"World of StarCraft" confounds!

Yes, they can keep tweaking content and mechanics, and release more expansions to keep their customer base from exploring greener pastures. But the underlying technology is the one thing they will not be able to replace. This will make milking the cash cow with more expansions increasingly difficult.

So I strongly doubt WoS will be just a reskinned version of WoW. Building and supporting a new game on technology which is already 2 years old makes no business sense in the gaming industry.

Not really true.. your basing this on the assumption that Blizzard cant simply extend WoW much the same way they extended it with Burning Crusade.. There nothing preventing them from upgrading every piece of the technology in WoW as it stands now and simply NOT extending that back to the older existing "worlds" (like how you cant have a flying mount in the Old World)

And for the most part unless someone comes out with a new MMORPG with radically different game mechanics (that actually work and are popular) and really begins to eat into WoW's subscription base I dont see anything that would prompt Blizzard to begin movement on a completely new MMORPG that could essentially kill of its existing one.

But we'll know a much more (hopefully) in a little more than a week.

OMFG TEHY NERFED MY ZERG HUNTER

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

OMFG TEHY NERFED MY ZERG HUNTER

LESS QQ MOAR PEWPEW NUB

strader69 wrote:

People will never be satisfied with anything Guru. Its a plague in the human genome some people have that keeps them forever unhappy, never satisfied, and always Female Doggoing.

Haha it's true but it's also what fuels progress/innovation. If everyone was satisfied with pong you'd never have played WoW. It's true that people probably Female Doggo too much about insignificant things but really WoW is not the end all be all of online gaming. This genre/style of game has so much more potential than what any game has delivered thus far. WoW may certainly be the prettiest, most polished, and easiest to swallow game of its type to hit the shelves but aside from putting many previous experiences into a nice, neat, and extremely stable package it really has not really delivered anything new. Is it the best game of this type to hit the shelves? In my opinion when looking at the overall package WoW delivers it is the best game of this type yet to be released. This doesn't mean that I really like it or want to play it personally however.

I think in one of your previous posts you had stated that WoW was your first MMORPG. I think if this were the case with me I would still be having fun with WoW. Unfortunately I have played many of these types of games before WoW. So much of WoW is copied from these previous games who copied it from games that came before them who copied it from games that came before them... Well it's not really a new experience even if it is more polished. So while grinding experience and gear in WoW for a year or two might not be that bad you have to consider that some of us have been grinding experience and gear for the past 8-10+ years. Just because the mobs have been reskinned and the game client runs a bit smoother the experience really isn't all that unique. If anything the experience has been lessened in some respects. For instance it's much easier to kill mobs pre-raiding in WoW than it has been in previous games. Typically when you do something for a long period of time you get better at it and to remain interested you have to seek greater challenges to keep you hooked. If the challenge remains the same or even lessens over time interest tends to wane... At least for me.

So while I can certainly see how many many many people find WoW to be all the game they need right now for some of us it's simply not new enough or different enough from previous experiences to keep us hooked. I think it's awesome that so many people have found a game like this to hook them because in the end it really amounts to more money being poured into more online games. That being said and from what I described above I hope you can see why a lot of us aren't too thrilled about a WoS as re-skinned WoW. Being unhappy with what WoW has to offer having another beloved franchise deliver nearly the same experience is a bit disheartening. *shrug*

AnimeJ wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

OMFG TEHY NERFED MY ZERG HUNTER

LESS QQ MOAR PEWPEW NUB

Am I a terrible person if I think the whole "pew pew!" bit is one of the funniest things on the internet? In fact, I find QQ pretty amusing as well.

Geck wrote:

So I strongly doubt WoS will be just a reskinned version of WoW. Building and supporting a new game on technology which is already 2 years old makes no business sense in the gaming industry.

Blizzard has shown they are anything but not business-savvy, and I doubt they haven't reached this conclusion themselves.

