Concerns

Tombs · September 2004

The newness of the free stress test week has worn off. In that time I managed a 22 dwarf warrior, a 16 ne rogue, a 10 orc warlock and a number of level 5 others so I could see the start areas for each of the races. This was a time for me to try and decide what I would play come retail. However, I have been thinking about some major things that concern me about this game. For most of my points I will bring references from EQ into it because that is the game I am most familiar with after 4 and a half years (only 2 months AC2 and a week of DAOC).

Also, I am not interested in hearing the eq2 or wow bashing or the powergamer vs casual guy crap. I too am debating whether to play WoW or EQ2 and, up until now, have solidly been in the WoW camp. However these are the things that concern me about WoW.

I do understand that the game is in beta and not everything is in there yet and that it remains in a state of constant flux. However...

1) Levelling speed

I understand that many want to be able to level fast and compete as casual players. I also agree that slow leveling does not equate with higher level players who have more skill, they simply have more time. I could have easily gotten to 25-30 with one character in my week and I, by no means, sacrificed my work or social life. At that pace it is safe to say that we will all be level 60 3-4 months after release. Here is why I would prefer a longer leveling period.

-spacing out content: If the leveling pace is slowed you will have people widely distributed over content. There will be many in the 10-20 zones/instances, some in the 20-30, some in the 30-40 etc. At the current pace all the level 60s will either be pvping (and perhaps this is the Blizzard goal) or fighting over the raid content that will be put in the game between now and then. If you played Everquest a month or so after PoP was released what was the Rallos Zek encounter like on your server?

-sense of accomplishment: if everyone is 60 so fast and easy what is it worth?

Add this to the next item that bothers me...

2) Itemization

IN Everquest you could significantly diversify/strengthen your character without gaining a level or new spells/abilities thru itemization. Also, you could stand two 65 warriors side by side(with the same AAs) and, based on itemization, have two completely different, in terms of effectiveness, tanks. One might have 10k hp, 2k AC and a Blade of War and the other with 7k hp, 1400 ac and dual wielding an epic and an Obsidian Scimitar of War (off Vallon Zek). Now the only thing making the one warrior so much better than the other was the capability of his guild, not his skill or amount of time played. The point is, there were huge differences amongst the effectiveness of players within their same class due to itemization all the way from level 20 up.

In WoW, as a warrior we did the same quests and basically, it appears to me, have the same armor and items all the way up to level 60.

Four months after release I see 300 warriors on the same server all basically the same ::::05::

3) PVP

I made the mistake of playing EQ on a non pvp server. By the time i knew what I was missing I was level 40 with some serious time involved and didn't feel like starting over on a new server (with WoW no big deal heh so perhaps this is an argument for the fast and easy leveling). I won't make that mistake with WoW, I will go pvp immediately.

The concern I have with this is that they are now moderating it to limit "ganking". On the non pvp servers there will still be battlegrounds and faction vs faction fighting so why limit the pvp servers? I am not saying this because I get my rocks off ganking those 20 levels below me but, on a pvp server, this should be one of the things you have to prepare for and be cautious of and why it is considered harder. Getting ganked and running back to your corpse with no exp penalty is not the end of the world. I expect it to happen and will level slower there and understand this is the type server I have chosen to play on.

When I am 45 and a group of 5 level 35s come after me to kill me do I run or hearthstone because I can't fight back? In my mind this opens a whole can of worms which I think are better left alone. We probably all saw the movie Thirteenth Warrior 5 times apiece and the advice the Norseman gave to the Arab when he said the sword they gave him was too heavy..."grow stronger". Well, wide open pvp should have the risks of getting ganked by the enemy any place and any time. You can still pvp on the regular servers so players who only want consensual pvp should play there ::::05:: .

With this honor system, the lack of an exp penalty for death and the ease of leveling they HAVE to make it so you can not play the other faction on the same server. Why? Well, you can level up an "honor mule biotch" pretty easily and log your 25 ne rogue in and let all your tauren buddies beat the shiot out of him for honor points and then have them do the same.

Stupid.

4) Tradeskills

I think they went the wrong route here also. In my week I managed to get 100 in smithing, 75 mining and 75 first aid without even trying. Kill a Rat Vermin and run over and hit that copper mine...Way too easy. So instead of making it harder they just limit you to two primary tradeskills. I remember in EQ there were only a couple troll master smiths and I knew them all. I would gather components and pay them to make armor for me. Although I am not one there are many who ENJOY becoming a master craftsmen and having every Gnome, D ick, and Harry able to easily get to master kind of cheapens their experience.

I believe it should be a difficult accomplishment to become a master crafter and not something you can do half-arsed while you level and be exceptional.

