World of Warcraft: Cataclysm To Launch Dec. 7th 431
Blizzard announced today that the third expansion to World of Warcraft, dubbed Cataclysm, is set for launch on December 7th. In addition to upping the level cap to 85 and including several new high level zones, the expansion will revamp the parts of Azeroth that have been around since WoW's initial launch, bringing the 1-60 leveling experience more in line with the improvements Blizzard has made in the expansions. Cataclysm will also give players two new races to play, Goblins and Worgen, who have joined the Horde and the Alliance, respectively.
Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I started with MUDs, moved on to Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, etc...I absolutely LOVED my time spent with MMOs, especially WoW (closed and open betas, continued until about 1.5 years after launch), but the genre got boring for me. Not even The Old Republic can get me excited about an MMO.
I still find it surprising when I hear so many people are still playing WoW. Anyone on here still playing since launch? What's kept you with it all this time? Gameplay, community, what?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been playing since just a few months after launch, but "playing" is used loosely for the last 6 months or so(I've been logging at most an hour per week during that time).
The community aspect - guildies to log on and talk to for a bit, is a big part of staying, but aside from that sometimes I just wanna kill some time. WoW feels like a decent way to spend that time. Repetitive? A bit, sure, but life itself is repetitive. Nobody asks the sports fans why they watch the same sport every Sunday, or why the fisherman goes out catching the same kinds of fish every Saturday, or why people go down to the same bars with the same group of people each weekend. People do the things they like because they enjoy doing them, and just because you can reduce it to "doing the same thing over and over" doesn't necessarily mean that it loses all appeal.
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Pretty much this for me too. I've made loads of friends in WoW that I'd begrudge just upping and leaving. I have stopped playing a number of times, ie, stopped paying (not just "log on once a week or so") for various reasons throughout the years, always hanging around the guild forums, but eventually, it keeps bringing me back.
Then why not Guild Wars? (Score:3, Informative)
Guild Wars gives all those benefits, with no monthly fees.
And Guild Wars 2 is just around the corner, and promises to be superior to WoW in basically every respect.
Check it out. [guildwars2.com]
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Tell that to my wife.
OCD? :P (Score:4, Interesting)
OCD? ;)
Well, now seriously, I don't know anyone who actually played non-interrupted since start. The longest I know someone playing in a row is like 3 years, which admittedly is still a lot, but still not quite since start.
What most of us do is really play one game, play and eventually get bored, move to another game, played and eventually get bored, and so on. Not even all MMOs. There'll be lots of falling back to single player games in between MMOs.
I mean, technically I've started WoW relatively soon after it got launched in Europe myself, but, good grief, not continuously. In fact, the vast majority of these years I was _not_ on WoW at all. Ditto for other games. Actually my all time favourite MMO is City Of Heros, not WoW, but, you guessed, it's been actually a lot of not being on COH either.
At any rate, I'll probably have a look on WoW when cataclysm launches. Or maybe not. But it's not like, you know, a marriage or a job or swearing allegiance to a new king. It's a game. You play it until you've seen all the quests that are easy to get to, maybe try again with a different character or three, but eventually that's it.
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I would say WoW is an exception to this, because the expansions basically reinvent the game every two years, especially this one that fully refactors the initial leveling experience as well as adding the new content at the top.
Well, I probably wasn't too clear (Score:2)
Well, I probably wasn't too clear about it. I do come back now and again, so the point is kinda: I too could technically make a claim like "oh, I've been playing WoW since launch" and even go into what got changed in which EP. But it's more like since start playing a month or two, then taking a half a year break, then playing another month, then taking a break until the next EP, then taking yet another break, then figured I'd try playing a horde char to see what's different, then take another break, and so
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You play it until you've seen all the quests that are easy to get to, maybe try again with a different character or three, but eventually that's it.
The Heirlooms that they introduced with Wrath, and are continuing with Cata, have put an interesting spin on this, actually. Your main character's efforts can now directly result in alts leveling faster through the content you've already seen. There's XP in the battlegrounds now, too, and PvP heirlooms make that a lot easier to get into.
Everyone I know has several alts. Many of whom reached max level during this last xpac. This did used to happen in the past, true, but not to the degree we see it today.
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Same history here. I actually got hooked on a MUD once again. BatMUD rocks. Chip off the old rock...
