Archived from groups: alt.games.warcraft,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)
Some random thoughts and questions on _World of Warcraft_. I've been
playing computer RPGs for 20 years, but only certain kinds (every
_Ultima_ I-VII, _Neverwinter Nights_, and _Knights of the Old
Republic_); most of the others, whether _Bard's Tale_ on the C64 two
decades ago or _Morrowind_ and _Final Fantasy X_ today, I simply
couldn't get into for one reason or another.
Other than briefly betatesting _Ultima Online_ way back in 1997, WoW
is my first MMORPG due to my being 100% Unix (Linux and now also OS X)
for the past decade. I've had the game for going on two months and
have worked my Paladin to level 24 after somewhat more than three days
of /played time.
Performance on my little iBook G4 800MHz with 640MB is surprisingly
good, actually, and noticeably improved after recent operating system
patches. I do always exit all other applications, even the Finder
(using TinkerTool); Firefox, in particular, with the dozens of tabs I
typically keep open, noticeably slows the game otherwise. It's an old
cliché uttered by the more idiotic of Mac fanatics that successive OS
X updates make the system run faster (they're usually onfusing the
prelinking the Installer does after the upgrade with genuine system
performance enhancements), but as I understand it the
10.3.7 and 10.3.8 updates contain WoW-specific patches written by
fans at Apple.
Currently, I typically see 10-25 FPS outdoors. The worst lags
naturally occur in crowded areas like the Ironforge auction house/bank
section. Group battles within the Elite-level keep in eastern Redridge
feel like stop-motion animation with as low as 1-2 FPS. But even there
it's playable for me, although others might disagree.
The graphics are beautiful. I don't know what _Everquest_ or _FFXI_
looks like in person, but if _FFXI_ looks like _FFX_ I know what I
prefer.
As implied above, I really don't play the game very often; mostly in
long spurts on the weekends. Since I haven't played other MMORPGs I
can't personally attest to what others (and the sales rankings) say
about WoW being more accessible to the casual gamer, but it's
certainly been that way for me. Certainly I've felt no pressure
whatsoever to level up to keep up with the Joneses, if you
will. Similarly, I can't personally say whether there's less grinding
in WoW than in other MMORPGs but I can say I've really not felt that
anything in the game was excessively tedious (well, maybe the
requirement to kill 20 Plague Spreaders among the many other undead
roaming around Raven Hill; only after finishing it aided by a kind
passerby did I discover that the underground crypt is filled with
them).
On my PvE server Llane, everyone seems quite nice and I can't say I've
yet run into the kinds of idiots others have griped about. As noted, a
kind passerby had no compunctions about helping a total stranger out
with a remarkably tedious quest he'd already done for a good half
hour. With the channels it's usually quite easy to find an ad hoc
group to go tackle some tough quest together. As another noted, people
give me drive-by buffs all the time and lately I've been trying to
reciprocate more often (it's more awkward for me given the iBook's
touchpad).
I'm impressed by the sheer scale of the game. It's gratifying to look
at the map and realize that I've only been to exactly four sections
(Goldshire/Stormwind, Westwood, Redridge, Duskwood) and portions of
two others (Ironforge/Dun Morogh and the path to Loch Modan). It's
gratifying to know that there's so much left to see and do.
Speaking of which, how many different paths are there in the game? I
know that were I to start a new Human Warlock character I'd also
start at Goldshire and face the same quests as I'm doing now, minus
the few character-specific quests like the Paladin one I'm doing
now. But what if I began as a Gnome Warlock, and thus start off at
(I think) Dun Morogh? Where would the two story paths merge? (Given
that I've begun to receive 25-30 level Gnomeragan quests I suspect
I've reached the merge point.) If I began as a Night Elf Mage on the
other side of the world, what about then? Is there a point where I'd
"permanently" migrate to the Eastern continent?
I imagine that Horde characters' story paths are almost completely
separate from the Alliance. But are there overlaps here as well? For
example, I know that Molten Core is a 60+ instance; is it something
that's only questable by the Alliance, or for all comers?
