Blizzard's World of Warcraft

November 23, 2004 9:46 AM

Back in this thread, XQUZYPHYR -- or as I like to pronounce it, "Ted", asked if anyone was taking part of Blizzard's World of Warcraft open beta. Well now the beta's done, and the retail game is in stores today. Anybody wanna gang up and roll dice?
posted by cavalier to MetaFilter-related at 9:46 AM (24 comments total)

*dons asbestos underwear*
posted by cavalier at 9:47 AM on November 23, 2004

Assuming I find a copy closeby, I plan on being online around 6 or 7pm-ish after classes...Up for a few dice rolls then if anyone else is game.
posted by jmd82 at 10:21 AM on November 23, 2004

I'll be there. I'll post some contact info later, once I've got it installed and things have calmed down on there.
posted by The God Complex at 10:29 AM on November 23, 2004

Must. Not. Buy. World. Of. Warcraft.

Have. To. Finish. Half. Life. 2. And. San. Andreas. And. Star. Ocean. And. Prince. Of. Persia. 2. And....

*runs away screaming*

I'll be there, eventually. I'll probably break down before the weekend and buy it. I have a Fry's gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket. My email/im is in my profile. Too many good video games this year.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:34 AM on November 23, 2004

Oh, and in case anyone wants to plan ahead, I'm going to have my first character on pacific realm PvP server frostwolf. I'll probably have some characters on a PvE server as well, but I don't know which one yet. And possibly on a raid server at some point.

However, since there are literally dozens of servers, there you go. If you want to play with me, join that server (lag shouldn't be an issue no matter where you are in North America--if you're in North America).

I'll see all of you back on metafilter in about six months.
posted by The God Complex at 10:50 AM on November 23, 2004

my pals and i are going to be on stormforge or whatever its called - i'm currently installing the bad boy.
posted by Stynxno at 10:57 AM on November 23, 2004

It came out today? Really? cavalier, I thank you for this post, but I'm pretty sure my employer is going to hate you a lot.
posted by jess at 11:31 AM on November 23, 2004

I'm up for it, but I'm not in a rush to buy the game and get back on since they wiped my Beta character anyway. If I decide to go for it at all, I'll wait a month or two for the installation base price to drop (it's bad enough WOW is $16 a month, charging $60 for the software is absurd) and wait for the likely first-week server stress issues to be taken care of.

And strangely, cav is close. Some friends pronounce it "Bob" as a joke.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 11:36 AM on November 23, 2004

I'll be on the mountain time zone PvP servers.. email is in my profile.
posted by some chick at 11:55 AM on November 23, 2004

I'm with XQUZYPHYR. I'm waiting until april or may to play so a) the opening bugs and stress will be dealt with and b) all of my friends that want to play will be done with school. If there's talk of a MeFi Guild starting, though, I'd be interested once I do start playing.
posted by emptybowl at 12:21 PM on November 23, 2004

I'm really wanting to get this game; my roomate played the beta, and it looks just beautiful. Plus, I love the games where you get to poke around and explore, and not just be a rampaging killing machine the entire time. (In other words, I prefer Morrowind to Halo).

I have some questions though, about the controls. I have muscle issues in my hands, and sometimes my hands are nonfunctional. (This affects the left hand more than the right, BTW).

1. How are the key controls on the game? Do you need two working hands to play this effectively, or would one do? Can the keys be remapped?

2. Also, how does this work with StickyKeys? I use a Mac Powerbook (one of the G4s), and I have StickyKeys on by default. Turning it off just to be an Mightly Warrior Night Elf for a couple hours could be a hinderance for my other apps.

Many thanks in advance if anyone can answer these.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:27 PM on November 23, 2004

spin, this is just my knowledge from the Beta:

1. The controls are, sadly for you, much like an FPS shooter- WASD is the movement control while you look and interact with the mouse. I think some keys can be remapped, but there's no way this isn't a mouse&keyboard combo game.

Blizzard is actually selling a special keyboard with customized keys for Wow; that might help along with a good trackball. I'd check Blizzard's site for that.

2. WoW runs on a Mac, but I only know about the Windows version. I would assume it works the same way any other game you play on it.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 12:34 PM on November 23, 2004

It looks neat, but I feel like I am being ripped off if I pay for the software and then still have to constantly pay just to play it. From the flood of online games, I must be in the minority.
posted by bargle at 1:08 PM on November 23, 2004

Spinifex23: I'm not sure about using it on a Mac, but on a PC mouse button number 4 (the 'back' on a webbrowser button) engaged autorun. By holding the right mouse button down you could turn, as well - and thus you could move anywhere, albeit slowly due to lack of strafing.

As regards interacting with the world, you could of course select objects and left click on all the spell/attack icons instead of manually pressing the 1 through = keys on each of the six button bars. In short, it MIGHT be possible to play, poorly, with one hand for limited periods of time, but I would suggest a very low-interactivity class like the paladin as opposed to the button-mashing rogue class if you're going to do this.

bargle: generally speaking 60-75% of the monthly fee for MMOs goes straight back into covering bandwidth, server upkeep/maintenance, and server staff wages. Only 40-25% is actually 'earned.' With 300-400,000 users this still translates to a million or two every month, but THAT money generally gets sunk right back into development of expansion packs and the inevitable sequel (ie Everquest 2).

