Holy $*&^ Gamespot gave WoW a 9.5!!!

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portnoy
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Holy $*&^ Gamespot gave WoW a 9.5!!!

Post by portnoy »

I played the beta, and well. I am now playing EQ2 and loving it.

The reviewer seemed to think that one of the high points is the abscence of any death penalty. Also, he commented that the game rewards casual gamers as well, ie, time investment does not need to be as high.

Dying is a big deal, I will gauge mobs in EQ constantly, and will decide to or not to engage the mob based on whether or not in several minutes I will be retreiving my shimmering body from betwixt the mobs feet. This just makes sense. I am worried that lower level players will clog places that they shouldn't be, due to a lack of fear. In the original wasteland, just because you could walk north to the brotherhood citadel did not mean that it was a good idea.

As for rewarding casual gamers, that is a good thing, but after playing the beta, perhaps I just never got hooked in, the game just seemed too simple. The depth just wasn't there. I felt that I was in a World of Warcraft 3 map, while that is cool, it also is not one of the most earth shattering games ever.

*sigh*

I know that a few weeks ago when gamespot thrashed EQ2 the speculation was that they would reward Blizzard with a high score. I just don't think that this is such an innovative title in the MMORPG genre.
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Post by McNutt »

WoW is definitely not innovative. There are few features that haven't been done before. But in my opinion they do damn near everything better than anybody else. Please understand that I haven't played EQ II, so I can't compare. I spend more time last weekend playing WoW than I ever did with any game. I've never been able to play a game for five hours straight, but I did that with WoW and would have kept going were it not 3:00am.

Even though death isn't extremely harsh in WoW, I really really hate dying. While making that death run is much easier than in EQ, you still have to worry about getting your body back without dying. Whatever killed you is still there.

I haven't gotten the chance to do much PvP, but I really like the way Blizzard incorporates it into the game.
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Post by Jow »

Innovation has very little to do with review scores anymore... which I think is unfortunate.

Also, not everyone plays pellmell without any regard for their lives just because the death penalty isn't crushing. I definitely hate dying and play as smartly as I can to avoid it.
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The Preacher
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Post by The Preacher »

Blizzard has never really been known for being particularly innovative. What they excel at, however, is "re-tuning" and perfecting genres. IMO, from Beta at least, WOW is the best MMORPG out there, at least for people like me who do not want to deal with agonies present in the rest of the genre (excluding EQ2 which I haven't tried). They have eliminated tedium and made the game just fun.

I don't disagree that they have likely stripped some depth from the genre, but, frankly, I never got through the tedium of the other games to "discover" the depth. What good is depth to someone if they get bored/annoyed before experiencing it?

That being said, I have yet to read the review. But from beta alone, I'd have given it a 90%.
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Post by triggercut »

I disagree with the prevailing sentiment of this thread.

I'm a DAoC diehard, and laughed as I saw one MMRPG after another come along to challenge the Big Guys at the table: EQ, UO, DAoC, etc. SWG? Yeah, right....colossal failure at launch. Horizons? Heh. Asheron's Call? Pretty game that no one plays. Shadowbane? Coulda been great, but the fiascos of the first few months killed it.

I expected to hohum my way through WoW, and the lag and server hijinks of launch day and launch day +1 further prejudiced me against it. Over the weekend I was finally able to get some quality time in, and...

...WoW sure makes the best first impression of any MMRPG out there. I'm not one deeply immersed in the Warcraft universe, either. Heck, I didn't even remember that there was an undead faction until I started playing. I'm a fanboy of WoW's competition.

And I'm won over, so far.

Sure, lots will depend on how Blizzard rolls out and handles the battlefields. I've found xp to be more plentiful when ungrouped, still (which is something that killed SWG for me). But the game is just fun as hell, with the same "one more item/level/town/quest" feel as Diablo I and II.
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Post by Depward »

I dunno about WoW. I mean, I hear about these "exciting features", but most of them you can see in other MMORPGs. I think whoever said, "Whatever they do is re-tune better than a lot of companies" is right. But it just really seems like WoW is really not that in-depth for some reason. I hear people saying that they're post 100 in some tradeskill already . . . and it makes me wonder what the cap is for that. Did Blizzard made the caps REALLY high and make gaining levels REALLY easy to make people think that they're "uber" by just having a high number? Maybe it's my semi-hatred for Blizzard, or my obvious FFXI bias, but I dunno.

Then again, I'm not trying to bash the game at all. Just trying to figure out reasons out loud and in my head why so many people really like this game . . .
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Post by noxiousdog »

It will be interesting to see it's staying power, but I've got upwards of 40 hours in (open beta and retail) and am enjoying it greatly. I don't remember when tedium set in on EQ I, but it was pretty early.
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Post by warning »

Depward wrote:Then again, I'm not trying to bash the game at all. Just trying to figure out reasons out loud and in my head why so many people really like this game . . .
Well it's the first MMO that I've found to be fun. That would be a big reason for me.
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Post by TommyTutone »

For those here who are really digging WoW, what did you think of EQ2 and how does it compare? More importantly, do those differences justify the difference in the scores? Having played both (beta for WoW anyway), I'm not seeing it.
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Post by knob »

Depward wrote:I dunno about WoW. I mean, I hear about these "exciting features", but most of them you can see in other MMORPGs. I think whoever said, "Whatever they do is re-tune better than a lot of companies" is right. But it just really seems like WoW is really not that in-depth for some reason. I hear people saying that they're post 100 in some tradeskill already . . . and it makes me wonder what the cap is for that. Did Blizzard made the caps REALLY high and make gaining levels REALLY easy to make people think that they're "uber" by just having a high number? Maybe it's my semi-hatred for Blizzard, or my obvious FFXI bias, but I dunno.

