How did he manage that? I thought it was all automatic?

He wasn't downloading via the blizz updater, but from an ftp site. He clicked the wrong thing, went to work to leave it downloading...

I don't think it is. When I downloaded it yesterday, it said 1.12 - 2.0. That means you first have to get to 1.12 in the first place, which is about 450MB. Luckily I had the good sense to stick that patch on my pen drive from my work PC so I didn't have to install that as well.

I wasn't saying they had to distribute new CDs to everyone, just people who ask for them. It shouldn't matter how impractical it is, they're making an absolute killing on subscriptions, it's not unreasonable to expect them to give a little something back to keep you coming back and lining their pockets.

As NiteFall has already pointed out, later versions of the original release have five disks that include a number of the patches.

I don't have a problem with downloading regular updates, but then I've been playing since May 2005 and haven't had a break from my subscription during that time so it's not an issue for me.

The assumption on Blizzards part, and I believe it's a correct one, is that people who dip in and out should expect to have to put up with long downloads as it's not the way the game is intended to be played (from both a business and game PoV).



But the way the patches have come out make that un-workable.

For instance, there have been several updates that have been followed a week later by a minor updates or patches. Under those circumstances would you like to be requesting a CD from Blizzard every couple of weeks? And even if there were some CD subscription I would expect to have to pay a premium for it as it would be additional cost for Blizzard (even if you only take the disks and the postage alone).

Everyone needs internet access to play the game so it is by far the most logical route for issuing content updates - be they game content or bug fixes etc.

Going back to a point you made in one of your earlier post, with a number of the updates - such as the Scourge Invasion earlier this year - they are events that take across the entire world and at all levels.

If you made it optional for people to update you could get a situation where someone is standing outside Ironforge looking at a Scourge ship saying "look at that!" and someone who hasn't opted in saying "look at what?!"

The bottom line is that opting out just isn't workable - everyone needs to be kept on the same page for the game to work (at least as it stands right now . . .).

I'm honestly not trying to get at you but I feel you are missing a fundamental point about the game and how it is meant to be played.

If you aren't interested in a progressive game that gets regular content updates then why play an online game?

Why not just stick to more traditional games that you can play on your own PC?

On another note- How's everyone finding the reworked talent trees? I've respecced a 46 / 0 / 5 balance build for my Druid, only takling 5 points in resto so I can get imped MotW and I have to say it is a lot more durable and harder hitting than it used to be. Having chatted to a few people there are still some issues (particularly with mages, summoning water elementals and battlegrounds), but everyone seems pretty happy with the balance so far. Except for Hunters and warlocks, who are both in need of a serious nerfing.

I've got to go for a full re-install, I tried the patcha again last night and it failed to install.

Looks like a fun job for the weekend!

It's not that I don't want new content, it's that I don't want to be obstructed from playing the game, because I don't want to get it right now. Right now I'm living at my parents house for a month, just over the christmas period. Their broadband download limit per month is either (I'm not entirely sure) 1GB or 2GB, since my mum's the only one who uses it usually, and only then does light browsing. I have had my account frozen for a while, so have been out of touch with what's been going on lately, and decided since I've got a month off work, it's a good time to get back into WoW. Only to find the day after I pay my 9 quid, they hit me with a 700 Meg patch. That is a massive chunk of our download limit for a month gone in one go. That gives me two choices, take the patch and have my parents probably receive a complaint from their ISP about huge downloads, or don't take the patch, and I've effectively chucked 9 quid down the toilet, because now I can't play the game.

My suggestion about requesting patch CDs for free would obviously not apply to the odd 20 meg patch here and there. It would only be necessary for when a large patch is released. I wouldn't have minded waiting for 2 or 3 days while blizzard sent me a CD with the new patch on it.

I can't remember exactly what the Warlock tree looked like before the patch, but when I went reassigning all my talent points the other day it barely looked any different. I think I just ended up assigning all the same talents as I had before (nearly all in affliction with a few in destruction).