5) Release

I keep hearing about the plans for the next 5 or 6 patches and it makes me wonder how the heck are they gonna have this game out by Dec 31. I think we will get open beta dec 31 and a release aroudn March. I was irritated in giving up my character after the week and so have no desire to play in the open beta and then wipe him. I want to get started but I am not interested in waiting another six months for a mmorpg to play. I have cancelled EQ, AC2 and DAOC and want to get started.

---Done.

Now, I guess I am wavering. I have always been a super pro-WoW and anti-EQ2 because I have had some poor experiences with SOE and their customer service. I don't want to play EQ2 and my P4 1700 with 512mb ram and a radeon 9600se probably won't run it worth a srap anyway. However, I do know that SOE can put together good end game raid content (Rallos Zek and Coir encounters were a pain in the arse and fun to figure out). The problems I see above and the fact that EQ2 will most likely release in a month has made me seriously begin to question if I won't start with that and, if any good, stick with it.

Now, don't get on the EQ2 vs WoW thing. If you want, comment on the things I am concerned about WoW with (perhaps you think the talent system can offset the serious itemization shortcomings that I see, etc). I want a good mmorpg I can pay for and enjoy for the next two years and if one came out called "MMORPG_FOR_MORONS" but it had great uniqueness, good pvp, balanced classes, fun combat and was hella cool I would play it and who cares about the name or the company...

JBO1 · September 2004

I don't know exactly on the other stuff, but my understanding was that the leveling speed in WoW was speed up for beta to test the higher levels more quickly. Not sure how true it was, but it was suposed to be slowed down in retail...confirmation one way or another anyone.

jimothypetro · September 2004

2) Itemization
IN Everquest you could significantly diversify/strengthen your character without gaining a level or new spells/abilities thru itemization. Also, you could stand two 65 warriors side by side(with the same AAs) and, based on itemization, have two completely different, in terms of effectiveness, tanks. One might have 10k hp, 2k AC and a Blade of War and the other with 7k hp, 1400 ac and dual wielding an epic and an Obsidian Scimitar of War (off Vallon Zek). Now the only thing making the one warrior so much better than the other was the capability of his guild, not his skill or amount of time played. The point is, there were huge differences amongst the effectiveness of players within their same class due to itemization all the way from level 20 up.
In WoW, as a warrior we did the same quests and basically, it appears to me, have the same armor and items all the way up to level 60.
Four months after release I see 300 warriors on the same server all basically the same

This is one my major conerns, too. I know up to at least level 30 everybody has pretty much the same stuff. I haven't seen past that, though. But by the looks of things, I see 300 warriors looking exactly the same, too.

Oh, and there doesn't seem to be very many armor choices, either. I only got a new piece of armor every few levels.

And.... now that I think about it, there aren't any "named mobs" in WoW that just walk around, are there? I know there are some boss mobs for quests, but what about mobs that just randomly spawn, and drop expensive items? That's one of the best parts about MMOs ::::16::

----------------------------------

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, chairman of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977

Beta tested: EQ2, WoW, L2, SoR

Tombs · September 2004

I thought so also until there was a big debate on the stress test forums and it was basically said that there was no plan to change the leveling speed.

Also...as far as ganking...I suggest using a timer. When you are killed in pvp and res you have a 60 second pop-up timer and, during that time, you can't engage, kill or be killed, in pvp. The attacker gets a message "You can not attack this player yet".

This would remove corpse camping which seems to be the problem. You can get ganked once but then have the ability to get the heck out of dodge if you so choose.

Argean · September 2004

Itemization: Here is my take on it. I think they have not put every item in the game yet, also there were not any high lvl builders to make anything. Some of the stuff that could be player made looked to be pretty nice. I thought I read on the beta site that some of the upcoming patches would be adding more items. They did not say what lvl items so it could bee just high lvl stuff. I know I looted some plans for items from mobs, so it will just take time for that stuff to get in the system.

Named mobs in WoW... I came across one or two and they were not quest mobs. I forget where I saw them. One may have been in the cave behind the falls when I was doing the Mushroom quest, but I may be wrong. I was not really paying any attention to what I was killing, just trying to get in and get my shrooms.

Annekynn · September 2004

1) Blizzard has stated that they will be adjusting leveling speed if or however necessary to strike the proper balance

2) Itemization in a BETA isnt a big priority. Class balance is. I agree that right now the game could use a lot more items, but there is still plenty of time for WoW to add in thousands of items with various status to diversify the population.

3) Ganking is being controlled by the honor system. If you kill players close to your level or higher than you, you gain honor points. If you kill people much below your level, you lose honor points. You are still allowed to kill those much below you if you want, you will just not profit from it. Also im preety sure if they attack you first then all bets are off and its fair game. This is NOT a concern nor a problem as PvP in WoW is going to be the end game, and as such it needs to be done properly if the game is to succeed.