I absolutely agree. If Blizzard puts out another MMO it will be an updated engine from WoW's. Since they developed that engine in house, upgrading it to a Blizzard MMO Engine Version 2 will be an obvious decision. Utilizing DX10 and making everything even more pretty is going to be key. It has to look good on next gen machines. And what better way to introduce their new engine but with a new world, new races, new storyline and a new genre. There is absolutely a market for Sci-Fi MMO. Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Eve Online has shown this. Fantasy MMO are a dime a dozen. A Starcraft MMO would be the fourth one of note.

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

OMFG TEHY NERFED MY ZERG HUNTER

LESS QQ MOAR PEWPEW NUB

Am I a terrible person if I think the whole "pew pew!" bit is one of the funniest things on the internet? In fact, I find QQ pretty amusing as well.

Not in the least. I figure if H.P. is gonna go for the derail, I'd lend the assist with the power of OMGLAZERZPEWPEWPEW

Good, I just started a new huntard. Pew pew!

Where the heck did "QQ" and "pewpew" come from? Have I been so far away from World of Warcraft that it's evolved again with its social community?

They're both pretty aged, but neither have really moved out of their respective communities. QQ is pretty old, I believe it was largely part of the Chinese/Korean community until it picked up in Lineage/Lineage II/Other Asian Games. I first came across it back in the original Lineage. First came across repeated usage of PewPew in SubSpace - even before it was Continuum.

mven wrote:

I think in one of your previous posts you had stated that WoW was your first MMORPG. I think if this were the case with me I would still be having fun with WoW. Unfortunately I have played many of these types of games before WoW. So much of WoW is copied from these previous games who copied it from games that came before them who copied it from games that came before them... Well it's not really a new experience even if it is more polished. So while grinding experience and gear in WoW for a year or two might not be that bad you have to consider that some of us have been grinding experience and gear for the past 8-10+ years.

No i stated in one of my earlier posts that i have been playing MMOs since 2000. I started with Everquest and thought i would never stop playing it. Played a little Anarchy Online, didnt like it. Went Back to EQ. Then i almost creamed in my shorts when i installed SWG and started playing that. Loved it for ahwile, then the developers screwed it up and i quit. Then came WoW, so far for me this has been the best game ever. Sure i get burnt out every now and then on it, but i always come back. Good example is when RF Online came out, i thought that game looked good and would have real potential, i thought this may be the game that pulls me from WoW for good, that was until i played it for a weekend. I am even now playing LOTR and i have to admit i like it so far, but for me the game doesnt have what WoW will always have, and that is Blizzard and the amazing developers working there.

I have put in my time on multiple MMOs and do look forward to new ones to try out. But i see nothing in the future so far thats even going to come close to WoWs uberness. Conan looks interesting, and so does Tabula Rasa, but they will come and burn out in flames. If Blizzard announces a Starcraft MMO much like WoW, it will be huge. Maybe not as big as WoW, but it will be friggin awesome im sure. The reason i can be so sure is because they have the best Developing Gaming company designing it. Blizzard pwns all other gaming companies.

kilroy0097 wrote:

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

2 words :

Smurfs MMORPG

Aang wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

2 words :

Smurfs MMORPG

;)

Do you realize how many guys would play Smurfette?

Demonicmaster wrote:
Aang wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

2 words :

Smurfs MMORPG

;)

Do you realize how many guys would play Smurfette?

Every guy would play Smurfette.

Strader69 wrote:

No i stated in one of my earlier posts that i have been playing MMOs since 2000. I started with Everquest and thought i would never stop playing it.

Sorry! Must have mixed you up with someone else.

Strader69 wrote:

I have put in my time on multiple MMOs and do look forward to new ones to try out. But i see nothing in the future so far thats even going to come close to WoWs uberness. Conan looks interesting, and so does Tabula Rasa, but they will come and burn out in flames. If Blizzard announces a Starcraft MMO much like WoW, it will be huge. Maybe not as big as WoW, but it will be friggin awesome im sure. The reason i can be so sure is because they have the best Developing Gaming company designing it. Blizzard pwns all other gaming companies.

