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Oh god, runescape... bad memories bad memories...

Though not as bad as my memories of playing WoW, that hideous cartoonish sack of mediocrity.

LunaHound wrote:
And this is just too funny

Hehe, aye thats pretty cool, what worries me is I can almost see the 'I don't know, I'm seeing it pretty well' type posts not far below it.



Watching the announcement a couple more times at Blizzcon last night, it does accur to me that ontop of the ancient chinese themed vistas and sights, the music is going to blow me away.
During Wrath I'd often go to Grizzly Hills to hang out just because I loved the backing track, this Blizzard take on Chinese music is sounding pretty awesoome already. I'm really going to enjoy hearing Xiao, Huqin, guqin and the like being played as I'm walking around. This expansion is really going to lock me in, regardless of whether I play a Pandaran or not.

bombboy1252 wrote:

Doctadeth wrote:Sorry blizzard, but after 5 years of these banal updates to WOW....I still don't give a rats ass. WOW was touted as the first ever good MMORPG.

Nope, thats still Richard Garret's Ultima Online, and Everquest to me.

Naaaaaaah, that goes to RuneScape.... /sarcasm

Ragnarok Online..

"run's for the hills"

Zathras wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:Not at all, you go out and can find and fight them in the wild to weaken them before capturing them and using as your own. You also train them and level them up to make them learn new abilities and battle them one on one.

So....it's Pokemon.

Precisely.

Took 'em long enough to steal things from pokemon as well.

In other news I feel all of you should look at the blizzcon 2011 costumes, specifically the tier 5 human priest.

I was going to post "People still play that game?"...

Until I realised that if you still play that game you are no longer a part of the human race... therefore, not people...

Thanks for that.


In more interesting news, did anyone catch that Blizzard have made a deal with Megablocks to make Warcraft and Starcraft themed Mega Block stuff in 2012, I assume in a similar vein to their Dragons and Halo series.

My boys are going go mad when they see it.


Some stuff from Blizzcon

Oooo i almost forgot Blizzard makes figurines.

Why dont they make some for SC2? im sure it'll be more popular than WoW figurines.

People will be literally drooling over seige tanks, thor, maybe marines as well.

Doctadeth wrote:WOW was touted as the first ever good MMORPG.

I don't think I've ever heard that from a reputable source. EQ, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, and Dark Age of Camelot (and possibly Meridian 59) were all well received and good MMO's. WoW was the first to break into the mainstream, but it certainly wasn't the first good MMO by a stretch.

I think it was just the first to break a certain number of Subs, Million? Not sure, thats whats its really know for now, that and killing every MMO that comes along saying things like 'we'll be a WoW beater.'
But I'd agree there where solid MMO's before WoW, WoW just seemed to strike a cord with people, the fact it had a captive auidience in Blizzard Warcraft fans made a big difference as well.

In fact I seriously feel GW doesn't know what it missed out on with the original Warhammer MMO. It was due out around the same time back in 2004, would have also had a captive auidience, hell GW could laughing all the way to the bank right now, had they not canned it.


Of course the problem for MMO's now is, WoW has got nearly six years of polish in it. I'm pretty sure releasing a Fantasy themed MMO to a western auidience is a waste of time, if your main and only reason is to get over a million subs.

Sci-fi is the way to go to challenge for serious numbers, and its seems that ToR will be wrapping those up if it plays as well as I've heard.

The number of free to play models is an indicator of that, and I do think the guy at EA a little while back is probably correct in saying ToR will be the last successful paid subscription model MMO.
Unless 'Titan' turns out to be something unbelievable of course.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:
In fact I seriously feel GW doesn't know what it missed out on with the original Warhammer MMO. It was due out around the same time back in 2004, would have also had a captive audience, hell GW could laughing all the way to the bank right now, had they not canned it.

I don't know where you get the idea that GW "canned" it.

They fired the company which was making it. Because the company was not actually working on it, just pocketing most of the cash and showing off the same renders for years.

interesting, I've never heard that, the only thing I heard is Climax pointed out to GW how much it was going to cost to run, and GW dropped it.

Although that was from someone at Climax, so who knows.

Its up to PR department to take care of what customers know.
If the customers doesn't know, then PR failed.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:interesting, I've never heard that, the only thing I heard is Climax pointed out to GW how much it was going to cost to run, and GW dropped it.

Although that was from someone at Climax, so who knows.

Heh. So they dropped it...and then almost immediately gave the license to EA/Mythic?

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:stuff from Blizzcon

Blizzard makes figures?

I want to start a zerg army

I always liked them a lot more than Terran/Protoss.....I hate the Protoss with a passion

Soladrin wrote:

bombboy1252 wrote:

Doctadeth wrote:Sorry blizzard, but after 5 years of these banal updates to WOW....I still don't give a rats ass. WOW was touted as the first ever good MMORPG.

Nope, thats still Richard Garret's Ultima Online, and Everquest to me.

Naaaaaaah, that goes to RuneScape.... /sarcasm

Ragnarok Online..

"run's for the hills"

You guys have TERRIBLE ways of spelling Shadowbane.....

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Hmm, not sure how the company who own the story, and are pushing it forward with each expansion can really be destroying whats theirs.

Also tbh, reading novels, and playing through various stories over the years, I'd say they are still developing the story quite nicely. If you love Warcraft 3, cool, it had a good story but it really hasn't stopped evolving after WoW launched.

