First Impressions

[Nystul]

I hope these aggro rules aren't applied too consistently. A good combat AI needs to be willing to sometimes ditch the optimal choice in favor of a completely unpredictable one.

[NuurAbSaal]

thanks for replying

hmmm, I was under the impression that you COULD pickpocket shopowners, I read about that (reading on the internet, I know...) on more than one occasion. I did however just check the BetaSite info on Rogues and stealing from shopowners isn't mentioned under "Pick-Pocketing", so maybe it has been removed from the game.

And if I were you, I'd keep picking pockets, knowing Blizzard, you'll probably be able to appropriate some strange stuff from monsters (maybe only higher level ones, but hey... :) )


You received loot: "Wirt's Leg"

:lol: :lol:
:lol: :lol:

Greetings

Nuur

[Obi2Kenobi]

not there

[NuurAbSaal]

Dang, I forgot about that TFT mission...

Good call!


Greetings

Nuur

[Orkin]

I don't buy this. What you want to do is (theoretically) see how much damage you need to dish out to kill all the enemies and at the same time see how much damage you will take during that time. The ammount you do, is basically fixed. It is the ammount of HP for each monster, plus the ammopunt the healing monster heal while you are attacking it (taking its HP down). The ammount of damage you take, is the ammount of damage each of the enemies dish out, times the duration until each one die.

someone pointed out the fact that in most cases someone who can heal themselves can heal others. another thing worth noting is that often someone that is under attack can't heal anybody, so attacking the person that is doing the healing will mean that you might be able to prevent them from healing anyone at all

-Orkin

p.s. heya, LL folks, hope to hear more about the beta.

[TheDragoon]

After having played about for a while, I think what Jarulf has written is a pretty good description of how it works. The camera sits behind your character, similar to how it works in the Zelda: Ocarina of Time game for Nintendo 64. However, you don't have quite as much freedom as in Zelda since, to turn, you have to use the arrow keys (or A and D, in my case) rather than using the joystick on the N64 controller.

As stated, you can zoom out and in as well as pitch the camera up and down to whatever angle you want. Pitching the camera is actually pretty important in a lot of situations since the terrain is NOT flat. It rises and falls and, in order to see as much as you can around your area or as far as you can, you have to play with the angle of the view. This also makes it useful since you can look up and down hills. It's a bit of a pain if you run up a hill and then back down, however.

The camera is a little weird in caves and such since it refuses to go through walls and so will zoom way far in on your character if your back is to a wall. It takes some getting used to but it's not too bad once you've played with it for an hour or so.

Moving the pointer in itself do nothing though.

This is what gets me! The controls are just about the complete OPPOSITE of the controls for Neverwinter Nights. In NWN, you can spin the camera with the arrow keys and use the mouse to tell your character where to go. In WoW, the arrow keys move you around and you use the mouse to look around with the camera. It's also kind of weird to get used to the left mouse button selecting stuff and the right mouse button interacting with it (ex: talking, fighting, opening chests).

Bottom line: If you've played Neverwinter Nights as much as I have, you'll have a harder time adjusting, but the controls work decently in most cases.

[Jarulf]

I have noted that the left mouse button (pressed), will let you move the camera arround (pretty much allows you looking to the sides, without having the character turn (it can continue run forward). This is not only good to look to the sides, but also behind you to see if anyone is still chasing you. This is also an easy way to look at your own character from the front. It might sound compicated, but once you do it, it seems intuitive really.

The problem with caves is pretty much that you can't zoom in or out (I do it with mouse wheel) if the camre is NOT at default position, that is, if it zooms in due to obstacles (like walls or celing in caves, you can't zoom in. This is a bug in my opinion and I have submitted it.

[Baylan]

Hello again Bolty!

1) When a mage is attacked, its spell casting is interrupted/slowed down. Thus, the more hits you take, the less you dish out. With two attackers, you can often reach a point where you cannot strike at all. This doesn't happen to melee'rs.

