24 Comments

1. Ken  •  Nov 23, 2010 @12:51 pm
   

   Not having played for three years — is this just like a reboot, designed as an opportunity to make all the locales fresh again, even if gameplay isn't?

2. CTrees  •  Nov 23, 2010 @1:05 pm
   

   I was really tempted to play, until I realized that the email my account was tied to no longer exists, I don't remember the password, and I don't even remember the account name (even if I did, it wouldn't help, because a password reset would be sent to the old email). I haven't played in a few years…

   So, I'm minus my L.70 character, and I'd have to buy the base game and all three expansions. AND DOWNLOAD ALL THOSE $#)%(@#U PATCHES. So it seems like a bit too much of an investment of time and money to be worth it, especially since my video game time has dropped to being countable in minutes per week. Damn gainful employment… Why did I ever think *that* was a good idea?

3. Marie  •  Nov 23, 2010 @1:12 pm
   

   I would recommend you drop by tomorrow night, instead. All that will likely have changed by this evening is that they will have again extended the predicted server up time on the "Breaking News" splash page. So far, it's gone from 11 am this morning to 5 pm this evening.

4. LabRat  •  Nov 23, 2010 @1:22 pm
   

   There's new zones and raid content as well as standard for expansions.

   Gameplay overall has changed a *lot* in three years, though it's still fundamentally a high fantasy RPG.

5. Grandy  •  Nov 23, 2010 @1:23 pm
   

   Well Ken, gameplay has evolved somewhat. For some values of "evolved". It can be said that pre "makeover" it got much easier to level from 1 to 80 solo; I did it (mostly) with a character. Mechanics evolved as well but these were more microevolutions. The Talent trees just got overhauled significantly on a couple of occasions (including a major overhaul recently). It may be that the game will feel fresh to someone who has been away for a long time.

   As for "making the world new again", it's a little more complicated than "a fresh set of paint and a redoing the interior". If you played 1-80, pre "makeover", you noticed certain things. There are enough quests that you never had to despair, but in the vanilla game there were many badly designed quests. Awful quests. Escort quests with slow and stupid escortees (though one provided Patrick and I no end amount of amusement; Patrick is convinced it was a deliberate lampshading of escort quests. I am not so sure, but thankful that we got to experience it and have the discussion). Collection quests with no actual logic to them other than "we wanted you to do this for 30 minutes, which is why only THIS top of mob amongst similar types drops the quest item, and not all of them do. Oh, and thanks for your money". Quests that had you wander back and forth across the continents for no good reason (only to eventually direct you to another quest hub, where you got asked to wander back to some of the same places again. Gah). Quests that just sucked ass.

   I wouldn't go so far as to say that the two expansions were filled to the brim with great quest design. But it was generally much better than what you saw in vanilla. So this overhaul is going to bring evolved design sensibilities and practices into the vanilla game. The graphical overhaul will not be irrelevant – they certainly are going to add a sense of exploration back to the game for people who enjoy that kind of thing – but it's not the most important aspect, IMO. I believe that quest rewards will get a fresh set of pain, and this is an area where the game improved somewhat in the expansions as well.

   There will be much new lore, if you are into that sort of thing (I, sadly, am not).

6. Patrick  •  Nov 23, 2010 @1:59 pm
   

   Ken, the gameplay has gotten much more smooth. as an iterative process. When the game came out, you may recall that you HAD to download mods to fix what was essentially a broken interface. Now the interface includes all of those mods and is really quite wonderful, though there are mods that improve on that still more.

   Classes were broken. The Priest (the equivalent of a cleric) had one utterly useless talent tree called discipline, which included such utterly useless talents as "wand specialization" – as though any group ever chose a cloth wearing healer over, say, a mage or a warrior because he wielded a bad-ass wand. Now the discipline talents are all geared toward improving mana efficiency, or allowing the priest to prevent damage before it happens, making discipline priests some of the best healers in the game – because they don't have to heal damage that isn't taken. Warlocks, a caster class that relies on demon pets, had a demonology tree that was utterly useless because the pets were utterly useless. Now the pets are something to fear, and at the top of the talent tree the warlock can transform himself into a raging demon on fire for limited periods (like when the boss is down to 10% health but your WARRIOR … IS … ABOUT … TO … DIE), a sort of temporary god-mode. That's fun.

   If you want a transformation of the genre, you're going to have to wait for Star Wars: The Old Republic, or my personal pick, and the game I'm holding out for, Guild Wars 2. Those may be the fourth generation MMOs that kill WoW.

   But if you want to play the third generation MMO perfected, WoW is as good as it will ever be.

   (Note that I order generations as follows:

   1) MUDs, Diku and otherwise;
   2) Ultima Online (which remains somewhat unique), Everquest, and my personal favorite Asheron's Call;
   3) Dark Age of Camelot (a truly great game whose promise Warhammer Online failed to follow upon) through World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and beyond.)

   I think that the best MMOs around today remain WoW (especially if you're looking for massive) and Guild Wars (if you want something with a bit of massive but more personal). And that's pretty sad. The companies that have the money to make something that could eclipse WoW just try to make WoW clones that miss the magic for lack of vision, and the companies that have the vision miss the magic for lack of money. Bioware may do it if EA doesn't fuck them up the way they fuck everything else up, and Arenanet may do it because they've done it before.

   Everyone demands WoW 2.0. Well it's here, and surprise, it's World of Warcraft, perfected.

   "That game is our only hope. No, there is another."

7. Derrick  •  Nov 23, 2010 @2:25 pm
   

   I hope I can still hit Lazy Peons.

8. Patrick  •  Nov 23, 2010 @2:31 pm
   

   Lazy peons remains the best quest ever. It will stay.

