Blizzard had called and asked us to show up at 10:30am. Well, we wanted to make absolutely sure that we weren't late. And we weren't. At 10:02am we rolled into the Blizzard parking lot. The squat building was fairly non-descript.
George met us in the lobby. We were busy examining a guide to Starcraft English book apparently written in Korean. Man, those Korean fans are hardcore.
Hey we got fans too!
One of the more pleasant surprises at Blizzard was a fellow who had found our little tour on the developer floor. He introduced himself and told us what a big fan he was of our sites. We immediately gave him one of the business cards we had made up for our trip. He explained that while he wasn't able to comment directly in our forums, he had for a long time wanted to express his thanks for the work we do. It was quite flattering and was probably one of the few times at Blizzard where we were truly left speechless.
Temperament at Blizzard
Even with the highly visible troubles that Blizzard's parent company Vivendi has been having, and the loss of some of the company's more visible figureheads this last year, there was absolutely no sign of morale trouble at Blizzard. We actually had expected to find a few people complaining about the situation, but the employees we talked to seemed remarkably insulated from these troubles. Their focus was solely on creating the best games that they could possibly build.
Perhaps the best illustration we have of that was from our discussion of guild formations with developer Jeffrey Kaplan. We remarked that the method they had chosen to create guilds was highly automatic and intuitive and much easier than in some other MMO games. We then told him that this was a wonderful business decision that would drive down support calls.
Mr. Kaplan looked as bewildered as we had ever seen a Blizzard employee on our visit.
He took a second and then calmly explained to us that the development team really didn't care a bit if it was a good business decision or not. It was good game play and that was all that mattered. We may have actually been on the verge of unintentionally insulting our guide. Needless to say we did not tie any more design decisions to business reasons.
Office Decorations
Every office was full of decorations and more often than not, there would be Blizzard swag proudly displayed on bookcases lining the walls. The various five-year sword awards hung from the walls as well. It was explained to us that as the years have progressed, the swords have also become much more detailed and elaborate. Just another example of how Blizzard refuses to be satisfied with what they have done. Everything that they do seemed to be the subject of "how can we do it better?" It will be interesting to see how the shield design featured in the president's office will change now that more and more employees are getting closer to reaching that milestone.There were soda machines within easy walking distances, and a couple of common tables where it appeared that the developers ate hurriedly before returning to their offices. "That is probably the cleanest I have ever seen that table" was one remark. Well, we'd hate to see it when they considered it dirty.
DDR Fitness room
So with food being brought in once in a while, and every developer deep in his or her dark den doing their work, you can only imagine that the exercise room would be an empty office setup with a Dance Dance Revolution pad. A pair of them actually, so that in even this, there could be some good-natured competition. We never went exploring for a shower or locker room, but for the sake of their fellow developers we can only hope that there is one.
Cinematics Room
Back right before Diablo II, the cinematics team decided that they really needed a viewing area where they could have the whole team sit down and watch the cinematics in a movie theater type environment.
In another example of the passion and pride that the employees at Blizzard have, they took their own money to build one after having trouble finding the resources internally to do it. Now they have a nicely tiered viewing room with multiple levels and couches with which to view their creations. Complete with a stereo system and projector, they can can gather and watch the cinematics and discuss how to make them better still. Only thing we saw missing was a popcorn machine.
Took over the whole building
One of the things we noticed when we entered the building was that although Blizzard lists a suite number… they are the only occupants of the building right now. When the last company to co-habit with Blizzard left, they took over the space and are busy preparing it for the live team and customer support cube farms. Blizzard may be new to the MMO game arena, but they are intent on doing it correctly. Still, it looked a little silly to only have one company on the building directory. Maybe they will eventually move the office lobby into the building lobby.
Answers to Some of the Questions Asked in the Forum
for Hell_KnightX, asked for more details on Warlock's summoning.
You get the same summoned creature each time. For instance, once you summon an Imp, it is always the same Imp with the same name. Infernals are still summonable. They are going to be used as a PvP siege spell. Fun fact: One player sent his Imp into attack. The Imp's retort? "You better back me up this time!"
for Nojin, asked about the state of the alpha
There will be a full article on the state of the Alpha and what we think that means for the Beta. Too detailed an answer to give here, but we do have an answer.
for Severoth, Blazing_Arrow, and Smarf. They asked about PvP
We got all sorts of details on PvP! We'll be talking about PvP in detail coming up.
for Blazing_Arrow, who asked for game time details.
Right now server time is game time. A one to one relationship.
for Smarf, DeadMuskrat, Tyran_Harasvelg, MastaBlasta and Wound(UN) who all asked about Heroes.
We'll talk more about the state of the heroes classes in the State of the Alpha discussion.
for Smarf and Muskrat, who asked for clarification on talents and skills.
We'll talk about Skills and Talents in an article. Too much detail to answer here.
For Smarf who asked about Shaman starting skills.
Shamans have just been unlocked when I got there. Lightning bolt and Healing wave were the initial spells. Mace mastery also was a base trait of Shamans as I commonly used a mace to smash the last little bit of the creatures life when I was playing.
For Roo and Aerys_Darkblade, who asked about exploring the World of Warcraft
One of the really cool things we saw was Discovery XP. You uncover a new area and it's worth experience. The notable NPCs of pervious Warcraft games will be there, unfortunately a lot of their art was not complete for the Alpha build we were playing, and we weren't able to play the internal developers only build.
For Battletorn who asked about creep spawning times and if the spawns change based on time of day.
A lot of the world will spawn the creeps the same every time. But there will also be areas that spawn interesting and new creeps that are only available at certain times. There are also easter egg trainers and merchants sprinkled throughout the world.