Then again, I'm not trying to bash the game at all. Just trying to figure out reasons out loud and in my head why so many people really like this game . . .

You're using the mentality of a diffeent game. Just because some MMO uses 200 as a cap doesn't mean other games are going to use the same numbers as a cap. Differet game, different caps.

I can't even remember what the cap in WoW is, but I think tradeskills max out at around 300. They start raising quick, and slow down later on. They aren't super difficult to raise, but they aren't something you're going to blow through in a day of playing.
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Post by Koz »

One of the designs for the game was to make levelling easier than most other MMO's. There's really no leveling curve to speak of after level 10 or so, and I think Blizzard fully assume the place will be crawling with Level 60's (the max level) in a few months. I just hope they come through with their epic content and PvP battlegrounds/honor system.
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Post by DiscoJason »

I've played both and I like EQ2 more than WoW in all aspects, other than the fact that WoW has PvP. EQ2 beats it in crafting, depth of combat, immersion, etc. I gave both games a fair shake and I just prefer EQ2, though they are both excellent games in their own right. My friend is the opposite and he likes WoW better. His big thing is PvP and he also likes being able to level quicker. I am not in so much of a rush to level and kind of like the length of time it takes. It allows me to spend more time learning the ins and outs of my abilities and fully explore the zones.

One thing I definitely like more about EQ2 than WoW is the length of the battles. WoW battles seem to short for me and I hardly have time to use my abilities before the mob is dead, which I guess is fine since I seem to have way more abilities to choose from in EQ2 than I do in WoW.
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Post by Coskesh »

DiscoJason wrote:I've played both and I like EQ2 more than WoW in all aspects, other than the fact that WoW has PvP. EQ2 beats it in crafting, depth of combat, immersion, etc. I gave both games a fair shake and I just prefer EQ2, though they are both excellent games in their own right. My friend is the opposite and he likes WoW better. His big thing is PvP and he also likes being able to level quicker. I am not in so much of a rush to level and kind of like the length of time it takes. It allows me to spend more time learning the ins and outs of my abilities and fully explore the zones.

One thing I definitely like more about EQ2 than WoW is the length of the battles. WoW battles seem to short for me and I hardly have time to use my abilities before the mob is dead, which I guess is fine since I seem to have way more abilities to choose from in EQ2 than I do in WoW.

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Post by quantum »

TommyTutone wrote:For those here who are really digging WoW, what did you think of EQ2 and how does it compare? More importantly, do those differences justify the difference in the scores? Having played both (beta for WoW anyway), I'm not seeing it.
I think EQ2 sucks monkey ass. Yes, the difference in scores is completely accurate.

EQ2's like a laggier, less interesting version of EQ1. There are TWO, count 'em, TWO cities in the game. Every dungeon is a bland, characterless mess of caves with some stupid props thrown here and there to make it look different. All the color, vibrance, racial flavor, and epic scope of EQ1 has been gorily aborted in EQ2. Take a screenshot from an area outside one of the two main cities, and I doubt most players could correctly identify the zone it was taken in.

EQ2 = crap.
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Post by Depward »

Well if fun is a term to describe WoW, I just might have to pick it up and see if I like it during the month trial
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Post by Biyobi »

My roommate got the WoW Collector's Edition so I'm playing using the free ten day trial thing. I've never played a MMORPG before and I am loving it!! I love the stylized world. I have the distinct feeling that I'll be breaking my "no games that I must continue paying for" policy and get this one.
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Post by DiscoJason »

quantum wrote:
TommyTutone wrote:For those here who are really digging WoW, what did you think of EQ2 and how does it compare? More importantly, do those differences justify the difference in the scores? Having played both (beta for WoW anyway), I'm not seeing it.
I think EQ2 sucks monkey ass. Yes, the difference in scores is completely accurate.

EQ2's like a laggier, less interesting version of EQ1. There are TWO, count 'em, TWO cities in the game. Every dungeon is a bland, characterless mess of caves with some stupid props thrown here and there to make it look different. All the color, vibrance, racial flavor, and epic scope of EQ1 has been gorily aborted in EQ2. Take a screenshot from an area outside one of the two main cities, and I doubt most players could correctly identify the zone it was taken in.

EQ2 = crap.
Basing a geography description on the first two zones seems somewhat premature to me. Even in compairng the two starting cities, they seem pretty different to me. Antonica and Qeynos are definitely a lot more cheery than The Commonlands and Freeport. I travelled from Freeport to Qeynos to do my betrayal quest and so I passed through Nektulos and Thundering Steppes on the journey. Those two zones are wildly different from each other in appearance, even though they both serve as the zone that is a step up from their respective starter zones. I can't say much about the other islands, but I will venture a guess that Everfrost is going to be a snowy region and the other zones will have their own flavor as well. I will agree that WoW is very stylized, but to say EQ2 is crap from the first few zones you have seen doesn't quite seem fair. I have a 20 Ranger and can say for sure that the geography varies as you travel around.
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Post by Toe »

Those thinking of trying WoW, definately give it a go. I know several folks that have never played a MMOL game that are playing WoW and love it. One is a co-worker who will soon be thanking and cursing me for his newly found addiction. :)

I give it a 9.5. Although I give it about a 6.0 for its launch due to all the headaches they created because they did not properly estimating demand.
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Post by Discalced »

I played the open beta for EQ2 and was not at all impressed. I've logged 40+ hours into WoW and am having a blast. The only times I grow dismayed over this game are when I consider the fact that I'm less than halfway to the endgame. But it moves fast.

And wait til they implement Battlegrounds.
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