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[Banjo Tango]

How is the pacing?

I really like CoH's fast-paced "arcade" style where you would fight hordes of things at once, especially when compared to EQ's weird pulling / camping snooze-fest.

Another thing I hated about EQ was that when you went into a dungeon at a level where you could actually get decent XP, chances are you wouldn't see much more than the antechamber unless you were with a huge group... mostly due to this emphasis on monster difficulty, respawn, and buggy aggroing. It also annoyed the shit out of me that monsters that WOULDN'T give me XP could still kill me. Does WoW do anything to remedy this?

Also, what's the max group size? And how are "raids" handled? (Are there raids to begin with?)

 

[adrockthekid]

How is the pacing?

I really like CoH's fast-paced "arcade" style where you would fight hordes of things at once, especially when compared to EQ's weird pulling / camping snooze-fest.

Another thing I hated about EQ was that when you went into a dungeon at a level where you could actually get decent XP, chances are you wouldn't see much more than the antechamber unless you were with a huge group... mostly due to this emphasis on monster difficulty, respawn, and buggy aggroing. It also annoyed the shit out of me that monsters that WOULDN'T give me XP could still kill me. Does WoW do anything to remedy this?

Also, what's the max group size? And how are "raids" handled? (Are there raids to begin with?)

The pacing is in-between CoH and EQ, far as I can tell. It's more similar to EQ, I guess, but without all the goddamned downtime (in medding and camping spawns and waiting for groups). Even in crowded zones, I've had few problems with people stealing spawns from me.

As for dungeons, (so far) they're 5-person group affairs, and do hold better loot than other places - but not required loot by any means. They're tough, awesome, and since they're instanced nobody can f with you and there are some cool scripted events.

Difficulty? Not - except for certain quests. If you're a smart player and know how to not get any adds, you shouldn't have much trouble soloing most things, other than bosses.

Raids? There isn't really any raid content in yet, but they're promising it. They just put in the basic raid functionality, but it's not much more than a big linkshell (if you're an FF XI person; chat channel if you're not) for talking. So that's a wait-and-see.

 

[commish]

Raids - Yes there are raids, but I don't know the max size. I've been in groups of 15, and I know it can handle more than that in a raid.

Max party size (non-raid) is 5.

Pacing is not as fast-paced as CoH, but then again, in CoH, all you did was beat people up over and over all over the city. If you go in an instance, though, the enemies are plentiful and the pace picks up considerably.

Getting XP in this game is definitely NOT an issue, and you don't have to go into dungeons (instances) for XP, as the enemies around the land are good enough and the quests provide enough xp to level on. Up to a certain point, however, then you'll be grinding more and doing more instance runs. You won't be soloing most of the instances for the most part, but then again, no real reason to unless you are farming or looking for something.

 

[Banjo Tango]

Thanks for the info.

So in a group, are you typically pulling one monster at a time, taking on groups... or does it vary a lot?

 

[hiryu]

You are usually fighting more than one mob at a time. Especially in instanced quest. Crowd control is pretty important in some of the tougher areas. If you want to solo though it's very easy to just one mob a time in most normal areas.

 

[commish]

In a perfect world, you'd just take on 1 or 2 enemies, kill them in a few seconds and proceed. But sometimes your group can aggro a bunch at once and that can spell certain doom if it's too many or your team isn't good enough.

In CoH (by comparison, since it seemed like you are playing that), you could take on large groups of enemies and win 99% of the time (depend on level, of course), but in WoW each individual enemy is tougher than an individual enemy in CoH. Plus, the enemies scale differently. In CoH, if I'm level 30, then 10 level 22's are no problem for me. In WoW, if you are 30, 10 level 22's = dead.

 

[Banjo Tango]

One last question - do all of the classes have something to contribute to the fight (be it damage or crowd control), or is it an EQ situation where, in a group, certain classes ONLY heal and / or buff?

I should note that I haven't played EQ since before Luclin, and I've heard they've made some changes, so maybe the things I'm grousing about aren't relevant anymore.