I agree that none of the MMOs slated for this year/next will put a dent in WoW. They don't have the name, they won't be able to release as polished a product, and the games will most likely be too similar to WoW to encourage too many of WoW's current subscribers to jump ship. I think the closest thing will be Warhammer online simply because Mythic did a fairly good job of releasing a polished if not complete product in DAoC. With more money and a bigger name brand this round they could potentially have a fairly successful game though I don't think it will hurt WoW much.

As far as Blizzard being the best gaming company I would be willing to agree in terms of producing a quality product. The way Blizzard works is awesome for single player and small multiplayer games. Unfortunately their typical practice of taking an existing concept and polishing it until it shines does not really apply as well to MMORPGs in my opinion. It is highly unlikely that we will ever see an innovative MMORPG with a Blizzard logo on the box.

In a single player or small multiplayer game you typically aren't looking to make the same time investment in the game as you are with an MMORPG. So the amount of content and innovation doesn't have to be significant as long as the product remains fun for the time it is designed to be played for. In the case of RTS games the majority of the "content" is based around the actions of the other players so all that is really needed is a rock solid, polished game, with decent balance between the playable races/teams. There is no real need for the experience to grow or change as the majority of the fun is not from what the game delivers but from what players do with what the game offers.

In an MMORPG though reusing the same concepts over and over and over again eventually starts to wear thin. As Blizzard typically only improves upon existing concepts I don't see this ever changing for WoW or any future MMOs they produce. They can produce the most polished and well designed experience imaginable within the constraints of existing game play and it will still get old with time. This genre really needs to see something new. I would love for Blizzard to do something crazy now that they have the money and churn out an insanely innovative game as I know they would take the time to polish it and do it right. It just hasn't really been their track record in what I have observed over the years.

It saddens me because I really feel that a lot of cool concepts in these types of games are failures more because of poor implementations than poor concepts. It feels like these concepts are written off as failures and forever shelved because the game that hit the shelves never sold. Games like Shadowbane come to mind. I mean player civilizations battling one another for control of land and resources sounds like it could be a lot of fun to me. Unfortunately Shadowbane was one of the worst looking, worst playing, buggiest, piece of crap MMOs to hit the shelves. Who knows if that sort of game might have done well if a company like Blizzard had produced it, polished it til it shined, added a bit more depth and built up some awesome lore and storyline...

I know I have read on numerous boards discussing PvP that "obviously people don't want PvP in their MMOs as Shadowbane was such a failure". Yet when you look at more polished games with PvP implementatios like WoW or DAoC or EVE you can see there is enough of the population participating in PvP to see that a good number of people do like it. I would think that of the millions of people PvPing in these other games there would be a good number of folks who might want to try something a little more "hardcore". Yet somehow this would obviously never work because Shadowbane was a failure?!

Anyway I am going way off on a tangent here. The point is I would love to see a company like Blizzard take steps towards releasing a game that is insanely different than what is on the shelves today. They have the money, they have the backing, and I believe if they made it they would make it right. Unfortunately I just don't see this happening until some smaller company popularizes something innovative enough to acquire enough subs to be considered "successful".

As far as Blizzard being the best gaming company I would be willing to agree in terms of producing a quality product. The way Blizzard works is awesome for single player and small multiplayer games. Unfortunately their typical practice of taking an existing concept and polishing it until it shines does not really apply as well to MMORPGs in my opinion. It is highly unlikely that we will ever see an innovative MMORPG with a Blizzard logo on the box.

Innovation on its own is overrated.. especially when tied to MMOG's. The sheer size and scope of development dollars to produce a solid and as you state several times polished or "playable" MMOG by itself puts a huge restriction on "innovation".

Ironically I've heard and probably rightfully so.. that WoW is innovative simply because its so playable. Extend a genre that had realistically barely broke 1Mill in subscribers to 8 Million is in itself a huge achievement.

