and we're off?

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Kildace

Hm.
A new class. Outdoor raiding zones. A better incentive system for non-instanced pvp a la Daoc whose effect go beyond one area / zone. Underwater stuff. Long questlines that allow you to get skills that differentiate your character (like quested for 41 point talents). New item types. Mounted pvp (dogfighting!). Original Battlegrounds (something other than ctf / koth). A new faction. Renki-style attack combinations between characters in a group .. Something that wasn't in at WoW release in a rougher state, basicaly.

Designing a game around one or more of those concepts would be great - trying to shoehorn them into WoW would be...not so good. Except mounted PvP & more diverse BGs.

Oh, and Eu-Aggy reached the 24h mark with no crashes and only very, very slight item loot lag (as in, you could notice it but it was under a second in duration) in the busiest zones. If Blizz can keep this up for the next week, I think we'll have a new record for best expansion launch ever.

Pretty huge bloody 'if', though.

[Criminiminal]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

ding 10 :\

Just me or are the mobs alot harder compared to "old world" mobs of similar level?

How long /played did it take you to get to 10?

[Kildace]

Originally Posted by Brando

Edit: Kildace, I think the main thing is that they are actually delivering on what they promised will be in the game. And while not totally new you can't say that each sphere of advancement at max level (group, raid and pvp) is very well fleshed out now with the raid game maybe being the least fleshed out of all 3.

I completely agree with that. I tried to make it very clear that I thought that TBC was very, very polished, complete and what everyone expected. It could have been more innovative but what is delivered is absolutely rock solid.

Originally Posted by MinionOfCthulhu

Did you enjoy the Plane of Water that much?

As a matter of fact, I did. The execution wasn't perfect due to the limitations of the engine but it still is to this day a ground breaking zone in the way it was designed and I have a lot of fond memories of farming it. Much more than any of the other elemental planes. I realize that I'm in the minority though.

Originally Posted by Itzena

Designing a game around one or more of those concepts would be great - trying to shoehorn them into WoW would be...not so good. Except mounted PvP & more diverse BGs.

I don't know. Quested for talent like skills wouldn't be that different to what's available now. It would just give you an extra ability that you could choose. An expansion wide relic-like system could work too. Renki chains would suck in WoW though, I agree.

[Arbitrary]

Anyone have an idea when the next shipment is going to be? I missed out on the midnight release and every store in the area is (duh) sold out.

[Matt or Jennifer]

Originally Posted by brekk

i dont think it can be compared to EQand its expansions. All the major changes brought with EQ expansions were in the original WoW.

what sort of game changing thing would you have liked/expected?

A lot of you are taking what i said a bit harshly, when you must remember/understand:

1) i play WoW, and enjoy it

2) i critique to express myself, not to "put down."

It's clear that one might not be well off to compare games like EQ and WoW directly, however we can compare them as MMOs. I try not to exress a bias, but mearly ask: are you realy satisfied?

Kildace understand better what i am trying to express, and i would have a hard time dirrectly adressing your question. I don't want a game to give me what i want, when i want it, all the time. Then there would only be the need for 1 game in the world.

What would i like to see or would have expected? I realy don't have a definitive answer, i'm not a game designer, i don't spend countless man hours testing the concept, and i'm not brilliant. I could name gameplay aspects i would like to see (in fact i did say i'd like to see mounted combat), but it's not about my expectations and dreams, it's about the game's. The analogy of the house was understandable, but subjective. An identical addidion would bore me; however, i would like a pool, gaming room, theator, planetarium.

The list is endless, we aren't dealing with reality, we are dealing with an imaginary world, and if i was going to add to my imaginary world, it would not be typical, and the mass market population might not want it.

I want to say again that i am going to enjoy TBC, i'm going to have a blast raiding with my guild and hanging with my friends, but it's the "refined" nature (what i refered to as dumbed-down) of WoW that gives me a bad taste, and i think Kildace does a good job expressing that in his posts.