 

[D.Cowboys]

WoW & COH are pretty different games...but ok.

I have seen people get bored by COH fairly quick...haven't seen that with WoW yet.

To each his own

They are not different games at all really not to me anyway. Does one have more to do than the other? Sure they do, I understand that. But to myself they are basically the same leveling treadmill, it's just that one has more fluff than the other.

Only speaking about MMORPGs here.

 

[JackFrost2012]

One last question - do all of the classes have something to contribute to the fight (be it damage or crowd control), or is it an EQ situation where, in a group, certain classes ONLY heal and / or buff?

Since every class can solo, every class has a fairly well-balanced mixture of attacks, defenses, buffs, etc. That said, in larger groups you will tend to naturally fall into certain roles ... but it's not like Priests sit around waiting for people to take damage; they can cast DoT spells and take out a dagger while waiting for their turn to heal.

 

[commish]

Priests can be quite powerful when turned into shadow priests

 

[Razoric]

I'm gonna be such a WoW fanatic I'll probably end up buying this:

Info here:
http://www.blizzard.com/press/10-05-04-zboard.shtml



Now all I need is a WoW cockring and I'm set.

 

[akascream]

Honestly, the raid system has broken the game. Until Blizzard fixes it, there is no worthwhile teamplay that I can find, and I tire of soloing. I'm going to start another toon until the issue is addressed.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Honestly, the raid system has broken the game. Until Blizzard fixes it, there is no worthwhile teamplay that I can find, and I tire of soloing. I'm going to start another toon until the issue is addressed.

Is this in regards to players setting up raids in non-raid instances? Because if so, they would seriously suck donkey balls. I've read player accounts on those instances, and raids would just be cheapening them. Lame.

I ask Blizzard to put a group cap for these non-raid instances. 1 group, nothing more.

 

[commish]

Is this in regards to players setting up raids in non-raid instances? Because if so, they would seriously suck donkey balls. I've read player accounts on those instances, and raids would just be cheapening them. Lame.

I ask Blizzard to put a group cap for these non-raid instances. 1 group, nothing more.

Yeah, that's what's happening. What's even worse are the idiots who think that an instance can't be done without a huge raid party, as if people just didnt' do these instances before raids were introduced.

"What? We only have 5 level 30 people for this level 20 instance, we'll get creamed, more people!"

I'm confident that blizz will place a limit on how big teams can be for instances; it's silly not too.

 

[Razoric]

Uh that's retarded. You don't have to be in a raid. You can choose to do an instance with 5-6 people. Why limit freedom? If 20 noobs want to raid an instance that doesnt really need it, why not let them? You want to control how they play?

 

[akascream]

This discussion is also a hot topic among the dev team. The general consensus is to leave the functionality in as it is for now and analyze how parties function with raid groups.

I think what we'll see is that once people get use to the raid group functionality they'll become more selective in creating a raid group or a normal group.

If not we will bring this issue up again with the developers.

Tyren

Apparently there are some brilliant individuals that think zerging is a good idea.

 

[adrockthekid]

Uh that's retarded. You don't have to be in a raid. You can choose to do an instance with 5-6 people. Why limit freedom? If 20 noobs want to raid an instance that doesnt really need it, why not let them? You want to control how they play?

The problem is, like the other guy said, nobody wants to play the game as originally designed. For somebody who's not in a good guild or whatever, pickup groups have been absolutely boned by the raid grouping.

I'm all for Blizzard-enforced rules that make people not be bitches.

 

[akascream]

I'm all for Blizzard-enforced rules that make people not be bitches.

Indeed. I've played with people that loved the team mechanics and challenge when they saw how the game was intended. People are willing to learn. But the way it is now, its hard as hell to even put together a regular group.

On top of that, it should mean something that you have certain gear. That some shit tard can join a raid that shreds an instance, roll lucky and get the same gear I busted my ass for is just retarded.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Uh that's retarded. You don't have to be in a raid. You can choose to do an instance with 5-6 people. Why limit freedom? If 20 noobs want to raid an instance that doesnt really need it, why not let them? You want to control how they play?

