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bltzkriegmcanon · 09-13-2004, 10:10 AM

Agreed. Even on the Stress Test beta, there were characters who were around 25 and looked better than most of the people I've seen on the Closed beta. I'll admit, there are a pretty good amount of people who look exactly like Lasereth described in EQ on the closed beta. But I guess it's just not enough. There are higher level characters in WoW who do look awesome, but it's nowhere near the amount of people who don't look cool at all.

Lasereth is also correct that in EQ, you spent 90% of the time in FPV. 3rd PV really, really sucked in EQ. Being in FPV all that time puts alot of emphasis of you looking at other people. When I played, I don't think I had a real objective of "looking cool". I guess I was at such an early stage of MMORPG-dom that I had more of a general concept of just "having fun." Which meant going out and killing shit. "Looking cool" was way in the back of my head.

I think that when WoW is released into the wild of MMORPG's, it'll be fantastic, and you'll have multitudes of freaks who wanna spend more time "looking cool" than people like myself who'd rather "have fun". Not to say that you can't do both, since often, "looking cool" is a result of "having fun" especially since 90% of play in WoW is spent on quests. I think quests are hellaciously fun. I spent, in the 10 days of play, no more than 30 minutes of just going and killing non-quest-related shit. I wasn't having a crapton of fun, I was grinding.

Overall, I'd definitely play this game if it were to retail. I think most of us who've complained about it would pay for it. But there are problems. Mostly with character models.

But, Blizzard has their reasons for that. They most likely want the same people who've been playing WC3 to just pick up this game and think, "Hey, my hardware ain't so bad. It can run the game pretty smoothly." I mean, EQ was WAY more problematic about computers not being able to run it unless you made some serious upgrades. In order to play Luclin, you had to have a pretty good setup. This game isn't a technical proving ground, it's not like Doom3 where you HAVE to get a new system or at least do some upgrades in order to even play it, much less get very fast frame rates. This isn't that kind of game. It's an extremely wide-release, "everyone with a computer from 3 years ago can play this" kind of game. It's a "Hey I can play this game with my 1.2 Thunderbird and GeForce3 Ti500 and it's not 'My Slideshow of Azeroth'." What that means for the rest of us is that "My 2.4 P4 and ATI 9700 Pro runs this game really really well, but the character models look like they should be run by that guy with the fossilized computer over there."

When it comes to the "holy shit badass" armor that you can get in EQ, and then pass onto your level 5 counterpart, "twinking" as Lasereth mentioned, that Blizzard is doing what they can to prevent that. I know that as soon as WoW is released, within, say a month of playtime, there will be more freaks with "holy shit badass" armor than you and all your friends can count on all their family's and their own hands and feet. I think the lack of differentiation in equipment comes from 2 things. Level restrictions and not everyone going on the best damn quest they can to get the uber armor. I think that the latter is a result of the former. You can only go on so high of quests before you just get wasted by the thing that you're questing for. Which is both a good and bad thing. You can't go so far out of your "league" that you get your ass handed to you everytime you get close, but then, you can't get the omega factor armor either.

At the end of the day, this is a really good MMORPG, but, like most, there's a problem in balance on many issues. Do you allow players to twink out their characters? Hell no, that results in an unfair realm where PVP is a daily thing. Do you put more emphasis on quest xp in order to circumvent the grinding problem? Yeah, it makes the grinding that has to happen in order to complete the quest seem like there's a point to the grinding, other than, gotta hit my next level so I can get new skills and maybe some nice looking armor.

09-13-2004, 10:10 AM	#57 (permalink)
bltzkriegmcanon Holy Knight of The Alliance Location: Stormwind, The Eastern Kingdoms, Azeroth	Agreed. Even on the Stress Test beta, there were characters who were around 25 and looked better than most of the people I've seen on the Closed beta. I'll admit, there are a pretty good amount of people who look exactly like Lasereth described in EQ on the closed beta. But I guess it's just not enough. There are higher level characters in WoW who do look awesome, but it's nowhere near the amount of people who don't look cool at all. Lasereth is also correct that in EQ, you spent 90% of the time in FPV. 3rd PV really, really sucked in EQ. Being in FPV all that time puts alot of emphasis of you looking at other people. When I played, I don't think I had a real objective of "looking cool". I guess I was at such an early stage of MMORPG-dom that I had more of a general concept of just "having fun." Which meant going out and killing shit. "Looking cool" was way in the back of my head. I think that when WoW is released into the wild of MMORPG's, it'll be fantastic, and you'll have multitudes of freaks who wanna spend more time "looking cool" than people like myself who'd rather "have fun". Not to say that you can't do both, since often, "looking cool" is a result of "having fun" especially since 90% of play in WoW is spent on quests. I think quests are hellaciously fun. I spent, in the 10 days of play, no more than 30 minutes of just going and killing non-quest-related shit. I wasn't having a crapton of fun, I was grinding. Overall, I'd definitely play this game if it were to retail. I think most of us who've complained about it would pay for it. But there are problems. Mostly with character models. But, Blizzard has their reasons for that. They most likely want the same people who've been playing WC3 to just pick up this game and think, "Hey, my hardware ain't so bad. It can run the game pretty smoothly." I mean, EQ was WAY more problematic about computers not being able to run it unless you made some serious upgrades. In order to play Luclin, you had to have a pretty good setup. This game isn't a technical proving ground, it's not like Doom3 where you HAVE to get a new system or at least do some upgrades in order to even play it, much less get very fast frame rates. This isn't that kind of game. It's an extremely wide-release, "everyone with a computer from 3 years ago can play this" kind of game. It's a "Hey I can play this game with my 1.2 Thunderbird and GeForce3 Ti500 and it's not 'My Slideshow of Azeroth'." What that means for the rest of us is that "My 2.4 P4 and ATI 9700 Pro runs this game really really well, but the character models look like they should be run by that guy with the fossilized computer over there." When it comes to the "holy shit badass" armor that you can get in EQ, and then pass onto your level 5 counterpart, "twinking" as Lasereth mentioned, that Blizzard is doing what they can to prevent that. I know that as soon as WoW is released, within, say a month of playtime, there will be more freaks with "holy shit badass" armor than you and all your friends can count on all their family's and their own hands and feet. I think the lack of differentiation in equipment comes from 2 things. Level restrictions and not everyone going on the best damn quest they can to get the uber armor. I think that the latter is a result of the former. You can only go on so high of quests before you just get wasted by the thing that you're questing for. Which is both a good and bad thing. You can't go so far out of your "league" that you get your ass handed to you everytime you get close, but then, you can't get the omega factor armor either. At the end of the day, this is a really good MMORPG, but, like most, there's a problem in balance on many issues. Do you allow players to twink out their characters? Hell no, that results in an unfair realm where PVP is a daily thing. Do you put more emphasis on quest xp in order to circumvent the grinding problem? Yeah, it makes the grinding that has to happen in order to complete the quest seem like there's a point to the grinding, other than, gotta hit my next level so I can get new skills and maybe some nice looking armor. __________________ What do you say to one last showdown? - Ocelot, Metal Gear Solid 3 The password is "Who are the Patriots?" and "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." Gotcha. - The Colonel and Snake, Metal Gear Solid 3