The most important thing I've taken away from the currently ending Beta push...

[Faddor]

WoW rewards skill. Very highly. There is a clear division between your average moron, your average decent player, and your seasoned MMO vets.

I worked my way through an instanced dungeon last night with a group of 5. It was mostly a pickup group, but hand selected by myself and a guild member of people who we knew at least had a good idea of what they were doing. Turned out everyone was downright awesome at their classes. After about 3 hours, we cleared the boss at the end of the instance successfully in order to acquire the quest item dropped there.

It became quite clear to me after an hour that despite the fact that we were fighting 20ish+ monsters with a full group of 20-23s well balanced, (Paladin, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock, and myself Priest) if we didn't all have a serious handle on what we were doing with our own classes, there was no way we'd have made it through. A full group of level 30 retards would have had a serious problem clearing some of the content we managed through careful battle management and spell use.

Risk vs. Reward was spot on. The battles were furious and often left us all at <50% health and no mana. In the process, I gained a level and acquired 4 upgrades to my current equipment as well as 3 highly salable items. The rest of the group saw similar amounts of loot hauled off. After we left, I got about 15% of my next level done with the quest item turn-in. Did I mention that at no point did this feel like a grind? I was actually playing the game probably 2 hours and 40 minutes of that time, and I spent maybe 20 minutes resting between rooms.

I don't really have a whole lot more to say than that, but I felt it was worthy of its own thread and that many of you would like to hear it. This single experience has totally removed any doubt I had that the B.net kiddies will be totally filtered out by the high levels, at least for a very very long time after release.

WoW will easily be the best MMO ever at release by a huge margin, and I think Vanguard will have a tough bill to fill (though I look forward to experiencing their attempt).

[Itzlegend]

I'd really hate to burst your bubble, but it sounds to me like you're talking about the deadmines. Deadmines is not that hard at all with a full group of low 20's and a group of 30's absolutly destroys the place.

Not to mention that your group setup you listed is insane, and pretty close to the ultimate group.

That aside, I do agree with just about everything you've said.

[Faddor]

You're dead on Itz, but I think you're trivializing the Deadmines just a little bit.

However, from my experience in the Stockade and Wailing Caverns, I'd say the concept still stands.

Additionally, by pointing out that my party composition was nearly optimum, you're supporting the fact that the Deadmines is a rough place for a 23ish group. Imagine if the group of 23s was 2 Warriors, 2 Mages, and a Priest, or something else a little less versatile. Would be even more difficult.

Edit: Added last paragraph.

[Siddar]

So you got 7 items to equip are sale and your group mates did about as well?

Seems rather high for 3 hours work for five people?

So is this going to be nerfed are does WoW have a much faster loot progresion then EQ?

[Vortex]

In my opinion, there is no greater feeling of fun and satisfaction then a dungeon crawl with a great group. Maybe it's just me, but I have always experienced the most excitement in a one group first time empty dungeon.

The large raids have their moments too and I certainly don't discount what they bring to the table of the gaming experience, for me though that first time into a dungeon with your group - no map - no idea what to expect - no one else there - a death penalty which makes your palms sweat - man oh man....

[Eurylacos]

i'm not playing wow so correct me if my analogy is off...

7 items to equip/sell, you dont have to get caught up in the eq mudflation. mid 20s in eq if you farmed unrest you would accumulate a fair bit of bronze - enough to wear and sell a couple pieces.

it is early in wow and a bronze equivalent would be, under my assumption, still highly desirable along with a large enough player base to support a demand for it

[Itzlegend]

The biggest problem your average random invite group has in my experience, is pulling. They simply will not do it.

98% of every wipe i've ever had can be directly attributed to the group I was in not pulling as far as they could, and getting unneccessary adds. Everyone has this D2 mentality and wants to run up to every new camp, and fight there. And it kills them, repeatedly. Only they're too stupid to realize why they are dieing...

[Itzlegend]

Well him saying 35 items dropping in that time period is a bit misleading. You basically have several qualities of items that are designated by the color of their text. The best kind of item in deadmines is a "blue" item. Blue items are typically of excellent quality for the dungeon. You will see maybe 4-5 of these in a deadmines clear.