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Geeks love WoW because it's the closest thing they'll ever experience to working at Foxconn.
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Actually, FFO, original EQ(pre-WoWing of the experience system), and some other games are more like Foxconn than WoW. WoW is like working at Hot Dog on a Stick
I thought it was TF2 that had the funny hats.
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I'm an on-and-off player since Beta. I play in within my social circle, mostly, so I'd have to say that we'd simply rather be on WoW than on Facebook. We can work together towards a common goal, 'hang out', and simply share a hobby. My vendor's rep is into WoW, too, so we can swap stories from time to time.
WoW is a lot like the new golf. Nearly everyone has either played it, or has heard of it, and can at least carry on a conversation.
So, the gameplay is part of it. It changes a lot from xpac to xpac,
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"I still find it surprising when I hear so many people are still playing WoW."
Some of us went full circle. I'm back playing Ultima Online (privately owned-public server...and free, UOSecondAge) and it is like I never left. WoW is what made me realize that, by FAR, the most fun I had playing MMO-style games was the very first years I did so.
Go back to your roots. I honestly believe that the trailblazers in MMO history rode us right to the clearing at the end of the trail--everything else is simply derivative
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Played since launch, but not continuously. After it came out, I played for 6 months or so, then quit. A while after WotLK came out, I started up again for another four months. That was a year ago. I started again last month, because I wanted to be around when Cataclysm came out. After I get to 85, I'll probably do some raiding, remember that I got totally burned out in Blackwing Lair in classic, and quit again.
Basically, it's worth it to come back and see what's changed, but once you've done everything
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Frequent breaks. I played the hell out of it for about 4 or 5, maybe 6 months, took a year off, played for a few months, took off until BC, took off another couple years and just resubbed a little over a year ago. My sub lapses next week, but that's because I'm on a PPC mac and support is being dropped for it, but that's okay. I'll wait until Cata is good and broken in and I'll be ready for a new computer then. :)
"The Guild" makes it all worthwhile... (Score:4, Funny)
While the game itself varies from occasional memorable moments to a great deal of mundane (and frequently mind-numbing) activity, the meta-game and content that surrounds the game can be very entertaining. The game is fuel for interactions with fellow players, discussions with game developers, and music videos such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMrN3Rh55uM [youtube.com] .
played at launch; quit, came back for WotLK (Score:4, Informative)
I played at launch, but started getting bored around 20 and by 40, unable to afford a mount, quit playing.
A friend convinced me to return just before WotLK. Using Refer-a-Friend, we leveled up. I found it a lot more pleasant with the faster XP and with his borrowed gold buying my mount. :)
Once I was into outland, questing was tolerable, and in WotLK/Northrend, it was downright fun.
Once I discovered raiding in Naxxramas at 80, I was hooked. Now that's why I play. As I got into the game I've changed guilds a couple times and now raid with a very high end guild. (We had a top 25 US Heroic Lich King kill, for those who know what that means.)
The high end raiding content is genuinely hard. It's a mix of optimizing gameplay mechanics, good awareness of all the things going on, twitch reactions, strategy and personal strategic planning (what "we" do in a given situation and what "I" do if X happens), etc. For my guild, also a lot of fun camaraderie, although some top guilds are notorious for being not-so-friendly places. It's a bit time consuming, as it will eat 5 nights a week potentially during "progression", where we're learning and downing fights, but when you factor in how little time it takes up in the "off season", it only eats ~9-10 hours/week on average.
Anyhow, end game raiding = a blast. That's why I play.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
I started with MUDs, moved on to Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, etc...I absolutely LOVED my time spent with MMOs, especially WoW (closed and open betas, continued until about 1.5 years after launch), but the genre got boring for me. Not even The Old Republic can get me excited about an MMO.
I still find it surprising when I hear so many people are still playing WoW. Anyone on here still playing since launch? What's kept you with it all this time? Gameplay, community, what?
Been playing since early 2005. Blizz has managed to keep it interesting, despite some missteps. About time for the old world revamp though. Bring on the Cataclysm!
As a Beta Tester, I gotta tell you - the water effects ALONE are worth the 4.0 patch. So much has changed, yet alot is still the same, or just slightly different - but it feels like a new game, truly.
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Or I could just play Team Fortress 2, which I got as part of a 5-game pack for $50 that has no monthly fee*.