9. Jag  •  Nov 23, 2010 @2:48 pm
   

   Westfall has been completely redesigned with a CSI storyline. I may make a low level character just to play through it.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDJ865aMj8

   I wouldn't call the Shattering/Cata a reboot since Blizz has learned so much from later quest and level designs. They apply newer and more interesting mechanics at the lower levels. So while you are still in the same (now shattered) areas, the experience should be significantly better including the much improved class dynamics that Patrick referenced that gives you your class signature/notable ability at a very low level now.

10. Grandy  •  Nov 23, 2010 @2:50 pm
    

    "Star Wars: The Old Republic"

    I am doubtful about this one, honestly.

11. PeeDub  •  Nov 23, 2010 @2:53 pm
    

    I'm a fan of the "poo" series of quests.

12. Patrick  •  Nov 23, 2010 @3:02 pm
    

    I don't have much hope for Bioware's take on Star Wars as an MMO either Grandy, but I have some hope:

    It's Bioware, and they've done Star Wars right.

    It's Bioware, and Baldur's Gate is the second best rpg series ever made.

    It's Bioware, and EA can't fuck EVERYTHING up, can they?

    But I'm not optimistic, because EA, so far, has an impressive track record, they'll force the game out before it's ready, and some of the design choices I've heard of seem … scary.

13. Grandy  •  Nov 23, 2010 @3:23 pm
    

    Well, I never played Kotor (just the sequel). But that type of story telling – and I don't enjoy Bioware's efforts as many as most – don't seem like they are a good fit for an MMORPG (and some early interviews, etc suggest they want to blend that with an MMORPG, granted I've only skimmed, and not even close to every interview). And BG is not *my* 2nd rated RPG series ever, so there you go.

    As to EA. . . lol yeah. Best not to think too much about that one.

    Oh, and as for coming out "too soon"; I think it's unpossible for it to be any other way. This thing has a Hollywood blockbuster esque budget (if low end for that sort of thing, these days). It's got something like a 5-6 year development cycle that can't possibly be enough time for a company that has never done an MMORPG, I don't care how much money was in the budget, nor how many experienced MMORPG folken they brought on board. I guess the best case scenario is "relatively" stable with the usual issues revolving around game balance and content. It's unfair to compare a launch MMORPG with an established one but it always seems like there is a good deal of that.
    Also, how can this game not come out before it's ready? I mean, it's going to have an absurd, pushing Hollywood blockbuster levels, budget. There is no way – even with a 6 year development time frame, they will get it all done. No way. EA will have to release at some point. I think bestk case scenario is a relatively stable release where balance is off and the amount of content feels skimpy (unfair though that case may be; it's wront to compare it to WoW + 3 expansions, and all the balancing that game underwent post release, but I kind of feel like those things will happen).

14. Ken  •  Nov 23, 2010 @4:08 pm
    

    Have I said recently how much I love our topic variety on this blog?

15. Patrick  •  Nov 23, 2010 @4:15 pm
    

    KOTOR, the original, is one of the best games ever made.

    If you own an Xbox or Xbox 360, you can find it and play it for five bucks.

16. Grandy  •  Nov 23, 2010 @6:57 pm
    

    Kotor, depending on your POV, either punished you for leveling or rewarded you for waiting to level. But it didn't do either of these things in a mechanically interesting way, IMO. That's the kind of thing that keeps a game from greatness(again, IMO).

17. CTrees  •  Nov 24, 2010 @5:41 am
    

    @Grandy: At least it wasn't like Last Remant. You see SquareEnix, you think level grinding. The game actively (though text telling you "this is a good thing, you should do this as much as possible") to fight in ways which increase your level fastest ("Battle Rank," in their terminology). Then you find out, you are actively and SEVERELY punished for leveling too quickly, to the point that too much leveling can actually make the game impossible to finish. The game doesn't tell you this, though – you get into a boss fight, get stomped, think "wow that was tough! I need to level some more!" because years of gaming, and Last Remnant's own advice, are telling you this, but that only makes the fight harder.

    I'm still bitter. Games like KotOR and Oblivion did a bad job with the scaled leveling, but they don't even compare to Last Remnant (which admittedly, on the PC, was pretty darn nice looking)

18. Chris  •  Nov 24, 2010 @7:43 am
    

    I think my favorite recent change is that they just hand you a small pile of tree-defining abilities with your first talent point at level 10. There's no more waiting 30 levels for your enhancement shaman to have dual wield and lava lash or your subtlety rogue to get shadowstep.

19. Chris  •  Nov 24, 2010 @8:02 am
    

    Also, base game & first expansions are each $5 this week. All of the changes that dropped this week are accessible without any of the expansions.
    http://us.battle.net/en/promotion/

20. LabRat  •  Nov 24, 2010 @12:27 pm
    

    I spent somewhere around four hours… maybe five last night wandering around in a happy, geeked-out haze.

    "This was a triumph: I'm making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS."

21. CTrees  •  Nov 24, 2010 @12:31 pm
    

    @Chris:

    Oohhhhh (%#@ you…

    I kid, I kid, but… yeah I'm probably going to end up buying ALL of those now, and wasting a lot of time I don't have. *grumble*

22. Scott Jacobs  •  Nov 24, 2010 @4:11 pm
    

    No… Must… Not… Return to… WoW…

23. Noble  •  Nov 25, 2010 @8:10 pm
    

    Discipline useless? Heresy!!!

24. Mitzvah the Priest  •  Nov 29, 2010 @12:08 am
    

    As a time gauge, I was level 60 for a few months before Burning Crusade. I'm glad for the "sneak peek" patch. I wasn't sure I had 5 more levels in me. But now I know I don't want to re-learn the game. Maybe someone can recommend a new one. WoW is the only game I've ever played.