World of Warcraft Visit Article

[Mythlar]

http://worldofwar.net/articles/visit2004/index.php

First three sections are up. Rest should be coming soon supposedly. They visited Blizzard last Friday and recorded the entire visit.

I like that comment on siege engines....hoping they have some seriously kick-ass siege content.

Should be some good info.

A Table of Contents:

Introduction
About Blizzard
Your Questions
State of the Alpha, Moving to Beta
Getting About
Getting Together
Reputation
Good Grief!
PvP
Quests
Spells and Rituals
Crafts
Places and People
Interfaces
Gameplay!

[Jait]

Hmm, link doesn't work for me. Nice though.

Here's hoping they implement sieges a lot better than that Camalot crap.

Edit: NM Link was just slow. I like the comment about the summons =) As a Pet-Slinger, I'd like to hear my critters talk shit to me every once in a while.

[Cybsled]

It will be solid gold if there's some sucky Warlock and his pet comments "Please save me from this n00b...I keep getting killed!"

[Tuco]

dynamic pet messages = the big W

[Grez]

The game will be released, "when it is done" Sorry to quote back company line to you. Any release dates you've seen are somebody who is not Blizzard guessing. Play them no mind. We'll explain it more in the "State of the Alpha" section

Its great to see that Blizzard isint being pushed around by publishers/parent companies and will only release WoW when it is offically completed.

[Mythlar]

Updated to include the State of the Alpha and expected Beta start.

http://worldofwar.net/articles/visit2004/alpha_beta.php

[Tuco]

Instances....
Three types, Guild, Group and PvP.

Guild instances can last for up to a week.
http://forums.rpgforums.net//showthr...98#post1253198

Now, is this merely the game flexing itself, or does this mean the final dungeons will be 50+ hours of a single dungeon clearing that will span over a week, and probably be some form of large quest?

[frott]

Originally posted by Tuco
Now, is this merely the game flexing itself, or does this mean the final dungeons will be 50+ hours of a single dungeon clearing that will span over a week, and probably be some form of large quest?

The 72 raid limit comes to mind...

I think the general mmorpg rule is to extend itself to the bounds it sets, using them as a limiter.

So, if some dungeons can last for a week, be sure there will eventually be one that requires that much time.

[Lenardo]

some article somewhere said that some of the dungeons are huge and could take a guild a week to clear.

shrug, we'll find out for sure once we actually PLAY the game and find out how much is instanced and how much isn't

[Digo]

Hmmmmmm.

Imagine a mines of Moira-type instanced dungeon that took a week to clear across. You could have typical yard trash mobs, dynamic mini-ring events, the odd balrog or two, and when you cross over, ta-da, you're "keyed" for whatever lays on the other side.

Want to come back without having to clear it again? You're flagged, so now you know the secret safe paths under the mountains and can travel instantly.

That would be so much more fun than fucking keys, shards, or flags.

[Lenardo]

btw the next part is up, state of the alpha...

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Is the Game Fun in Alpha?

Sure was for us, but we only played for a short while. How about for the normal Friends and Family testers? Well, one of the developers we talked to has his mother in the game. How involved is she? In the Undead alpha testing, she had made it to level 21, higher than some of the developers themselves! She's not a gamer normally, so for her to stick with it as much as she has, including being up at midnight one night anxiously instant messaging her son for knowledge of when the next patch would be out really speaks to the accessibility of this game. Well, if she's playing for the long haul, we're going to take that as a ringing endorsement of the longer term play value of the Alpha. (It also made us wish that we had relatives working at Blizzard. Anyone want to adopt us?)

That's something else...

[Mythlar]

Updated to include Getting About and Getting Together

http://worldofwar.net/articles/visit...ting_about.php

http://worldofwar.net/articles/visit...g_together.php

Good stuff.

[Tuco]

instances are designed to stay up for weeks at a time.

weeks...
Man, could you imagine playing through a single instance every night for 3 weeks or something?

Jeffrey promised us that committed solo players would be able to get all of the way to level 60. You'll need to be pretty committed to make it happen however.

wtf does this mean.

I guess I'm just made that way as a warrior, but I don't think you should be able to hit sixty without grouping. 40 yes, 50 maybe, 60 no.

The last thing I need is the lack of affirmation that someone who was level sixty knew a bit about how to play their class. Someone's role will widely change if they're grouped rather than solo, etc.

Within the dungeons there is commonly a shared space where players can mingle and take on the easier creeps that spawn there. Then once you've gathered up your party you head in through the blue instance line into the instanced area. Once you are in a group-instanced dungeon it's all yours. Any member of your group that crosses the instance line joins your instance. Anyone who is not in your group enters their own instance. Simple huh?

If it was SOE making this feature, I KNOW it would be buggy.

It sounds cool, have a sort of 'solo' farm inside the dungeon, then have the hard instanced version later.

You can tell the LoSteel players in Blizzard spent a lot of time waiting with their thumbs up their asses while playing EQ to make this feature.

Start a chat and then click the item to see the item's title put right into chat and potential buyers can click on the item and see what you're selling.)

Some people didn't like item linking, but I think it's good, personally, it might make the world less 'scary' but it's just easier to do things. Damn do I hate raids where people would have to wait to hear stats of new items, or old ones(always one person who didn't know the stats of some bracer)

The cities will be where all of the trainers are.

ALLLL the trainers??? I heard before there would be rare/hard to get to trainers around that would be required for the higher level stuffs... This was in shadowbane and I liked it.

Really I like anything that promotes adventuring off on your own.

I read before that there might be quests in which the player(probably rogueish) has to do covert missions inside the other faction's homecities and has to steal an item or something. Personally that'd be kind of cool, especially if it was somewhat hard and undoable as a raid force or something.(If it was hard and meant something it'd be good implementation, like getting the 'Silent Assassin' rank in Hitman or something. Just something to differentiate yourself from someone without the skill)

To get quickly from one point to another, you jump aboard a flying beast and pay the fare

Now, how long did they say that would take, to get from Ironforge to Stormwind, for example?

When we saw portals last, Blizzard was telling us that they would probably not make the final game as they might make travel a little easier. How to get around that and still have portal spells? Easy. Make them a ritual spell. Mages have a mass teleport type spell that will be a ritual spell, and our 25th level warlock demo character had a ritual spell that he could cast to bring a character right to his location

No ports then? Except these ritualistic multi-user spells? This might be awkward yet made for 'raid' type of events(as they could require 2-3 mages, and in a five person group, well...)

[Zierain]

I guess I'm just made that way as a warrior, but I don't think you should be able to hit sixty without grouping. 40 yes, 50 maybe, 60 no.

My guess it would be somewhat like DAoC's experience system. Yellow mobs were soloable by most classes, some could solo a bit higher, others a bit lower. But anyways, the exp gained from soloing was so little that it was barely worth it. Good if you have 1 hour or so to log on and play, or are having trouble with finding groups. Something to do while you look.

It was much much much faster to group. It just lets you do something between groups that helps get your character closer to level.