4) "In my week I managed to get 100 in smithing, 75 mining and 75 first aid without even trying" then you know nothing about trade skills, because if you tried going from 100-150 you would see how drastically it slows down. The system is designed to give you a quick start to make you semi useful, and then slow you down.

5) As for right now the game is 91% complete. 2-3 more patches and the game will be complete. That remaining 9% will not take 6 months.

--------------------

Played: Asheron's Call 1, Dark Age of Camelot, Earth & Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies
Tested: Asheron's Call 1, Asheron's Call 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve Online, Lineage 2, Risk Your Life, Saga of Ryzom, World of Warcraft
Uninstalled ASAP: MU Online, Knight Online, Rubies of Eventide, Priston Tales, Star Sonata, DarkSpace

Weapon-X · September 2004

1) Levelling speed

At that pace it is safe to say that we will all be level 60 3-4 months after release. Here is why I would prefer a longer leveling period.

I understand your concern, but you're failing to take three things in to account.
1: Blizzard has said that Leveling Speed will be tweaked. It's fast for Beta.
2: Casual players really don't WANT to have to invest a year of their life into a character.
3: You sir, are not a casual player. I played every night, about three hours a night. I consider that excessive. So do most people with real lives. My highest level character was 16. Power Gamers are always claiming that they represent the "average". They do not. I myself would rather play a couple hours a night and hit 60 in three months, then start another character than devote a year of my life trying to keep up with Power Gamers. Me, I hope the Power Gamers hit Cap, then get bored and leave.

-sense of accomplishment: if everyone is 60 so fast and easy what is it worth?
It's a game, not Medical School. What is it worth if it takes you a year to hit level 60?

In WoW, as a warrior we did the same quests and basically, it appears to me, have the same armor and items all the way up to level 60.

Oh? Did you HIT level 60? No? No offense. The WORST items come from Questing. Sure, Quest Items are what Lowbies wear, but that's because they're Lowbies. There's plenty of loot to be had from Crafting and from unique, none Quest mobs. All of my best QB stuff is non-Quest.

The concern I have with this is that they are now moderating it to limit "ganking". On the non pvp servers there will still be battlegrounds and faction vs faction fighting so why limit the pvp servers?

Didn't you just answer your own question? They're limiting the PvP servers to limit Griefing and Ganking. Blizzard is attempting to make their PvP servers the "servers of choice", not a minor alternative that almost nobody plays, ala EQ. They're different companies with different goals for PvP.

Getting ganked and running back to your corpse with no exp penalty is not the end of the world. I expect it to happen and will level slower there and understand this is the type server I have chosen to play on.

Again, if you were playing the CB you'd be singing a different tune. I don't have time to explain it to you, but check out the Beta boards and you'll see that the Honor System was created to directly address player feedback regarding PvP. There are huge inbalance issues, like the fact that the main Horde leveling zone is in contested area where the Alliance has a bunch of High Level Quests. Thus, high level Alliance players are making it practically impossible for Horde players to advance AT ALL. There is no such situation on the Alliance side. The Honor system was the easiest way to solve these types of issues.

When I am 45 and a group of 5 level 35s come after me to kill me do I run or hearthstone because I can't fight back?

No, because you won't lose Honor for fighting level 35's if you're level 45. The article says that you lose Honor for fighting those MUCH lower than you- I'm assumiing that they're using the same Con system as already exists in the game to distinguish extreme level differences between player. That means that you'd have to be about 15-20 levels higher before you'd lose Honor- and even then you wouldn't lose it unless you attack first. You don't lose Honor for defending yourself.

Well, wide open pvp should have the risks of getting ganked by the enemy any place and any time. You can still pvp on the regular servers so players who only want consensual pvp should play there .

Sadly, nobody agrees with you. At least nobody that MATTERS agrees with you.

Well, you can level up an "honor mule biotch" pretty easily and log your 25 ne rogue in and let all your tauren buddies beat the shiot out of him for honor points and then have them do the same.

Man, you'd have to have never known the touch of a woman if you were willing to level up a character just to beat up for Honor points. But since there are a lot of MMORPGers that fit this description exactly, I agree that it's an issue. I hope they do something to address it. The difference between me and you is that I tend to believe that they'll recognize that it's a problem, where as you apparently don't.

I think they went the wrong route here also. In my week I managed to get 100 in smithing, 75 mining and 75 first aid without even trying.

There's this concept known as "Beta". In it, you test things. You're not just there to play. Blizzard stated outright that they'd vastly accelerated Tradeskills so that they could be tested in Beta. But if it makes you feel any better, Tradeskills are gone now.

