Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat world of warcraft launches w/ a bang

The companies in question?

Übereil

The companies in question earn a good reputation.

But if they had a monopoly they would earn money like he... a lot of money!

Übereil

'elo buddy. yep i'm still here, still lurking around. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

i have no love for mmo's either, but WoW has really got me drooling. i've viewed some trailers of it and the scenes were breathtaking. i hate the monthly fee, though. still, i understand that's how companies earn their keep for the maintenance of the servers and development of additional content. so i'll leave it at that. it's not really a question of why these companies charge but more of can gamers afford it. and judging from the activity of that game, it seems that WoW has already attracted a large following in so short a time.

i might try guild wars once it's final. i've heard it doesn't have a monthly fee; instead you have to pay for additional content. i think it's a good alternative. i hope they be successful on it.

So far I have tried various races and character types thru lvl 6 or so. All the early quests are the same type for all (kill 6 monsters and bring me their pelts, etc.) and it gets boring; so no more of that. The melee ones are a drag. The melee combat has the look and feel of turn based combat; the paladin, warrior and hunter are all the same. And the warlock had to melee becuse he couldn't kill anything before it got to him. The hunter has ranged attacks, but has to finish them off with a dagger.

I was about ready to give the game up, but then I started playing an undead mage and she rocks. Kills fast, levels fast and no turn based combat appearances for her. I would have been playing right now, but they shut down the servers--gave us 12 minutes notice though which was good. I have played solo so far. I don't like to party up until I know what I am doing. Also the early levels lend themselves to solo play.

You have to watch your back. Stuff comes up behind you and attacks.

Later.

I play-tested GuildWars. It's a rather interesting game, nice concept. It's not really an MMO as the only parts on the server are the towns: when you enter a quest, the player with the best connection of your party "hosts" the game. It works better than it sounds: I played with 8 other people battling armies and had no connection problems. The graphics are excellent, the combat is addictive and strategic, the game DOES have a compelling storyline, it seems balanced and it features in-game cinematics staring your characters. Also, if you can't wait to get in the action, you can simply take AI team-mates and head straight in the action. However it's not really an MMO. I like the gameplay though: it looks like a mix of Magic: The Gathering as far as spells go: you can have as much spells as you want but you can only have 8 ready. It means that before you head on a mission, you should sit down and seriously think what do you need and what combinations are the best with your pool. I played a Necromancer and it was fun (except when I was foolish enough to play in an all-Necromancer party). You can spawn allies from corpses, drain corpses to restore health... If there will be a demo, I'd reccomend everyone to try it.

My only gripe is that you cannot really buy items; only components that you have to bring to a crafter. It means that you have to literaly trade your body organs for that extra shell or hide in order to obtain those Bone Boots of The Walking Dead.

WoW is better than the usual MMO, but it's still an MMO. Which means, lots of fetch quests and repetitive combat. If you are willing to pay for a game like this, WoW is definately the best choice.

As for Guild Wars, I played it a few times and it's great. Most everything that DATD said was true, except that the "crafting" isnt such a bad thing once you figure out how it works. I'll explain in details how it works. First you buy salvage kits, which are quite cheap, and you go out in missions and pick up loot from monsters like their armor or skin. Then you use the salvage kits to get crafting materials out of the loot (if you get expert salvage kits you can get more stuff and some magical runes from rare loot). You can use the materials to get a crafter NPC make some armor for you, or if you don't need it you can sell all the materials to players or a material trader NPC, the latter will give you more money if the players demand it a lot and he doesnt have much to offer them. Armor cannot be traded as it is crafted to fit your characters size (customized for him) and you usually need two types of materials and cash to get it made. For example, to make platemail you'd need iron and steel (number depends on the piece you want) and 20 or so gold. Also, you can use runes to add some magical effects to your armor.

Weapons are gotten only by looting monsters and chests during missions, they can then be customized by a crafter to make it stronger for you, but you're the only one who can use it. You can modify the weapons properties by having a crafter upgrade it for you using weapon parts (like a hilt, for a sword) which you can salvage from other magical weapons. So if you have a weapon that does low damage but has the effect of making your bleeding skills last longer, you can salvage the hilt from the sword and place it on a better one.

That basically sums it up hehe, sure it's a little more complexe than your usual RPG, but is that a bad thing? This game is full nice little details, like if you use a sword that does lightning damage it'll work a lot better on other warriors in platemail.

And in my opinion what makes the pvp so fun in this game is the lack of CC (Crowd control) spells, all you have a abilities that will slow down or knockdown someone, but you get back up on your feet pretty fast, and the slow spells arent so bad if you got a bow or some spells. So you never find yourself put to sleep and ignored during a battle.

There's so much I could say about this great game, but I'll stop now since this isnt a Guild Wars thread <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> If there's one of you who'd like to try it out the second weekend of january, I can give you a code to let you play in that beta weekend event.

Everything Frank said is true, however I must add that at first it takes AGES to get enough material to make anything at all.
The weapon customization is great but sadly you cannot sell your customized weapon when you find a new one. This is realistic but gold is very hard to get on low levels.
Of course, as the game name suggests, to fully experience it you have to have a guild. Which is cool is that guild members wear their own custom flag, so you can easily see who's in what guild.

Now I think of it, I really enjoyed GR.

Now... let's start a GR thread!

I started one some time ago, I'll go fetch it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Uff, I didn't know how to craft, so I sold all salvage items, later realised that I missed a set of armor for my monk. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/XmasEek.gif" alt="" />
And ineteresting aspect that prices changed every day (they went higher all the time) so economy is probably another thing to keep player interested.

I enjoyed the game and being old MMORPG fan from Dark Age of Camelot I would say Guild Wars is the only MMO I am ready to spend my money on at the moment.

Except, mmm, Death you say Anarchy Online is free for a year and EQ2 for a week ? (Egin becomes very curious and excited) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif" alt="" />

Back to WoW
Had a great time with solo play last night--stategy tactics and stealth were definitely necessary for 1 particular mission. And on one occasion when I slipped up and had to face 2 opponents at close range (very bad for early mage)another player appeared and took one off my back. Even though we weren'tpartied we then took advantage of each other's presence to accomplish our objectives. Lots of fun. Kept me up later than was good for me.

Sounds fun Cleglaw! WoW surely is the best MMO out there.

Egin, you can download the Anarchy online client on their website, and create an account without giving any credit card info. It's free until you decide to get an expansion pack, so you only get the basic stuff. To play EQ2's free week you need to buy the game, while you can just get the basic client for free on AO's website.

They have their tricks. Anarchy online is the game made in 2001. I would say old crap. The trick is to lure you into AO's community, then you will go after better quality and eventually start spending bucks.

EQ is more simple, I had experienced Mythic's campaign on me lately with free weeks of gameplay (Mythic ent. developer of DAOC). Come, register, then it will be harder to drop than to stay.

WoW is an extremely good game.
Keep in mind that I have never played any other MMORPG except that special event of Guild Wars which I didn't like. Also the only other MP game I ever played was Sacred.

You know to me, WoW looks really good. I may get it, instead of eq 2, since PC Gamer said it was a better game. Looks great, maybe once I get new computer in summer I can try running it through my firewall.

Anybody playing now besides me?
If you start, talk to me (before you start your character as there are so many different servers) and we can play together.

WoW and Guild Wars both are looking very good, but I have only played GW so far.

what are the actual costs a month?

For WoW? Isn't it 20 or so? US.

15 a month, 80 for 6 months.