All Posts by Distaste

Also got to remember that average MMO players don't troll forums taking surveys! So their whole demographic might lean towards order or destruction. That would make trying to figure out which side to roll at launch a big game of 50/50.

I was reading the AoC forums for another thread here and came acrossed the problems with hacked accounts and no customer support for those people.

One person said it is always the users fault and never the company. This is of course absolute BS so I figured someone here might want to inform them of their wrong-ness.

MU Online Global had its ENTIRE database released in the Summer of 2004. This included well over 500,000 usernames and passwords that were released to the public by a hacking group.

I really hope that Funcom steps up and adds some security to stop bruteforce/dictionary attacks and I REALLY hope that it isn't a compromised database. Best of luck to all the AoCers in getting your game secure!

Originally posted by Jaga-TAO

We're getting a bit off-topic here, but it seems like somewhat valuable discourse.

I find a month to be an extremely short period of time in which to conduct a full phase of testing. You have to:

1) Get new people the client/registered/logged in
2) Wait 1-2 weeks while those people form guilds, get acquainted with the game, and test features
3) Wait another few days for a sizable amount of reliable bug reports to filter in
4) Process those bug reports and try to duplicate/verify them
5) Have the dev team analyze the bugs and propose fixes
6) Implement the fixes and ask testers to re-test (or validate yourself)

So you see the rather large laundry-list of things to do in QA, and that's really an abbreviated list compared to the real thing (done it before at work). To say they can get all of that done for a multitude of bugs and for dozens of new testers stomping on new systems in-game in just one month... it's really pushing the envelope.

Granted, they can if they want to, as they are in control. But when you crunch really hard, inevitably things get missed and rear their ugly heads after launch.

While I may play the pessimist with regards to the launch date, I'm as hopeful as anyone else they hit their target.

I can't really say much beyond that what do you think has been tested so far? You don't need a guild to really test out anything in the Beta. IMO GB is more like a promotional thing then really a bug finding mission. There will obviously be some feedback but bugs are not their main purpose.  Mythic has also said that they did not want to do guild beta until the game was fairly polished.  Remember that guild beta may only last for 1 month, or a bit more, but those guilds aren't going to be tossed out of beta. They can continue testing until the end of beta.

2 months is a good long time for testing something that at this point should be fairly polished. Not to mention that we have the in house builds that the public has not seen yet! They may also pull a blizzard move and leave out certain additional pieces of content or bugs that won't be encountered until endgame and leave those to fix for last so that the starting content is polished at launch then patch the other bugs to finish off polish ASAP.

Last thing I can really say is just wait for NDA drop and you will have your answer.

Originally posted by Jaga-TAO

 

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Originally posted by Sornin
I am not sure what sort of calendar you use, but fall is from September 21st to December 20th, roughly.
If WAR releases by November, it will be well within fall.

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So you're going to try and sell me on the fact that "Winter" starts five days before Christmas, and that all the snow from Oct-Dec 20 comes in the fall? Don't think so.

But then I come from a state that actually sees snow every winter regularly, and a lot of people don't. For me, winter is longer than three months, and usually encompasses Nov through Feb.

But I digress, the point of my post wasn't to start a debate on when "Fall" is, but merely to state that based on all appearances, with two full beta phases left to complete before Headstart, they are behind the 8-ball. Making a "Fall Launch" (whatever that means) is fast becoming a slim chance. My money is still on Oct/Nov release, which for me is no longer fall. :)

 

 

First off seasons are not based on what kind of weather you have. I have had snow in the middle of spring where I live. I believe that Mark Jacobs said they consider fall to be September, October and November. So it is more like a schools definition of Fall rather then the scientific definition.

As far as slim chances of making fall launch. LOL. I thought I saw Mark Jacobs say that Guild Beta will last roughly a month if all goes well. That will put us into August. He also said that Open beta will be a month before release. So that would make Release Late September or early October. I would bet money the release is right on time for FALL.

