Have Blizzard dropped the ball?

[Tal]

1) The many quests are just a thinly veiled attempt at disguising the grind that is present. Granted, the grind isn't as bad as in some MMORPG's, but it's still there. After the 50th kill x creature and collect x amount of x item, it really starts to get tedious.
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:blink: I can't say that I have felt that way. Granted the kill x and collect y of z creature quests do get a bit old after awhile but there have been many more quests that were much more than those. And I'm not talking the fed-ex quests either. This is really one of those cases of play more and you'll see what I'm talking about. :)

2) Most spawns are overcamped to the point where a ten minute quest ends up taking an hour. For some reason most people are unwilling to group up to make the whole process a lot easier on everybody involved. It's just not fun waiting for creatures to spawn, trying to attack them before anybody else can, and hoping you've done enough damage to get credit for the kill.
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EnoYls has posted that they are implementing a beefed-up version of their spawning system in the next patch to address this.

3) It seems as if getting the first hit on a monster takes precedence over the amount of damage you actually do to it. This results in long ranged attackers running around getting the first hit on a monster and then letting other people kill it.. and the initial attackers end up getting the lion's share of the credit.
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Yes this is as it set up. He who taps it gets it. WHen someone from a distance taps the monster move on and don't help them kill it. If someone is following you around and repeatedly tapping the same monsters as you are trying to kill then you need to report it.

4) The party system is, in a word, terrible. The design of the various quests promotes grouping. And yet, you only get half the xp you normally would from killing monsters solo. It means that a party that does quests together ends up quickly falling behind the curve and having to grind their way through non-quest related monsters.
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Experience in groups is less than it would be soloing because you're not facing the same peril as someone who is soloing. The designers have stated though that the xp for instances is not where they would like it to be and they will be upping it in the next patch.

6) WoW Launch is shaping up to be the same fiasco that the D2 Realms were on launch. I tried for half an hour to log onto East 4 today.. until I finally gave up and started a new character on another server. Overcrowded and laggy, it makes me wonder if Blizzard have severely underestimated the demand they would experience. And while I am fully aware that this is a Stress Test, and that supposedly the purpose of it is to identify these kinds of issues.. that didn't work for Diablo 2, what has changed that is going to make it work now? I think those of us who remember the Realms in the early days shudder at the thought of living through a similar experience again.
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East 4 was at the artificial population cap yesterday so that they could test the server load. Ogre stated that they were testing this so that they could avoid this happening in retail.

7) There are macro bots and speedhacks already. I can't say I'm surprised. Blizzard have never been well known for the integrity of their servers. But it does not bode well for release if people have been able to achieve it so quickly. Are we going to see a repeat of the Realms, with their various cheats, hacks and dupes?
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I've been playing Beta for almost 9 months now. I've got characters near the level cap, the middle and very low. I've also restarted a character on the Stress server recently. In the entirety of that time spent soloing, grouping both in guild and in pickup groups I have yet to run into a macro bot or a speedhack. If you have seen this you need to report it to the GMs. They can investigate it and do their voodoo. ;)