See I don't view it as controlling how they play. It's just being provided with a challenge (in an MMO no less *shocking*) and people always running from difficulty. These are the same people that would love to have just 1-button that nukes every mob in a 1-mile radius in one hit.

The entire point of an instanced-dungeon is to have a "personallized and challenging" experience inside an mmo with a small group of friends.

Blizzard creates content for a set number of individuals in their mind. The challenge is provided if you stay close to this set number. It's why there will be raid instances to go along with regular ones.

 

[Razoric]

See I don't view it as controlling how they play. It's just being provided with a challenge (in an MMO no less *shocking*) and people always running from difficulty. These are the same people that would love to have just 1-button that nukes every mob in a 1-mile radius in one hit.

The entire point of an instanced-dungeon is to have a "personallized and challenging" experience inside an mmo with a small group of friends.

Blizzard creates content for a set number of individuals in their mind. The challenge is provided if you stay close to this set number. It's why there will be raid instances to go along with regular ones.

But you can still have that challenge, we can all have that challenge. An instanced dungeon is personalized for that very reason. You can take 30 people in there or you can take 3. It's entirely up to you. The only thing I would suggest (if this isnt already done) is to scale up the instance based on the number of people. Maybe add more creatures or raise their level depending on how many people are in the instance.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

But you can still have that challenge, we can all have that challenge. An instanced dungeon is personalized for that very reason. You can take 30 people in there or you can take 3. It's entirely up to you. The only thing I would suggest (if this isnt already done) is to scale up the instance based on the number of people. Maybe add more creatures or raise their level depending on how many people are in the instance.

While I do prefer their being a hard cap on the number of individuals that can do an instance, I think having the dungeon scale according to level and #'s of players would definetly be an acceptable compromise.

 

[ManaByte]

The way to fix this is simple. Raid groups are made up of multiple groups of five. When a raid group zones into a non-raid instance, each group within the raid is put into their own version of the instance.

 

[adrockthekid]

Acceptable, yes, but raid groups are fuxored right now. It's such a pain in the ass to do anything with the current functionality that nobody would raid anything they don't have to if it didn't trivialize the content (because they're little bitches).

The other problem is that noobs are using raids to trivialize overworld, regular content too. Christ, just about anything that's not an instance is totally weak if you have a 5-man group with any skill whatsoever. And people raid it anyways. Weaksauce.

There's a really great ongoing thread about this on the beta forums...link:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=386644&s=new#new

 

[SiegfriedFM]

I had some of the most fun recently when I tried to kill a bunch of lvl 47 or 48 elites at lvl 52. An elite mob has 3 times as much HP and seems to do a bit more damage. The quest was marked yellow and "elite", signifying that I should have 1-2 levels more and a group to counter the more powerful enemies. But I was in an area with not many people and I only needed a single random drop from these enemies.

Using up most of my potions and temporary buffs, I managed to kill quite a few of these enemies in single combat. I had to run once when I got an add, because there's no way I could handle more than one. Usually I would run out of HP when they were at 1/3, but with a potion I could get enough back to barely kill them.

Anyway, after doing quite well I became impatient and attacked a warrior at lvl 48 (casters are much easier to take down since a warrior can shut down most of their spells... at least NPC casters since a PC caster would spam his spells way faster than a warrior can stop them). I almost made it, but was killed and returned to a cemetery an entire zone away. I took the experience hit and left the quest then and there (although I later returned to finish it). Even though I had lost lots of fairly useful items and never gotten the quest item I needed, it had been lots of fun fighting to the limits of my potential. Oh, and I scored about 900 exp (out of 125000 needed for lvl 53) per enemy doing that too.

 

[El Papa]

:lol They just posted some sound files that you can use like emotes. The undead male one made me lol .

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/sounds.shtml#b

 

[akascream]

The way to fix this is simple. Raid groups are made up of multiple groups of five. When a raid group zones into a non-raid instance, each group within the raid is put into their own version of the instance.