For Battletorn who asked about crafted items being marked by their craftspeople.
All crafted items like swords and such are automatically marked by the craftsman and identifiable as being crafted by that particular character.
For Battletorn who asked if there were any statistical advantage to being in a guild.
There aren't any ingame mechanic advantages to being in a guild. However, there are the obvious advantages of having people to group with. Additionally there will be some massive dungeons that will require such a volume of players that unless you are in a guild you may have a problem with it.
For Battletorn who asked if flying mounts were controllable
Only the mounts are controllable. Zemplins, boats, and other flying taxis are not controllable. You have to take the route advertised.
For Battletorn and Aerys_Darkblade who asked about jumping heights being modified by race
All players have the same jump height. So there aren't ledges that a Tauren could jump to that a Gnome could not.
For Battletorn who asked if there was a way to just press a key and make your character run without holding down the key.
There is a key that makes your character just run without holding down the move forward key. I found it by accident on the nice five button mouse I was using.
For Battletorn who asked for details on the firearms in World of Warcraft
Guns are balanced by being harder hitting, but slower to fire. Engineers can craft scopes, and different sorts of shots for players who take a shine to being a sharpshooter.
For Grumpy_Joe who asked when the game will be released.
The game will be released, "when it is done" Sorry to quote back company line to you. Any release dates you've seen are somebody who is not Blizzard guessing. Play them no mind. We'll explain it more in the "State of the Alpha" section.
For Huckle who asked if other classes could use a gun.
It is possible for a warrior to use a gun. But skills that are typically not associated with a particular class means that you will always be worse with it then the class that excels at it. Best way to think about this is to use Diablo II's mechanics as a guide. While a Barbarian can always use a bow, that class will never be as good at it as the Amazon class would be.
For Huckle who asked about the crafting process.
Crafting is quick when you have the materials. It is the gathering that might take some time. Then there is the process of finding somewhere to craft the item. Some some skills that isn't necessary, like Alchemy.
For GrimAdept who asked about movement rates under weight or wounded
No movement effect for encumbrance right now. When I was wounded, there wasn't an effect on my movement either.
For Wulfsyarn(GM WWN), who asked about guilds.
We'll do a whole section of guilds and grouping.
For Wulfsyarn(GM WWN), who asked about chat channels in game.
Only two zone wide chat channels active right now. They haven't decided on the total number for the final. Party chats as well of course.
For Nojin and Minnesotaman, who asked about playing Druids.
The druids were locked. I couldn't play one.
For TheDagdaMar145 who asked about class balance in PvP.
I really want to answer the class/race PvP balance question, but it really needs it's own section.
For Solmancer and Sterlng5583 who asked about the reputation tab.
I'll handle the reputation tab in a section. We got a definitive answer on how that works.
For Solmancer who asked about the in-game map.
The in-game map is just a placeholder. It is a very clever in-house program designed to show a pixel perfect representation of the map. But what you've seen is not the final product. The area of Gilneas is completely missing for example.
For Solmancer who asked for details on the class skills.
Class balance is something I have a great information on. Class specifics not as much, mostly because I wanted to focus on the things that would not change between now and the beta.
For Litterdxj, Guardian_Jester(G/J) who asked about having to sign a NDA
I never signed a NDA for my visit. I was asked not to photograph areas which I did not. I was asked to not write about two things that are both not World of Warcraft related so I have already forgotten what they were. I was asked to let Blizzard read through the articles first, so I will be honoring that and sending them copies before I post.
For Sterling5583 who asked about character development
Class/Character development we will cover in an article.
For Sterling5583 who asked about Siege weapons
The Blizzard development team is really hoping that the siege weaponry makes the final cut for PvP.
For Arcamas who asked about Ritual Spells
I will talk about the ritual spells when I talk about the spell engine.
For Stulyscale who asked about if there was a separation of combat and trade skills
Combat skills and trade skills are separated to keep power gamers from being able to plow all of their skills into combat and in balancing the game.
For Bombzab who asked about life quests
Can't tell you much about the life quests. But it's not for lack of asking.
For Aerys_Darkblade who asked for spell details.
Spells will be detailed when we talk about rituals. You might be disappointed however if you were looking for specifics.
For Aerys_Darkblade who asked if all creeps would be hostile
Some creeps will not be hostile to you when you attack. More details in the reputation section that is coming up.
State of the Alpha, Moving to Beta
How and What Is Blizzard Doing?
Blizzard's design philosophy is to work the game development from the bottom levels up. The current Alpha is built to a maximum of twenty-five levels. The development team feels that the Beta is pretty solid for levels one through thirty. The internal development on character skills is said to be fairly done from level one to level forty. The quests are ready to be added to bring it up to fifty levels. The maximum character level is still set to be sixty.
The content itself is fully realized, but they are still getting some of it into the game.
Blizzard works from the bottom up in order to reduce the amount of rework that they need to do. They insist on making sure that the game feels like fun at every point. What this means is that they are taking extraordinary pains to avoid any sort of feel that the game is just a treadmill to get to the next level or zone. So as they have worked the game, they've taken great pains to tweak even the low level adventures, zones, and skills for game play value.
As Blizzard's development team moved through the different races, they've been working the servers as if it was launch day. When the alpha focus shifts, all of the pervious characters are locked out and everyone starts anew in the new area. This is to stress test the area and give Blizzard an idea how to tune spawns for large amounts of players. Our guide told us that they expected that 400 players would do a great job of testing the new areas. We figure that they plan on having an awful lot of servers or they are really underestimating what the initial lure of this game will be to gamers.
