BTW, they didnt make the rats. some guy at www.rathergood.com made them. I Guess they payed him to make them the commercials. Now the questions remains, why.

I don't think it's very feasible for them to make that many missions in advance anyways. What a good MMORPG needs (and what NONE so far has actually delivered) is ongoing content

AC had ongoing content, updated once a month. Not much of it was live, but there was some stuff that was. As for the launch, I believe DAoC had a pretty good launch. I signed up right after release and can't remember any problems.

$9.50/month. I'll bet you.

10-20? Try 1,400, according to the latest Gamespy preview

Mweh, preview articles always drastically exxagerate this number just so it looks cool. Black & White was supposed to have 400 missions too. I think in the end I counted 18, but I might have counted a few double.

I don't think it's very feasible for them to make that many missions in advance anyways. What a good MMORPG needs (and what NONE so far has actually delivered) is ongoing content and especially content on the fly, that gets delivered regularly and can be enjoyed by everyone, no matter their timezone, playing schedules etc.
I realise this is a logistical nightmare, but without something like that, MMORPGs will, in my opinion, never really take off.

As the game itself gets essentially finished, they'll need to have a SUPER large stress test to see if their servers can take the stress of a !@#$-ton of players

Oh, come on Dunn! This is a MMORPG beta test we're talking about. Their SUPER large stress test will consist of 5000 beta testers online, their server being totally wonky and crashing at least four times during the test, after which they declare it a total success, go gold 2 days later, have one registration server up on a dual ISDN line, act totally surprised that more than 15 people tried to register at the same time, even though they had 8 billion pre-orders, refuse to spend any kind of money or effort to fixing it, since eventually the numbers will trickle through anyways, and why put down hardware just for that initial big crunch, will tell fans who try to register for a week and can't that they should just "hang in there" and that they "won't be charged until they're registered" (Gee thanks!), and finally declare their launch an absolute success.

This has been the way of every MMORPG since UO, and let's not break up a good tradition, shall we?

WoW might be interesting, but I really need to see how that instancing of dungeons works, and whether there actually IS all that content that Blizzard claims there is before I'd spend any money on it.
Also, anyone want to hazard any bets that the monthly fee will be ABOVE $15.99?

Creston

They want to cover a certain range of machines.

Yeah, firstly, they want to make sure the people in the test can actually run the game. Secondly, they also want to be able to troubleshoot the game on a very wide range of user configurations, configurations they can't test in house or don't have available to them. So if you have a machine with a less than normal hardware configuration, your chances of getting in are higher than normal. And these aren't just my words, these are the words of a Blizzard employee I was in contact with pre-WC3 beta. So begin installing your Matrox video cards and Hercules sound cards, they'll raise your chances ;).

"10-20? Try 1,400, according to the latest Gamespy preview Considering that Blizzard is looking at not only making quests the #1 place to get XP, but also providing XP for exploring new areas in addition to just killing stuff, I'm hoping the level grind will finally be defeated. Here's hoping."


There's a MUD that does the same thing. It is/was called Multi-Users in -Middle Earth (MUME)

You would get Travel Points (TP) for exploring areas.

TP's were distributed evenly throughout the world (1 for each room) and every time a TP was collected it would randomly appear in a new room. As such, less travelled places would start collecting large amounts of TPs.
TPs were required for leveling up, this encouraged exploration.

Neat system.

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Edited because I'm a goober.
This comment was edited on Jan 27, 10:49.

silonez = NDA n00b with a penchant for bragging.

I was in both the Warcraft 3 ROC and TFT betas and they don't just do it randomly. They want to cover a certain range of machines. So it somewhat depends on your machine, but that's about it. Last time they made you download this active x program that determined your machine specs automatically. I don't know if they are going to do that again though. It really doesn't matter because it's not like making it up will help you since you have no idea what they want.

Oh, and be prepared for cheaters. Don't be like them. These guys sign up multiple times under fake names to get it. If they get caught they get banned.

Abs

I know I will get in this beta, I have buckets of karma saved up because I gave away my beta spot in Lords Of Everquest.

LOL. I don't think that netted you much karma, sorry.

And the Arby's oven mitt looks like the old hamburger helper oven mitt. Yum, not.

That Quizno's ad is even more stupid than the Arby's oven mitt.

I know I will get in this beta, I have buckets of karma saved up because I gave away my beta spot in Lords Of Everquest.

they gotta let me in this beta... last beta I was in was planetside I think...

No Australian test yet? Meh, I should have known we'd get left out of the loop.

WoW sounds like it could be an above-average MMORPG, but I really hate Blizzard's cartoonish art-direction for their games. It makes it awfully hard to take their games seriously.

http://www.davidcsimon.com

This game is so fun. It's wrecking my life.

... I'm sitting here at work at 3AM anyway, reading bluesnews between compiling. guess I'll have to give up on sleep for a while if I can play zug zug.

From what I've seen, it should cause significant delays in my work schedule.

"If there was more to do ingame, perhaps 10-20 side quests or things to do per level to break up the repitition while earning experience, that would make these types of game more enjoyable."

10-20? Try 1,400, according to the latest Gamespy preview Considering that Blizzard is looking at not only making quests the #1 place to get XP, but also providing XP for exploring new areas in addition to just killing stuff, I'm hoping the level grind will finally be defeated. Here's hoping.

As for the beta, Blizzard has said that there going to do the testing in waves. From the pool that signsup in the coming week, they'll maybe choose, I dunno, a thousand to play for a month or two, then double the number, then add some more, ETC. ETC.

As the game itself gets essentially finished, they'll need to have a SUPER large stress test to see if their servers can take the stress of a !@#$-ton of players. I dunno if the stress test will be open, by I'm guessing you'll have a decent chance of getting in. Of course, Blizzard tends to do things their own way, so I might be way off.

This comment was edited on Oct 19, 2024, 06:03.

it is time... to break out the lucky warcraft thong



Okay I am going to puke now and brush my teeth with Clorox and burn anything I touched since reading that post.... sick :).



On to WOW, I only played one MMORG and that was Everquest. I have bought every blizzard game but Diablo 2, and I am really tempted to buy this one. There are some really cool features like "instancing of dungeons" so each group gets their own "instance" of a dungeon, that is REALLY nice. Dungeons seem more like a tavern than an isolated, dangerouse place in most MMORPG because its so crowded. Some dungeons are for just you and your group now that is a nice feature. This game has alot of positives and I honestly think this is the perfect game for Blizzard to make. But it better get A+++++ friggin' reviews before I drop $55 on the game and then $10 - $15 on a monthly fee... I be po'.

[Marketing Executive, "Hey, I got an idea. How about two mutated rats... you know deformed looking freaks. But one is kinda artsy and he plays a guitar..." ]

THAT'S TOO FUNNY! That Rat on the left has some friggin messed up eyeballs. I've always thought that half of the entertainment industry is on some mind altering drugs. Maybe they're promoting their new "All Grey Meat Sub".

-Savage Ripley-