Anyway I am going way off on a tangent here. The point is I would love to see a company like Blizzard take steps towards releasing a game that is insanely different than what is on the shelves today. They have the money, they have the backing, and I believe if they made it they would make it right. Unfortunately I just don't see this happening until some smaller company popularizes something innovative enough to acquire enough subs to be considered "successful".

I would argue in many ways they (Blizzard) already did exactly what your saying with WoW. At the time when it was released WoW was insanely different simply because no one was doing the rapid pace MMORPG like what Blizzard did (now its the norm) at the time.

I agree that a radically different MMOG will more than likely come from a small studio.. with a smaller budget.. but I doubt we'll see that "innovation" have anything to do with what we consider MMORPG's. Rather I would suspect the MMOG innovation will happen in other games that are not your typical "Fantasy or SCIFI" based leveling concept "social" RPG's.

Take a look at Turbine.. they try a fairly different MMOG like DDO.. when thats a huge disaster.. they switch to a WoW Clone LOTRO and so far seem to be enjoy more success.

So to me.. innovation is overrated.. because if its not playable and no one likes it.. then was it really innovative?

TheGameguru wrote:
mven wrote:

As far as Blizzard being the best gaming company I would be willing to agree in terms of producing a quality product. The way Blizzard works is awesome for single player and small multiplayer games. Unfortunately their typical practice of taking an existing concept and polishing it until it shines does not really apply as well to MMORPGs in my opinion. It is highly unlikely that we will ever see an innovative MMORPG with a Blizzard logo on the box.

Innovation on its own is overrated.. especially when tied to MMOG's. The sheer size and scope of development dollars to produce a solid and as you state several times polished or "playable" MMOG by itself puts a huge restriction on "innovation".

Ironically I've heard and probably rightfully so.. that WoW is innovative simply because its so playable. Extend a genre that had realistically barely broke 1Mill in subscribers to 8 Million is in itself a huge achievement.

mven wrote:

Anyway I am going way off on a tangent here. The point is I would love to see a company like Blizzard take steps towards releasing a game that is insanely different than what is on the shelves today. They have the money, they have the backing, and I believe if they made it they would make it right. Unfortunately I just don't see this happening until some smaller company popularizes something innovative enough to acquire enough subs to be considered "successful".

I would argue in many ways they (Blizzard) already did exactly what your saying with WoW. At the time when it was released WoW was insanely different simply because no one was doing the rapid pace MMORPG like what Blizzard did (now its the norm) at the time.

I agree that a radically different MMOG will more than likely come from a small studio.. with a smaller budget.. but I doubt we'll see that "innovation" have anything to do with what we consider MMORPG's. Rather I would suspect the MMOG innovation will happen in other games that are not your typical "Fantasy or SCIFI" based leveling concept "social" RPG's.

Take a look at Turbine.. they try a fairly different MMOG like DDO.. when thats a huge disaster.. they switch to a WoW Clone LOTRO and so far seem to be enjoy more success.

So to me.. innovation is overrated.. because if its not playable and no one likes it.. then was it really innovative?

I agree with most of your points, except on innovation, and I don't even completely disagree on that. I don't think that you can measure innovation by success. EVE hasn't been highly successful, but I'd say they've been plenty innovative. Built in VOIP, and the game design itself is nothing like anything I've ever seen. UO comes close, but the sheer scale and variation in PvP is just mind boggling. EVE, to me, is truly proof that a small studio, on a shoestring budget can put out a high quality game.

DDO was a disaster, but I think much of that has to do with the depth of the game. It was extremely ambitious, trying to take a pen & paper D&D experience and make it into an MMO. Wonderful concept, and while I didn't play, the implementation was excellent as well from what I've been told. I think the main issue there was the setting(Ravenloft, Planescape or Forgotten Realms would have been much better). Eberron was something that had the core audience, old school D&D heads like myself, scratching our collective noggins and going "Huh? Where the hell did they pull that out of?".