-- Update: Jan-23-04 -- A small clarification. Blizzard wrote to mention that the 400 player load test is for a starting area. They have tuned this to over 500 players now, and there are six starting areas which, if extrapolated out, works out to over 3000 players per server on at any particular time.
When we arrived, they had just unlocked the region around Orgimmar. Trolls, Orcs, and Tauren were unlocked for the Shaman, Warrior, and Warlocks. Everyone was quite excited to have the new races and classes unlocked, and it looked like the testing of the initial areas for spawn count and quests were being enjoyed by upwards of 240 people at times.
Is the Game Fun in Alpha?
Sure was for us, but we only played for a short while. How about for the normal Friends and Family testers? Well, one of the developers we talked to has his mother in the game. How involved is she? In the Undead alpha testing, she had made it to level 21, higher than some of the developers themselves! She's not a gamer normally, so for her to stick with it as much as she has, including being up at midnight one night anxiously instant messaging her son for knowledge of when the next patch would be out really speaks to the accessibility of this game. Well, if she's playing for the long haul, we're going to take that as a ringing endorsement of the longer term play value of the Alpha. (It also made us wish that we had relatives working at Blizzard. Anyone want to adopt us?)
What About the High Level Content?
Well, as we remarked, the Alpha is currently only extended up to 25th level. This means that things like Heroes are not in the Alpha build yet. They are definitely planned, but for right now, no one but the developers have any real idea about how everything was going to work. Since they hadn't nailed it down exactly what features that they want to give heroes, they were a little vague about the details. Considering how good the levels that were considered done looked, we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt. So for now, Hero lovers, take heart in that the Hero content is being built and integrated into the game, but your suggestions about how heroes should work and play are still going to find willing ears over at Blizzard.
How Far Along Are They and What is Left?
The Alpha, as mentioned, is now in the Orc, Troll, and Tauren content. The Undead sections had just closed before we arrived. The Humans, Gnomes, and Dwarves have been completed. Once they stress test the Orc, Troll and Tauren areas for the launch of the beta, they only have the Night Elves left. Finally there will be an open section of the Alpha where characters can start anywhere.
So What Does That Mean For the Beta Date?
It means you probably won't need to hold your breath for the beta occurring this month. (Although the sign ups most likely will.) There is still a lot of work to do. Commonly people who have played the game have remarked how polished and finished the game looks. Sure enough, the areas they are seeing are polished and ready. But Blizzard can't possibly show you the whole of the game. Even at the beginning levels it could take over a week to see anything judging by what we saw and what they wanted us to see that we just couldn't get to due to time constraints. So when Blizzard insists that the game isn't ready yet, that is because they haven't put their customary finishing touches on all aspects of the game yet.
If Blizzard decides to open the beta when they open all of the races, the Beta could possibly take place in February. Otherwise, given Blizzard's penchant for making sure that everything is just the way that they want it, it might be March.
Getting About
The World of Warcraft is a big place. The developers want the world to feel epic. For instance, as you approach Ogrimmar, you think it looks pretty impressive. Then it gets bigger. And bigger. And bigger still. When you finally run through the gates, it is absolutely stunning how big the walls are.
So the problem becomes how do you make a world seem epic without getting lost? For Blizzard, it's all about how you set up the world. As we've told you before, the town of Stormwind keep is setup so that the color of the roofs give away what section of town you are in. In Ogrimmar, they make extensive use of sub zones to help you understand where you are. The Night Elves build up to keep the city large but compact.
City Life
The cities will have everything that the ordinary adventurer needs. The cities will be where all of the trainers are. When you level, you can spend your talent points right away, but the skill point spending requires a trainer, and that requires a city. Cities are a gathering point not only for skill training but as social centers and jumping off points for quests.
Taxi!
To get quickly from one point to another, you jump aboard a flying beast and pay the fare. As you discover more routes, you get to have more destinations. The taxi service is something that Blizzard is rightfully proud of. Not only is it a quick way to get across the continent, but it also gives you a chance to see what is happening in areas you couldn't visit otherwise.
This is illustrated by our guide, Jeffery Kaplan who tells us that when you take the taxi from Stormwind to Ironforge, you pass over the blasted lands where there will be level 60 content active and waiting there down beneath you.
Intercontinental Travel
Taxis are great for hoping from city to city, but what if you want to make the big trip across the Great Sea? For the Horde, they will travel via Zeppelins, speeding from one continent to the other. The Alliance will take a more conventional sea route from shore to shore. Maybe you'd like to visit one of the neutral areas? Goblins will offer a ship service from Racket to Booty Bay for the daring who wish to see how the other faction lives.
Portal Spells
When we saw portals last, Blizzard was telling us that they would probably not make the final game as they might make travel a little easier. How to get around that and still have portal spells? Easy. Make them a ritual spell. Mages have a mass teleport type spell that will be a ritual spell, and our 25th level warlock demo character had a ritual spell that he could cast to bring a character right to his location. Convenient way to avoid backspawn in your instanced dungeon and to get your party together for that final push against a dungeon boss.
Running and Jumping.
All charcters jump. Our Troll character, Gunslinger, elegantly lifted his arms as we jumped and we had a nice floating feel as we came down. Get a running start and it almost feels like flying. All characters can jump to the same height, which will be a good thing when you are jumping into the hidden area on Wellington cavern and talking to the hidden merchant there.
Interestingly, when our guide enabled a speed cheat to our Warlock, the Warlock would take off from the top of small hills, floating through the air on the downhill side. It would seem that the physics model accounts for speed when you crest a hill and would cause our Warlock to soar for a few seconds, his legs pumping uselessly beneath him.