I actually like where the story has gone, and look forward to more as each expansion and patch rolls out. Thankfully I'm not alone, and Blizz knows it is catering for the larger portion of its fanbase with the continuing story.

Easy, see Star Wars and George Lucas for previous examples on how to own something but then go back and ret-con/destroy it. Greebo shot first? The new star wars movies. Etc...

Many comic book companies do the same thing just to cashin, but at the same time drive their IP into the ground until you can't make sense of what is correct.

It looks like the announcement of this expansion to me is more of a business decision. Blizzard seem to release expansions pretty frequently nowadays and given that a new expansion is pretty much guaranteed short revenue, I don’t blame them. The thematics of this expansion seems very odd and I reckon they’re starting to run out of ideas.

Also +1 to the posts that debunk the “WoW was the first good MMO” myth. It’s disturbing how common this myth gets posted on the internet.

candy.man wrote:It looks like the announcement of this expansion to me is more of a business decision.

Every announcement of every expansion to every MMO is a business decision.

Companies make games to make money.

I think he was meaning it more in the vein that Blizzard almost always announces expansions when a new MMO is launching or preparing to launch.

If you have an expansion ready made it is wiser to announce and release it when you need it rather than straight away.

Kanluwen wrote:
Heh. So they dropped it...and then almost immediately gave the license to EA/Mythic?

As I said its only what I heard. If it was Climax, more fool them, as they'd have had a lions share of money if that Warhammer MMO had taken WoW's slot in the long run, especially considering the first year WoW had.

Kanluwen wrote:I think he was meaning it more in the vein that Blizzard almost always announces expansions when a new MMO is launching or preparing to launch.

There is definately some truth in that, they have made moves to get expansions up against rival games for sure, of course that is probably, hate it or not, good business sense. However I should stress with Mists, they where hardly just shoutng 'new expansion' to steal ToR's thunder. Did you see how much work they've done. Already having zone fly throughs, the Pandaran starting area was playable, playable at the first Blizzcon it got announced at. So this is a expansion they have been working on for a while.


Also I should just pont out I'm not a raving Blizzard fan boy, never got into Warcraft 3, don't like Starcraft, and quick to point out the companies flaws when justified. I just sit here finding it ammusing the ammount of venom folks have towards the company for moving along a story that is theirs to move. Warcraft 3 was a chapter of the story, there was obviously more to come.. all this 'I don't take anything that happens in WoW as canon' rubbish I see around just makes me chuckle. I'm sitting there thinking, sorry dude, ask Chris Metzen, this is as Canon as it gets, WoW is the follow on to Warcraft 3.

I fnd it especially ironic on a forum where, we often berate GW for not moving on theirs.

Kanluwen has hit the nail on the head. Blizzard’s expansions are fairly tactical business decisions IMO in terms of when and where they are released.

Given that there are a lot of high quality MMOs released nowadays (as well as WoW no longer being "the one MMO to rule them all" when it was back in 2005), I think this is one of the reasons why the frequency of WoW expansion releases has seemingly increased.

Yeah they pretty much said this earlier in the year, due to the number of other games, and expectations of the customer base, they plan on releasing the expansions more frequently.

This is why during Metzen's speech to announce Mists, he was eluding about the next expasnion after. He didn't say much, but was going on how a Storm was coming, the Alliance and Horde are building towards something awful, and this expansion, Mists is a calm before that Storm, and will introduce the race the ultimately has the power to help resolve the chaos to come.


It also leads on to something Ghostcrawler said, which is they plan on having a lot more to do at launch for Mists for Lvl 90's, they've realised this waiting period from when you get to 90, before the first content patch is a bit of a downer. So they are playing on having at least two areas on a similar vein to the Firelands content patch that introduced dailies and epics etc, to be there right from the get go in Mists.

I don't doubt that, however there is nothing wrong with doing what they are doing.

It makes their fans (who I am not one of) happy and fills their pockets.

EQ2 was, and still is, an excellent MMO. I just think it has so little marketing, nobody even knows its there.

Far superior to WoW in terms of depth, crafting, and a different style of graphics that I think are superior as well (less cartoony, if I can put it that way).

They also have like 24-25 classes IIRC too, all of which are used in up to 80 man raids I think it is.

I had a go on EQ2, seemed a solid game, played an Inquisitor for about two weeks while taking a break with WoW.

I think I could have played it for longer, but my time investment with WoW was pretty high at the time, also it was just before WaR released. So went and tried that for 5weeks, and when I realised it wasn't for me, went back to WoW for the launch of WotLK.

I've got my account details kicking around somewhere, might have a another go one day.

This looks terrible.

I have always had at least a decent amount of respect for WoW (except for the fact that it has caused the genre to absolutely stagnate, but that's not really the fault of WoW itself, it's the fault of idiot devs and publishers who think that plagiarism tops innovation). I enjoyed it quite a bit when it first released. I never had the attention span or dedication to make it to max level, but I generally look back on it fondly. The expansions gradually threw me off, because they seemed to cater to only high-level players, and they put a larger barrier between my progress and the endgame. I stopped playing around the release of WotLK, because I didn't feel like paying for content I couldn't access yet.

While I didn't hate the previous expansions, they definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. However, Mists of Pandaria looks like an absolute travesty. It's such a stupid premise that it actually manages to make me angry, despite the fact that I haven't played the game in years.

For me, this is the final coffin nail. At least I can avoid it easily.

Ahtman wrote:WoW [...] certainly wasn't the first good MMO by a stretch.

Or even a good MMO for that matter.