Yeah, that would be the best way.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

I don't think raids have fucked anything at all imo. I've only done a single raid (1, one, uno) since they've been implemented, and *gasp* it was the same area I went through with a raid in the ST, before raids were functional. I have done every horde instance since the patch up to Zul'Farrak too, not a single time in a raid, and most of the time in simple pick up groups. Raids might need balancing as far as ground spawn quest items go, but I don't see why anyone would want to roll for a drop against 14 other people or split gold/xp that much.

Aside from the damn Wailing Caverns, instances are so bloody awesome in this game and are by far the most enjoyable aspect.

Also, as far as items go, named elites almost always drop green, and most of the time rare stuff too.

 

[AeroGod]

Quit complaining about the newbie raid groups. We will have a GAF guild which will probably have 20+ members once we get ourselves and our friends in. There will never be a short supply of players such as yourself who want to challenge of an instance for you to group with. S'all right, dudes. We will have alliance and horde guild with good players to group with.

Also, I share the sentiments of the non-pvp server. Been watching my friend play on non pvp for the past 2 weeks nearly everyday. Lots of PVP opportunities and once they have battlegrounds it'll be even better. Im not a particularly big fan of ganking or getting ganked when I just want to be leveling up. Ive seen it happen, its annoying. I vote for the GAF guild on a PvE server.


Also, the voice samples are great. They have even better ones though, although I love the male troll "killing dwarfs" song :lol

 

[ManaByte]

Also, I share the sentiments of the non-pvp server. Been watching my friend play on non pvp for the past 2 weeks nearly everyday. Lots of PVP opportunities and once they have battlegrounds it'll be even better. Im not a particularly big fan of ganking or getting ganked when I just want to be leveling up. Ive seen it happen, its annoying. I vote for the GAF guild on a PvE server.

PVP in WoW is best to be avoided. Battlegrounds will be decent, but I doubt it'll be as fleshed out or fun as RvR in DAOC.

 

[MrCheez]

I had a blast with PvP in the Stress Test. O_O (Plus I pwned at it, which helps ;D )

Battlegrounds seems like it's going to be amazing. We can expect zones restricted to people of certain level-ranges (I think that alone would make people enjoy PvP much more), rewards, and even quests based around PvP. Can'twaitcan'twait!

 

[Doth Togo]

:lol

My mage will o\/\/n j00!

 

[ManaByte]

I had a blast with PvP in the Stress Test. O_O (Plus I pwned at it, which helps ;D )

Battlegrounds seems like it's going to be amazing. We can expect zones restricted to people of certain level-ranges (I think that alone would make people enjoy PvP much more), rewards, and even quests based around PvP. Can'twaitcan'twait!

PVP isn't fully implemented into the game yet. What was there in the stress test was like .01% of the actual PVP system.

 

[MrCheez]

That's what I was saying.

But even in it's limited form I enjoyed it, so I imagine I'm gonna be in heaven when it's all in.

 

[akascream]

PVP isn't fully implemented into the game yet. What was there in the stress test was like .01% of the actual PVP system.

Heh, you don't want to go down this road with MrCheez. Just take my word for it.

 

[ManaByte]

That's what I was saying.

But even in it's limited form I enjoyed it, so I imagine I'm gonna be in heaven when it's all in.

I can spend ALL my time in RVR in DAOC and still LEVEL and have fun if I wanted to as in DAOC you gain experience for PVP kills in addition to points. WoW is not doing that.

In MMO PVP the way to make it fun is to have no death penalty when you die in PVP and give you experience for fighting in PVP - ON TOP OF any PVP rewards. Also, those rewards should NOT degrade over time. By having them degrade over time only forces you to play the game and turns the MMO into work (like stupid maintenance costs in SWG).

 

[Kai]

Your funny Manabyte....

 

[MrCheez]

Getting exp for kills would be nice, but you don't have to have that to have fun. The competition alone, with absolutely no reward, was entertaining for me in the Stress Test.