This is something that has been in place at least since EverQuest started - the idea being that the caster classes get to dish out a lot of damage, very quickly. In order to keep that amount of damage under control, if they get aggroed and the mobs begin attacking the caster - the damage is stopped. Mana is another "controller" of the situation. Casters more often than not got put into support roles in EQ - An Enchanter buffed (cast friendly spells to help hp/attack speed/mana regeneration) his party members, and mezzed (mesmerized, essentially a "sleep" spell on mobs that would be broken when hit, or when the timer ran out) mobs. That was essential the job of the class as a whole, and they were quit essential later on in the game. In exchange for these abilities that made for great party utilization, Enchanters were not good soloers. The same problem was and still is there for many of the classes in EQ. Either you are a good soloer, and have difficulty finding groups, or you are a good group member and you can't solo. I'm happy that Blizzard is trying to address this in WoW, because honestly, not being able to solo absolutely stinks sometimes due to time restraints and the like.

2) A mage must stand still to perform a spell attack. This does not apply to melee'ers, who can attack while running.

Again, implemented long ago in other MMORPG's - the idea being to prevent abuse due to run-speed enhancements that would allow you to cast a spell on a mob, run away, and keep casting spells on the mob essentially allowing you to kite it with absolutely no risk to yourself. Kiting is a form of soloing that often occured in EQ with the classes who could solo, it involved slowing down monsters with a form of "snare" which is a type of spell that slows down the movement of monsters, and then nuking it to death. Particularly popular was "Quad Kiting" which involved simultaneously kiting 4 mobs of the same type. Effective for gaining exp, but somewhat difficult to do.

3) Even if a mage misses with its spell, it is still charged with the mana cost of the spell. This doesn't happen to melee'rs, from what I've heard (warriors using rage).

In EverQuest, if you got hit while casting a spell you were not charged the mana cost of the spell, however, there were fizzles which would completely eat the mana of your spell, randomly happened, and could occur at the worst possible moments (Need to get away? Casting a gate? Fizzle, recast, fizzle, recast fizzle, oom, and then the monster beats you into unconsciousness! Joy!). It is a pain, but the casters had their massive advantages over many of the melee classes in EQ because of their ability to solo, and their ability to get by with worse equipment than melee characters who needed decent weapons and armor in order to be
effective.

The justification for those disadvantages were in there in EQ, because of the caster's ability to attack from a distance and to do massive amounts of damage very quickly. With the introduction of the "manaburn" ability a couple of expansions ago to the Wizard class, it became possible to do some 50k damage with one almost instant cast spell. 50k damage! That in itself can kill the vast majority of monsters in the game, and it is part of the problem with the current situation in EQ. The "Old World" or the original part of the game was not designed for the candy that is being developed to deal with the constant damage and ability inflation that is going on in the expansions, and as such, things that used to take 50 or 60 people to do, now take a group. The rewards for those quests were designed to be fantastic, and now, they are easy to do, and you get groups who hoard the rewards for killing those monsters and doing those quests which has contributed to the "EverCamp" reputation of EverQuest...

If you have any questions about MMORPG's in general, just keep posting, I'll chip in with what knowledge I still have from my EQ experience. The adjustment from a Diablo to an MMORPG is very difficult at first, but MMORPG's are IMO, the future of gaming adventure because of the persistent world. It just needs to be perfected, and worked on. I'd still be playing EQ if my computer hadn't died on me, and thus broken my addiction due to an inability to get a new one at the time. Maybe it is better that the computer died on me, but EQ was still a blast while I played. :)

Baylan

Edit: quote failure

[Arnulf]

Good job, Bolty. You basically confirmed my suspicion: WoW is Everquest dressed as Warcraft.

This is no surprise actually. Sony did find the basic formula that is applied to all succesful MMORPGs.
And that is Everquest. Just like WoW is EQ in the Warcraft Universe, Final Fantasy XI is
EQ dressed in a Final Fantasy costume. Look at this:

Subscription rates of MMOs


And I can see the hard times Diablo fans will have with games like these. Simply put: Diablo fans
will either adapt or leave in disgust. And I can't blame then. The reasons are also well known:
All EQ-style games are level-grind and then level-grind again. And then some more level-grind.