Blizzard ensured us that falling damage would make it into the game. But one of the most clever things we saw was a long fall into a waiting pool of water. We used this as an expressway from the end of the dungeon back towards the beginning. Now if only we could have had someone there to judge our high dive.
Emotes
One of the more interesting things we saw in our game play demonstrations was at the entry point for new Orc and Troll characters. There was a troll female (new models on the troll females since Gencon. They look almost elegant now, lean and graceful) doing a dance. How good are the animations? Well there was at least five other players watching this lithe graceful troll go through an almost ballet style dance. Some even started to join in, all we needed was a band and it could have nearly been called a rave.
Minimap
The minimap is full of information for a player. Multiple mouseovers give information on your group members, towns, and trade goods. For instance, maybe you've been separated from a member in your group and you are watching their health slowly drop. By mousing over the pins on the mini-map, you can get the direction right to your in-need teammate. Maybe you have your Herbalist skill turned on. Now your desired reagents will show up as yellow dots on the mini map as you approach. No more standing around, desperately hoping that this time you will be successful in harvesting some ore or some herbs. Just search around, look out for creeps, and focus in on those yellow dots. Everything about World of Warcraft is geared to make you have to play and not allow you to be successful by figuring out a strange homemade robot designed to press the "M" key every five seconds.
To Each Their Own
Blizzard has also worked to make every starting location have it's own feel. That means more than some different exterior art. Each starting location has it's own mood and culture. Even quests and how they are given to players and what is presented in the quests change based on where you are located. Again, it is attention to detail. Blizzards wants to make sure that each race's area is it's own distinct look and feel.
It's a reflection of one of the core tenets of development over there at Blizzard's HQ. Within the corporate pecking order, there is a conscious effort to make sure that the art and artists never take a back seat to the developers and the technology.
Blizzard understands that technology always improves, so a game that is developed to only showcase it's technology is doomed to be replaced shortly afterwards by the next new thing. A game that plays attention to the little things, like lions that go to take naps under a tree after running down a gazelle, makes for a game that has a long life in your CD-Rom tray.
Making the World Your Own.
As you go through the world and discover new zones, you will be rewarded with experience XP. This isn't to say that you can just zip from zone to zone and level up. Even as we sat creating a Strong Troll's Blood potion out on the Barrens, a group of Alliance raiders spawned up and attacked us. A large bear, a dwarf, and two humans broke our peaceful repose and attacked. So much for a quiet moment.
The Bigger Picture
The map you've seen is not the finished product. It's an internal program put together to show a pixel perfect map. It was then airbrushed by an artist to give it a nicer outline. The whole country of Gilneas for instance is missing.
Don't worry though, you won't miss Gilneas. The whole country of Gilneas has closed their borders and built a large wall at Silverpine and will not be playable at game launch. Also the Ugrow crater region obviously is a little squarer than perhaps Blizzard would like. Even still, your party members can't get away from you on this map either. They'll show up so you can check in on group members that have ventured far away.
Conclusion
Blizzard has a tall order to fulfill. Create a huge, epic world that feels larger than life. Then make it easy and quick to get around this world. To date we'd say that they are accomplishing this. For instance, when we asked about the breadcrumb quests, we were told that these "Quest designer as cruise director" quests were designed to help players get around the world to the regions that would be the most fun for them at the level that they are at. Initially alpha players found the regions so dense with content that they never left. Sounds like Blizzard is well on the path to making the world both epic and dense.
Getting Together
Groups
As you move out into the World of Warcraft, you will most likely eventually be part of a group. Blizzard has worked to make the game easier for the casual player to get together and form small parties in order to take on tougher content.
You can group with players that you see on screen by right clicking on them in your field of vision and inviting them into your group. If you have people on your friends list, you can also invite them in to your group right from the friends list.
When you are in a group, you get notification of what your group members are looting. Click on the notification of the item and the statistics of that item are displayed on your screen. So when your buddy gets that uber-item, you can check it out without having to ask to see it.
(What's cool is that this feature is implemented throughout the chats. Want to sell an item? Start a chat and then click the item to see the item's title put right into chat and potential buyers can click on the item and see what you're selling.)
Within the dungeons there is commonly a shared space where players can mingle and take on the easier creeps that spawn there. Then once you've gathered up your party you head in through the blue instance line into the instanced area. Once you are in a group-instanced dungeon it's all yours. Any member of your group that crosses the instance line joins your instance. Anyone who is not in your group enters their own instance. Simple huh?
Guilds
Guilds are functioning in the alpha, but only as a placeholder piece of code. When someone wants to create a new guild, they will need to be able to afford a guild petition from a vendor. After receiving the petition, they have to find 10 players that are willing to sign on and become a member of the guild. Once ten players have checked off as members of this new guild, the petition is returned to the guild vendor and a new guild is formed. Simple and organic. Blizzard wanted to make sure that forming guilds could be done completely in game. No tracking down a Blizzard game master or having to use a website, it's all in game.
Guildmembers get access to the tabard slot. One of two slots (shirt is the other) on the paperdoll where there will never be an item that can modify your characters attributes. This is designed so that there can be a wide range of looks for the characters without players being worried that they need to have the "best" tabard.
Guilds will also have a leg up on the green instance lines. These lines distinguish guild raid content. Whereas a group instance will be reset if all of the group members leave the instance, guild instances are designed to stay up for weeks at a time. This allows for some very difficult and impressive encounters where tens of players can work in concert to hold down a section of the dungeon or take on some of the truly impressive beasts that occupy the guild raid dungeons.
What About a Hard Cap?
