Sol Invictus
Erudite
Originally from http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5119
It WAS good. They ruined it. I figure it's probably a decision from the VU Marketing dept. higher up than anyone working at Blizzard which caused them to implement the new changes. It now plays almost exactly like Everquest did during its pre-SOE days.
Some people even prefer it now, probably due to some misplaced nostalgia, but the majority of beta testers, especially those casual gamers and people like me who can generally tell the difference between 'fucking tedious' and 'enjoyably stimulating' refuse to touch the game anymore. It was good for awhile, seeing how Blizzard would actually be the first MMORPG to tap into the casual gaming market with their previously easy-to-play title, but it looks like VU (or someone at Blizzard) decided to play it safe by going down the same route that EQ went 5 years ago.
At this point, it's likely that EQ2 and Guild Wars will be going down a different route: the route WOW was going down originally, because unlike whoever made the idiotic decision to 'beef up' WOW, they probably realize how fed up the market is of EQ-likes. WOW's original designers realized this, so it's quite sad to see them making all the wrong decisions.
As for the game being in Beta, it won't be in Beta for too long. It's scheduled for gold mastering come late October for an early November release, according to VU's president in a recent press announcement. It looks like VU just wants to cash in on their investment. It's quite dissapointing, too, because half the features that were supposed to make it into WOW aren't even in yet, or balanced properly, for that matter.
Half the classes don't even have their talents yet: Paladin, Shaman, Hunter, Warlock - and the Hunter was only just released in an extremely buggy, unbalanced state. The Warlock's been the weakest most underpowered class for the past two betas and nothing has been done to fix it, though, Geoff Frazier aka Nebu aka Shlonglor, the non-developer 'Assistant Web Producer' insists that Blizzard will implement it correctly, in time. I doubt that.
Heck, the Endgame hasn't even been made yet, nor have the higher level dungeons been completed (some of the bosses are <NYI> and features such as housing, Hero Classes, Raid Zones, Battlegrounds (large scale PVP), boats/zeppelins, and a lot more have yet to see the light of day, all currently being 'promised' to be released and tested 'sometime before retail'.
They've got only a month and a half left, and it took them 3 weeks to release a buggy, untested patch that completely 'rebalanced' the mathematical calculations of the game, adding a HIDEOUS amount of crash bugs, server crash bugs, imbalanced skills, dysfunctional talents, seriously unneeded nerfs to certain classes, dysfunctional armor, HP/MP regen, and plenty of others. All of thise was, according to their Lead Designer, "internally tested". By whom? Indians?
He's thus far refused to acknowledge these GREVIOUS oversights as bugs and is, thus far, 'looking into them', though 'to his knowledge', 'no such bugs exist based on our internal testing, nor were nerfs intended'. Which is why armor is completely dysfunctional, Elite monsters hit for 3 times more than they used to (and they already hit really hard), and the statistics in the game are completely out of whack. Here's an example of how it's SUPPOSED to work:
Quote:
Base stats = x
Bonus stats from items/abilities = y
Total = z
z = x + y
Now here's how it works in the game:
Quote:
Base stats = x
Bonus stats from items/abilities = y
Total = z
z = x + y*2 + what the fuck - %y
Again, what the fuck. No one seems to have any idea what's going on with the calculations but how the hell could the QA miss this? It's probably because they're all underpaid at 8 dollars an hour, working 16 hour days AND living in the OC. That's got to hurt.
Also, because of the changes - certain instances are undoable/uncompleteable without having more than a single group inside. These instances were originally balanced for a single group only. A group consists of 5 people. When you have an instance that's meant for 5 people but only completeable by 10 or more people, most of whom cannot enter without the aid of a summoning Warlock, you've got a problem. How Blizzard's 'internal testers' managed to miss this, I have no clue. According to the Lead Designer, their internal testers had 'no difficulty in overcoming the instances'. They must have been on some level 60 characters that nobody else has access to, I suppose. Either that, somebody's fibbing.
On top of that, the game has become so much more item dependant due to the inflation of stat calculation in the recent patch. Tigole's response has been twofold in this issue:
"You are not adequately equipped for your level." in addressing a complaint about the game being too difficult.
and
"The game has not been made more item dependant, to my knowledge."