Not even Blizzard can change anything about it. My theory goes like this: the developer of an MMO
has to find a way to bind players. The only way to do this is constantly dangling carrots (better items,
weapons, clothes) in front of the players' eyes. Of course these are only available to higher-level chars.
So, players try to level-up. But if they level-up too fast, they'll get all the good stuff too soon. And
having seen it all, leave. No more monthly fees from this one.

The other argument: having a good time with a party fighting and questing has some merit. But only
if you are lucky and get into a good party or if you play with your friends consistently (keeping at the
same level all the time). I've seen ugly things in a party. Melee-fighters accusing healers that they
don't do their job, etc.

The point is that the developer has to find the trade-off between boring level-grind and keeping players
to their game. It will be interesting how Blizzard will do in this.

-Arnulf

[TaiDaishar]

So, by hearing the impressions of 1 BETA tester who is hardly playing the BETA for 4 days you instantly base your almighty conclusion that WoW sucks?

You clearly have NO way to know ANYTHING about WoW, speculations are pointless at this point and if WoW was a fruit you could've speculated that it'll be a red apple from the impression of someone who tasted the fruit and said it was juicy but fact is, you have no idea what the fruit really is and got zero foundations to base your conclusions on.

Griselda: Sorry for the personal assault, I knew it was wrong but I just couldn't help myself :unsure:

[JustAGuy]

Things with the mouse that should be noted:

1. Left mouse button allows you to look around, and at your character, without taking you off course.
2. The 4th mouse button (the left bottom one on a 5 button mouse) sets you to auto-run. Very useful with the left mouse button!
3. Holding the right mouse button down allows you to move around like a first-person-shooter game (strafing with the "a" and "d" characters while using the mouse to move left or right and control camera pitch).
4. The scroll wheel allows you to zoom in and out on your character. Think Morrowind; You can play third person or first person (zoom all the way in and you can't see your character at all).


Zooming all the way in and holding the right mouse button lets you play WoW like an FPS. Interesting approach when you're in a cave-like area. I've been strafing enemies since I started playing, but my dodge tactics have no effect with this combat system.

The auto-run is invaluable. Just toggle it and let your ghost zoom right to his corpse. All the while you can left mouse button click and look around at the scenery.

[Jarulf]

Num lock toggle run too. Actually, one can customize all this easilly in the options.

[Guest]

The game may or may not be good, but your definitive conclusions based on Boltys snapshot veiw of the game show you to be even more biased against the game than I am excited for it.


On a side note, those numbers you link to are somewhere between dubious and absurd. No one takes them serious except over involved gamers trying to prove their own dubious points.

I think you are half right about successful MMORPs. They work by combining fun gameplay and a carrot and stick method of encouraging achievment - its a lot like real life.

-If the game is boring - people leave.
-If the can "win the game"(ie run out of goals)- people leave.

[FoxBat]

* FoxBat de-lurks

So, by hearing the impressions of 1 BETA tester who is hardly playing the BETA for 4 days you instantly base your almighty conclusion that WoW sucks?

That's funny, because nowhere in Arnulf's post did he say that WoW sucked, was a bad game, etc, unless calling something EverQuest is synonymous with sucking.


Let's add another beta poster to the mix: only played for about 2 days so far, but I'm seeing some of the dullness Bolty was talking about. I'm not exactly over-frustrated (playing an elven priest, only died a few times since level 2) , but the obscene amount of running around right now is pretty dull, despite the awesome scenery. Also only about 5 or so monster models around that get different shades, names, and stats, but similar abilities in the starting area. Bolty says it gets better later, might be so, but a several day or a week-long hump of non-excitement is exactly what keeps the casual gamers off of MMOGs. I hear it's a long beta so there is much more time to change things, but right now probably the only thing about WoW that will attract MMOG newbies is the Warcraft title.