A hard cap is a designed limitation to keep players from simply swarming over content like a mass of stimmed marines. Right now, Blizzard is getting set to start testing the process. There are two schools of thought, one that hard caps are a necessary evil as they can keep eighty players from storming a region that was designed for thirty. The other is that they can lead to a "benchwarmer" type of problem where, when 32 members of the guild show up for a 30 member hard capped area, two of them have to sit on the side. Which way works better? Hard to tell. It's something that we will find out as it's tested.
What If You Are a Loner?
"It's very important to us that people be able to solo" -Jeffrey Kaplan, Blizzard
Not to worry if you're planning on playing this game mostly on your own. While Blizzard has taken pains to make grouping easy and accessible to players, they know that even in a massive multiplayer game, there will be people who want to head out on their own. Jeffrey promised us that committed solo players would be able to get all of the way to level 60. You'll need to be pretty committed to make it happen however.
Reputation
The reputation tab on the character model has been the source of interest for quite some time now. We've spent some time speculating on if the reputation tab meant something about the horde and alliance factions back when Rob Pardo was posting more on the battle.net forums.
Well factions are still set as hard factions; there is no way to be that lone Orc that loves humans. What the reputation tab is for is to display how all of the other independent factions view you.
Back when the Orc campaign was released for Warcraft III, Blizzard talked about how closely aspects of the Orc campaign would mirror the upcoming World of Warcraft game. Those of you who have played through the Orc campaign are aware of the trials that Rexxar goes through to prove his worth to the Stone Maul Ogre clan. This is very similar to how the reputations will work.
Throughout the lands of Azeroth, there will be factions that have a reaction of some sort to you. This faction's reaction to you can then be changed for the better or for the worse by the actions you take.
For instance, you will start with a neutral stance with Booty Bay and a hostile stance with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. For most players, this is probably how it will always be. But for some, they will discover that there are quests that can raise their reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. You declare if you want to lose reputation with a faction and it starts to happen. It's much easier to lose reputation than it is to gain it.
As you gain reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, you'll discover that what was once a creep is now a leather merchant for example. Reputations can be setup such that they are incompatible. For instance to become "lordly" with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, you'll need to declare your hostility to the people of Booty Bay. You can attempt to change your reputation as often as you'd like, switching sides each time.
The quest engine can also take reputation into effect when deciding if there is a quest for you or not. You won't even know what you are missing however, as if you don't qualify for the quest, you won't know that it existed.
Good Grief!
In any society, there are people who just seem to have trouble fitting in. In real life they end up being ostracized by society and marginized. For a game, this can be a big problem. You want to give your players the freedom to create a name for themselves in how they interact with the world, but you need to build in controls to handle the players that only seek to aggravate or annoy other players. For years, players have been finding ways to aggravate other players, from stealing their items, to spamming their chat, to outright murder of their characters. Any MMO developer worth their salt has to develop plans
Kill Stealing
Kill stealing is the act of sneaking in and taking that last blow to get credit for the kill in a MMO game. Grief players do it not only to steal any XP or items, but to annoy the player working the target. Recently, Final Fantasy XI was released. It marked targets that someone else was attacking by painting them a different color than a normal target. This doesn't keep a griefer from kill stealing, but it does take away the excuse that they did not know it was someone else's target.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in to let us know that we had the kill-stealing lock out wrong on FFXI. Painting a target will keep you from attacking until there is a cry for help. -OMO
Blizzard does not have any visual indications that there is another player working a target that you might be considering. They look to solve this problem by using instanced areas to reduce the negative player collusion that goes on. So it's up to the player to notice the kill stealers and decide that they aren't the sort of people that they want to group with.
Item Farming
In some MMOs, a particular type of mob may generate the rare spawn. This mob is then camped by a player or group of players in an effort to loot all of these spawns. This keeps all sorts of other players from being able to enjoy that content. Blizzard looks to solve this problem with instances as well. By instancing rare spawn, they make it available for anyone to get a chance at it.
Creep Camping
Where there are mobs, there are frequently players out there hunting them. When there are specific quests or mobs that only spawn at an irregular basis, there is a potential for grief. This is demonstrated in Everquest, where on some servers, guilds actually decide which guild has rights to that particular quest for that particular period of time. On less civilized servers, a guild can decide to dominate a quest by completely shutting out other players from the end-game content on that quest by continually clearing out the prerequisites so that no other group or player can trigger the end quest, but the guild that controls it.
Again, Blizzard looks to instances to solve this problem. By utilizing instances, it becomes impossible for a guild to block another guild or player from getting to the content. Instead of relying on design timing decisions to control end game content, Blizzard will have to rely on game play. This is a much harder road, as well as a much more rewarding road for the players. No one wants to check a website to see if they are scheduled to take on a green dragon today.
Annoyances
If you've ever played a MMO where you could not easily ignore players, you have undoubtedly encountered one of these types. Players who just won't leave you alone, or run through town shouting at the top of their lungs some ridiculous comment or request. Well, just like in Diablo II, squelch will be an option for you. There could still be some trouble with dueling requests, but like they did with trade requests in Diablo II, you can bet that Blizzard will put a timer on this.
Player Killing
Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of MMOs for the casual player is the player killer. Unlike true PvPers, the Player Killer is only out there hunting players for the joy of aggravating another player. These griefers get a high from the frustration and anger they can illicit in another player. PKers do not have a method to exist in World of Warcraft. The game is settled into two types of Player versus Player combat.
PvP can happen inside of the PvP instances or inside of the arenas. This is the consensual PvP that Blizzard has hinted about, and that we will go into in more detail next section. The other method is the duel.