AnimeJ wrote:
Demonicmaster wrote:
Aang wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

2 words :

Smurfs MMORPG

;)

Do you realize how many guys would play Smurfette?

Every guy would play Smurfette.

I'd play her all night long!

Perhaps "innovation" is the new buzz word for when your game sucks and doesnt sell crap.

Interviewer: Why do you think Vanguard stunk and sold like crap?
Quaid: It was too innovative.
Interviewer: lol!

TheGameguru wrote:

Perhaps "innovation" is the new buzz word for when your game sucks and doesnt sell crap.

Interviewer: Why do you think Vanguard stunk and sold like crap?
Quaid: It was too innovative.
Interviewer: lol!

That's a bandwagon I could ride on.

wordsmythe wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Demonicmaster wrote:
Aang wrote:
kilroy0097 wrote:

The only genre that hasn't been developed yet for MMO is the Gothic Horror Genre. Look for White Wolf and CCP the makers of Eve Online. White Wolf is a Publishing company and has a wealth of talented writers and artists under it's belt (Many of whom I've met personally). White Wolf is also the publishing company that owns Vampire The Masquerade and everything else in the World of Darkness scope. So I can easily see CCP doing the technical aspect of a Gothic Horror MMO with White Wolf doing the writing, art and storyline.

2 words :

Smurfs MMORPG

;)

Do you realize how many guys would play Smurfette?

Every guy would play Smurfette.

I'd play her all night long!

Like a harp from hell?

EVE, to me, is truly proof that a small studio, on a shoestring budget can put out a high quality game.

In space...

fangblackbone wrote:
EVE, to me, is truly proof that a small studio, on a shoestring budget can put out a high quality game.

In space...

With a goat ....

TheGameGuru wrote:

Innovation on its own is overrated.. especially when tied to MMOG's. The sheer size and scope of development dollars to produce a solid and as you state several times polished or "playable" MMOG by itself puts a huge restriction on "innovation".

Well the point I was trying to make overall was that while innovation in and of itself isn't much that were a studio such as Blizzard to make an innovative AND playable game that it could/would own.

TheGameGuru wrote:

Ironically I've heard and probably rightfully so.. that WoW is innovative simply because its so playable. Extend a genre that had realistically barely broke 1Mill in subscribers to 8 Million is in itself a huge achievement.

I would say it was perhaps innovative from a business perspective in finding that making it more accessible would make it more appealing to the masses. In terms of game play innovation there really isn't very much that seperates WoW from EQ. Of any game produced to date I would say that WoW is probably the closest thing to the original EQ on the market. The differences to me would fall more under refining and polishing an existing concept rather than innovating.

TheGameGuru wrote:

I would argue in many ways they (Blizzard) already did exactly what your saying with WoW. At the time when it was released WoW was insanely different simply because no one was doing the rapid pace MMORPG like what Blizzard did (now its the norm) at the time.

I am not sure if I think WoW was really more rapid paced than most of it's predecessors. EQ certainly took longer to level in back in the day but AC, AO, DAoC, ShadowBane, Galaxies, etc have about the same levelling curve or are even much faster than WoW. WoW is even now moving more and more in the direction of EQ by adding in longer and longer keying and flagging chains to access newer content, ridiculous differences in gear between expansions, etc.

TheGameGuru wrote:

I agree that a radically different MMOG will more than likely come from a small studio.. with a smaller budget.. but I doubt we'll see that "innovation" have anything to do with what we consider MMORPG's. Rather I would suspect the MMOG innovation will happen in other games that are not your typical "Fantasy or SCIFI" based leveling concept "social" RPG's.

Take a look at Turbine.. they try a fairly different MMOG like DDO.. when thats a huge disaster.. they switch to a WoW Clone LOTRO and so far seem to be enjoy more success.

So to me.. innovation is overrated.. because if its not playable and no one likes it.. then was it really innovative?