I don't have that much experience with other MMOGs but what I've seen so far seems more evolutionary than revolutionary. It's at least as much "EQ" as Diablo II is Diablo for example, more a tweaking and refinement than a new cross-genre. I'm sure MMOG gamers and some newbies will find a lot to like here; I'm not yet convinced that traditional Persistent World dislikers (like me :P ) will find the same.

[Arnulf]

I am sorry. I did not want to give the impression that WoW sucks.

Re-reading my post shows me that my style was maybe a bit too ... aloof and pompous.

I apologize for that. I provided the link to the graph to show what WoW is competing with.
And I'm very well aware of the fact that these numbers are not definite. Every statistic is questionable.

I also did not wrote that I have indeed looked up quite a bit information about WoW before I have
read Bolty's report. That was an error on my part.

And, of course, WoW is still in beta. There can still be dramatic changes to come.

-Arnulf

[Jeger]

It seems that a lot of the problems Lurkers are having are the result of fundamental differences between MMPORG games and games like D2X. I might explain this badly - it's a difficult thing to put into words, but I will try. Please read it charitably. :P

D2X is mostly about soloing. You might group up with other players to kill faster, or to help with immunes, there is no real increase in "fun" by doing that (except that you kill faster.) Fights are very fast, and conversation is kept to a minimum. Downtime does not exist. Teamwork exists, but at a minimal degree.

Although it is good to allow soloing in MMPORGs, because you will often not have time to form groups, it is grouping that is the differentiation. Fights are slower, and more conversation occurs. YOu have time to type "ADD' when a mob adds, and needs to be CCed. You have downtime where you can discuss strategy. Tight-knit groups can perform FAR above what can be achieved singly. In DAoC, I worked with many close friends, and we formed some awesome PvE groups - there is really no explaining the great feeling we got when we made a bad pull, but survived because everyone in the group did their job, and did it spectacularly.

This all means that if you aren't forming friends, making groups, and learning to work together, you will find the game not to be as fun as D2X. Several of my friends left DAoC, and I tried to stay, but after farming mobs on my own a while, I returned to D2X. Grouping with friends on occasion, DAoC was more fun than D2X. Soloing all the time, it was boring.

So, if you really want to try WoW, get into an active guild. Form friendships in game. Learn to manage aggro, CC (crowd control), and other ways to improve your group. Just my advice, I guess - thanks for the info.

Good job, Bolty. You basically confirmed my suspicion: WoW is Everquest dressed as Warcraft.

It depends on a couple things that we don't know yet. What is the endgame - is PvP going to be a major part? How hard is it to get the best equipment? In Everquest, the endgame is PvE, and the best equipment is hard to get.

[Jeger]

I thought I might do a little discussion of group strategy in MMPORGs that might help those who are MMPORG noobs. A group will consist of many players, but the roles are usually:

Puller: This person pulls in mobs to be killed. He is responsible for making sure that they come in when the group is ready, and that there are not too many adds (a bad pull).
MA, or main assist: This is usually the top tank in the group, who can handle aggro well. He chooses the next mob to be killed. He is responsible to pick the next mob quickly after one is killed, and to not switch targets. Picking a target is more complicated than it seems, because the MA has to account for which mobs are most dangerous, which are easiest to kill, which ones are CCed and how long they have been CCed, and which ones are currently beating on your healer. All other people use /assist to help the MA kill the mob (when they are not busy with other tasks.)
CC: This person is responsible to mez (root, sleep, or otherwise control) the adds. Good teamwork between the MA and CCer is essential. Nothing is worse than getting off a successful mez and then seeing the MA hit the mob and break it.
Healer: This is obvious. Healing is an artform, though. If you heal too fast or too strongly, you can pull aggro off the MA, and your group is in trouble. If you heal too slow, someone dies.
Peeler: If an add goes to the healer (or other weak character) Or the healer otherwise pulls aggro, the peeler is responsible to pull the mob off the healer. Once he has aggro, the peeler switches back to helping the MA.

