world of warcraft STRESS TEST

[Craig]

I can't believe a thread about this never happened...well, here it is.

I originally didn't get into the stress test, so I only started to play yesterday night...

The game is awesome its like you are playing a singleplayer game, but ..other people are playing with you. I decided to pick a dwarf paladin, so I was plopped into "Coldridge Valley" (I think it was valley) and started doing quests, some of them you have to laugh at...a steam tank pilot wanted me to collect frost troll manes so that he can make his steam tank more comfortable to sit in!

It seems the quests keep shooting you out and farther and farther, i'm only on the 2nd "area" but its great fun, and if you use good judgement you will hardly ever die (but it hardly matters if you die anyways, you just do a corpse run as a ghost ...which you are unattackle in..and run like x2 as fast and you resurrect at the same spot you died, with no xp loss.)

Anyways... has anyone else played the stress test? I am currently playing on the "Mannoroth" server.

[Razola]

My roommate has had it since it started.

While dying doesn't cost exp (unless you ask for an auto-rez from the spirit healer), it does cost exp in the sense that you can't get experience and loot while you're a ghost. So if you're ina group, you risk missing out on the goodies from their battles. So, while it's one of the nicest death system a player could ask for, thereare indirect penalties.

[Heald]

Wait, so how do you come to life again if you're a ghost? Do you have to wait or something like in SWG?

[Razola]

WoW has several choices for coming back:

A. The most common method is to hike back to your body from whatever cemetary you spawned at. Your map has a marker showing you where exactly you died, so it's not like you're going to spend hours looking for it. Once your within a certain radius of your corpse, the game asks if you want to ressurect. You may want to wait (enemies nearby) or you can res, which gives you all of your stuff back and revives you with about half of your hp back.

B. Another player uses a revival spell or item. You are given a prompt asking if you accept the res. If you do, you'll teleport to your body, revived, with res sickness. You'll have about 25% of your HP and a 25% penalty to your stats for a short bit.

C. Pay the Spirit Healer. Each cemetary has a Spirit Healer who will revive you automatically for a price. You won't be teleported to your corpse, but rather, your corpse will be brought to you. You'll revive at the cemetary, losing a chunk of experience to the healer. Good if you don't want to hike back to a spot or if too many enemies are close to your corpse.

EDIT: While a ghost, you can only publicly chat to other ghosts (Guild and I think parties are still open to you). You also can see other ghosts (including the Spirit Healer) and you can't be hurt by most enemies (Blizzard has stated that a few enemies can see and harm ghosts). You can't attack or do much besides run when a ghost.

[Last Exile]

This all sounds good, but once the real version comes out, isn't it something you have to pay $30 a month to play? That's a bit much, isn't it?

[PNT510]

It would probably be closer to $10-15 a month, and I don't think a release date other than Winter 2004 has been stated yet. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

[Razola]

The game has been in beta since March of this year. Early on, Blizzard estimated the beta would last for 5+ months, so that would mean that at the earliest the beta would've ended back in August. The stress test (which ended a few hours ago) can only mean the game is nearing the home stretch. Expect news on an open beta test within the coming month.

This all sounds good, but once the real version comes out, isn't it something you have to pay $30 a month to play? That's a bit much, isn't it?

I have never heard of a MMORPG going for that expensive of a monthly fee. Most cost around $10-15 US, $15 being the most expensive I've seen (and most companies lower the price per month if you buy several months at once).

Blizzard had a mini-survey in its beta sign-up form. One of the question was how much we'd be willing to pay per month for WoW. If that is accurate by any account (and Blizzard is good for getting cheap servers, see Battle.net), then the fee would be $9.95 US.

But no price is set in stone yet. Probably have to wait for it to go gold first.

[Craig]

They had a mini-survey around things "What are you willing to pay for the top notch MMORPG on the market per month" Im sure most people clicked around 15 dollars, instead of the standard 9.99 that they probably put everywhere else..

I can see Blizzard having a poll for its beta testers at the end of the testing phase, saying "Rank these" and if they say it is the best MMORPG on the market, they will probably pick the one from the testers that reflected that...

Maybe not though. Hope its 9.99 USD.