.
I think their shoud be a common rule to being a crittic on gaming forums. If you complain about something in a game, then you better also show how it can be fixed or a better idea that what is used. Other than that, your just talking $hit.
Everyone has an a$$hole but it doesn't mean you can $hit in public.
I agree with the original poster in that this game is nice, but doesn't make me go WOW. I was excited about seeing what crafting was like in this game, but then was sorely dissapointed once I started it. It seems that there is nothing you can do to get exceptional combines, or make anything better than what the average joe could make with the same recipe.
So all in all I don't think I would quit my job and loose a ton of sleep over this MMO that is nothing new, but everything old.
www.Desolation-Guild.org
-Shadowbane
Denrah/Glast
-SWG
Denrah Master Architect/Glast Master Smuggler
Lineage 2
Bored before level 40...
Desolation--- Glast/Denrah
DAOC/Shadowbane/SWG/Lineage2
Wow, Tyrgris! That was a heck of a post! You made some good points, too, but why so angry? I like passion in a gamer but I think you have... issues. It's just a game after all.
All I'm trying to say is that WoW is not fundamentally different from EQ, DAoC, AO and the rest of the MMORPGs out there now except for the fact that it's made by Blizzard and is therefore a genuine work of craftsmanship. I like the game and I'm going to play it as I said in my original post.
Where we seem to disagree is in that some people seem to think the MMORPG as it is today is just fine and never has to change in substance, only in details, whereas I believe that they will eventually evolve beyond the original design parameters established in 1999 by EQ and I'm curious and frustrated why that has not occured yet and why Blizzard, of all companies, couldn't have at least taken a crack at making something original.
What could a developer do to make a MMORPG that breaks away from the pack and offers substantially different gameplay? I don't know! But I know you could only play poker with cards until someone invented Magic the Gathering... see what I mean?
Is it wrong to want the best game company in the world to do something more than just imitate and refine? Is it wrong to expect innovation? Mark my words, someday it will occur and I don't know what that game will be like because I'm not a game designer... but I guarantee you when it happens WoW and all the other MMORPGs out there now that all play basically the same will become obsolete overnight.
Tyrgris, when I look at his original post, I see something completely different than what you are describing. Let me try to explain what I thought of it.
At first, he opened up saying that WoW was very polished and was a game that looked good even without playing it. That's all fine and dandy because that's how I feel, too. When you look at the game, you get a weird feel for it without even playing it. Notice I didn't say weird bad. It is a good feeling of weird. I know that might be a little confusing, but ok.
Continuing on, I see that he likes the game after playing it and that he is going to purchase it.
Now on to what you're getting at. In the second half of the original post in this thread, the poster began to point out that there really isn't much new about this game. Nothing innovative or fresh, just the same old formula that worked for everyother game played out in the Warcraft Universe. I agree with him here.
From what I saw, he wasn't complaining as much as you made him out to be. He simply stated that(and I am getting this from newer posts)he is somewhat disappointed that a gaming industry as widely known and followed wouldn't try to add something new to spice up the MMORPG community. And I am right behind him on this.
He also closes saying that no matter if this game adds anything or is original at all, he is going to purchase and play this game avidly because he is a fan of Blizzard and Warcraft. But let's face the facts, WoW doesn't really push the MMORPG industry along very far. Nothing new, nothing original. But that doesn't change my opinion that it is a good game.
Am I right?
the game isn't done.. not even close on some aspects. so yes, while what they have IN so far is polished.. its still not done and they're changing lots of stuff. even recently as this week the huge change from skillpoints to crafting "professions" is a huge change.
and as for an mmorpg where you don't don't kill stuff to level? the only one i know of is a tale in the desert. great game if you're into the mind numbingness of crafting and NEVER fighting anything. see.. thats what is so great about WoW. theres quests(lots of them), theres lots of mobs to hunt, and theres the best crafting system i've seen in a game(they made it EXACTLY the way i had thought a crafting system in games should be done).
so yes, everything in game is polished. but not everything is in game yet and the game isn't finished. you're just the kind of person that bitches about every mmorpg because its not the perfect one you thought it would be. the more i've played WoW the more i like it and the more my urge to play my other mmorpg's goes away. in fact.. i haven't played any other mmorpg since the stresstest started and before the stress test started i was playing 3 and playing 2 on a regular basis(like everyday to every other day)
LoStCaUz3,
Exactly right. I think we can all agree that WoW is a fine game, but it will be left up to other developers in the future to give MMORPGs (especially of the fantasy subgenre) the swift kick in the game engine it so desperately needs.
All that really matters is that it will be fun for awhile and that's what it's all about!
I don't think their change of crafting is THAT huge. They just took away the skillpoint req, and put a level req instead. They also made it so that you could only learn 2 specializations in crafting. WHOOPTY DOO, how can that be huge?
Another thing... How can you say that WoW has the best crafting possible? What a joke, it's BOORING to say the least, click click add ingredients and combine. No possibility for failure, no taking into account if you are particularly adept at a crafting field. There are also no exceptional combines. With more and more people enjoying crafting, and the begging of the community for something new and inovative I would almost say WoW's crafting is a step backwards. WoW seems to want to cater to the 15-18 yr old genre that only like to go beat on mobs to death...
Desolation--- Glast/Denrah
DAOC/Shadowbane/SWG/Lineage2
Desolation--- Glast/Denrah
DAOC/Shadowbane/SWG/Lineage2
Play. Horizons. then.
Not surprisingly, some people don't enjoy having to scour the globe for rare as hell ingredients, only to fail 30 times in a row, or constantly failing on trivial combines, etc. Maybe they just want to make some items, and then sell them to people. In which case, WoWs crafting system works just hunky dory. If you want some super indepth crafting system, there's Horizons, or even SWG, or perhaps A Tale in the Desert would be more to your liking. Amazing thing about a free market - you, as a consumer, aren't forced to purchase something you don't want to.