While I don't agree that placing the arbitrary date of the 22nd or 23rd on the game is a good idea but I believe that it is easily a doable date. I think it might be the week after that but hey I am already in beta so what do I care .

BTW saying that November isn't fall is all sorts of messed up! I have lived in PA and RI. Thanksgiving is when the leaves are piling up. When  you look at Thanksgiving decorations they are colored leaves and corn. Fall marking the end of harvesting when plants are getting ready for the start of a colder season. I don't know where you live but it must be near a lake, Maine, or up near Alaska!

WAR will be out 2 months at least before WotLK.

Blizzard just opened beta opt in which means we got 6 months before they start beta. Even if they rush it, which they almost never do, you are looking at December as the closest probable launch.  With WAR going to release at the begining of fall(Sept/Oct) this gives them 2 monts. Now if Blizzard does rush it then I really fear for WoW's slow demise but it would be GOOD for WAR. Blizzard is ridiculously slow for the size of the company in developing things so I really doubt they will make 2008. They need at least 3 months of beta testing to make the expansion good. So they need to be in beta by September. So they have 2 months to get out of Alpha and move to Beta. I don't see it happening but again they might rush.

There is just no way that Blizzard will be able to get WotLK out by October. There are better odds, and those aren't great, that WAR will be delayed and then they will release at the same time.

Originally posted by ronan32

Originally posted by Rogue420

I started playing WoW around 3 to 4 years ago. TBC IMO was a major disappointment. There was nothing I liked about TBC. I didn't like most of the zones, the pve content, EotS, areNAH (it could've worked if done correctly), flying mounts (ruined what was left of world pvp), races, shat being the new IF/Org, and some other crap. There's a lot of thing I like about WotLK... Like the zones, another class, and new profession. Now for my concerns... I really hope they don't balance everything around areNAH and focus on it too much (like TBC). Flying mounts need to be fixed to bring back world pvp. Making the game too casual... I hope it doesn't get to the point were Blizzard holds your hand 1-80 and then gives you endgame epics in a gift basket as soon as you hit lvl80.BTW, seeing scrubs running around in epics defeats the purpose of calling the gear EPIC.

 

Also we better be getting a cool BG.

 

everyone in that game are going to be running around as death knights, pretty retarded that blizzard only introduced one hero class, pretty smart from a business stand point, because the next expansion will have another hero class to sucker you all in again.

I think that this expansion will do worse on percentage of sales/playerbase then TBC did. It might sell more but it won't be as popular among the players.

Many players don't like losing everything they worked for in a gear reset to level to 80. Adding 1 hero class is a recipe for overpopulation.  Not to mention that they are reusing content, poor Naxx, and the whole 10 man raids can be 25man raids. Also many classes don't like the way that Blizzard is trying to  homogenize gear/classes. PvP will still be laughable as always.

If there is an outlet for these players I believe you will see a drop in sales for this expansion.

Originally posted by zethcarn

Originally posted by PureChaos

Originally posted by Sornin

One thing WAR is definitely going to be full of is ex-AoC players, that is for sure.

You know, it is a shame that WAR is not ready for release yet, as right now is the perfect time. In the wake of AoC's disastrous launch, and well ahead of WotLK's presumably fantastic launch, WAR could really clean up, You would get all of the people Funcom turned away and all of the bored players from Blizzard's game, too.

As long as its about before WOTLK its fine, and even then it would still be good. See WOW right now is consited of plenty of people just fed up with the game, not that its so much as bad, but that it is just been that game for so long, people are tired of it. A xpac can add some fun things, but only so much, War has the benefit of a fresh start, adding fun little twists and gameplay thats built in from the CORE, which means it can do more in the future, Wow is tossing it in, but only the xpac carries it , so not everywhere has the fun stuff ect.

Either way WAR looks to have a good amount of people going to play it, atleast 1mil in the first few months.