So, which is it?
It WAS good. They ruined it. I figure it's probably a decision from the VU Marketing dept. higher up than anyone working at Blizzard which caused them to implement the new changes. It now plays almost exactly like Everquest did during its pre-SOE days.
Some people even prefer it now, probably due to some misplaced nostalgia, but the majority of beta testers, especially those casual gamers and people like me who can generally tell the difference between 'fucking tedious' and 'enjoyably stimulating' refuse to touch the game anymore. It was good for awhile, seeing how Blizzard would actually be the first MMORPG to tap into the casual gaming market with their previously easy-to-play title, but it looks like VU (or someone at Blizzard) decided to play it safe by going down the same route that EQ went 5 years ago.
At this point, it's likely that EQ2 and Guild Wars will be going down a different route: the route WOW was going down originally, because unlike whoever made the idiotic decision to 'beef up' WOW, they probably realize how fed up the market is of EQ-likes. WOW's original designers realized this, so it's quite sad to see them making all the wrong decisions.
As for the game being in Beta, it won't be in Beta for too long. It's scheduled for gold mastering come late October for an early November release, according to VU's president in a recent press announcement. It looks like VU just wants to cash in on their investment. It's quite dissapointing, too, because half the features that were supposed to make it into WOW aren't even in yet, or balanced properly, for that matter.
Half the classes don't even have their talents yet: Paladin, Shaman, Hunter, Warlock - and the Hunter was only just released in an extremely buggy, unbalanced state. The Warlock's been the weakest most underpowered class for the past two betas and nothing has been done to fix it, though, Geoff Frazier aka Nebu aka Shlonglor, the non-developer 'Assistant Web Producer' insists that Blizzard will implement it correctly, in time. I doubt that.
Heck, the Endgame hasn't even been made yet, nor have the higher level dungeons been completed (some of the bosses are <NYI> and features such as housing, Hero Classes, Raid Zones, Battlegrounds (large scale PVP), boats/zeppelins, and a lot more have yet to see the light of day, all currently being 'promised' to be released and tested 'sometime before retail'.
They've got only a month and a half left, and it took them 3 weeks to release a buggy, untested patch that completely 'rebalanced' the mathematical calculations of the game, adding a HIDEOUS amount of crash bugs, server crash bugs, imbalanced skills, dysfunctional talents, seriously unneeded nerfs to certain classes, dysfunctional armor, HP/MP regen, and plenty of others. All of thise was, according to their Lead Designer, "internally tested". By whom? Indians?
He's thus far refused to acknowledge these GREVIOUS oversights as bugs and is, thus far, 'looking into them', though 'to his knowledge', 'no such bugs exist based on our internal testing, nor were nerfs intended'. Which is why armor is completely dysfunctional, Elite monsters hit for 3 times more than they used to (and they already hit really hard), and the statistics in the game are completely out of whack. Here's an example of how it's SUPPOSED to work:
Quote:
Base stats = x
Bonus stats from items/abilities = y
Total = z
z = x + y
Now here's how it works in the game:
Quote:
Base stats = x
Bonus stats from items/abilities = y
Total = z
z = x + y*2 + what the fuck - %y
Again, what the fuck. No one seems to have any idea what's going on with the calculations but how the hell could the QA miss this? It's probably because they're all underpaid at 8 dollars an hour, working 16 hour days AND living in the OC. That's got to hurt.
Also, because of the changes - certain instances are undoable/uncompleteable without having more than a single group inside. These instances were originally balanced for a single group only. A group consists of 5 people. When you have an instance that's meant for 5 people but only completeable by 10 or more people, most of whom cannot enter without the aid of a summoning Warlock, you've got a problem. How Blizzard's 'internal testers' managed to miss this, I have no clue. According to the Lead Designer, their internal testers had 'no difficulty in overcoming the instances'. They must have been on some level 60 characters that nobody else has access to, I suppose. Either that, somebody's fibbing.
On top of that, the game has become so much more item dependant due to the inflation of stat calculation in the recent patch. Tigole's response has been twofold in this issue:
"You are not adequately equipped for your level." in addressing a complaint about the game being too difficult.
and
"The game has not been made more item dependant, to my knowledge."
So, which is it?