I could compare it to my taste in music (if anyone else works in music production or is just a writer or fan). Mass market music, or what i would call pop music, is "refined" (instead of dumbed-down, i call this overproduction) untill it sounds ideal. Anyone that has ever listened to a punk rock band, perhaps an indie group, or even a local live music show can tell the differance between it and music that is generated to make money. Pop music is apealing to the ear, and wow is very similar.

Don't get me wrong here either guys, i have a few pop CDs in my car, but i sometimes want to go out and listen to that live show where things are a bit differant, and something random may happen.

Wow has BRILLIANT presentation, just like any good product should. I enjoy it quite a bit, and am greatfull it's out there; but even so, i do feel it has lead to a trend i'm not comfortable with in the [mmo] RPG industry, that's lead to a very medeocre genre of game (in my oppinion).

I'm here to enjoy WoW also friends, there is nothing wrong with hoping for this industry to show us MORE. The imagination is endless.

[Witoubo]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

Anyone have an idea when the next shipment is going to be? I missed out on the midnight release and every store in the area is (duh) sold out.

I ordered a copy last night from Amazon, they have an overnight shipping promotion (3.99) if I remember correctly. I got an e-mail this morning about it shipping out. I'll have it tomorrow.

[Borzak]

I ordered online from EB games Monday morning and had it ups overnight Tues at noon.

[Surlok TP]

Got the game, got it installed,and all is well.

Course I can't actually play it, cause I have a 1 hour Queue to sit in.

I knew this would happen,and I honestly thought measures were going to be taken to prevent it but I guess I was wrong.It's the only issue I have ever had with WoW I have already paid to move a character once, off Daggerspine, and now Daggerspine is getting free transfers.

It's frustrating, and I know it's a waste of time to complain about it, but .. it's just frustrating.

[Chaotic]

Originally Posted by Criminiminal

How long /played did it take you to get to 10?

about 2 hours or so I took my time too. There are tons of quests around that do well explaining the whole thing.

[Dis]

Dont worry, Lothar has Outlands crashing about every 30 seconds. Pretty funny though if you were in an instance like I was when it happened. Whole guild has logged in, whole guild has logged off, whole guild has logged in, whole guild has logged off, whole guild has logged in, whole guild has logged off, rinse and repeat. Not to mention the lag in Outland is barely playable. Far from flawless launch imo, still fun as hell when the server is behaving.

[Rotanee]

Good feedback.

[Sanrith DesCartes]

Smooth launch?

WoW Forums -> Rolling Restarts 1/17/06

WoW Forums -> Servers screwed. can we get an explanation?

WoW Forums -> World Server Down - Magtheridon

WoW Forums -> Coilfang and aur...

WoW Forums -> World Server Down - Update, Blue?

Not exactly.

[Moontayle]

Smoothish?

Given the number of servers and overall equipment they have, it's impossible for them to go 100%. After all, when dealing with computers you have to work under the assumption that something is going to go wrong.

If they nail this with less than 5% of the servers having issues, then that's a win. Also, they already said that there would likely be rolling restarts, to which I'm guessing they're upping the population cap to accomodate people spreading out across the three continents. But that's just a guess.

[Sanrith DesCartes]

Taken from the 1st link I posted..

At approximately 5 AM PST, January 17, we will be issuing rolling restarts to the following realms to address a performance issue which is impacting realm stability. We expect down time for individual realms to be about 15 minutes.

(the list is servers is 100+)

It doesn't sound like a crowding issue.

It is about 6pm on the west coast now, I expect it might get a bit uglier abouts now. I agree with the size of their server farm, it could never be perfect or close to it. I was just pointing out that it doesn't seem as smooth as some folks had mentioned.

[Libra]

Overnighted my CE from EBgames.com and it's coming via UPS but it's just going on 6:20PST and they still haven't arrived. Tracking says it's still out for delivery. Ugh.