 

As far as I can tell WotK will be more of the EXACT same thing.  Gear up from 5 mans,  Raid first 10-man, raid 2nd 10-man,  raid 3rd 10-man or 25-man.  The siege weapons are a joke because WoW PvP is an inbalanced mess to begin with.  The game is first and foremost balanced around raiding.  It is impossible to balance for both PvE and PvP.

My speculation is that WAR will release end of September or beginning of October. If they do indeed hit this release then they will have hit the best possible release date.

WotLK just opened up their beta opt in, based on the BC Beta sign up->Beta testing period which was 6 months(march-October I believe it was) then another 3 months until beta was done. So Even if at this point they are ahead of schedule(Just like a yearly expansion LOL) they will release in December at the earliest.

That will give WAR 2 months to not only get the game launched but gain their place in the playerbase. Not to mention that by October people in WoW will be burnt out or done with Season 4/Sunwell and looking for something to do until WotLK. That gives WAR the edge they need to really pull players away. So business wise it is good time to release.

Personally I hope that most of the WoW players stay in WoW because I can't handle another WoW-like community.

Doesn't much matter what ideas they try to use because their PvP system doesn't support it.

WAR= PvP anywhere and everywhere gets you rewards

WoW= Arena gets you the BEST rewards, BG's get you decent rewards, and Open world gets you nothing but a 5% damage buff/spirit shards.

So they have to rework their PvP system or they will leave it like it is and the zone will get small amounts of use near the start of the expanion but become the next Halaa. I think the later will be the case since Blizzard is lazy and quite possibly the slowest game devs on the planet.

Originally posted by Chiram

You also forgot the bunch who get in early, create a database website ahead of time and destroy any real guesswork or questionable tricks and immersion as the wowhead degenerated filth runs around spamming items that drop off a boss they haven't even seen yet.

Problem with the WoW databases is that WoW quests were sometimes very vague or had low drop rates that made you question if that was the right area.  WAR has the quest highlighting on the map so there isn't really any quesswork. Hey am I in the right area? OH im in the red circle so I must be.

Also remember that the Warherald will have untold amounts of wealth. Whether it includes an item database or not remains to be seen but I would assume that Mythic has it planned since WoWhead, Thottbot, and others have become so popular.

As for the types of beta testers...well its never cut and dry. Some just test to see what the game is like. Some play the game like normal and give feedback here and there. Others will explore everywhere. We have people that try to break parts of the game/exploit which is helpful in its own right and we have number crunchers that show theoretically how things are unbalanced or broken. You need all of the above to really test the game because thats how people will really play the game. The people that will play straight to 40, others will take there time and enjoy things, others will find ways to exploit to achive things, and people will always try to figure out formulas to achieve the best output.

As for an NDA being worth something. Well it is a contract and if they wanted to they could make you pay dearly for breaking it.

Getting paid doesn't matter to a lot of people. Making the game a fun MMO to play with their friends is important. Look at the countless MODS that are out there for games. Some have taken years to create and they didn't get paid to make them.

Personally I take any NDA breakers opinion with a grain of salt. Why? Because there are only a few reason to break it 1. Popularity/attention 2. Dislike the game and don't care 3. Trying to sell somebody on it. #1 will cause people to exagerate or leave out certain details to make things sound worse/better than they are. #2 are going to only include the negative aspects of the game OR make everything sound negative 3.  Are the opposite of #2.

When the time comes for NDA drop I will give my 2c to those interested but until then things are changing so whats the point. There are a lot of people that just want information on things and thats fine but others will cry bloody murder at the slightest 1/2 complete thing.

I always wondered just how retarded Blizzard devs could be then they put in Arena. But this is just non-intelligent! It completely lacks any sort of thought.

Unless they are giving out 2 new escape spells to all casters the double 2 hander alongside scaling armor penetration will make casters dead in seconds flat. Casters used to have enough escape spells to keep melee off of them in a 1v1 situation but at 2+ you were pretty much going to die. Then they gave melee more ways to get into melee and through off the balance making casters free kills.

