WAR Closed Beta has started!

[wild_whiskey]

I have a feeling it's part of Vivendi's business strategy to have the next MMO ready for when the subs really drop off in WoW, which still isn't happening in the foreseeable future, so the "next big thing" (of which there has yet to be one since WoW) is also a Blizzard game.

[Steamrice]

Why must they tease about guilds being selected in their newsletter to do all that shit in the list while we listen about it

Originally Posted by WAR newsletter

Starting in July, these guilds and thousands of players will compete for domination in the great arena of the Age of Reckoning.



The guilds we’ve selected have touched most every MMO released, and several hail from the frontlines of popular First Person Shooters. These testers cover every play style under the sun, and truly embody the social diversity we will welcome and encourage at launch. These guilds, and many more like them, will be the foundation of a great community that we look forward to serving for years to come.

Guilds and new testers alike will have their hands full as they experience the variety of tools, systems, and content that our development teams have been perfecting these many months. Over the course of this Beta phase, players will experience first-hand many of the great things WAR has to offer, including:

- All 3 Campaigns from Tiers 1-4
- Contested & Peaceful Cities
- Continued Career Updates, Including the Introduction of the White Lion
- PvE Dungeons, such as Gunbad & The Bastion Stair
- New Scenarios
- New PQ's
- Updated User Interface
- Heraldry & Standards
- Guild Rewards & Tactics
- Crafting
- Real Time Website Updates with Character Profiles and RvR Stats

And much more!

[gnomad]

Originally Posted by Senen

This is realy simple one WoW hasn't been out near as long as EQ so it hasn't had a chance to experience attrition on that scale yet.

Nope only one word is needed to describe why WoW was so sucessful and continues to be that way and why EQ and others failed..... FUN

[DJk_zero]

Originally Posted by gnomad

Nope only one word is needed to describe why WoW was so sucessful and continues to be that way and why EQ and others failed..... FUN

Fun, and another major selling point: You didn't need a ferrari of a system to run wow. If you look at the valve hardware surveys, they clearly show that the critical 'joe average' that is part of the reason wow has like what, 10 mil subs or whatever number it's up to, isn't the one running a tripple sli 260gtx with quad core extremes and other shit like that. When you design a game to run on that type of platform 'idealy' and ignore most others, you end up with an mmo engine utilized like vanguard.

[Senen]

Originally Posted by gnomad

Nope only one word is needed to describe why WoW was so sucessful and continues to be that way and why EQ and others failed..... FUN

So your saying the bulk of this forum the reason you have a place to rant about every new game didn't have fun playing EQ orly!

[Kaige]

I'll agree on the hardware ease that makes WoW so successful, it seems like every other MMO that comes out is just trying to push the next line of video cards.

[Ninajrr]

There's this crazy thing called scaling graphics. Its a concept from the future, but hey, who better to bring it into play than Blizzard?

[kaid]

scaling graphics is all fine and dandy but in most cases what it means is if you do not have a bleeding edge game rig you are stuck in gumby mode. This is one reason I gave up conan is all the people I play with have computers that while playing wow fine just look so fugly in conan that they won't play it.

[x1hundredregrets]

Trading an exclusive invite to the Red Faction Guerilla Friends and Family internal beta and subsequent betas, as well as exclusive beta invites to future THQ titles in exchange for a WAR beta account.

PM me if you're interested.

[Ninajrr]

Well, nobody has successfully done scalable graphics. Their idea is to have awesome top of the line visuals that you can slowly disable into a mass of shit. If WoW had higher quality textures, a better sky, dynamic shadows, animated foliage, etc, it would have a lot more graphical prowess but all be disableable back to its current visual goodness.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Ninajrr

Well, nobody has successfully done scalable graphics. Their idea is to have awesome top of the line visuals that you can slowly disable into a mass of shit. If WoW had higher quality textures, a better sky, dynamic shadows, animated foliage, etc, it would have a lot more graphical prowess but all be disableable back to its current visual goodness.

Yeah if they started building from low graphics, then added better stuff up to high, it would be better than when they design for high, then remove random shit. AoC could have owned that if they left the Low settings cellshading mode that was bugged for a bit before release.

[Zhaun's_Shade]

I still have a hard time believeing that graphics have a real impact on MMOs. We have never seen a game seriously strip players from the current leader due to the graphics. Didn't happen in the day with EQ, isn't happening with WoW. If you want to get and keep subs, you need gameplay, not graphics. Yes, there is a minimum level of graphics you need, but in my view, WoW proves that strong animations and art direction is more appealing to more players than technical wonders.

[Jaded]

I think the point people are trying to make is why can't we have both? For all its art direction and super nifty animations, WoW looks like ass. Even for a, what, four year old game? I certainly couldn't go back to it at this point for that very reason alone.

It seems like thus far we've gotten one or the other, but not both.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Zhaun's_Shade

I still have a hard time believeing that graphics have a real impact on MMOs. We have never seen a game seriously strip players from the current leader due to the graphics. Didn't happen in the day with EQ, isn't happening with WoW. If you want to get and keep subs, you need gameplay, not graphics. Yes, there is a minimum level of graphics you need, but in my view, WoW proves that strong animations and art direction is more appealing to more players than technical wonders.

Back when wow was released, it was actually pretty decent, even for a mmo. It never went for photorealism, but it looked quite good back then. While most people will agree gameplay > graphics, most of those same people won't play a game that look like utter shit. They won't play a game with no gameplay as much as they won't play a game with no graphics(I mean shitty ones obviously).

It is an important factor, much like UI, system reqs, website/payment setups and so on. Gameplay is still a major factor, but if you forget everything else, people just won't stick around to see your awesome gameplay.

Now that's somewhat a derail, especially since war doesn't look too bad. It looks pretty damn bland in a lot of places, but it's not that bad if you're not a graphics maniac.

[Dontauro]

So I'm not sure whats all this "bad beta" talk about but at Origins it seemed good. I did find the slow GCD to be a bit annoying but other than that it seemed alright. Was able to complete a whole party quest twice and do some RVR in one sitting of the game. It was loads of fun and other then the slow GCD I can't see anything but a fun game... if not a great game when its COMPLETED.

FYI I had 2 guys come by me saying the game seemed to work better than what they had experienced in beta and that they hadn't played in a month or two.

No white lion, but all the other classes were great.