Kill a Rat Vermin and run over and hit that copper mine...Way too easy. So instead of making it harder they just limit you to two primary tradeskills.

They limited you to two primary Professions so that you'd actually have to make a decision on what you wanted to pursue. I don't get you- you complain that WoW is too easy, then when they take away some of the "easy factor", you STILL complain.

I keep hearing about the plans for the next 5 or 6 patches and it makes me wonder how the heck are they gonna have this game out by Dec 31.

Might be a problem if they'd ever said they were planning on Dec 31. But honestly, there's nothing they've announced that would take more than a month to get in to the game, especially if they've been working on them all along, (which, BTW, is how every software company works) but are releasing them a bit at a time for testing purposes. (Here's a hint: almost ALL the Talents were in the game in the early Alphas. But they couldn't be tested that way, so they yanked them out and released them two at a time.)

The problems I see above and the fact that EQ2 will most likely release in a month has made me seriously begin to question if I won't start with that and, if any good, stick with it.

This very board is giving away EQ2 Beta Accounts on October 15th. How exactly will EQ2 being shipping in a month if they're still planning on being in Beta?

________________________________
They care. We don't. They win.

Roin · September 2004

Weapon-X couldn't have said it better.

moukin · September 2004

1) Levelling speed

I doubt they'll be making any changes to leveling speed. They want this to be enjoyable for the casual gamer. However, WoW is not about getting to the level cap, like a lot of MMOs seem to be. WoW will have a LOT of high-end content to keep you playing. Most MMOs I've played didn't give me much reason to play my character once I hit the cap.

2) Itemization

Talents. I don't know if you noticed these, but this is your itemization. I could make several warriors, all differing in their effectiveness at certain things, just by planning my talent trees differently.

3) PVP

With this honor system, the lack of an exp penalty for death and the ease of leveling they HAVE to make it so you can not play the other faction on the same server. Why? Well, you can level up an "honor mule biotch" pretty easily and log your 25 ne rogue in and let all your tauren buddies beat the shiot out of him for honor points and then have them do the same.
Stupid.

Blizzard stated that you will be limited to ONE faction on the full PvP servers.

4) Tradeskills

I, too, found it easy to get level 75-100 of a particular tradeskill. Keep in mind that level 75 was the cap for JOURNEYMAN level for some of the tradeskills. I imagine it gets a lot tougher once you're working on Apprentice, Master, or Artisan level of those particular skills. For my tailoring character, I reached 75/75 journeyman tailoring rather quickly. But I was required to spend 100 skill points to get the next level up and until then, nothing I made could advance my skill any. Skill points are being eliminated, but I'm certain they'll be making it just as reasonable with the new system.

5) Release

I've seen some Blizzard reps differentiate between plans they want to implement before release and plans that they'll be implementing after release. I think the most important things they have to focus on right now are balancing the classes, getting talents in, and getting the new PvP system implemented. (barebones at that...I know things like siege engines aren't planned until after release) That seems pretty reasonable for an end of this year release.

Tombs · September 2004

Ok Weapon. I will respond to you once and give you the benefit of the doubt. However, I won't again with all the patronizing, smart ass "touch of a woman" type crap that infests most message boards. You want to have an intelligent discussion on the topic? Then be intelligent, not cute.

You sir, are not a casual player. I played every night, about three hours a night. I consider that excessive. So do most people with real lives

No, I am not casual. Yes I have a real life. Can we move on to a serious conversation now?

It's a game, not Medical School.

Yes medical school is a four+ year investment plus an undergraduate degree and time outside spent preparing for the mcat and developing a resume of extracurricular activites to get in. It is also a $200k plus investment. It taking longer than three months to hit the level cap vs 6- 8- or 12- months to hit it is not worthy of an analogy involving medical school. Can we move on and have a serious conversation now?

Power Gamers are always claiming that they represent the "average". They do not

Did I say that somewhere?

Let me tie up the itemization point for you, the part that you missed anyway. I said from level 20 on in EQ so it has nothing to do with being level 60 which obviously, I and you are not. Are you saying there is a distinct difference at level 10 between characters of the same class in terms of itemization? How about at level 20? Level 30? 40? Or are you asking me if I am 60 because this is the point in time when itemization is diversified enough to provide different power levels for the same archetype?

If your argument is that the distinguishing itemization I think is necessary does not exist because we are in beta and it isn't in yet then I would buy that and be happy to take a "wait and see" attitude. But then you say that "there is plenty from non-quest mobs and crafting" so I can't tell with your position bouncing around. This "plenty" from crafting and non-quest mobs" are available to all 3000 server players right?