Wow. A warlock that didn't go for a Felguard? Well done, you're in the minority, most went "Ooooooooh! Shiny new demon! Must have!"

I don't have enough points to get that far through the Demonology tree anyway. My warlock's only level 40. My Felhound does the trick for now.

Curse you keyloggers!!!

I started a new character two days ago, Undead Mage this time. I'm already up to level 16. Is it me or are mages really overpowered? The majority of fights I've been in so far have resulted in me taking virtually no damage whatsoever.

You want seriously overpowered get yourself an affliction spec warlock. Or a beast mastery hunter.

Mages are very powerful, but if you allow more than one nasty to get in close to you there will be a corpse run in the offing!

My second character is a lvl 43 Mage and great fun to play - you be wanting to put your talent points into the frost spells 'cause you can trigger frost traps on your opening hit that helps limit the damage you take.

Just levelled my Shaman to the point where I've learned dual-wield. All I can say is that dual weapons + Windfury on one + Flametongue on the other = dead things, very quickly.

That's exactly what my first, main character is. And he's been nowhere near as overpowered for his level as the mage is so far. He's definitely become more powerful as I got higher level though (I mean in proportion, that is). At the part where you had to choose your pet from one of two, I went for Felhunter. I wish there were more magic caster enemies in the game because I can usually obliterate those with ease.



That's what I thought it'd be like, but it isn't. Mages have the frost nova spell which means any time you get stuck in a fight with multiple enemies, you just freeze them and leg it. They seem to have an answer for everything, mages. Usually I've found I can take on two or three enemies at the same time (good old polymorph and alchemy -> mana potions).

I'm thinking about having a go as a Shaman when the Burning Crusade comes out - when I can play and Alliance one!

I've only played Alliance with one character, a Dwarf Warrior, and found it utterly boring. For some odd reason I also seem to have totally run out of available quests and no quest has directed me to an area which is suitable for my current level (17), so I'm a bit stuck, wondering where to go at the moment.

Horde lvl 17? You should still have quests to do in the Barrens, but there should also be quests you can do in Stonetalon Mountains and soon (lvl 18) in Ashenvale Forest.

No, it's the Alliance character that I can't find any quests for. I've got one in Loch Modan and that's about it.

Have you been to the Fastrider Lodge in Loch Modan? It's tucked away on the far side of the Loch [from Thelsamar] and there are three or four quests there, and another couple down at Ironband's Excavation Site.

If you've done those you are a bit low to be going into the Wetlands (20-30) just yet so I'd suggest you head for Westfall (10-20), Redridge Mountains (15-25) or Duskwood (18-30).

Is there much storyline to WoW?

There's a huge amount of history and detail in the World of Warcraft universe, which has largely come about as the result of the back story to earlier versions of the game and their expansions.

After playing the game for the last eighteen months however, and reading two graphic novels and a paperback, I'd have to confess to not being at all clear on what it is all about!

There is a potted history of the WoW universe in the back of the manual supplied with the game, but if you try to read it as a newbie to the WoW universe it will confuse the hell out of you - as it did me - because there are far too many names, of places and people, to take in without any other frame of reference.

The basic upshot of the plot though - as far as I understand it - is that an "evil" of some kind came across the planet WoW is set on and went about trying to take it over. The two opposing factions of the Horde and the Alliance, eventually banded together and kicked it out - but the world was split in two in the process and the influence of the banished “evil” still lingers.

Since the "evil" was defeated, divisions between the two factions have re-surfaced and that’s where WoW starts off.

There is a whole host of detail to pad out the above, the split of the Night and Blood Elves, how the Orcs came to the planet, the creation of the Forsaken (Un-Dead), the Scourge, the, well you get the picture . . .

A lot of the story has been blatantly swiped from other fantasy sagas, or is fairly generic Sword and Sorcery kinda stuff.

Maybe I should have been clearer.

I meant, is there much story as you play, not just pre existing back story and history?

