EDIT -
This one : http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ScreenShot.aspx?ImageIndex=109&Set=0
And this one : http://www.blizzard.com/wow/ScreenShot.aspx?ImageIndex=114&Set=0
Are the ones I liked best from the first 17 I looked at. [ 09-06-2003: Message edited by: Khyron ]
I might not even kill anything for a while, just run around explore.
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Absolut Blindy wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Seems like an awful waste of space for real gaming purposes. You know, like the countless Inns and Taverns in G-Fay.
Yeah. They should just make like, 5 buildings tops.
One for tradeskillers, one for buying weapons, one for buying armor, one for buying spells, and one containing all the Quest NPC's. Because any more would be just such an awful waste of space 
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Willias Model 2000 was programmed to say:
That city makes Qeynos look small.
Qeynos IS small.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage had this to say about John Romero:
Is that going to run on anything short of a cray? If so, I may have to build my new confuser earlier than I'd planned so I can play.
I thought the requirements to run WoW were fairly low? Besides, those screenshots don't appear to be hyper-realistic (they're not supposed to be) or ultra detailed... so I don't see why you said that. 
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This insanity brought to you by Bloodsage:
Is that going to run on anything short of a cray? If so, I may have to build my new confuser earlier than I'd planned so I can play.
World of Warcraft is supposedly being designed to run on very low-end systems compared to Sony's massively multiplayer offerings. I don't have any exact numbers, but I've seen something like 600mhz minimum being thrown around. It may go higher as development continues, though; it may have already.
But either way, they're trying to keep it fairly low.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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So quoth Bloodsage:
The magic effects looked pretty intricate. And the clipping plane was in, like, Egypt. And I thought the textures fairly nice.
Those are all likely the highest settings, which goes who knows how high. It may also be an enhanced version for demo purposes...I mean, I know I've seen a couple of those before. (Games that don't look a thing like the screenshots even on the very highest settings...)
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Check out the big brain on Bloodsage!
Is that going to run on anything short of a cray? If so, I may have to build my new confuser earlier than I'd planned so I can play.
At E3 they were running WoW on 660mhz comps (Or something really close to that, exact number may be a bit off), just to show how amazingly well it ran on that low end of a computer.
They are aiming to make it as computer friendly as possible.
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Absolut Blindy had this to say about Robocop:
Seems like an awful waste of space for real gaming purposes. You know, like the countless Inns and Taverns in G-Fay.
Yeah, seriously, why even HAVE towns? Just put a merchant and a binder at every zoneline and just make the entire game a linear progression of dungeons with areas broken down by exact level.
Better yet, why not just make it ProgressQuest so we don't even have to do anything ourselves?
Lets make some comparisons here. Look at the larger cities in SWG. Most of the population will stay in certain areas of the city, namely the cantina, bank, shuttleport, starport, and crafting tools. The rest of the city goes unusued for the most part. Hottels go unchecked, palaces unvisited, etc. Hell, the two most popular cities in the game (Bestine and Anchorhead) are two of the smallest. What use is the nice, big cities here?
But lets take it smaller and look at DAoC. You have capital cities (Camelot, Jordheim, TNN), expansion cities, and. smaller towns throughout each realm. Most of the areas within capital cities go unused, with population centers at crafting tools and the bank. There's other various buildings, like bars and smaller building for atmosphere, but they go unused. The expansion cities (Caer Diogel, Aegirhamn, and Grove of Domannn), are smaller and compact. More of them are used, but there's still large areas of uselessness. Towns themselves are normally ghost towns these days. Maybe a person or two will go through every so often to bind, see a trainer, bank, etc., but for the most part all the structures go unvisited.
Now lets make it even smaller, the best example of which I think is player made cities in Shadowbane (heh, they did something right). The cities are small, and efficient. Its not much to look at, but the entire city is utilized, something that doesn't happen in EQ, SWG, DAoC, etc.
Huge cities with tons of buildings are great for PR and exploring. But fact of the matter is that once you've been there a couple times the city loses its appeal. It happened in EQ didn't it? Running around Kelethin was great... the first couple of times. Once that city has lost its appeal though most players would agree the huge city becomes an annoyance. We saw this in DAoC's crafting system, where crafters quickly flocked to the areas where vendors were closest to a forge or lathe. That big city is nice, but it quickly becomes bothersome.
And please, before the WoW fanboys attack please try and look beyond Blizzard fanaticism towards what's happend in previous MMORPGs. Blizzard is a great company, but it doesn't mean they're not prone to falling to the pitfalls that other companies have. Looks like they're going to fall to the "big, empty city" pitall like Verant, Mythic, etc have in the past. WoW will be a good game, but its going to have its problems.
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ACES! Another post by Bloodsage:
And the clipping plane was in, like, Egypt.
lol
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Talonus had this to say about (_|_):
WoW will be a good game, but its going to have its problems.
This statement is 100% true. But fortunately, I predict that WoWs biggest problem will be what Blizzard isn't that great at getting down right, the first time. Balance between classes, races, or a combination of the two. Immersion and Fun, they always hit directly on, but balancing abilities and spells is not their forte.
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Skaw had this to say about Duck Tales:
This statement is 100% true. But fortunately, I predict that WoWs biggest problem will be what Blizzard isn't that great at getting down right, the first time. Balance between classes, races, or a combination of the two. Immersion and Fun, they always hit directly on, but balancing abilities and spells is not their forte.