You say the quest armor is the worst in the game and for lowbies. Umm, you were able to determine that by getting to level 16 in the stress test over a week? You got to 16 in 21 hours of game play? Hmm... From what I see the current best equipment overall comes from BlackRock Depths and it appears to all be pretty much the same thing. Again, this is the problem I alluded to about diversification...you understand it yet?

As far as pvp...

I read the beta boards daily and am well aware of the Honor system. Having a lot of high level alliance quests in a zone that is the main Horde leveling area sounds like a serious design flaw rather than a problem of no level limits on pking.

The article says that you lose Honor for fighting those MUCH lower than you-

Unless you are privy to things I am not I would say that you have no idea. You are now saying that you can gank someone ten levels below you with no drop in honor? I will hold you to that and we will see in a short while. My guess is that 2 levels will be the max. Wait and see.

But since there are a lot of MMORPGers that fit this description exactly, I agree that it's an issue. I hope they do something to address it. The difference between me and you is that I tend to believe that they'll recognize that it's a problem, where as you apparently don't.

Time out. I said that I liked WoW and would like to play it but I have some concerns. This isn't "WOW SUXXORZ" get defensive LOL, settle down! I did ignore the touch of a woman but listen...you don't think the powergamers or whoever you spend your life H8ing arent gonna hit the cap and level another up to 60? This is an argument for slowing it up. I can have 3 level 60s at this pace in five months. Touch of a woman? Cmon man, seriously.

There's this concept known as "Beta". In it, you test things.

Cmon man, seriously.

I don't get you- you complain that WoW is too easy, then when they take away some of the "easy factor", you STILL complain.

...pertaining to Tradeskills

Yes, I think it is too easy. Sorry, they didn't take away any of the "easy" factor so that isn't what i was complaining about. I said...they left it easy but just limited the number you could do easily... How could you miss that? I don't mind the limit to two tradeskills at all but I don't think they went far enough.

Now, if your answer is that "tradeskills are vastly increased to test them for beta" I would say GREAT, I am no longer concerned. If you are saying that "they are only easy to 100 then the difficulty increases exponentially" I would say GREAT. However, it is hard to see what you are saying between your sarcastic cutesy comments. Cmon man, seriously.

Might be a problem if they'd ever said they were planning on Dec 31

What does "later this year" mean to you?

How exactly will EQ2 being shipping in a month if they're still planning on being in Beta?

SOE has a long history of shipping games and expansions that aren't done and patching after the fact.

Even if all you have to say is I like everything you are concerned about because it is more for a casual player then, well, that was pretty much all ya needed to say LOL.

Anyway, if you want to provide some viable answers or your thoughts on my concerns feel free. If not and you just want to be cutesy then I don't bother I am all done with you.

Tombs · September 2004

WoW will have a LOT of high-end content to keep you playing.

I hope so if we are all level 60 in three months. If you played the stress test the first couple hours were a nightmare. Why? Well, in the NE starter area there were 5 gazillion players trying to kill the few mangy nightsabres.

Now, how many level 60 hunting zones are there?

I hope there are a ton with 3k+ people per server level 60. My belief is that they are counting on everyone PVPing or, hell, I don't know, maybe 2k people can be instancing.

Talents may be the answer to limited itemization.

Talents are also something that you don't notice early on as the differences become more pronounced as you level, ie you have more to diversify with. This might eliminate that as a concern. That is a good argument but I don't have enough information on them yet.

moukin · September 2004

Originally posted by Tombs

WoW will have a LOT of high-end content to keep you playing.

I hope so if we are all level 60 in three months. If you played the stress test the first couple hours were a nightmare. Why? Well, in the NE starter area there were 5 gazillion players trying to kill the few mangy nightsabres.

Now, how many level 60 hunting zones are there?

I hope there are a ton with 3k+ people per server level 60. My belief is that they are counting on everyone PVPing or, hell, I don't know, maybe 2k people can be instancing.

Talents may be the answer to limited itemization. That is a good argument but I don't have enough information on them yet.

-I think I saw a Blizz response somewhere saying that they're working on spawning solutions to help with the overcrowding issue. Personally, I think I'll just start my troll first when we get the game....less crowding in the Orc/Troll starting area. I want a Night Elf somewhere, but she can wait a week. I'm mostly a Horde fan.

-I read the recent article about PvP, and it seems like the PvP and Faction vs Faction rewards and events are going to be a lot richer and more rewarding than many games I've seen. I've also seen a few isolated posts on the beta forums saying things like "I'm bored at level 55" etc. Blizzard usually tells them that they've got a lot of high end content coming and they seem to genuinely care about keeping people interested in the game.

