roup shot Posted by Karrd - Sun 07 Nov, 2004 08:41 PM EST
If anyone was able to get a better pic, post it.
For future reference, apparently you can turn off player names in the console (~) with "unitnamerendermode 0"
This patch also allows you to turn off names in Interface Options.
XT with some MOV Posted by Karrd - Fri 05 Nov, 2004 01:18 AM EST WoW News •WoW Release Date Annouced IRVINE, Calif. - November 4, 2004 - Blizzard Entertainment� today announced that its eagerly awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft� will be in stores in North America on November 23, 2004. World of Warcraft will launch simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand, and is planned for release in Korea, Europe, and other countries throughout Asia shortly following. With a monthly subscription, players in these regions will soon be able to experience the epic adventure of the Warcraft� series in an immersive and continually evolving online environment...
After the initial free one-month subscription ends, players of World of Warcraft will be able to continue playing under one of three different subscription plans. The month-to-month subscription plan costs $14.99 per month, the three-month plan costs $13.99 per month, and the six-month plan costs $12.99 per month. World of Warcraft subscription fees can be paid by major credit card, PayPal, and pre-paid game cards, which will be available in stores where World of Warcraft is sold. World of Warcraft has received a Teen rating from the ESRB.
Other News •Star Wars III: Official Teaser Nothing special unless you're a diehard SWfan. Many little short bits of Ep3 footage + reused Ep4 footage + john williams. Theatical trailer to be released during The Incredibles.
•Star Wars III: Lego version One man's vision of Episode 3: Lego Style. Actually really good for a lego film heh.
•CS: Clan Wars Trailer A hilarious and well-filmed/scored trailer for gwfilm's ClanWars. Looks like a satirical comedy of L33t clans and n00bs.
The Must-Have Link •Cosmos Mod Extra hotbars, DPS Tracker, QuestMinion, Durability Paperdoll, ingame clock, etc. with a ton of options for customization.
ome Linkage Timesink Posted by Karrd - Wed 03 Nov, 2004 03:18 AM EST Text •Interesting walkthrough of a high level instance, Scholomance , with pics. Spoilers though.
•Blizzard's Penalty Volcano! gasp!
Movies •WoW Intro Cinematic. (divx codec)
Instead of watching the download creep by, I supose you could set this on loop...
•Uldaman Boss Video(xvid codec)
Walk inside, the doors shut, and you're surrounded by 50 statues that come to life.
•Deeprun Tram (wmv)
No sound and a little fuzzy, but it gives a preview if you're bored.
Contests •TenTonHammer is having a contest to win a WoW-preorder. Just post "How are you going to celebrate the WoW Open Beta release?"
inal Stress Test Started! Posted by Cronsha - Mon 01 Nov, 2004 09:45 PM EST Blizzard announced the beginning of the Final Stress Test, which will be followed, Five to Seven days later, by the eagerly waited Open Beta.
Now as you probably all know, all good news comes with a bad one.
To get access to the Stress Test, you'll have to subscribe to Fileplanet, which at best will cost you 7.90$ for a month.
FilePlanet being messy with their sign-up pages, the link for that offer tend to be hard to find.. so here comes a working one.
This step can turn into a messy, frustrating, endless wait. Some of us had to wait 3 hours to get past the Credit Card Verification screen. This endless bar growing, screen refreshing will eventually stop somedays, and you will be able to sign up for Beta. Simply open a new browser, visit FilePlanet and click on Stress Test Sign Up.
Quite important note: You will be asked for an US/New Zealand or Australian adress.
You will then be added to a "group" of Beta Keys, and won't receive yours until the whole key group is released. At this point you most likely can't download the client, and you will end on the sign-up screen each time you try.
Once you finally received your key, you will have to register an account on World Of Warcraft official website - step which once again can be frustrating - and start downloading your client via Fileplanet.. You can also grab the Open Beta Installer using Blizzard's Torrent downloader, which should be available on official website soon enough. ( FilePlanet is highly recommanded for downloads tho )
Congratulations!
On a side note, even tho the Open Beta will start in about one week - the ammount of accounts will supposedly be limited. Registering a Stress Test one will guarantee you a spot in Open Beta aswell. These dudes sure are good buisnessmen.
Time to settle a server number! -_-
Taste of Guild Wars: Experiences of a Sneak Peek Weekend Posted by Harp - Mon 01 Nov, 2004 08:28 AM EST I heard of Guild Wars a while back but did not get a chance to try it during the E3 promotion trial period. Hearing it was a fun MMORPG from others and waiting for a certain open beta to start (not naming any names, as if I needed to), I decided to take the chance to try Guild Wars this last weekend.
The install felt rather quick and the game began with choosing a name. A required first and surname set up was difficult momentarily, as I'm used to being known as a simple one name. With my name accepted, I began to mold my character. I wanted to be a healer so the Monk class jumped to my attention immediately. Having no previous experience with the game though left me completely clueless of the functions and purpose of the secondary class system so I just chose warrior so I could move on. (In game though, I found that the secondary classes skills are available as a compliment to your main ones, so choosing Warrior for my Monk may not have been exactly what I would have prefered.) After shuffling through several attractive faces, skin tones, hair colors, height adjustment and interesting partially shaved head monk hairstyles I clicked Play.