Since my community [ocrtf2.com] runs it own servers, we turn AllTalk on, although that does make it harder to coordinate things as a team.
* However, since I've clocked over 800 hours (prolly over 900 by now, over 1800/1900 if you count idle ti
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Have you ever thought that someone who might like an Action-Adventure-RPG such as WoW wouldn't like a twitch First Person Shooter like TF2?
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Maybe you should go back in time and tell this to the people funding APB.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
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Maybe I should have clarified that.
I could renew my WoW WotLK account and pay $15/month to play WoW or I could pay nothing and play TF2. I clearly can't make your decisions for you, but for me it was easy.
P.S. The two groups do overlap. The group of friends I used to play WoW with are the same group of friends that I played FPS and RTS games with in the past.
And Valve
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I could renew my WoW WotLK account and pay $15/month to play WoW or I could pay nothing and play TF2. I clearly can't make your decisions for you, but for me it was easy.
Well, assuming you have no interest in TF2 (which you obviously do) then would it really make sense to choose "save money" over "have fun" when what you want is "have fun" and you (presumably) have disposable income?
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Or I could just play Team Fortress 2, which I got as part of a 5-game pack for $50 that has no monthly fee*.
I'm not allowed to play both?
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WoW to me was the ultimate decline of the online RPG genre. It's always been sort of the Super Mario Bros. of the RPG world. Dumbed down to the lowest common denominator to maximize corporate profits. People will flame me for saying this, but I'd rather play DDO or LOTRO with the free-to-play model Turbine seems to be doing OK with...
You're mixing the two arguments, without really doing anything about meshing them together. Your points are:
A) Games charge too much per month to play
and
B) Games are being dumbed down
But you're advocating DDO and LOTRO. Why?
A) - Check. Free to play, at least somewhat. You can elect to pay as little as you'd like, so long as you're fine with restricted access.
and
B) - Not-check. They're both as dumb as WoW, on the whole. Some ways more so, some ways less, but the net is about the same.
On the one hand yo
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
WoW is juts a Skinner Box for humans.
What isn't?
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Pretty much anything else. Most games don't attempt to influence the behavior of the player outside of the game, because they don't provide consequences for *not* playing. There's no consequence for not playing, say, Tetris for a month, while doing the same in WoW (or other MMORPGs) will lead to the disintegration of the social network, be it through apathy or necessity on the part of one's "friends", required for all but the most trivial of tasks, relegating one to the oft-maligned (and justly so) "picku
It's about time (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about time. We knew the release date had to be soon, as Blizzard's WoW Updater has already pushed out 4.8GB of updates to each user for the upcoming version (4.0.0).
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My best guess as to the timeline:
10/12/10 - Soft-Confirmed date of the 4.0.1 patch. This will be client and class/mechanics changes only.
10/26/10 - End of Beta
11/23/10 - 4.0.3 'Sundering' patch containing world changes, but not perks like Goblins/Worgen, etc. This coincides with WoW's sixth anniversary.
12/07/10 - Cataclysm proper, as announced today...
12/14/10 - Rumored start of Arena Season Nine
The thing that's odd to me is, why start an arena season when nobody is geared to take part in it yet??
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The thing that's odd to me is, why start an arena season when nobody is geared to take part in it yet??
You get gear during the season. People have been gearing up for season nine during the whole of season eight. PVE doesn't really factor into it.
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Sort of, but you can't equip any of it until you're 85. How does one get time to level to max AND grind up a bunch of points in only seven days?
I'm not expecting there would be anyone to queue against for such a person...
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That's, "Hell, it's about time."
So Familiar.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does a very destructive sneak attack from the ocean on major coastal cities around December sound so familiar?
To be serious for a moment, I still play since launch. The thing that kept my attention is their drive is partially beating the content and continuing drive to change the content. Seeing a new boss, dissecting its behavior, and attacking in a cooperative team manner is always fun. There is just enough complexity that it triggers my analytical side so when they revamp or change out mechanics I'm always interested.
Granted "WoW" isn't a perfect game and it does hinge on personal experiences (if you have no friends to play with, "WoW" is easily the dumbest thing to try to play) but I'm always stumped when people say "WoW" is a horrible experience.