-More of my experience with talents. My highest stress test character was level 15, so I didn't get to play with talents much. But I did spend some time looking at her talents trees. As a priest, I could put talent points into the holy tree, the shadow tree, or one more...which I can't remember. I can see myself picking ONE of those paths and going solely down that for a solid and strong priest. Or I could just as easily mix and match a bit and get a bit more well-roundedness. While I was playing, I noticed that I did like using a combination of holy and shadow spells. I think the big decision for me would be whether or not I wanted to specialize at that point and ditch one or the other in favor of the talent tree that made one of them stronger. Or I could use the talents to strengthen both of them and continue being somewhat hybrid like I was. (I guess for that to make sense, I should explain that a lot of the talents would strenghten the damage done by a particular class of spells. Or, one that I put several points into decreased the amount of threat generated by my healing spells)

Annekynn · September 2004

Once a lot of people reach level 60, they will simply raise the cap by 5 or 10 levels and add new zones with appropriate level content or new dungeons.

--------------------

Played: Asheron's Call 1, Dark Age of Camelot, Earth & Beyond, Star Wars Galaxies
Tested: Asheron's Call 1, Asheron's Call 2, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve Online, Lineage 2, Risk Your Life, Saga of Ryzom, World of Warcraft
Uninstalled ASAP: MU Online, Knight Online, Rubies of Eventide, Priston Tales, Star Sonata, DarkSpace

Psouth · September 2004

-------------Talents-------------

Ok, as far as talents go you can put your talent points that you recieve by gaining reaching whatever level, usely like 4 levels until you get another one. Then you can put those points into a talent which are usually a type of modifier of your current spells which allows for customizing in what you do best.

Now here is where the casual-friendly part ruins it (IN MY OPINION!!!) In every starting city there is an NPC, and this NPC does something for you upon your request. What the NPC does is wipes your entire customization of talent points and gives you all of your talent points back, so you can redistribute them if you messed up or just feel like playing a different style whenever. What this will end up doing is just allowing people to test and then build a template for what the "best" talent point distribution is for whatever you are trying to accomplish

moukin · September 2004

Originally posted by Psouth

-------------Talents-------------
Ok, as far as talents go you can put your talent points that you recieve by gaining reaching whatever level, usely like 4 levels until you get another one. Then you can put those points into a talent which are usually a type of modifier of your current spells which allows for customizing in what you do best.
Now here is where the casual-friendly part ruins it (IN MY OPINION!!!) In every starting city there is an NPC, and this NPC does something for you upon your request. What the NPC does is wipes your entire customization of talent points and gives you all of your talent points back, so you can redistribute them if you messed up or just feel like playing a different style whenever. What this will end up doing is just allowing people to test and then build a template for what the "best" talent point distribution is for whatever you are trying to accomplish

This is ONLY in place for beta testing. The actual release will not have a talents wiper, trust me.

For testing, this allows them to test out more of the talents and find out if there's anything wrong with any of them, balancing issues, etc.

JBO1 · September 2004

Very nice weapon-x well said. ::::28::

Psouth · September 2004

Thanks moukin for the clarification, in that case I think the talents should offer some quite diverse variations of each class.

Weapon-X · September 2004

Originally posted by Tombs
Ok Weapon. I will respond to you once and give you the benefit of the doubt. However, I won't again with all the patronizing, smart ass "touch of a woman" type crap that infests most message boards. You want to have an intelligent discussion on the topic? Then be intelligent, not cute.

Re-read my post without taking it personally, and I think you'll see that I clearly wasn't refering to you with the "touch of a woman" comment. I was referring to the type of person that'd do what you were describing- I didn't think you were saying that you'd do it yourself. It appeared to me that we were both in agreement that people who'd build Honor Mules suck.

EDIT: I'll respond to your main points in a moment. Again, sorry you took offense; I didn't mean my comments as an attack on you.

Weapon-X · September 2004

No, I am not casual. Yes I have a real life. Can we move on to a serious conversation now?

Sure.
Yes medical school is a four+ year investment plus an undergraduate degree and time outside spent preparing for the mcat and developing a resume of extracurricular activites to get in. It is also a $200k plus investment. It taking longer than three months to hit the level cap vs 6- 8- or 12- months to hit it is not worthy of an analogy involving medical school. Can we move on and have a serious conversation now?
Apparently not, or you'd have actually dealt with the question, instead of getting upset What exactly is the benefit of hitting level cap in WoW, or any other game, and why is it more valuable if it takes a year as opposed to three months? I myself think that it'd be fun to hit level cap in three-four months, then either pursue the Hero line, work on my Tradeskills, or just start another character.

You say the quest armor is the worst in the game and for lowbies. Umm, you were able to determine that by getting to level 16 in the stress test over a week? You got to 16 in 21 hours of game play?