Personally I think they should just be charging a monthly fee and waive the initial $50 pricetag (partly as a show of good faith on their part that their product is so engaging you'll play long enough to make up the difference), but then I'm not the one saddled with $10-15 million in initial development costs, so my views aren't really applicable.

In any case, I played literally twenty hours a day, seven days a week for five months straight starting with early beta - when they removed invisibility from mages, however, I immediately lost all interest in the game. Have fun out there, guys.
posted by Ryvar at 2:16 PM on November 23, 2004

I had the same thoughts (Wait a while for servers to shake themselves out, maybe get a cheaper game), but here's my take on it

1) EQ. (yech) Sony never dropped the retail price on it. Not until EQ2 was almost out. So even tho I bought Warcraft III and Starcraft long after the fact (getting these handsome "Chests" for $19, $25), I decided to pony up on this one.... beeeecause...

2) I played the Open Beta, and I mean, wow. Seriously, wow. Like, I don't play many games (WoW will be my first game purchase, since, well, Warcraft III, sorry, I don't get out much). I wasn't even going to *play* WoW, until I got the Open Beta slot. The developers at Blizzard, IMO, really understand game mechanics. It's just.... fun. And add in to that choosing your own pace, exploring solo or even with a group, or just jumping past town hall and yelling how you like to jump people, well.. that's just good old fashioned fun. I've watched EQ, CoH, other MMORPG's, this one just spanks them badly. It's all in the game UI/mechanics, and Blizzard made WoW's awfully fun.

2.5) My brother runs on a 867 MHZ G4, the Mac specs call for "at least 900 mhz G4", though those specs are down from the beta, which wanted a Ghz. I'm taking the guest pass-extra disc thing and handing it off to him at Thanksgiving to see if his machine will handle it. I'll report back how that works.

3) Paying for a subscription. Yeah, this kinda rubbed me the wrong way at first too. My thinking is, play the "free" month that comes with the $50, see if I get tired of it, if not tired, buy 3 months (1 month is $14.99, 3 months is $13.99/month, 6 months is $12.99/month, etc), and see if I get tired of it. The Open Beta was incredibly responsive, so unless they shaft their paying customers, I'm inclined to think my money will mean good uptime and resolutions + creative content. At $13/month that is way cheaper than my $()!%* cable bill, or more importantly, cheaper than one !#()%! night at the movies with my wife. That's how I financially justify it.

I realize I fibbed with #2. Technically I did end up with a free copy of Half Life 2 thanks to my video card. I loaded it up and played it for 10 minutes. I deleted the hell out of it. I don't want to sound like an old fogey, but 1) the movement made me nauseous and 2) the puzzles were retardely Wolfenstein-like. If that's what those other games are like I'm not missing much I think.
posted by cavalier at 2:19 PM on November 23, 2004

And I'm going to invite people to play Counter-Strike: Source again. I'm [e-mail] on Steam. Add me to your Friends.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:48 PM on November 23, 2004

Thanks for the feedback, particularly on what classes to play re: my Gimpy McCripple hands.

It looks like I'll be getting the game over the weekend, and am excited to play around with it!
posted by spinifex23 at 3:32 PM on November 23, 2004

Uh, yeah I just created a couple of Alliance characters on the Shattered Hand PvP server on East. Deadeye - Dwarf hunter and Anvil - Human warrior. Look me up.

Also, my email is in the profile - just like all the cool kids.
posted by ssmith at 3:42 PM on November 23, 2004

I'd love to, but I'm having the same problem eyeballkid is -- too many good games! Why the hell can't video game companies space this out? I mean, damn, we've got 20+ high quality games out already/soon: GTA:SA, Star Ocean, Baiten Kaitos, Metroid Prime 2, Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, Everquest 2...

back to halflife...
posted by graventy at 8:40 PM on November 23, 2004

Played stress and open beta, borrowed closed beta from friend from time to time. Loved it -- I'm a four year veteran of EverQuest who's tried everything else at least once, and I think this one is gonna stick.

My cronies are on Stormrage, which I couldn't get into until late last night because, y'know, I had to WORK all day yesterday....

If anyone is starting this weekend and wants to say hey or has questions they're worried will be ridiculed in the general channel, feel free to look me up -- gnome warrior Milflet for the Alliance, troll mage Marax for the Horde.
posted by gnomeloaf at 1:06 PM on November 24, 2004

If anyone is on my server, my first character is named Coldvein.
posted by The God Complex at 2:06 PM on November 24, 2004

Gah, the lag is killing...East has been down for me and the others have mad lag since early this afternoon. Anyone else having problems?
posted by jmd82 at 2:38 PM on November 24, 2004

I installed last night and played around, well, for the rest of the night. I have family in the hospital so I won't be able to play till next week, but I just created a throwaway character to play with the interface. My friends are going to be on an east coast server, so I figure I'll go there when it's time to make my main character. QUITE the fun game, once I finally got all installed. My only problem is that most of my playmates are in the EU, and it's all segregated. bleh. Looks like I'll be sending my extra CD set over there. I splurged on the collectors edition - really nice stuff in there. name will be some variation of "Wone".
posted by Woney at 2:46 PM on November 24, 2004

I'm on the East Coast Server Durotar, as a Night Elf named Elftron. Look me up!
posted by hughbot at 5:45 PM on November 25, 2004