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The bad really does hurt it though. PVE, is entirely pointless... well not entirely but it is easy to the point of being trivial. The whole PVE experience is hilariously pathetic. I realize I'm speaking more from a good at games POV... since I am a LOT better than the majority of wow players. But I think they pander too much to the terrible players.... And since PVE solo content is
No mention of flying? (Score:5, Interesting)
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balance druids, shadow priests and mages all can kill you while you are flying, so don't worry.
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Or possibly make it even easier to gank "noobs" in lvl30-40 zones, death from above...
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Yeah, Blizzard doesn't really do innovation. They take other games' features and add polish. It actually ends up working, because most of the "more creative games" have large gaps somewhere, and if you mash all of them together into one less creative game, you end up with more people playing it than the total of its component parts.
Specifically, the flying thing took so long because they didn't originally design the zones for flying (which CoH did). In the current world there are large stretches of flat
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Well, you're looking at this a bit one-sided, I think.
Yes, CoH allowed you to fly early on, and their character-leveling game was the absolute best I'd ever seen when it launched. But that's all they had. Fast-forward to today and, as far as I know, that is STILL all they have.
It would be very easy for a game like WoW to see those good ideas and incorporate some of them, without losing the other stuff they had built up along the way.
As far as I can tell people play WoW because of either Blizzard's good reputation or because so many other people are already playing it.
Yes, certainly. The latter part is clearly more of a factor than the for
I'm shocked they're skipping the 23rd (Score:2)
Honestly I would have thought the guys in Marketing would have pulled this for the 23rd - their sixth anniversary. My only guess at this point is that they plan their 4.0.3 'sundering' patch on 11/23 instead. But genuinely, I would have imagined that they would pull towards that date, even if there were major bugs left to be fixed.
Blizzard's Amazing Release Schedules (Score:2)
Well, it's not interfering with SC2, that's for sure. December 2010 - sheesh! It amazes me more that I keep falling for it, thinking Blizzard pr
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And I don't understand this mentality. Those guys are jerks! Letting us know that a product will be coming out sometime and then we have to WAIT. Why couldn't they have kept it secret from us. Have some control man.
Anyone know the policy on updates? (Score:2)
If I restart my subscription now, and buy WotLK (so I have the most recent content available) do I have to pay again to get Cataclysm? If that's true it probably makes sense to do some catching up using Burning Crusade then wait for Cataclysm... assuming that option is still open.
Apologize in advance if this is obvious to anyone. Thanks.
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I haven't played WoW in a long time, not since Burning Crusade. So I missed WotLK.
If I restart my subscription now, and buy WotLK (so I have the most recent content available) do I have to pay again to get Cataclysm? If that's true it probably makes sense to do some catching up using Burning Crusade then wait for Cataclysm... assuming that option is still open.
Apologize in advance if this is obvious to anyone. Thanks.
The changes to the old world (Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms)/old zones will not require any expansion. You could play the original WoW only and be stuck at 60, but you could still go to the changed zones.
However, the two new races (Goblins and Worgen), the new zones, the levels 81-85 require the Cataclysm expansion. Archaeology may require it too (new secondary profession).
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So now... (Score:2)
I would have to kill seventy trillion boars instead of forty trillion?
Not really sure why the level cap keeps getting bumped. It's just more grind.
Yeah! I just spent twelve months grinding this guy to level *insert here* and getting him all the best stuff! Nothing can kill him now!
*Expansion*
*Die!*
*THUD!*
Yeah. Real fun.
Call me when the game isn't a boring single-path grindfest.
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A date the will live in Infamy (Score:2)
Twenty years later... (Score:5, Funny)
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Huh? You realize that you don't have to add ANYONE to your RealID list right? Nobody has been added to my RealID list, and so nobody "stalks or harrasses" me.
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I thought he covered it in his post:
by failing to make privacy and security a priority from the start, you ruined any chance I'd trust you to handle it right,.
Doesn't really matter if they 'backtracked' and 'fixed it up AFTER the community when batshit' to him.
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:5, Informative)
They announced a PLAN to make RealID required to post on the official forums (an activity that only a small percentage of players even participate in anyways). After community backlash they NEVER IMPLEMENTED that plan.
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If you check, I believe that they stated that they're choosing not to implement that plan YET and refused to comment on what they'll do in the future.