Are they going to scale all damage to accomodate this? I mean rogues would be pretty much useless if you got a tank rolling around doing double the DPS and taking 1/2 the damage.  Is there going to be another HP jump? Why not just give them a talent to increase damage to dual weilding and leave 2h out of it? It opens a box of worms to say the least especially when warriors are the most OP class atm.

Shaman changes are needed since they were neglected for...well how longs BC been out? 2 years I guess!

Mage is pretty much LOL simply because elemental builds kind of keep them away from the top end talents. So I hope they plan to change some things!

Druid roots was a no brainer back in pre-BC why it took this long to get it done is beyond me.

Warlocks are getting a better version of blink and demonic form...I honestly don't know what to say about the form except you know the shadow bolt volley is going to be weak and the form probably won't be worth its talent position. Not to mention they said pets were scaling fine LOL.

Hunters getting pet talent trees will probably make them OP but time will tell.

All I have left to say is that I am glad I quit this game. They are slowly running it into the ground like SOE did to SWG. I love the changes they withheld putting into the game to fix it just so they could have expansion fodder.

Originally posted by ASmith84

Guys please understand what i am trying to say. What i am trying to tell you guys is that this game needs to be what the series is known for, a lot of violence and brutal moves. The 40k series was very violent and brutal. Mark of chaos(which is the same world as this game is based on) is very brutal with blood coming out from every swing. The mmo of this series is not that brutal or even the least bit intense. It is just like playing wow all over again but this time its to actually take over the other sides capital.

I understand they want a t rated game. What i do not understand is why does it matter?  What should matter is are you making the game that you want. Does it potray the Warhammer world accurately? WIll it please the fanboys? If you do this than who cares what it is rated it will sell. Do not worry about beating wow cause unfortunately too many peoples lives are already lost in that game. What should matter is did you make the best Warhammer mmo that you can make?

From wikipedia "Warhammer is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world". this is what i wanted this game to be like. Instead it is brightly colored like a fairytale.

Well first off there is only so many ways to slash/stab with a sword and the same goes for moves with every weapon.

You don't get the concept that this is an MMO. Using additional effects for blood, increasing the number/complexity of animations increases server and computer load. You wonder why AoC needs the absolute best system to run well now you have an answer. Now imagine a 200 vs 200 battle with blood splatter effects and you know what happens? Your computer shuts down. MMO's are not Single player games. You have to start thinking of graphics on the scale of 100+ people in the area instead of "Hey this single player game did this!" or "Another MMO did this but you can only get 50 people on screen before my computer dies".

Not to mention that Blood/gore can easily become one of the tackiest things in a game and IMO AoC went overboard with it. Then we have good old germany who cannot have blood in games. And the Teen rating is a HUGE selling point for investors/EA simply because you can get a decent demographic of 13-24 instead of the 18+ and HOPING that parents buy the game for their teens.

So take your pick of technical, tacky, or sales. All are reasons that there is no blood/gore.

BTW I am probably one of the biggest haters of Blizzard and the WoW community but we should be as lucky to have a game like WoW but with good PvP. PvP is why I orginally got WoW (at launch! oh the broken promises). TM/SS was fun, Original AV was fun.  Then PvE and Balancing happened and everything went to hell in a hand basket which is were all the Jaded PvPers that you can find here come in.

Originally posted by fuzzylojik

Originally posted by Moogleboy13

Originally posted by fuzzylojik

Originally posted by Kyleran

I dunno, maybe I'm just old school, but Orcs in space isn't a concept that I warm up to, Orc's belong in caves, not flying in spaceships, but that's just me.

 

I totally agree.  Orcs in space is like... monkeys in space. or some form of.... new smarter monkey.  Just weird......!!!!!!!!

 

Monkeys in space.... pffftt!!!