Not really, no. The quest givers justify their quests with a little bit of waffle, but to be honest, it's not really possible to put in an evolving storyline into an MMO because after you've done a quest, someone else has to be able to do it as well, so all the things you killed, all the items you stole, etc will respawn in five minutes time, so someone else can kill or steal them, so there's no real sense of permanance to anything you do. It's not really a problem though, unless that's what you're specifically looking for. The world is very static (apart from when they add new content with patches), so logging on one day, the world will be in exactly the same state as it was yesterday on the large scale. It's more about what your character does than anything else. It's certainly not like Oblivion, where quests come to find you, or an action you take earlier in the game will affect something later on.

Although as you play and get reputation with the various factions more backstory and npc story becomes apparent. So it isn't quite as static and unchanging as you make out. I'll admit that it isn't an MMO version of Oblivion, which seems to be your major gripe with it from reading your posts, but then again that would be an absolute nightmare, not just for the developers, but also for new players. "Ooh, I think I'll go do this cool thing that I heard ab... Oh no, wait. It's not there any more. Damn".

I wasn't trying to be condescending or insinuate WoW was shit, i was genuinely interested in it's dynamics

It's just Final Fantasy 11 had awesome storylines, for each of the major starting cities and the expansions and then a ton of side quests to do.
I guess if you rationalise it, it doesnt really work, because how can the same people do a quest (like kill bahamut) when a group of people already did it.
But then again, thats the same as any quest in any MMO.

I really liked the Story in FF11. I quit RF Online as there was no story, just missions and PvP.

Not far off level 20 with the mage that I only created a few days ago. Ridiculous considering that it took me a year to get my Warlock to 44. Then again I have played more WoW in the past 3 weeks than I probably have for most of the year.

For anyone who's interested, there's also a boardgame.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/17223

Look at the space the thing takes up!!!!!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/fullimage/90248

I've seen that in Forbidden Planet, the box is huge and weighs a ton!

To follow up on what others have said, in reply to monkeyman's question, I would say that although the world itself stays basically the same - as Nonus Aequilibrium said - the development of a story line for your character does take place as you work your way through the game.

In the general run of things the longer quests you take part in do have stories that unfold. So, from that point of view, there is a continuing narrative, but on the other hand nothing ever changes in the world overall because those same quests have to be completed by other players.

For example, you have a story line that evolves in Duskwood where you find, in a round about way, that a wizard called Morbent Fell is responsible for a lot of the dark happenings in the area. When you kill him the dark happenings don't stop, because others have to complete the same quest as well, but when you have finished the quest and re-visit characters in the area they still hail you as the defender of Duskwood who slew the nasty wizard (even though he's still alive and well in the hut at the top of the hill for other characters to go and kill!).

In the bigger picture the story line for the game is slowly moving forwards. The War Effort earlier this year, and the Invasion of the Scourge, were two events that took place for a finite time that when completed had moved the plot for the whole game forward - to varying degrees.

I believe The Burning Crusade expansion, apart from adding a whole load of new content, will also move the story forward as well.

So, in summary, it is an unfolding story from the point of view of your character - you learn more about the world and its people and a story line does evolve - but at the same time your impact on the world is usually negligible.

My friend is still trying to convince me to play WoW, he even has a spare copy of the game, thing is I can't really find a reason to play it.

I really don't like the way it looks, I mean the actual style of it not the game as a whole. It is a bit cartoony and colourful for me.
As I understand it theres not really much of an important epic storyline for each character, something I really like to see in RPG's.
I'm not really interested in PvP so that whole side of it doesn't factor into whether I should get it or not.

I do like some of the races attributes (sucvh as Dwarf) and some of the job classes (like Hunter), but other than that I'm really struggling to find any reason why i should play it.

Am I being a dick or does it seem rational for me not to be interested due to my own tastes?

I don't play the Sims but have nothing against it - I reckon you're okay not wanting to play it.

My mates got me into Guild Wars (similar to WoW) and then buggered off into weddinghood and travelling, I suppose you never know til you try. But it will keep you awake at night if you do play it!!