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A lot of people quit during the "RealID" debacle and didn't return. They had all kinds of reasons, but they needed a catalyst.
One big reason, though, is that a lot of players are burned out. While I realize that not everybody reached that point, it's pretty common to have gotten to the point where there's not really anything to get that is meaningful to your character. I reached that point with the 10-man game a long time ago, and my motivation to go further in the 25-man game decreases with the amount o
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Insightful)
Its ok to penalize a company for bad behavior. Its the only influence we consumers/customers have.
I agree with your statement, but that's not what happened here. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Penalizing for bad behaviour promotes good behavior. Penalizing regardless of behavior (ie, cancelling your account even after the mentioned possibility has been canceled) sends the wrong message.
Consider it like a parent disciplining a child. Your kid comes home and says "Dad! I'm going over to Tommy's to watch some random R rated movie!", and you respond "No you're not! If I catch you over there doing that you're going to be grounded for a month!".
His response: "Sorry dad. You're right, I'll stay home.". You then respond with "Good. You're still grounded for a month just for bringing it up!".
What do you think the kid is going to take away from the incident? It's certainly not going to impart any good life lessons except for "Next time just don't even say anything about it.". That's not the lesson I want kids, or companies, learning.
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Informative)
Have you even used the Real ID friends list? First of all, someone has to know the email you use for your WoW account (granted, this is probably easily guessed in a lot of cases). Second, they send a friend request which you must manually accept before they can see anything.
In other words, Real ID has been opt out from the start by design. If you never add anyone or confirm anyone, no one can see your real name or track you, and your WoW experience is no different than before they added this feature.
This isn't something they added 3 days ago with the web based controls, this is how it has worked since it was originally implemented. Also, from the very beginning, if you wanted to go through the hassle of setting up the parental control system you could have completely disabled Real ID if you were super paranoid about it for some reason.
Basically, the main addition they added a few days ago was the option to disable the display of friends of friends, and made the method of totally disabling Real ID less complex. While I think the ability to hide yourself on the friend of friend list should have been in from the start, the simple solution beforehand was to simply not add any Real ID friends. Any method of "totally disabling" Real ID is just paranoia by people who apparently lack the self control to not click "accept" every time some random stranger sends them a friend request in a video game (other than the pre-existing parental controls method, which was the specific case of a parent of a minor child exercising their right to control their child's online engagement level).
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Just to be clear, Real ID - is opt *in* as you have to explicitly use it. Blizzard doesn't automatically give everyone Real ID friend status and then require you to opt out. Or did I misunderstand your use of "opt out"?
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Have you even used the Real ID friends list?
Of course not. I personally think World of Warcraft sucks monkey balls as a game.
(I realize millions of people apparently think otherwise, and I'm happy for them.)
I enjoyed DiabloII and Starcraft enough, but didn't care to play either through battle.net or whatever its called now. And Starcraft II ... meh... I'll wait until the expansions are out and maybe buy the box set then.
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For the forum RealID, I think part of what Blizzard wanted to accomplish was eliminating the "trolling" character post. Blizzard could easily solve that by adding an option to "show characters" link for any posting character. This would only show the character names/realms, not the user login or name, making it easier to figure out who is trolling the forums.
/agree
They could have created a unique id that was not your real name (or any real information) and that would have served the same purpose.
But it wouldn't have linked in with Facebook, which their agreement with Facebook probably states it has to.
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Huh? You realize that you don't have to add ANYONE to your RealID list right? Nobody has been added to my RealID list, and so nobody "stalks or harrasses" me.
This is how we know that the Coward is being dishonest. Anyone even remotely familiar with it realizes that none of the 'DANGER DANGER' stuff came true. Anyone touting it as true today is either not a player or is deliberately being false - probably both are true, actually.
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RealID is completely voluntary. They even backed of on the requirement of it's use on their forums.
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It's not voluntary on Starcraft II. You can't create multiple characters, or even ever change your one character's name.
That and every time I start the game there's my real name in bold 24 point letters and this macro-lens close up of this real ugly guy. And links to Facebook. Most of the time the game shows videos you can't turn off of cigarette smoking. Gross. Made me really not want to play it.
I returned it for a refund.