 

Monkeys in space... There's the new ground-breaking MMO for all those who have been requesting it!

 

we're... evolved monkeys. same concept btw.

Since we are mammals and mammals evolved from reptiles then we have....

Lizard men in Space!

Back to Orcs in space. I can't help but think of the stupid orcy looking dudes from the 5th Element.

Originally posted by mcharj11

Just look at WoW, they don't have a random seperate EU compnay handling it in Europe.

Difference is that Blizzard has major ties in the EU through Vivendi. Not to mention that Blizzard had a metric ton of cash to sink into EU servers while Mythic(pre-EA) did not have a ton of cash nor major ties in the EU. They picked GOA which is a company they knew could handle the server loads. If you think GOA is bad then try getting a server service through another company that has no experience with MMO sized loads and watch them crash and burn. We can hope that GOA has learned their lessons and that EA has given them some money to get better hardware/techs/etc to make WAR successful.

Originally posted by Nightsorrow

Originally posted by Zorndorf

In your long rambling post .... you forgot one small thing.... (God you really must love that game)....
 

Life is a reset.

And Wow is an evolution of resets of individual greed. And a very good one at that.

See you back in WotLK. Because I am sure everyone will line up at midnight to get the next box of greed.

 

Lol you talk about life? Life is not instanced.

Life is a reset? Are you Buddhist? Ok it reset once you die.

Anyway sorry I won't see you there, not enjoy the end game content at all and not gonna spend the money for an expansion just to get a so called "hero" class which is in fact just a regular "new" class and get to lv 80 then quit again.

Stop talking about greed anyway, everyone is greedy but it has nothing to do with playing WoW.

Think the greed thing is talking about Blizzard. Blizzard has EVERYTHING to do with greed. There is getting paid for your work and service and there is Greed. Blizzard is the later.

Reason why people hate Blizzard/WoW:

1. They alienated people who like the lore by mangling it- Gnome DK ftw!

2. They alienated PvPers- Arena ftw

3. They rarely keep promises but make them all the time to quell outrage- Blink fixed yet? How about them saying Invis will be retooled and put back in game and then waited until expansion time.

4. They withhold content to keep people paying money(greedy)- BWL, C'thun, raids really.

5. They take forever to fix problems- Mana shield absorbing ALL damage took how many patches? The whole Class patches where some classes were left to wallow for a year or more. Hey does the Horde base in AV still suck? You betcha! Even after 3 revamps in the exact wrong direction they still haven't fixed it.

Just the top 5 for me but in no particular order. Honestly who wouldn't hate a company that disabled account management to keep people from cancelling subscriptions. Anyone else remember looking at WoW prior to launch and reading at how much PvP it will have?

WoW itself as a game is decent, the company behind it though leaves a lot to be desired. They could fix just about everything wrong in WoW in a month but don't because it doesn't bring in enough money to do so.

So you wanted to know why people hate WoW? Blizzard and their unscrupulous practices. If you just play the game and don't watch their forums you might never notice it but if you do then you quickly understand the pure BS they spout at every turn.

Originally posted by hbosman

[quote]

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't another WoW fanboy stirring up shit because a good game that isn't made by Blizzard is coming out.

 WoWs graphics are decent at best.[/quote]

I did play WoW for 2 years and am playing EVE for a year now. And no, I aint no WoW fanboy but I do find the Blizzard style great (except for the WoW gameplay!).

What I don't understand why don't they remove the ugly screens and replace them with newer versions? Maybe even place a new version of the same screenshot with the old screenshot so people can see the progress.

For me, just like alot of others who aren't playing the beta, it's the information placed on the website that makes me decide to play or not. Placing and keeping, absolute screenshots they are giving me a wrong impression.

Really it is their fault for thinking that people could look at a date and figure out when the screenshots were taken. It was also their assumption that people could figure out that the game is still in beta and still being made! All those people who do projects and show photos of start to finish are misleading people! They might actually think that the half done project is the finished result!