As hinted at Gencon, dueling is in the game now. Players can challenge each other to a duel at any spot or time. If accepted, the battle is joined. It is a duel to near death, at the point that one of the players would be reduced to zero or less hitpoints, they are forced into a surrender emote and a message displays across the zone that you have lost your duel with another player. There is no death penalty here as no one dies. The duel throw down has a flag that is planted at the acceptance of a duel and if you leave the dueling radius that is generated by the flag, you receive a counter that tells you that you are going to lose the duel unless you reenter the ring. Good news to anyone who is frustrated by the dueler who runs off to avoid the loss.
Player v. Player
Blizzard has taken pains to remind us that this upcoming game is the World of WARcraft. While it will have the aspects of crafting and socialization that can and have driven some of the MUDs (Multi-user Dungeons) that have come before it, Blizzard plans on having a world where action and heroics are center stage.
We were actually quite surprised that Blizzard was willing to talk about PvP (player versus player) with us after being so tight lipped on the subject for so long. Blizzard has taken the aspects of multi-player competition in the games it has built and the games that they have admired and blended it into the PvP sections of Azeroth. How to describe the PvP instances of Azeroth? Well our guide described it as "Warcraft III meets Battlefield 1942"
Imagine if you would, two towns on either end of the instance, both humming away quietly as peons and peasants went to work chopping wood and mining gold. Zoom into the Great Hall and you can see a barracks just on the crest of the hill where a Grunt comes marching out. He forms up with two other waiting grunts and three troll headhunters and then they take off down the path. Hurrying to catch up with your Tauren shaman character, you patrol the near zones of your outpost. No humans to be seen, you continue onward until you come across a night elf druid leading a group of dwarf riflemen.
Battle is joined…. The Orc grunts smash into the thin line that the Night Elf druid presents in a vain attempt to screen the riflemen. You cast healing wave on the lead grunt and lighting bolt the druid. Within a few moments there is nothing left of the human scout party, but at a sizable cost to your little party. Two grunts are down and a headhunter is badly wounded, not to mention that you are out of mana. As soon as a small sigh escaped your lips for surviving this encounter, a gnome warrior, human mage, and dwarf hunter crest the hill drawn on by the sounds of battle. No rest for you and yours as you rush to challenge them even in your weakened state.
As you can tell by our small fictional example, the PvP zones in World of Warcraft are designed to have the feel of being in a Warcraft III game while still maintaining the intensity of a Battlefield 1942 type game. The zones are designed to be used as teams and with objectives to achieve. This isn't just a bloodbath in the center of the map. You'll want to do everything you can to destroy your opponent's infrastructure in order to keep them from spawning new friendly units to accent the players in the zone.
At the same time where the game will have a tactical feel, there is a clear sense of this being a heroic adventure. Just done Rambo style. Jeffrey Kaplan described it like this; "When I die, I don't want to have to run thirty minutes to get back, you know. I don't want to sit and say 'You know, this really isn't fun, I keep dying.' I want to go 'That was awesome! I just died, get me back out there!!'"
To facilitate this, Blizzard has instanced the PvP zones. You'll know when you're headed in that PvP zone by the red swirling mists on the edges of the portal. (Portal is the best word we have for it, the ones we saw were actually very organic looking.) Then when you join that instanced zone, you are placed in an instance with other characters that are around your level and ability. You won't have to worry about being plucked off constantly by characters that are no where near your power level.
The objective of these zones is to have a moving front, where battles are being fought between different groups from each faction. Some controlled by the computer, some controlled by the players. The CGW article this last fall alluded to this when they mentioned that you would be able to fight alongside other NPCs at times as well. Dying is an inconvenience, but never approaching the level where you don't want to respawn immediately. Think along the lines of Battlefield 1942 or a team Halo game.
We commented that this sort of PvP made it possible to basically reenact the cinematic that was released before Warcraft III went gold where the screaming Orc horde came streaming over the hill crest. Blizzard just smiled.
Siege weapons should then be part of the equation. Our first hint to this was when we were told that the Infernal summon of the warlock would have siege value in PvP. They also hope to include catapults, steam tanks, and other siege equipment that the players could man to level the opposition's outpost. No word yet if Portable towers will be a purchasable item.
Arenas
Arenas are still in the game and are more suited for the team versus team battles that are setup ahead of time, for instance between two competing guilds. Here the objective is much more straightforward. Destroy your opponents, plain and simple. This will be the areas that Blizzard hopes to have ticketed events for other players to watch the battle unfold.
Class Balance
One of the things that Jeffery noted on our visit was that they occasionally got complaints from the alpha players that one particular class was better than another class in duels. For instance, the mage would always be able to beat a warrior in a one on one duel. He wasn't worried about this. Jeffrey told us that they were not balancing the game such that a mage and warrior were always on equal footing when it came to a PvP duel. The object is to create a rock, scissors, paper type solution where while a Mage might always be able to beat a Warrior, they would always lose to a Hunter. This is a deliberate game design decision to encourage team play in the PvP zones. Just like they tried to do in Warcraft III, Blizzard does not want it to be a desired strategy to just mass a bunch of warriors or what have you and then see a mass charge. The idea is that small side tactics of a mixed group of characters will win the day for your side, not a zergling like push.
Duels
So if classes aren't balanced, what is the purpose of dueling? Dueling is designed to really be a fun outlet for players to challenge each other without there being any real penalty or problem for losing. It's designed solely to allow players to have a battle and take bragging rights.
So What is the Point of PvP Then?