My guess is that somebody at that company is trying to turn it into a social networki
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Informative)
Your SC2 character name is not your Real ID. There's no way anyone can associate you with "Slayer#123" unless you explicitly add them as Real ID friends, the same way in WoW they can't associate you with "Legollaz" unless you explicitly add them.
I do think it's kind of funny that they put your real name in the menu interface, but if that concerns you, no one's making you post screenshots/videos on youtube, either.
As for worrying about the smoking... really? Quit trolling.
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This is not correct at all. That's why you have a character name and code after the hash. You can add friends either from within lobbies or by giving them your friend code hash. In my example, if you played a 2v2 with some random person and thought they were good you could send them a message and give them "Slayer#123" and could add you as a SC2 friend (NOT a Real ID friend). They would never know your real name unless you told them and not be able to see when you were playing WoW or any other Blizzard game
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No, that wasn't a major reason.
I thought it was a bit odd. No other software I've ever used puts my full legal name (not my email, handle, etc) in big bold letters on the main screen.
No, I was previously aware of my own name.
Yes, but I didn't feel like I had a good understanding of just how much of t
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, they backed off from it, but that's like an abusive spouse apologizing after hitting you.
Did you seriously just compare an company considering then declining to disable anonymous commenting on their forum to spousal abuse? Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.
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The metaphor is crap. For one thing, while I disagreed strongly with the RealId system, it wasn't obviously wrong from Blizzard's point of view the way that punching your spouse is, and second of all they never did it.
Metaphorically it's a bit more like telling your wife you're going to grab her breast, her saying I really don't want you to and you saying "Oh, well then I won't".
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the dumbest argument I've ever heard of. They had an idea they thought would make the experience better. They put it to the public. The public hated the idea. They responded to the public and binned the idea.
And you're complaining that you can't trust them? You could just as easily say that they're trying new ideas to improve the experience, and they're clearly listening to their customers.
There is a pretty big difference between looking for ways of making people responsible for their actions online and hitting your wife.
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Go to your realm's forums. Read.
Go to your class forums. Read.
Go to the role forums. Read.
You'll see very quickly that forum trolling on the official Blizz forums is a huge annoyance there. Blizzard is basically spending a lot of extra money maintaining forums which actively scare people away because if you post anything, there's probably a 50+% chance you will be flamed or insulted by a douche posting from a level-1 alt who also happens to be from another realm.
The plan Blizz put forth WOULD have elimi
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To use your abhorrent analogy, they never "hit" anyone. The policy was never implemented. They listened to their customers, how terrible of them.
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It's an opt in system already. You opt-in by adding Real ID friends to your friend list. If you have no Real ID friends you're already opted out. The hard disable on the website is just to make idiots feel better about their inability to avoid clicking "confirm" on every pop-up they ever see.
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Insightful)
WoW jumped the shark when Blizzard created achievements and players started to use them as a criteria to participate in a raid.
Gear-score came along and gave the finishing blow.
I have nothing against requiring some prerequisites like completed a lower level raid or have a reasonable gear score. Unfortunately most players who spam the trade channel for a raid pug require that you've already achieved that particular raid instance or a gear score so high that requires you to have farmed that raid repeatedly.
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From my experience too, on returning after a hiatus to find the gear score thing in place (and my character still being pretty well end-raid geared (ulduar 25/tournament 25), it seemed that the people demanding the really high gearscores and pre-completed raids didn't meet their own requirements - ie, they just wanted boosting.
I'll still never forget being turned away from a Karazan badge farming run on my 6/8 T6 mage with Sunwell off pieces for "too little spell power". Perhaps it was because I wasn't 8/8
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:5, Insightful)
WoW jumped the shark when Blizzard created achievements and players started to use them as a criteria to participate in a raid.
Gear-score came along and gave the finishing blow.
I have nothing against requiring some prerequisites like completed a lower level raid or have a reasonable gear score. Unfortunately most players who spam the trade channel for a raid pug require that you've already achieved that particular raid instance or a gear score so high that requires you to have farmed that raid repeatedly.
I read an opinion, which isn't necessarily mine by the way, that basically said that Cataclysm was the answer to all of these woes introduced by the new meta-game. The theory goes like this:
1) The talents and values on gear are simplified, making the basics of the game very easy to grasp without help.
2) The difficulty is ramped way, way up. The standing intention now is mana/resource conservation along with the return crowd control. Also, there will be a progression of 'Normals > Heroics > Raids' that cannot be skipped.