-m0r

I'm of a similar opinion, I got bored playing the original warcraft games because of thecartoonish qualities and the generic fantasy setting. I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons when I was into roleplaying for much the same reasons. Having said that I do believe quality of game play is all and there's lots of older poorly animated games that I prefer to modern beautiful looking ones.

Well, if you're undecided try out the free 2-week trial subscription. Long enough for you to form an opinion on the game in general and absolutely free. If you make a Horde character on the Dragonmaw server I'll boost you a bit even.

i guess it can't hurt to give it a go, when I've finished with oblivion....in a year then

Famous last words . . .

I got my Mage up to level 48 yesterday, I'm trying to make level 50 by the end of next weekend when I'll be going back to my Rogue for the release of The Burning Crusade.

Is the Dwarven race any good?

They've always been my favourite race in works of fictiont hat feature them. Would be nice to play as one if they don't suck ass.

There isn't a huge amount to choose between the different races - they do have some racial traits but mostly it's a case of picking a race you like and a class you want to play.

Personally I'd only play as a Dwarf if I was going to start a Hunter (or a possibly Warrior) as that seems fairly apt for that race (well, more apt than a Dwarf Priest anyway!).

I have a dwarf warrior, and I find it completely boring to play. I got to level 18 then stopped playing because it was too dull. My horde characters (lvl 25 undead mage and lvl 48 orc warlock) are far more fun to play. I also found a total lack of pointers where to go and do quests for my dwarf warrior, I found myself stuck with only one quest to do (which was too hard to do on my own) and no one else giving quests that I could find. Usually you get a quest which leads you to a new area that's more suitable for your level, but that never happened.

If you have a lvl 55-60 character then get a group together and get yourselves to the Dark Portal in the southern Blasted Lands (just south of Swamp of Sorrows in the Eastern Kingdoms). There's a limited time world event going on there with a funky limited tabard quest reward. However if you're on a PvP server be prepared for a BIG fight.

Got mine! (did it solo too!).

That was total chaos!

I assume everyone here who has a level 60 character will be buying The Burning Crusade? I've still got 12 levels to go, so I won't be buying it for a while.

One thing I thought was strange was that they're including two new races, which means you have to start a new character to use them, but hardly any new game content for anyone below level 60. Sure the new races have starting areas, but they're for up to about level 20... That's about a day or two's worth of playing. I would have expected some more mid-range content so that the expansion would appeal to everyone. Who wants to start a new character then just grind away at the same old areas until you get back to 60 and start seeing new content?

Yeah, but to be fair a lot of people will be rolling new characters with tbc so it'll be nice and easy to get groups together and power level up. Also, once you know what you're doing levelling a character becomes so much easier- my friend Sam has 4 lvl 60s, the last of which he levelled from 1 in just over a fortnight.

Plus the expansion is bound to attract a lot of new customers who will then have the choice of levelling one of the new races fresh faced and whatnot.

My copy is on order, and will hopefully arrive on Tuesday.

I believe there is new content for all levels throughout the game, although the majority is aimed at the start levels for the new races or at level 60+ players.

The reviews I've heard of it so far have all been positive.

Personally it's taken me over 18 months to get two characters anywhere near level 60 (one level 60 and one llevel 48) and there are several different areas you can work in throughout the game (for instance, you could level up to 60 without ever leaving the main island you start on, although in practice you probably wouldn't want to).

Corrected!

To be fair he does have a life as well. He holds down a proper job, goes out and everything. He's just also a strange gaming idiot-savant. God alone knows we've found no other use for him.

I will qualify my above remark by explaining that it took me most of last Saturday and Sunday to get my Mage from level 46 to 48, and that was with the character being pretty much rested all the way through!

60 levels in two weeks?! I'm obviously not a hardened game player!

Like I said- he's an idiot savant when it comes to gaming.


Just an idiot in other fields though.

I started a new character at christmas and in 2 days got him to about level 20 something. It took me about a year to get to level 48 with my warlock.