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/> PERTH ----> *
Cpu(s): 3.5% us, 2.0% sy, 0.5% ni, 90.1% id, 3.5% wa, 0.5% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 515800k total, 508000k used, 7800k free, 192656k buffers
Swap: 1052216k total, 40964k used, 1011252k free, 108768k cached
Some random thoughts and questions on _World of Warcraft_. I've been
playing computer RPGs for 20 years, but only certain kinds (every
_Ultima_ I-VII, _Neverwinter Nights_, and _Knights of the Old
Republic_); most of the others, whether _Bard's Tale_ on the C64 two
decades ago or _Morrowind_ and _Final Fantasy X_ today, I simply
couldn't get into for one reason or another.
Other than briefly betatesting _Ultima Online_ way back in 1997, WoW
is my first MMORPG due to my being 100% Unix (Linux and now also OS X)
for the past decade. I've had the game for going on two months and
have worked my Paladin to level 24 after somewhat more than three days
of /played time.
Performance on my little iBook G4 800MHz with 640MB is surprisingly
good, actually, and noticeably improved after recent operating system
patches. I do always exit all other applications, even the Finder
(using TinkerTool); Firefox, in particular, with the dozens of tabs I
typically keep open, noticeably slows the game otherwise. It's an old
cliché uttered by the more idiotic of Mac fanatics that successive OS
X updates make the system run faster (they're usually onfusing the
prelinking the Installer does after the upgrade with genuine system
performance enhancements), but as I understand it the
10.3.7 and 10.3.8 updates contain WoW-specific patches written by
fans at Apple.
Currently, I typically see 10-25 FPS outdoors. The worst lags
naturally occur in crowded areas like the Ironforge auction house/bank
section. Group battles within the Elite-level keep in eastern Redridge
feel like stop-motion animation with as low as 1-2 FPS. But even there
it's playable for me, although others might disagree.
The graphics are beautiful. I don't know what _Everquest_ or _FFXI_
looks like in person, but if _FFXI_ looks like _FFX_ I know what I
prefer.
As implied above, I really don't play the game very often; mostly in
long spurts on the weekends. Since I haven't played other MMORPGs I
can't personally attest to what others (and the sales rankings) say
about WoW being more accessible to the casual gamer, but it's
certainly been that way for me. Certainly I've felt no pressure
whatsoever to level up to keep up with the Joneses, if you
will. Similarly, I can't personally say whether there's less grinding
in WoW than in other MMORPGs but I can say I've really not felt that
anything in the game was excessively tedious (well, maybe the
requirement to kill 20 Plague Spreaders among the many other undead
roaming around Raven Hill; only after finishing it aided by a kind
passerby did I discover that the underground crypt is filled with
them).
On my PvE server Llane, everyone seems quite nice and I can't say I've
yet run into the kinds of idiots others have griped about. As noted, a
kind passerby had no compunctions about helping a total stranger out
with a remarkably tedious quest he'd already done for a good half
hour. With the channels it's usually quite easy to find an ad hoc
group to go tackle some tough quest together. As another noted, people
give me drive-by buffs all the time and lately I've been trying to
reciprocate more often (it's more awkward for me given the iBook's
touchpad).
I'm impressed by the sheer scale of the game. It's gratifying to look
at the map and realize that I've only been to exactly four sections
(Goldshire/Stormwind, Westwood, Redridge, Duskwood) and portions of
two others (Ironforge/Dun Morogh and the path to Loch Modan). It's
gratifying to know that there's so much left to see and do.
Speaking of which, how many different paths are there in the game? I
know that were I to start a new Human Warlock character I'd also
start at Goldshire and face the same quests as I'm doing now, minus
the few character-specific quests like the Paladin one I'm doing
now. But what if I began as a Gnome Warlock, and thus start off at
(I think) Dun Morogh? Where would the two story paths merge? (Given
that I've begun to receive 25-30 level Gnomeragan quests I suspect
I've reached the merge point.) If I began as a Night Elf Mage on the
other side of the world, what about then? Is there a point where I'd
"permanently" migrate to the Eastern continent?
I imagine that Horde characters' story paths are almost completely
separate from the Alliance. But are there overlaps here as well? For
example, I know that Molten Core is a 60+ instance; is it something
that's only questable by the Alliance, or for all comers?
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/> PERTH ----> *
Cpu(s): 3.5% us, 2.0% sy, 0.5% ni, 90.1% id, 3.5% wa, 0.5% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 515800k total, 508000k used, 7800k free, 192656k buffers
Swap: 1052216k total, 40964k used, 1011252k free, 108768k cached
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