The next type of item is "green" quality. You will see these in abundance. Probably along hte lines of 8-10 dropping in a clearing, but I'm sure you could get a lot more. Some of these items are pretty nice, some suck.

The last type is "grey" quality, which I personally just sell to venders. Drops like candy... this is your bronze armor.

So really the items you would do deadmines for, don't drop in such an abundance. There is just a lot of lesser quality loot that drops off the clearing mobs, and earlier bosses. You could then choose to maximize your profits by auctioning those lesser items to lower level people in elwynn, or you could just sell them to a vender. Unlike everquest, venders pay nice cash for items players would use. Players would pay more of course, but selling to a vender is a viable option if you don't want the hassle.

[Qhue]

The equipment progression in WoW is VERY different than EQ. In EQ the first significant set of armor (back in the day) was Rubicite in Cazic that you weren't going to get till your mid to late 20s. In WoW there are armor sets for every 5 or so levels. For mail users it's something like Warrior's Mail set (5 to 10), Brackwater (10 to 15), Burnished (15 to 20), Glinting (20 to 25), Glimmering (25 to 30), etc. It took me around 2 weeks to get to level 30 so you can see that you never have time to get a full set unless you want to collect it for fun. In addition there are sets for Cloth and Leather as well as weapons for the level ranges. So these are random items that can drop from anything. In an instance there are bosses that often have blue drops (rarer items) as well. So in WoW you are constantly upgrading your gear as you level, quest, and explore. My gear is usually a mixture of dropped, quested, crafted, and store bought equipment.

Syrin
Level 30 Paladin

[Kreugen]

Best to do deadmines at max level 20, or you won't even get xp for most of the place.

Rogue makes it stupidly trivial, which of course is being nerfed - although likely the encounters will also be toned down to account for it, as Van Cleef himself is likely impossible at level 20 without sap.

My pickup deadmines run on my priest with a 18-20 group was damn fun, and I even had a complete waste of space moron in the group. Sap just makes it that easy.

[Solmancer]

Actually, item progression is:

Blue
Orange
Green
Gray

And maybe other, not-yet-seen colors (red or purple or whatever for artifacts?). I'm still trying to figure out where Orange fits in, when the item is meant for a char 4 levels below me, yet is clearly not as good as my current, GREEN gear.

[Qhue]

The colors refer to item quality:

Grey - crap; common; vendor for currency; use only if you have no better option

Orange - average; often vendor for currency, but ok to have a few orange items equipped; most store bought items are orange

Green - good; uncommon; most items you eqiup will be green after level 15 or so.

Blue - above average; rare; rare as a random drop; rare off boss mobs; above quality for it's level.

Purple - extremely rare; raid level loot; no one has seen these yet. (this has been removed from the guide and now it just says more to come at higher levels).

Syrin
Level 30 Paladin

[Nino]

WHY do people insist on calling beta phases - pushes? Is this some top sekrit Blizzard speak? Its on par in gayness with calling mobs - creeps.

Heres the vocab breakdown from here on out:

Phase - A part beta.
Push - Something you do to force feces through your bowels whilst on the bowl.

It can't be any clearer than that.

Stop changing terminology that is already a standard.

[Northerner]

A particular build or patch is "pushed" live to servers. It's a term that distinguishes internal phases and live phases and has been used in software development for a long time. Probably the closest EQ thing would be to talk about "as of the [date] patch".

I don't care what folks call it really though and I'm with ya on the "creep" crap. Still, "push" isn't a Bnet invention.

[Lenaldo]

OMG.. the loot system sounds like so much fun.. i want a beta acct! :-(. The one thing i liked most about diablo and diablo 2 was the loot system.. the way you didnt know wut each mob was goign to drop.. like u knew that "bosses" were going to drop somethign decent, but u never knew if there was gonna be that unique or rare.. of if it was gonna be a decent blue.

I dunno.. the raids sound liek fun though.. sigh