I agree with most of this. I have no desire to play a game that sucks simply because some of its concepts are interesting. From my previous post **Unfortunately I just don't see this happening until some smaller company popularizes something innovative enough to acquire enough subs to be considered "successful".** I mean that until some no name shop manages a successful playable innovative game that it is unlikely that any big name is going to be bothered trying to put one out.

As for DDO to me its biggest problem is that like Guild Wars it doesn't really allow for the social interaction that is possible in a more traditional less instanced MMO setting. Unfortunately for DDO it has a subscription based model. Perhaps this type of game can only do well with a model similar to Guild Wars? I mean really would you pay 15$ a month to play Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate, or Neverwinter Nights?

One thing I'm tired of hearing of is how something isn't successful if it does not sell a bazillion copies. Does Eve make money? If it does, it should be considered successful. i remember reading last year how alot of smaller companies were distributing their games over the internet and making a nice profit even if they are selling 10k copies BECUASE their development process was not so bloated and the game didnt cost 100m to make.

I am not sure if I think WoW was really more rapid paced than most of it's predecessors. EQ certainly took longer to level in back in the day but AC, AO, DAoC, ShadowBane, Galaxies, etc have about the same levelling curve or are even much faster than WoW. WoW is even now moving more and more in the direction of EQ by adding in longer and longer keying and flagging chains to access newer content, ridiculous differences in gear between expansions, etc.

None of those games were as solo friendly as WoW was throughout their entire level range.. at least not initially. Thus by essence unless you were grouping later on your leveling greatly slowed down.

karmajay wrote:

One thing I'm tired of hearing of is how something isn't successful if it does not sell a bazillion copies. Does Eve make money? If it does, it should be considered successful. i remember reading last year how alot of smaller companies were distributing their games over the internet and making a nice profit even if they are selling 10k copies BECUASE their development process was not so bloated and the game didnt cost 100m to make.

When I am saying successful I mean that the game reaches enough subs that they can both sustain the game they are playing and gain notice in the market. Obviously success in the developers eyes will be tempered by what they set out to do. If they just wanted a sustainable game they enjoyed and they managed to achieve that then it wouldn't matter if they had 50 subs or 50 million. The type of success I am referring to is when a company like Blizzard looks at an existing title like EQ and says "Wow this is making them money and it's pretty damned cool... I bet we could make it better and make even more bank..." and thus you have WoW. I would like to see a game based around dynamic content do this on the MMO front. To garner enough market share with a lower budget game that a bigger company says "Wow they did that for 1 million? I bet if we invested 50 million we could get 50 times as many subs..."

EVE is a success based on what it's developers are happy with. I don't think Blizzard will look at EVE and say "Wow they have 50k sustained subs? We should base our StarCraft MMO off of that.." I am not hating on the little guy I am just referring to something different.

TheGameGuru wrote:

None of those games were as solo friendly as WoW was throughout their entire level range.. at least not initially. Thus by essence unless you were grouping later on your leveling greatly slowed down.

WoW in my experience was sorta the same way for some classes. Sure you can get do 1-60 in 3-5 days on a mage but it's a lot longer on a Priest or a Druid in my experience tack on a rogue or warrior or warlock buddy and you can level up much quicker. Hell my first WoW character to 60 had something like 23 days played on it. I know in EQ soloing was extremely painful unless you could kite or had a pet. In Galaxies I had no problem soloing any of my characters up. DAoC and AO had some classes that could solo fairly well and some that insanely slow when it came to soloing. I think the primary difference is that some of these games introduced the group dynamic a bit earlier on than WoW. Though I will say a lot of them were more solo friendly before WoW was released if I remember correctly?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Hey Wrestle - seems like this is the second time this week that you have posted a rumor as if it was an established fact.

Misleading thread title++

It's not confirmed when the article ends with "We will of course let you know as soon as soon as Blizzard officially confirms the game on May 19."