To settle as score, to make a name for yourself, and to destroy your opponent's infrastructure. But what happens when you meet your objectives in the PvP zone? Blizzard isn't sure yet. There are some ideas, maybe a new vendor becomes available, maybe some new quests are unlocked. The problem is that the rewards have to be scaled such that they don't make it undesirable to play the other side. This is something that will continue to be tested and played to determine the right balance.
So while other games work on creating a world where people can be protected from PKers or on creating worlds where the whole world is one mass battlefield, Blizzard is trying to really capture the best of both worlds. Protect casual players from the power gamers by having the PvP zones known and different in mechanics (lesser death penalty) then the rest of the world. They also want to encourage players to want to be in the PvP zones by making it team and objective based and keeping players of similar power in the same zone. It sounds great, now we'll have to see if they can pull it off.
Quests
The World of Warcraft is built around the tenet of creating a fantasy world where every player can feel "heroic". From the initial announcements surrounding World of Warcraft up to our visit, that has rung true. Blizzard wants this game to feel very much epic in scale so that every character feels like you are playing a character right out of a novel. The best way to tell a story in a MMO is to do it through quests.
We've seen other attempts to build organic content through what the players themselves build in games like Star Wars Galaxies or The Sims. Blizzard is taking more of a heavy handed approach. Instead of waiting for the players to generate community and build content, they are quite literally stuffing the world full of quests, both formal in-game quests and through spawn and drops for the people who seek out the path less traveled.
Questing in the World of Warcraft
| Poor Private Thorsen - Experienced players will notice that a certain Private Thorsen is having a rough couple of days. Every so often he gets sent on patrol. And every time he gets ambushed and pulled down as he moves about on patrol. If a player or group of players decides to help out Private Thorsen and he survives a little farther into the patrol, you'll discover that he can give them a quest. This is one of the many ways that Blizzard has to help keep players interested in what is going on in the world around them. |
From the moment you enter the World of Warcraft, you will see an opportunity to quest. Right at the spawn point for new players is a NPC with the friendly yellow explanation point over their head. Quests come in slowly, each line making the sound as if it was being scribed into your book. You have to wait for the quest to come in, you can't just skip ahead to the end and see what the reward will be. But at the end of the explanation you are given a choice to accept or decline the quest and what the reward will be for completing the quest.
Each quest reward can have up to six items that you can select from for a reward as well as "gift" you up to four items as a base. For instance, the quest may offer you a potion of strong troll's blood, a set of battle gauntlets and an item that you choose from a selection of boots, a wand, or a shield. As good as quest items may be, they will not be the primary motivation for completing a quest. The best experience rewards will come from completing quests. If you and your companion both go after the same hunting grounds, but you are on a quest and they are not. When the day is done, you will have gotten more experience than they will have.
These aren't obscure quests either. The quests are fairly straightforward at the entry levels of the game. You get asked to retrieve boar's tusks, or lizard tails, so such. Then you go and hunt where you find those beasts. If you are on the quest, you will see the quest item on the corpse of your prey. If you are not, then the quest items will not appear. If you are grouped and have loot set in a round robin fashion, selecting quest items from the corpse is a free loot action. You don't have to waste your loot selection turn on a quest item. As a matter of fact, if your party members don't have the quest, they won't even get the option to loot the quest items.
There is constant feedback on your quest progress. On the first quest we went on, we were asked to kill ten boars. For each boar we killed, not only did the leaderboard update in our quest log, but the leaderboard would also flash on the screen and then fade away slowly. Our guide mentioned that he insisted on the feedback. With a sly guilty look, he admitted to being a little compulsive about checking on where he was with a quest. He said that even when he knew it was the third boar of ten, he had found himself constantly checking his quest log to confirm on the leaderboard. By making the leaderboard flash on the screen, he was helping out the "compulsive freaks" like himself.
As you move on in levels, quests will become more involved and more sophisticated. At the early levels that we were at, there was just no point in pouring a lot of time in to extremely sophisticated quests. But Blizzard wanted to make sure that we knew that they existed for characters that got past the initial levels of the game and past the initial wonder at just looking at and exploring the game world.
Types of Quests
Blizzard has plans for a variety of quest types. You might come across a character wounded and deep in a dungeon who gives you a quest to lead them out of the dungeon. You could be given a quest to escort a character or caravan for a series of points. There are timed quests where a leader might ask you to slay ten harpies in twenty minutes in order to prove your worth. There are "breadcrumb" quests that are designed to move players to where there is content appropriate for them. It turns out that in the initial stages of the alpha, there would be players that never left certain regions and were completely unaware that a lot of content that they would be interested in was waiting fro them just down the road. Breadcrumb quests were designed to show off the world a little but and give the quest designer a chance to lead you through different areas collecting other quests. Finally, there are also defending the objective quests.
| Captain Sanders Treasure Map - NPCs aren't the only way to get quests. There is an item that will spawn when you hunt murlocks and crabs in the Westfall. Captain Sanders' Map (Named for Blizzard employee Matt Sanders) is a rare drop for defeating the beasts of Westfall. When you inspect the map you will be given a quest that can take you to various points in the world and then rewards you with an "unknown reward" |
Blizzard also understands that people go through quests in different ways. Most quests are designed to be a complete evening. For instance, Wailing Caverns is designed to be handled by a group of characters who are level 15-20 in about three hours. For the players that want to just hammer through and do the minimum to accomplish the quest, they may be able to do it quicker. For those who want to meander about the maze and explore every nook and cranny, there will be rare spawn and rare item drops that can be discovered, completely separate from the quest itself. The attention to detail was astounding.
The quests are also frequently integrated with the instance theory in order to be able to tell more of an epic tale. Continuing with the Wailing Cavern example, there are four sub bosses that lead to the final dramatic encounter. This instance technology allows the quest designer to tell a story more in line with a single player RPG than the typical MMORPG. No more worrying about if some other group grabbed boss number two while you did boss number one. They are all yours.