The client quickly patched several files and then I was ready to start my adventure. The movement controls gave me alot of options; I could move FPS style with WASD keys along with strafing, use my more rpg familiar arrow keys, or point and click my way around the landscape. Camera adjustment and zoom were all familiar as well. Talking to the NPC's was just a click away as was looting my first weapon from the tutorial chest. I was led forward through a gate where I immediately encounted my first mob. I believe it was a lvl 11 behemoth chrysalis or something of that nature, and killing it with little effort had me confused. Soon after I discovered our characters had started at lvl 15 not level 1.
Following the road heading towards my quest's destination of Lion's Arch, I aided an NPC quickly for a reward and a tutorial on customization, then soon ran into a henchman npc who I could recruit to help me fight my way to town. The help tutorial was still instructing me with random pop-up boxes giving me tips and hints... reminding me if I should heal and informing me that my spells would do more damage than my weapon so I should use them more.
Lion's Arch is where I first tasted the MMO of this RPG. Newbies and more seasoned players gathered there for training, crafting, and commerce. Easy instant travel between all the districts (seperate instances of the same town) proved to be an interesting choice with which to handle distribution of all the players without severely hindering their interaction.
I wasnt alone in Guild Wars; I had Schuyler, a guildie from another game also trying out the GW sneak peek, consistently keeping me company and teaming his warrior with my monk. We went to find our first real area to gain xp. Following the instructions of a quest NPC we headed out the west gate to another instanced area (with districts) informing us we had entered a Cooperative Mission.
Cooperative Missions are another way to experience the MMO of this RPG, however the MMO isnt required here. Eventhough my character started at a nice lvl 15, going solo in a mission is not recommended. Even the client will warn you if you try to enter a mission solo as they are designed for team play (which they are, despite mob level in comparison to your own, if there are enough enemies there to swarm you, even lower level ones, you will die if you do not plan your attacks tactfully). So now that you know you *need* a team, your options now are to recruit other players looking for team in your district, hire henchmen NPC's to join your team, or a mixture of both. Henchmen from most classes are available for hire: monk, warrior, elementalist (nuking damage class), and ranger. Henchmen require no initial cost for their hire but they make up for that by leeching your xp (and leveling in mission is a possibility for them) and gold drops. The henchman AI is tolerable. The monks do well keeping themselves and other team members alive, but sometimes do not know when it is okay to lend in some damage with their wands/holy nukes. Often they will just run around or stand waiting for the next opportune time to heal. The other classes are very dependant on the real players as they will rather assist annd attack what a player is killing instead of going off and attack mobs on their own (eventhough they will do that when mobs have begun attacking the group).
I really enjoyed the immersive nature of the cooperative missions and interesting tasks the group takes along the progression of the story. Protecting storyline NPC's from charging waves of undead, construction of vine bridges to traverse cliffs, and tactical usage of stealth were some of the things that still stand out in my mind. Along with the movies featuring your team's players acting out the story at mission completion, it was a very enjoyable and rewarding experience. However you cannot progress to new missions, new areas, and deeper into the plot until you complete the last one you were assigned. That can be quite frustrating if you can't seem to get into a good team and that will sometimes lead a player into trying to solo the mission with a team of henchmen-- and easily cutting out an MMO aspect of the game.
Armor upgrades through NPC crafters were what was making a big impact on the player economy. You can salvage the components from drops or trade/buy them from other players then use those components plus a crafter's fee (money sink) to make your new armors. Not only do the upgrades have different qualities (ie. higher/lower resistances, better armor class, energy regeneration) based on the type you create, the types look distinctly different from each other... and in fact, can look really nice when worn. It gives the player the option to create a sense of style in their look. Several colors of dyes including a rare black dye add in the interest in armor customization.
Unfortunately, the only thing I did not touch in Guild Wars with my level 20 Monk/War was pvp. Unfortunate because GW has had alot of work put into the pvp aspect of the game and all that work felt wasted on a player like me that prefers strictly PvM. Other than that, I felt the skill system to be very restrictive-- perhaps that brings balance in pvp, but I do not know. Your player is limited to a hotbar of 8 skills. Once you are in a mission (or even the player waiting area where people go to hook up with teams) or out in an explorable area, your hotbar skills are locked and unchangeable until you are back in a town. Often I would forget to change my skills if I noticed I wasnt using one alot, because this system is quite different to me. If I go into a mission and my team fails, if I wish to change my tactics, and more importantly skills, I have to make a town run. All in all, I really enjoyed the 3 day sneak peek of Guild Wars and was sad when the trial was over. It's not *the* game to get me hooked into paying years and years of subcriptions fees, but I can see it easily being *the* game for others. Especially if the pvp is half as fun and challenging as PvM, this game will be big.
roup shot
XT with some MOV
ome Linkage Timesink
inal Stress Test Started!
Taste of Guild Wars: Experiences of a Sneak Peek Weekend