3) Two deeply-critical roles are seeing huge nerfs - tanks/healing - while damage is getting a sizeable buff, creating an inherent conflict of interests.
4) Guild are getting rewards, which translate into costs when one leaves said guild.
This is said to result in a climate where you're never, ever, ever going to want to play with people you don't like. Everyone will be dieing together, a lot. Victories will be by the skin of your teeth, and only when everyone is playing at their best. The days of 'one-wipe-and-bail' will be gone, and the players who seek to judge your ability by Gearscore+Achievement won't be worth playing with. You'll be intended to foster relationships with players and keep them around. You'll guild up for the rewards, and you'll focus on doing this stuff together to get more of them. As you do so, you'll work on getting more skill for those that need it, as pugging just won't be a workable idea.
Or so the theory goes, anyway.
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t2) The difficulty is ramped way, way up. The standing intention now is mana/resource conservation along with the return crowd control. Also, there will be a progression of 'Normals > Heroics > Raids' that cannot be skipped.
Interesting. It might be worth my checking out then. I dropped the game after Patch 3.0 or so when they ramped the damage up so high that Crowd Control became meaningless and every encounter was so easy - the hard part was looting the bodies.
Wow became just a tedious grind with no strategy or danger or excitement. Leveling became a real chore.
Re:I hope Blizzard is smarter than that (Score:4, Interesting)
The spec-swapping will be quite a bit easier this time around, for most classes anyway. Druids, for example, can Tree or Boomkin in the exact same gear - talents will convert spirit into hit automagically. Likewise, glyphs can be changed on the fly as they're going to be a part of your spellbook now. Same for many others as well. So maybe Blizzard assumes that people will just shift their roles around more often.
There was a conversation about the carnage this would wreak on the Dungeon Finder system, and IIRC the Blue response was basically 'Meh'.
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Insightful)
How is that Blizzard's fault? Neither GS nor achievements are actually built-in requirements for raids.
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How is that Blizzard's fault? Neither GS nor achievements are actually built-in requirements for raids.
To be fair, Gearscore is now going to be built in in Cata. You're going to have an 'average ilevel' right next to your paper doll.
Re:Sorry Blizzard, no longer a customer (Score:4, Interesting)
Not trying to be argumentative, but you're looking at the pug requirements from the wrong angle.
The underlying problem I have here is an ethical one. And to be completely honest, it is the same thing that gives me pause about the 'hardcore' level of play.
In order to get that gear, those achievements, etc, time must be invested. Someone, somewhere has to lead that player through that content, show them the ropes, carry them somewhat, and so on. This means that someone gave them a chance and let them into the raid.
Fast-forward to the guy setting up a pug, or reviewing a guild application, who is looking at this material. He (or she) is planning to profit by this effort, by not needing to expend it themselves. Because of the way raid lockouts and guild membership works, they are necessarily doing this at the expense of those that DID invest the time on them.
Now, half of the time the person in question is a truly unpalatable type that didn't quit the guild but got ejected. Gearscore won't tell you that, and that is a tiny bit of shadenfreude in way of consolation. But the other half of the time players that set these requirements are profiting off of the players like myself, and they often take the time to insult me for my efforts.
Just sad, really.
Your stock price? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, what's funny about that is that last year I bought some Activision Blizzard stock (ATVI on NASDAQ). I had a little leftover money, and I figured that with such a strong release schedule for 2010, there must have been room for growth in the stock. And guess what's happened - the stock is currently down from where I bought it, from about $11.70 at this point last year to about $11.00 today.
This despite the fact that ATVI has been profitable, has lots of cash on hand with no debt, has good releases in the pipe. They've even recently implemented a dividend to try and help with that staggering stock price (which will pay out around 1.5% of the stock price early next year, and I'm quite happy for it since it's at least a small ROI). On the one hand, the stock is largely following the market, so its price won't go up much until the larger market goes up, but the stock has also had a few tumbles apart from the market average that it never recovered from. What's crazy is that the price tumbled just after SC2 came out in part because of a company announcement stating that their quarter 2 earnings weren't going to beat expectations. Huge worldwide release of a long-awaited game apparently meant nothing against a lackluster earnings statement for a quarter with no major releases.