But there will be rewards, even rewards such as unique titles, armor, and mounts that non-PvPers will not have access to. That's not a degrading reward.

Also, there will be a rankings ladder that they put up on the official site. Your incentive is to be the best. It's the same incentive that makes people to play a games such as an FPS competitively and have fun doing it. *shrug*

 

[ManaByte]

Also, there will be a rankings ladder that they put up on the official site. Your incentive is to be the best. It's the same incentive that makes people to play a games such as an FPS competitively and have fun doing it. *shrug*

DAOC has the most detailed PVP ladder/ranking/info system in any MMO:
http://guilds.camelotherald.com/realms/war.php?server=Percival

 

[AeroGod]

Manabyte, WOW is STILL in Beta. DAoC PvP is 4 years in the making. When DAoC came out, the PvP was terrible and horribly broken, but it has come ot form. PLus, DAoC better have good rewarding PvP because the PvE in that game is terribly boring by hte time you get to lvl 30. Its improved a little bit, but the PvE in WoW is like 1000 times better. I swear, I could spend months just doing PvE in wow and never even touch PvP, not that I would do that though.

 

[MrCheez]

DAOC has the most detailed PVP ladder/ranking/info system in any MMO:
http://guilds.camelotherald.com/realms/war.php?server=Percival

I'm aware, I played DAOC for a few months. The only point of my replies is to say that I don't see any reason why you can't enjoy the PvP in WoW if you liked it in DAOC, not to say "OMG WoW will pWnxx0r d@rk age!!1"

 

[ManaByte]

Manabyte, WOW is STILL in Beta. DAoC PvP is 4 years in the making. When DAoC came out, the PvP was terrible and horribly broken, but it has come ot form. PLus, DAoC better have good rewarding PvP because the PvE in that game is terribly boring by hte time you get to lvl 30. Its improved a little bit, but the PvE in WoW is like 1000 times better. I swear, I could spend months just doing PvE in wow and never even touch PvP, not that I would do that though.

Yeah. WoW has the best, and most fun, PvE due to the great combat system in the game.

If you could combine WoW's PvE with DAOC's RvR castle siege gameplay, you'd have the best MMORPG ever made.

 

[Razoric]

I think sometimes we are forgetting that WoW is just beginning it's lifecycle. Think about how great WoW is right now and then imagine what it will be like in 3-4 years. *drools*

 

[Outdoor Miner]

Yeah. WoW has the best, and most fun, PvE due to the great combat system in the game.

If you could combine WoW's PvE with DAOC's RvR castle siege gameplay, you'd have the best MMORPG ever made.

Amen to that.

 

[SyNapSe]

More questions (loosely based on FFXI and CoH experience):

Travel Times - How are they? It took an EXTREMELY long time to get from one spot in the world to the next in FFXI. CoH was must better in this regard. You could navigate across a zone in a minute or two, and most any place you wanted to go didn't require more than a 3 or 4 zone crossing.

Exp grinding curve? - How is it? I felt like both FFXI and CoH had reasonable grinding curves*

* I felt the actual time needed making EXP in FFXI was reasonable, however, the grouping structure could not have been limited anymore. Their was no soloing (basically), and after the beginning levels groups could take 2 hours to form before you even began gaining exp.

(example: 1 hour to find people available with the proper jobs to form a party, 15-30 minutes for those people to rendezvous back at town/whatnot.. because you waited so long sometimes people would naturally switch gear and go out and raise weapons they didn't use against little mobs, or go kill things for loot, etc. and then another 15-30 mins to get to the designated EXP camp spot.)


I already know the grouping isn't anywhere near as strict in WoW.i.e. You don't NEED a Priest, you can have a shaman + Paladin, or shaman + Druid, or whatever. That's great, in my mind.

One last concern/question for now. I know Hunters weren't implemented until recently.. I've thought a Tauren Hunter would be fun to play. They seem to mix based on descriptions (I have no idea how stats are aligned for races, nor what's best for classes yet). Soooo, are Hunters not so good in groups? Or do they work as well as other classes?