WoW in my experience was sorta the same way for some classes. Sure you can get do 1-60 in 3-5 days on a mage but it's a lot longer on a Priest or a Druid in my experience tack on a rogue or warrior or warlock buddy and you can level up much quicker. Hell my first WoW character to 60 had something like 23 days played on it.

Really why? All classes have a viable soloing "friendly" talent tree.. Priest go Shadow as they level.. Druids Feral or Boomkin.. certainly NO class in WoW should level to 70 that much faster or slower than any other.. I would hazzard that its probably like 5% difference amongst all the classes for leveling.

I'm sure if your braindead and level your Warrior to 70 in Prot Spec its going to take forever..but why would you?

TheGameguru wrote:
WoW in my experience was sorta the same way for some classes. Sure you can get do 1-60 in 3-5 days on a mage but it's a lot longer on a Priest or a Druid in my experience tack on a rogue or warrior or warlock buddy and you can level up much quicker. Hell my first WoW character to 60 had something like 23 days played on it.

Really why? All classes have a viable soloing "friendly" talent tree.. Priest go Shadow as they level.. Druids Feral or Boomkin.. certainly NO class in WoW should level to 70 that much faster or slower than any other.. I would hazzard that its probably like 5% difference amongst all the classes for leveling.

I'm sure if your braindead and level your Warrior to 70 in Prot Spec its going to take forever..but why would you?

Well for one if you are building your class to a certain spec to do a certain thing. Sure I could have gone either Marksman or Beast as a hunter to do either Raid for Mark or PvP for Beast but no one goes Strenth because it's useless. Healers though go either Healing or Shadow depending on if they group or solo alot. Shadow levels much faster than Healing simply because one can solo and the other needs a group. Which is why a lot of priests go Shadow until they hit 60 and then spend the gold to respec to Healing. As for Warrior in Prot Spec and why anyone would do it, they would if they wanted to be the professional off tank and pull mobs off the healers. But by doing so you are only an off tank and will not be the main tank.

So you can do a lot of different variations but it all depends on what you want to do with your toon.

BTW I have no idea how we got from Starcraft to a debate on Character mechanics in WoW.

kilroy0097 wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:
WoW in my experience was sorta the same way for some classes. Sure you can get do 1-60 in 3-5 days on a mage but it's a lot longer on a Priest or a Druid in my experience tack on a rogue or warrior or warlock buddy and you can level up much quicker. Hell my first WoW character to 60 had something like 23 days played on it.

Really why? All classes have a viable soloing "friendly" talent tree.. Priest go Shadow as they level.. Druids Feral or Boomkin.. certainly NO class in WoW should level to 70 that much faster or slower than any other.. I would hazzard that its probably like 5% difference amongst all the classes for leveling.

I'm sure if your braindead and level your Warrior to 70 in Prot Spec its going to take forever..but why would you?

Well for one if you are building your class to a certain spec to do a certain thing. Sure I could have gone either Marksman or Beast as a hunter to do either Raid for Mark or PvP for Beast but no one goes Strenth because it's useless. Healers though go either Healing or Shadow depending on if they group or solo alot. Shadow levels much faster than Healing simply because one can solo and the other needs a group. Which is why a lot of priests go Shadow until they hit 60 and then spend the gold to respec to Healing. As for Warrior in Prot Spec and why anyone would do it, they would if they wanted to be the professional off tank and pull mobs off the healers. But by doing so you are only an off tank and will not be the main tank.

So you can do a lot of different variations but it all depends on what you want to do with your toon.

BTW I have no idea how we got from Starcraft to a debate on Character mechanics in WoW.

Thats fine and dandy but we are talking about leveling to 70 solo in the speediest amount of time.. Spec's are important once you get to 70 and basically run instances/raids.

But in terms of efficiently getting to 70 I'd say 99% of the people simple go with the most effective leveling/grinding spec.

Hence.. no one in their right mind levels to 70 with a Holy Priest or Prot Warrior... and why most of them who do raid end up with a Level 70 grinding/farming Alt.