I'm sure your stock price thing was just sort of a flippant comment, but I wanted to mention this since it's been weird following the stock for a year. It's actually taught me a valuable lesson about buying individual stocks - you're told to trade in stocks where you know something about the company, something about the industry, so that you can predict how the price will move, but knowledge about the company doesn't always translate into knowledge about the market.
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Actually, what's funny about that is that last year I bought some Activision Blizzard stock (ATVI on NASDAQ). I had a little leftover money, and I figured that with such a strong release schedule for 2010, there must have been room for growth in the stock. And guess what's happened - the stock is currently down from where I bought it, from about $11.70 at this point last year to about $11.00 today.
The problem is not Blizzard. The problem is Activision. Their side of this is sinking games like no ones business. Think about how they dealt with modern warfare debacle and how guitar hero is now more like guitar zero. Their goal in the game business is to extract as much money from franchises as possible. This means the games will just not be as good as before. Blizzard is the only good thing coming out of that stock so be glad it is as high as it is.
Re:Your stock price? (Score:4, Interesting)
The stock market is highly correlated nowadays. With everyone using computers for analysis and such almost all the stocks move in unison. There is almost no point in buying individual stocks any more. If it weren't for dividends then it probably wouldn't be worth buying anything other than an index stock (like SPY or whatever).
Kind of sad actually (I say this as a day trader). Not sure how to "fix" it though. The market has turned almost completely into a short-term game.
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Much like Valve, Blizzard is one of the few companies that could continue only releasing games connected to their core IP and not hear a single complaint about it from me. While I'm excited about a potential new Blizzard IP, their current IP is so iconic and so engrained in my gaming experience that I don't think I'd ever get enough of them.
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I pretty much agree. I mean, Blizzard really has their "typically game genre" bases covered. They've got the more aloof less serious fantasy setting with Warcraft, the darker more serious fantasy setting with Diablo, and the futuristic sci-fi setting with Starcraft.
I don't think there are a lot of good options for creating a modern day IP separate from reality. The only significant option that seems to be unexplored for them (aside from just doing different fantasy/scifi world) would be a more Victorian/
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Steampunk = goblins
Vampire/werewolf = Worgen
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Vampire/Werewolf = Worgen gets a "kinda" from me. It's still embedded into the WoW "swords and sorcery universe", rather than letting the vampires/werewolves be center stage. There's also the issue of the vampires missing from that aspect of it. I'll let that slide though as there are some vampires that show up in WoTLK, even though they're decidly not of the "pop culture" variety of vampire.
Steampunk = goblins though is a "no way". Steampunk is an established genre that doesn't typically feature differ
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While I'd generally agree, I'm very happy Valve took chances on Portal and Left 4 Dead. Blizzard seems content to evolve their IP's, with WoW being very different than Warcraft, and the failed Ghost being very different than Starcraft. But there is something special about when Valve releases a whole new world to explore. TF2, while it didn't have much of a "world" world, did feel like a 1950's take on a very 1990's genre.
And they have enough, and release infrequently enough, to keep the interest up. But
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As was I (though 32 years, not 59...).
Happy birthday to me, time to kick some Deathwing butt.
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You've never been in a WoW beta or PTR before, have you?
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Bear in mind that this iteration will introduce daily caps across every level (PvE, PvP, guild XP). I'm not sure how much it will take to achieve the cap, but Google should be able to tell you a few weeks/months after release. Check back. You may well find that an hour or two is adequate now, at least on non-raid nights. Depends on how high they set the cap...
Also with the flexible raid lock system, you might find that being on standby for a guild that's progressing faster than you individually is a lot
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Wow just in time for the Christmas rush. Smart move on blizz or did it take too long?
I don't think Christmas is a factor for them. Nobody but nobody is going to buy this on the 7th, wrap it, and put it under the tree until the 25th. It might hurt sales of other titles, but somehow I doubt it. It is, after all, only $40 this time around. That's downright cheap for a PC title today.
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No, certain classes use LW for armor. I predict an uptick in that, and an increase in BASE skinning low-level mats, but NOT in the supplementary mats for LW - so look at the crafting requirements for LW and if it isn't a result of skinning, stockpile it (those will be in high demand).
Markets are not uniform. It's the friction points that have the greatest profit, so expect skinning/LW demand for non-skinning mats for LW crafting to increase.
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