 

[AeroGod]

OMG WoW will pWnxx0r d@rk age!!1"

It already does as far as im concenered. I had more fun playing WoW for a week and getting ot lvl 21 the nI ever did in DAoC. After I got to lvl 20 in DAoC i was bored, I ran it out to 35 but man did it suck and then I finally gave up. Yeah, the battelgrounds were alot of fun when you got to the keep takes but the PvE is shit. Thankfully my brother loves ita nd got a bunch of lvl 50's so I can /level any class I want and twink him out and try out the BGs.

The point is, the only time PvP was fun in DAoC is during keep takes, and even then...ehh. Roaming and ganking with big groups in the frontier is boring and the battels are over in 5 seconds. Not saying WoW will be different, its just in general not really fun. Im not going to say DAoC doesnt have the best MMO PvP because honestly, what else is there. Nothing really. Still though it isnt THAT great when you realize what it is. The rewards and everything are fine and dandy, but playing them isnt THAT fun. Roaming is 3 second battle gank fest and even the novelty of keep takes gets old fast. The warriors stand out use siege, casters and range nuke, stealthers scout blah blah untill you kill their forces and lords. Ive seen and played frontier PvP. The rewards are great, playing them isnt very fun.

 

[MrCheez]

More questions (loosely based on FFXI and CoH experience):

Travel Time - The world feels huge (just as big as FFXI) but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. For one (besides the cool cities) FFXI felt freaking barren. In normal zones I just felt like there was never anything to see. WoW is all about atmosphere, and all the zones in the game felt great, so just waandering around was a much more enjoyable experience. Also, you can take rides on various flying creatures to get to general areas quickly. (Boats and zeppelins are also present).

The EXP rate in WoW is a beauitul thing. It's so quick that some people are worried it's TOO quick. And even when it does slow down a bit it doesn't matter because you're having so much damn fun. Never once have I felt like I'm working for xp in WoW (which is a feeling I'm used to from every other MMO). It's more like you're having fun and completing quests and just happen to be getting xp on the side.

Hunters don't have a lot to bring to the table yet, but they are still very unfinished and do not yet have talents. However, every class can solo and no class is useless. Their ranged DPS is nothing to scoff at, either.

 

[ManaByte]

Thankfully my brother loves ita nd got a bunch of lvl 50's so I can /level any class I want and twink him out and try out the BGs.

Yup. As soon as Catacombs comes out I'm going to /level 20 a Vampiir and Bainshee on Hib.

MMO Vampires. Cool

 

[MrCheez]

It already does as far as im concenered.

Ahaha, yeah, I agree completely. Just meant that that wasn't what I was trying to get across in my replies.

But honestly, after 10 days WoW is already my favorite MMO, out of the 6 or 7 that I've played. That says a lot for a game!

 

[AeroGod]

Yup. As soon as Catacombs comes out I'm going to /level 20 a Vampiir and Bainshee on Hib.

MMO Vampires. Cool

Yeah. Even though I dislike Dark Age, I always come back to every other month for a week or so. Mythic really really is a great developer. I can only hope Blizzard matches and surpasses them. The camelot site is fantastic, and mythic really really cares about their community. Ignore the fanboys crying about nerfs, mythic knows what they are doing. All the content they add and little extras. THe free level system they recently added was realy cool. They really want their player base to achieve lvl 50 so the ycan start enjoying the PvP and raid content of Atlantis. Free lvl system is helping alot of casuals get there, including me. Im playing out a sorcerer now. It great to play him and get a lvl, then log back on a couple days later and find out I got another one.

 

[SyNapSe]

mrcheez,

thanks. Travel times scares me a bit :\ We'll see... I know Hunters are still new in implementation. This confuses me.. as I also hear that the undead have the only race traits so far. How can these basic skills/attributes not even be implemented if this game is going to release in November (possibly?)

I can understand if they needed balancing, but not even having things implemented doesn't sound like it's anywhere near ready to launch for an MMO.