No, I've reached that conclusion from nearly half a year in Closed Beta. You haven't read my other posts. I did the Stress Test, sure, as did many other Closed Beta Testers.

I read the beta boards daily and am well aware of the Honor system.

Cool, then you've read my posts.

Unless you are privy to things I am not I would say that you have no idea.

Yet you're willing to assume the worst, apparently figuring that Blizzard is unaware of what nearly EVERY player is discussing. Yet the fact remains that there's already a system that determines if a player is far above or far below your level- yet you seem to be convinced that although this system is already in place, Blizzard's not going to use it. You did see the "skull" icon and the "Diamond" icon during the ST, I'll assume. You get that if the person you're fighting is way higher or way lower than you. Yes, I'm guessing that this is the system they'll use- I don't think it's really a stretch to make that call.

________________________________
They care. We don't. They win.

Slazer · September 2004

Originally posted by Tombs
2) Itemization
IN Everquest you could significantly diversify/strengthen your character without gaining a level or new spells/abilities thru itemization. Also, you could stand two 65 warriors side by side(with the same AAs) and, based on itemization, have two completely different, in terms of effectiveness, tanks. One might have 10k hp, 2k AC and a Blade of War and the other with 7k hp, 1400 ac and dual wielding an epic and an Obsidian Scimitar of War (off Vallon Zek). Now the only thing making the one warrior so much better than the other was the capability of his guild, not his skill or amount of time played. The point is, there were huge differences amongst the effectiveness of players within their same class due to itemization all the way from level 20 up.
In WoW, as a warrior we did the same quests and basically, it appears to me, have the same armor and items all the way up to level 60.
Four months after release I see 300 warriors on the same server all basically the same

Its called Enchantment. The warriors could be wearing the exact same armor but their stats could be significantly different. One warrior could go with a Strength build while another goes with a Stamina build. One will deal more damage while the other will have more hp.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When life hands you lemons, you clone those lemons and make super lemons!

Tombs · September 2004

Weapon-X

No, I've reached that conclusion from nearly half a year in Closed Beta. You haven't read my other posts. I did the Stress Test, sure, as did many other Closed Beta Testers.

Well, nothing else really needs to be said by me then. You were one of the "extremely lucky" people to get into the closed beta and yet took up one of the slots in a limited stress test in which tens of thousands who have never got a chance to even see WoW, were on a waiting list? Of these tens of thousands on the waiting list a couple thousand got lucky to be able to play and test out the game for three days from the extension Thursday thru Sunday?

I don't care how many closed beta testers did it. It was an unbelievably fucktarded selfish thing to do.

Amazing.

We differ in that you want, what I consider to be, an extremely easy game that requires little to no time investment to be a "top character". You want PVP servers very similar to beta servers in level of difficulty. We all know that if you're level 20 and can be attacked any time by any level it is harder. You have probably been on the receiving end of someone saying that "those who excel in PVP environments are more skilled" and thus want to make sure that you are able to be competitive in that environment to remove that argument at the expense of lowering the difficulty setting.

The easiest summary is this...I would play Civiliazation 3 on the maximum level and perhaps get my butt beat consistently where you would play on the Chieftain (the lowest setting) and then tell everyone how you made it to space and won the game...

If "easy and no time investment" is your thing then we are just two very different people with different ideas of fun. If WoW is a game that has only the "easy" settings because all the guys who played Gauntlet, Duke Nuke EM and Legend of Zelda using the invincibility hack codes represent a majority of the market then, yes, I guess I will have to try EQ2 or something else down the road...

------

Slazer that is a good point for handling diversification and I will buy that (allthough it is easily available to everyone it might indeed make different abilities within the class)

Roin · September 2004

Originally posted by Tombs

Weapon-X

No, I've reached that conclusion from nearly half a year in Closed Beta. You haven't read my other posts. I did the Stress Test, sure, as did many other Closed Beta Testers.

Well, nothing else really needs to be said by me then. You were one of the "extremely lucky" people to get into the closed beta and yet took up one of the slots in a limited stress test in which tens of thousands who have never got a chance to even see WoW, were on a waiting list? Of these tens of thousands on the waiting list a couple thousand got lucky to be able to play and test out the game for three days from the extension Thursday thru Sunday?

I don't care how many closed beta testers did it. It was an unbelievably fucktarded selfish thing to do.

Amazing.

We differ in that you want, what I consider to be, an extremely easy game that requires little to no time investment to be a "top character". You want PVP servers very similar to beta servers in level of difficulty. We all know that if you're level 20 and can be attacked any time by any level it is harder. You have probably been on the receiving end of someone saying that "those who excel in PVP environments are more skilled" and thus want to make sure that you are able to be competitive in that environment to remove that argument at the expense of lowering the difficulty setting.