I mean only Einstein himself could have figured all that out! Seriously though the screens are dated for a reason! To go back and retake all screenshots would be an annoying task to say the least. It is like asking all News agencies to go back to previous months news stories and update them with the outcome.

If you don't like the old screenshots then don't look at them. Look at the most current screenshots and thats it. They aren't giving you the wrong impression but rather you are drawing conclusions from things that are work in progress. Bottom line is you either don't like the style, which if you don't like it at this point then find another game or stop complaining, or you don't like the graphics(actual details) which are far and away better than say WoW. Armor looks like armor and not latex paint? The hell you say!

As for WoW style/graphics. I think they are the most MEH things ever. I can't say I was disappointed with them but never once in 3 years did I think they were great. You name it from color palatte to designs I could care less.

Originally posted by ASmith84

i have more respect for conan because they tried something different. Instead of click and watch they wanted you to actually feel like your contributing to the fight by choosing which direction you swing at. Also with spellweaving how doing linking spells up can create more powerful spells. Warhammer to me just said hey see this game warcraft? lets look exactly like it and improve on it without adding anything new to the genre. Oh yea lets be more about pvp to.  Whats new in it besides collision detection? i have nothing wrong with the game its just that in order to do better you have to implement new ideas to the genre. otherwise people will still be crying about grinding and the same ol crap we all love to hear.

yea i heard about the tier stuff and how the better your side does it can take over more and raid the capital of the other side or whatever. that is cool the thing is it will be the same thing over and over again once you think about it.

So you admit that Warhammer is improving on current mmo systems and instead of focusing on PvE they are focusing on PvP. Guess what? THAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT. If something is different it cannot be a clone. Owning your own argument ftw! When September comes around make sure you ask your teacher about logic and how to apply it. Every car has 4 wheels, an engine, steering wheel, gas pedal, and breaks by your logic the fact that they come in different shapes, sizes, styles, and power output doesn't matter because they are all clones.

So you can chain different spells in Conan to create more powerful spells? Well in Warhammer you can use abilities that change based on previous abilities you use. Believe the video they released aobut the swordmaster has this in it. If you put up your debuff then use a certain attack it can change the damage of that attack from say melee to spell damage. Thus making it a tactical ability since if you are fighting another tank melee might not be the best attack but magic will eat through them. DPS casters have the ability to use certain spells that increase their damage/crit  at the risk of blowing themselves up. Combo attacks are not that new.

As far as your last argument. CS has been the same for years yet people still play it.  Why? The maps might be the same but every game plays out differently. PvP is never static. City raids won't happen every day and you certainly won't take the city every time you try. Go take some music lessons and figure out why there are so few notes but millions of different songs.

Yeah lets get super graphics like from those new single player PS3-Xbox360 games! I mean dropping to 1 FPS when 5 people gather around and cast spells will be awesome!

NO amount of current techonology will allow you to run High rez, High Poly count, games with MASSIVE amounts of people around. You are naive and looking at a single person game thinking that it can be an MMO. Sorry but it doesn't work that way. In an MMO your computer needs to handle a ludicris amount of information at any given second and on top of that the more people that are on the screen fighting the worse it gets.

I know the next argument of what about FPS's. Well they have a lot less to worry about as far as computing goes. Weapon load out, character customization(if there is any), and small maps compared to entire worlds. In mmo's they have the whole world to worry about, character customization(like 10 peieces of gear, stats, spells, career mastery, etc). I am sure that an "mmo" could produce a Scenario that would give you 5 basic characters and 4-5 different spells that could run on ultra graphics settings but it wouldn 't be that fun.

If this was a SINGLE player game I would complain about the graphics. Since it is an MMO I am thinking "Holy crap those are some pretty good graphics for an MMO that is meant for large scale PvP".

Beleive me when the time comes it wont be "the graphics are crap" it will be "My game is at 1 FPS I need to turn the graphics down".