World of Warcraft Open Beta

[Psychoti]

For a while in the beginning of this year there was an event called "The Winter Lord". "Winter Lords" were Giant Monsters (think 20-30ft tall snow men) that would terrorize the town until heroes put an end to them.  You would get badges for defeating them, and loads of experience.  I mean LOADS of experience.

Sounds like a good thing, right?  People leveling from 1-30 in a few days?

Wrong.  See, City of Heroes is generally forgiving in that while it takes some time to level, you learn your powers, your abilities, and valuable strategies in using them.  So there were Tankers (if you don't know, Tankers are the "meat-shields of CoH, designed to take on the attention of every monster around and survive it) that didn't take any of their primary abilities and couldn't survive.  There were very poor players in control of higher-level characters, and it made the month of February very miserable indeed if you were looking to find a good, well-played group.

One thing I really, really enjoy about City of Heroes i the ability to tailor your powers' effectiveness.  This is done with "Enhancements".  Say for instance you are a Dark Miasma/Dark Blast Defender (Meaning your primary powerset is Dark Miasma, and secondary powerset is Dark Blast).  One of the defining powers for the Dark/Dark Defender is "Darkest Night", a power that continuously drains your endurance (think "Mana") while it debuffs you enemies' damage output and accuracy.   Now say your friend is also a Dark/Dark Defender.  Your two Darkest Nights might have the same name, but play completely differently.  Why?  It's all in how you enhance them.  Darkest Night can be enhanced with To-hit debuffs, Range increasers, and Endurance cost Reduction enhancements.  Assuming when you level up you invest six slots into the power, and your friend does as well, you might decide that you want it to be moderately debuffing Accuracy while costing you little endurance.  So you might slot it with 3 Endurance Reductions and 3 To-hit debuffs.  With that, the power would be costing you around 0.62 endurance per second (down from 1.5 endurance per second) and debuffing enemy accuracy by roughly 30%.  Your friend might decide to that the debuff is worth the cost of endurance, so he slots it with all to-hit debuff enhancements.  So his would cost 1.5 endurance per second (keep in mind that basic endurance regeneration is a mere 1.66 endurance per second, so it would cost most of that) but debuff enemy accuracy by about 45%.  

Most powers have effects that you can bolster however you choose, and it makes for very diverse characters.

[Access]

Sounds like a good thing, right? People leveling from 1-30 in a few days?

Well clearly thats wrong, but thats an extreme... My g/f played all day once and got from level 1 - 10 in one day. Then played the next day ALL day and got to level 15. Once you hit about level 30.... you only level up once every 2 days... and once you hit 40's you level one every 3 or 4... then 60's..  it's exciting to level...

But no where near as hard as EverQuest... damn I hate to grind.. yuk! Love Quests...

[ViperE]

Well, Access, there really isn't much to do in WoW -alone- at the level 60s..
However, doing raids and instances trying to get "end-game" equipment can be quite fun, if you do it with friends.

I have met quite a lot of good people in the guild I am in. (Wrath of Aries... Alliance guild on Terenas, and Horde guild on Magtheridon)

The problem was, we really didn't have many level 60s I could hunt with. So I ended up raiding instances with many people I didn't know before... While you can get stuck with really bad groups of players who don't know what they're doing, you can also find yourself with a bunch of fun, good players, who know how to do things right.

I think you lose a lot from the game, if you don't party up with people..at least from time to time.

But once you try it...you can find that strangers don't necessarily have to be jerks. ;P

After all, haven't your friends been strangers once?

[ViperE]

And either way...until they raise the level cap..
The only updates they would add, I think, would be group/raid instances.

*Wants his warlock epic mount *

[Access]

And either way...until they raise the level cap..
The only updates they would add, I think, would be group/raid instances.

*Wants his warlock epic mount *

Not everything has to be combat oriented.. I know its WARcraft.. but thats a throwback to the Table Top RPG WoW is based off...

If they add new quests each month, new cooking/proffesion skills each month, new mobs each month, allowed me to build a house and collect stuff for it, that took a LONG time to aquire stuff for... and new stuff for it was released each month... allowed me to add stuff to my mount... allowed me to set up a shop allowing a proper economy to thrive.... Introduced new books in the library every now and then about current events in the WoW universe pushing the narrative forward....

Hey how about something each server works on together, something that involves cooperation not l33t combat skills where all the high levels of each race working together in their capital.

Like (i dont know) building monuments in the capitial that involve collecting various resorces like ore etc or special items... etc.  That way you could have compeition between the cities, which city has the most monuments or special structures etc.

Plus the apposing faction could cause damage to these structures... so an attack on your captial would actually mean something...

Titles could be allocated based on how and what you contributed to in the structures... or whatever....  It doesnt have to be all about combat.

This whole Hero class thing sounds nice, if it wasnt exclusively aquired via pvp I would be ecstactic....

If Blizz started these world events they keep yapping about, like the opening of the great portal that pushes the narrative as a whole forward....

Aquireing Ranks is a really good thing, but I wish it wasnt exclusively aquired via PVP (as I said). For example people in Ultima Online could aquire ranks for how much they have contributed to the game... not how many people have fallen in battle.

I mean all of this is just waffle... but you can see where im going... i'm certainly no game designer so im sure someone who IS could think up some really impressive stuff.

As I said, best mmog I have played from Lev 1 - 60... but after that...  their are no over-arching goals to complete.... Basically after collecting some good loot it is all about fun....  and Fun in WoW means combat.... and thats not me...

[Access]

To be cynical of my own post....

I want more Sims 2... and less Diablo..