The easiest summary is this...I would play Civiliazation 3 on the maximum level and perhaps get my butt beat consistently where you would play on the Chieftain (the lowest setting) and then tell everyone how you made it to space and won the game...

If "easy and no time investment" is your thing then we are just two very different people with different ideas of fun. If WoW is a game that has only the "easy" settings because all the guys who played Gauntlet, Duke Nuke EM and Legend of Zelda using the invincibility hack codes represent a majority of the market then, yes, I guess I will have to try EQ2 or something else down the road...

------

Slazer that is a good point for handling diversification and I will buy that (allthough it is easily available to everyone it might indeed make different abilities within the class)

Tomb...I think that is by far. The worse analogy i've seen yet. For why leveling when it's longer is 'supposedly' more rewarding. The whole thing makes you sound like you think. You are better then folks that can't dedicate as much time to playing as you.

When I'm subscribed to a MMO. I usually play it for 4 to 6 hours a day. Pay my 12.95 or whatever a month, and i'm happy. A casual gamer say a college student. Can play for lets say 1 to 3 hours a day. Maybe 3 or 4 days a week. He pays his 12.95 a month just like me.

Why shouldn't someone that pays the same amount as me. Not be allowed to level up and enjoy the game just as much as me? With the amount of time he/she can afford to spare. Is my money greener or in some odd way better then his/hers? Is my time more valuable then his/hers?

I game 5 or 6 days out of the week when subscribed to a MMO. Folks would call me a power gamer. Yet for the life of me. I can not figure out this 'elitist' attitude that others. That would be branded power gamers seem to have.

jimothypetro · September 2004

Tomb...I think that is by far. The worse analogy i've seen yet. For why leveling when it's longer is 'supposedly' more rewarding. The whole thing makes you sound like you think. You are better then folks that can't dedicate as much time to playing as you.
When I'm subscribed to a MMO. I usually play it for 4 to 6 hours a day. Pay my 12.95 or whatever a month, and i'm happy. A casual gamer say a college student. Can play for lets say 1 to 3 hours a day. Maybe 3 or 4 days a week. He pays his 12.95 a month just like me.
Why shouldn't someone that pays the same amount as me. Not be allowed to level up and enjoy the game just as much as me? With the amount of time he/she can afford to spare. Is my money greener or in some odd way better then his/hers? Is my time more valuable then his/hers?
I game 5 or 6 days out of the week when subscribed to a MMO. Folks would call me a power gamer. Yet for the life of me. I can not figure out this 'elitist' attitude that others. That would be branded power gamers seem to have.

What's. Up. With. The. Random. Periods.

----------------------------------

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, chairman of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977

Beta tested: EQ2, WoW, L2, SoR

Roin · September 2004

You try being half awake, and half asleep. While trying to formulate a response. See if you don't misplace a period, or two. (Maybe three

)

jimmyman99 · September 2004

I agree with Weapon, he answered most of Tombs questions. I would like to add about itemization.
Even at level 10-16 people will NOT be the same. Ive inspected too many rogues and MOST of them had at least half of their items different then mine. Sure, if all you do is do questing and wear those items, then you will look the same. Thats what most casual players look. But, if you are a power gamer as you claim to be, then be assured you WILL have a different gear then other people. I am a casual player, i must work all day and I can play only for a few hours in the evening, and still I managed to get gear that not everyone had from some mobs that arent often hunted, from named mobs (yes there are named mobs that drop some cool stuff) AND from crafting. Here is even more, some quests (not everyone is allowed to take them because of their class/race/trade skill) result in formulas that will allow u to make pretty much "unique" (unique in a sense that not many people can make that) items. For example I looted of a mob once a formula for chest piece of a plate armor that nobody had or heard of, nad untill someone else loots the same mine will be the only copy, this making it pretty rare (unless i start making hundreds of them per hour). And there are many formulas like that.
With talent points people are gonna be even more divers, so you shouldnt worry about looking the same as everyone else, there are plenty of items and skills to make u stand aside from the crowd.
I believe all your other concerns were answered (mostly by weapon). And please dont get mad for a bit of criticism.

Djin · September 2004

Would you really think Blizzard would make the same mistake that Lineage II is pleagued by?

Come on whatever company makes L2! How many FU$$ING elves look the same once you hit level 30+! All of them have dark elven bows, same armor, bla bla bla...

Lineage II was horrible... At least I've seen tons of screenshots of WoW... yes you're going to get tons of people looking a like, but that's normal...

Howdy, Stranger!

Concerns

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Concerns

Comments