WoW almost ready?

[Mkopec1]

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/544/544034p1.html

Blizzard announced at EGN that World of WarCraft is almost ready for public comsumption. "We're pleased to announce that World of Warcraft is nearing completion," said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder. "When we set out to create a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, our goal was to give players an incredibly dynamic online gaming experience filled with endless possibilities while expanding the scope of the Warcraft universe. We look forward to accomplishing this goal with the release of World of Warcraft."


Discuss.

Is WOW almost ready?

Do YOU think it is almost ready?

[Clericnon2boxed]

Maybe in 3 more big patches ? It seems every big patch (push?) is a big step forward.

[Malakie Torsade]

I think it's close, especially if they pick up the pace on bug fixes *cough*.

There main hurdles right now, content wise, are Talents and 50+ areas. Balance wise, they still have some work to do in XP gained (solo and grouped,) class balance, and PvE balance.

I don't think 2 months is unreasonable.

[Zignor]

No.

If they released it tomorrow, yeah I'd buy it, along with 18 billion other people, but there's still a ways to go yet before I'd call it complete.

Given the state of the game now and the rate at which Blizzard seems to be making progress on getting things into the game, fixing issues, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if WoW made a late Fall debut.

[Burning_Samurai]

You have to look at the way the worded it. "Nearing completion". Not, "Almost ready" or something like that. The game is comming along, but in no way would someone expect it in November. I would say mid to late December. As above says, talents, balance in general, and 50+ content need attention.

[Sylas]

Mid December is definitely doable barring some massive problem occuring. 2 or 3 more mega patches and some polish and they are good to go.

[Solmancer]

It depends on the patches, and also they really need to finish the classes (Warlock and Hunter pets?!)

[Goofy]

No.

I kinda agree with the above posters. 2 or 3 more patches should do it.

I think warlocks and paladins need some work too.

[Tuco]

I wonder how much of the end-game raiding content is done and being tested.

[Samus Aran]

2 or 3 more patches? This is assuming we don't have more fiascos like the last patch that leave all sorts of things fucked. I'm skeptical, we'll see

[Cybsled]

They still havent fleshed out the concept of the instanced battlegrounds, which they said would play a major role on the servers. I'm guessing they'll surprise people the patch after next with them.

They also need to flesh out some of the tradeskills IMO. For instance, Artisan mining currently is one of the biggest ripoffs in the game. 500sp just to be able to mine and smelt Truesilver...and thats it. While the TS dervived items are nice, IMO they need to add other metals or perks.

[Sampo]

rushing it under *a deadline. welcome to another year of sux

[Larconzor]

still a good ways to go before i'd concider it complete.

The last patch introduced a lot of bugs.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

You have to make a big goddamned mess before you get something cleaned up. I do this at work from time to time, people look at my desk and wonder what the fuck is going on, and then by the end of the day it looks better than it ever has. To me, this last patch kinda feels like that. Yes, it does feel like it's getting near completion, but "near" is relative, and this has been quite a long project.

[Itzena]

Originally posted by Cybsled
They still havent fleshed out the concept of the instanced battlegrounds, which they said would play a major role on the servers. I'm guessing they'll surprise people the patch after next with them.

Oh, really?

What's the WoW Dev team up to these days? Well, besides not sleeping, here's a small sampling of the many things we're working on:

--Winterspring (53-60 exterior zone)
--Eastern Plaguelands (53-60 exterior zone)
--Western Plaguelands (50-58 exterior zone)
--Blackrock Spire (55+ elite dungeon)
--Stratholme (55+ dungeon)
--Scholomance - School of Necromancy (55+ instance)
--Thousand Needles revamp
--Ashenvale revamp
--Desolace revamp
--Stonetalon Peak revamp
--More talents (classes to be announced!)
--Tradeskills to 60 and tradeskill quests
--Class polish, balance and addition of new spells/abilities
--PvP reward system
--PvP Battlegrounds
--Tons of new art: icons, monsters, armor, weapons
--More world maps and city maps
--New micro-dungeons (to replace old, duplicate ones) - the new Raven Hill crypts are awesome
--Raid groups (drag and drop group management - raid leaders rejoice, woot~)
--Raid instancing
--AI Polish and Features
--Animation Polish
--Bug fixes and Balance -- ONGOING

(Emphasis obviously mine).