Of course it is not always so cut-and-dried. I played a skald, and was often peeler and secondary CC. However, all good groups in DAoC assigned these positions, but I am not aware that any groups in D2X EVER made such assignments. That really is where MMPORGs shine - the feeling of teamwork is not to be found in D2X.

[TPJ]

I agree with Jeger in that to really enjoy World of Warcraft you need to associate yourself with a good group. It can be a different group each time you play or it can be a guild you play with constantly. Either way, soloing this game will get you by only in-between your grouping experiences.

The game isn’t a click-fest like D2. Instead, you’re forced to make decisions on whether or not to engage an enemy. If you decide to engage, you must then decide ‘how’ to make the initial attack. After that, you can (and will) make poor decisions on which skill to use when attacking – as well as good decisions. You learn from this and carry that knowledge to your next adventure.

This game is challenging. You will die. When fighting, it is inevitable that another monster will catch sight of you and run over to assist the other one with handing you your ass on a silver rimmed plate. Your job is to attack either in numbers or when absolutely safe. If you’re afraid of dying in a game, pass this one up. If you enjoy a challenge, then give it a look.

I’ve played a few MMORPGs, so I’m no longer a genre-n00b. I spent some time in DAoC, AC2, and Horizons. Getting over the hump when I first entered DAoC wasn’t difficult because I was part of a guild. People within that guild were already aware of the game and what to expect, so it helped me get accustomed to it as well. If you’re getting into WoW from a background that doesn’t include MMORPGs, then I would highly suggest you do the same. Playing alongside someone familiar with the type of game you’re playing will only help you get more out of the initial experience and lessen the frustration any new player will feel.

This game is a lot of fun. It can be played 30 minutes at a time and isn’t a time-sink like other games. I regularly find myself getting so completely into the game that I lose track of time. The environment helps this along by supplying tons of ambient creatures, sounds, and textures. When visiting the City of Heroes, I saw a group of children following an adult lady – she was obviously their teacher and they were on a field trip. They walked up to the main city’s cathedral and stopped to look at it. After a short time, they moved on. Seriously. That was cool. You’ll also see children chasing each other in small cities as well as kids playfully chasing rabbits.

I don’t believe this game is quite ready to ‘help’ non-MMORPG people into the genre. If you have the means to enjoy the early steps with a veteran, you’ll enjoy yourself much faster and will likely stick with it. If you’re new and try to absorb this all on your own, you’ll probably end up frustrated and unhappy with your purchase. I’d love to see more LL’ers online with Bolty and Gris. Even if you can’t find other Loungers online in this game, give me or some other Basin folks a shout – we’d love to lend a helping hand.

[Occhidiangela]

I was very interested in the MMOG performance within the market discussion, and am curious as to what Blizz thinks it can do to steal market share.

There was some talk when Diablo I came out that the Fantasy RPG market had been tapped out. Well, Diablo I's lovely little dungeon crawl etc "hit a sweet spot."

Not sure what subtle features Blizzard will be able to incorporate into an MMOG to hit an analogous sweet spot, or even if there is one to hit.

What does Blizzard bring to the table?

Brand loyalty from a certain sector of their fans. The familiarity of the "World" itself does not hurt.
Good track record in some aspects of making on line games, black marks in others.
Some lessons learned, they think, from other attempts at MMOG's.
A so far proven knack for making fun enough to play games.

Me, while I am sorry I am not in the Beta, life right now does not allow me the time I would need to do it justice, RL being what it is.

I did not see Arnulf's post as a slam, but a pointed and possibly sobering look at the very competitive market Blizz is entering.

[Jeger]

My theory goes like this: the developer of an MMO has to find a way to bind players. The only way to do this is constantly dangling carrots (better items, weapons, clothes) in front of the players' eyes.

There are other ways I think. DAoC came very close with its large scale consensual pvp combat. The end game became loyalty to realm and countrymen. It worked for me. However, they changed their model to an EQ model, and began to dangle better items, weapons, clothes in front of everyone, so we don't know how it would have continued to work out.