The most important thing that one can take away from our discussion is the complete immersion of questing in the World of Warcraft. Quests aren't something that is tacked into the game engine as a separate piece of content. The quests are interwoven into the very fabric of the game.
Spells
Spells and effects are a core aspect of Blizzard's character development. From the spells of the warlock to the stances of the warrior, Blizzard has developed a dizzying array of spells, stances, rages, and moves that characters can execute in World of Warcraft. The idea is that combat is never boring, that every combat requires a player to use different techniques to defeat their enemies.
Blizzard has been in the process of balancing the spells and tweaking them for effectiveness and balance. They spend a lot of time making sure that the spells "feel right" for the level and class that they are planned for. We spent some time working over both the Warlock and Warrior classes pages we have with the new details.
What Can the Spells Do?
"…spell system is so robust." - Jeffrey Kaplan, Blizzard
We asked what happens when the designers want to have a spell effect that isn't currently available to them. Jeffrey mentioned that this very rarely happened, the spell engine that they are allowed to draw from for effects has had virtually everything that they could want for effects. What is doesn't have, they ask for, and he told us that mostly these things were turned around in a matter of hours.
Ritual Spells
"Oh, ritual spells are cool." - Jeffrey Kaplan, Blizzard
Ritual spells are still very much a part of the game design. Because they are designed to be high level content, a lot of ritual spells are still being worked on and added into the game. In the build we were in, 25th level was the highest obtainable level, so most ritual spells would not be available to people yet. As it was it took our 25th level cheat warlock to start the ritual we saw. (We couldn't finish it. Nobody was there to help us!)
They aren't finished with designing all of the ritual spells yet. So far of the 20-30 that have been fully conceptualized (There will be more, they wanted to be clear on that.), only two have found their way into the game. The ritual of summoning requires a warlock to start the ritual. Once he starts the ritual, it requires two other characters of any sort to complete it. The other ritual that is in the game so far is the mage's teleport spell.
Rituals can be setup to require any sort of requirements of classes and levels to complete. When we talked about life quests, Jeffrey gave us some insight into what can be set up.
"Whereas we can make them [quests] as complex, by level sixty your life quest might be, you know, do this ritual spell with six other mages at the bottom of Black Rock Spire, summon Raxonox, kill him, bring back his bracers."
The work on ritual spells continues over at Blizzard, it looks like it will only be constrained by the designer's imagination.
Crafts
Crafting is simple and straightforward in World of Warcraft. The design team has moved to make the adventure not be the chance of success, but rather the gathering of resources and in some cases the location of the crafting.
We sat with our 25th level warlock in the fields outside of the starting zone near Ogrimmar and started to create Strong Troll Blood potions. The interface was clean and easy. You get a list of the types of potions you can create and how many of each that you can create. Then you select the potion that you want to create and your character hunches over and starts crafting. Seconds later you have your potion.
The recipes are color coded to allow you to see which recipes will have a better chance of increasing your skill in that particular creation. At every moment of the crafting, you are getting feedback on how you are doing. The creation is quick, and you always succeed. The question is whether or not you will gain skill points by being successful.
Not only are the crafting skills managed by recipe drops and learning, but there is also recipes that require you to craft the item in a particular place. You may be out on the hunt and come across an anvil located out in the wilderness. The crafting is predicated on where you do certain recipes, so it may be that deep in the heart of the Black Rock Spire is the only place where you can get the legendary boots of gnome punting crafted.
For the craftspeople who wonder how they get their name out on the swords and helms that they craft, each item crafted can have a marker from the creator. This helps to establish the crafter's reputation in game as a supplier of high quality materials, or low quality as the case may be.
Crafting isn't just about the items themselves. Craftspeople will also be able to create objects that augment another item's power. These sorts of crafted objects are designed to give a temporary or permanent boast to an existing item. It may be something like a scope for a blunderbuss, or a patch that increases resistances on a piece of armor for a period of time.
Blizzard keeps a sophisticated loot chart where they track what items will be the best of type for a given level and they work to make sure that while at some levels it may be a crafted item, at others it may be a rare drop. The idea is to create a vibrant economy that has a thriving crafter community.
How Many Tradeskills Can I Master?
This was a discussion that had some input not only from our guide Jeffrey Kaplan but from Blizzard's resident webmasters Geoff Fraizer and Mike Hein. Players in the alpha had found that there were enough interesting tradeskills that they had tried to max three or four of them out. It just wasn't as feasible as doing just two. This is something that can always be tweaked in the beta, but right now it's really designed so that you can be good at one production path like Herbalism and Alchemy or Mining and Blacksmithy. But if you try to do Mining, Blacksmithy, and Engineering, you're going to be stretching it. Nice part is that these skills are re-trainable, so if you decide that the life of a herb hunter is not for you, you can trade in and become a miner instead.
Places and People
A common question about World of Warcraft is if the various heroes of the previous wars will be included. As we've talked about in our E3 visits, the heros of Warcraft II:Beyond the Dark Portal will be featured in Stormwind Keep. Throughout the world, you will also be able to try to interact with all sorts of characters that appeared throughout the lore.
Rexxar has taken a leave from the Horde and returned to stalking the wilderness of the Barrens. He will make an interesting quest for players to find in the massive lands of Azeroth. Thrall sits on the Warchief throne of the Horde and Sylvanas Windrunner oversees the Forsaken.
We were excited to see these characters rendered for us on screen, but unfortunately, they were not part of the alpha buil