A total inability to balance anything worth a damn sure didn't hurt EQ much 
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So quoth Skaw:
This statement is 100% true. But fortunately, I predict that WoWs biggest problem will be what Blizzard isn't that great at getting down right, the first time. Balance between classes, races, or a combination of the two. Immersion and Fun, they always hit directly on, but balancing abilities and spells is not their forte.
The problem isn't they can't balance, it's that they have always taken way too long to do it. They have a balancing patch, and then they sit on it for 2 months trying to fix stupid little unimportant bugs, rather than make them two patches, one for balance asap, one to fix those bugs you would never have known about until they fixed them later.
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Vorago got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
A total inability to balance anything worth a damn sure didn't hurt EQ much
Well, you had all those drama queens threatening to quit if X class didn't get nerfed, or if their Y class didn't get buffed in line with everyone else. It's hard to please the masses without totally breaking(By this, I mean making it too difficult, or too easy) your game.
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Vorago had this to say about Cuba:
So rather than make a city at the VERY minimum look nice, even if people don't explore them, game makers should make their cities a single box lined with merchants on the inside?
Blah, I never said that. Look at my Shadowbane comments. The cities are smaller and efficient. You don't need an ultra small city, but a huge city goes wasted.
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The problem isn't they can't balance, it's that they have always taken way too long to do it. They have a balancing patch, and then they sit on it for 2 months trying to fix stupid little unimportant bugs, rather than make them two patches, one for balance asap, one to fix those bugs you would never have known about until they fixed them later.
Aren't game/patch delays a Blizzard trademark?
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ACES! Another post by Talonus:
Aren't game/patch delays a Blizzard trademark?
More or less, yeah. But the end product is always so freaking superior, so it's all good 
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We were all impressed when Talonus wrote:
Blah, I never said that. Look at my Shadowbane comments. The cities are smaller and efficient. You don't need an ultra small city, but a huge city goes wasted.
And efficient cities are boring. I want style, I don't want every single city to be the same grouping of buildings seperated by merchant type. I liked taking the elevators in Kelethin and having to figure out how to get to places. Yes, a lot of places were wasted space there, but intelligent placement of NPCs could have fixed that easily.
I may not go into that big castle every time I go there on my own free will, but if there is an NPC in there I need to visit to train or whatever, then I will be there often.
Or I will explore it of my own because it looks cool, and although I may not go back there all the time, I will still remember it and be "Damn, that is one seriously cool castle!"
I am quite sure there will be powergaming uber smacktards that will never see the inside of any building not directly associated with powerlevelling, but quite frankly I don't care about them
As it stands, Blizzard is designing WoW exactly like I would have made a MMOG, which I like. Hell, I would place key NPCs like trainers on the biggest spires or in the deepest basements just to make players run around and explore. And if they do that too, I will be even happier
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Talonus had this to say about John Romero:
Stuff
I rather enjoyed heading to Neriak when I played EQ. It always felt like "home" to me and I'd love every second of it. Hell, just thinking about it now brings back good memories, and all I'd ever do is head to the guild and bank [ 09-06-2003: Message edited by: Warlord Darius ]
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Bloodsageing:
The magic effects looked pretty intricate. And the clipping plane was in, like, Egypt. And I thought the textures fairly nice.
Tribes 2 ran with a bigger clip plane, albeit a bit less detail, but on much worse systems.
It depends a lot on how optimized the engine is. Don't let the bloated EQ engine mislead you.
"Efficient" cities make no more sense than "efficient" hunting grounds where all the mobs are lined up, ordered by level, for you to kill over and over again until you're ub0r.
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Nobody really understood why Vorago wrote:
And efficient cities are boring. I want style, I don't want every single city to be the same grouping of buildings seperated by merchant type. I liked taking the elevators in Kelethin and having to figure out how to get to places. Yes, a lot of places were wasted space there, but intelligent placement of NPCs could have fixed that easily.I may not go into that big castle every time I go there on my own free will, but if there is an NPC in there I need to visit to train or whatever, then I will be there often.
Or I will explore it of my own because it looks cool, and although I may not go back there all the time, I will still remember it and be "Damn, that is one seriously cool castle!"
I am quite sure there will be powergaming uber smacktards that will never see the inside of any building not directly associated with powerlevelling, but quite frankly I don't care about them
As it stands, Blizzard is designing WoW exactly like I would have made a MMOG, which I like. Hell, I would place key NPCs like trainers on the biggest spires or in the deepest basements just to make players run around and explore. And if they do that too, I will be even happier
We're exactly alike there!
Wouldn't happen, the sun would explode before allowing that
Joey (09:52 PM) :
Plus then I would be like Maradon with MoO3. I couldn't allow that
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Mr. Parcelan enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
I think Talonus is Osama Bin Laden
*cries* I'm not evil just cause I'm not a WoW fanboy!
Anyways, individual point stuff...
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And efficient cities are boring. I want style, I don't want every single city to be the same grouping of buildings seperated by merchant type. I liked taking the elevators in Kelethin and having to figure out how to get to places.
Like I said, the majority quickly get bored with this, and then annoyed. DAoC is probably the best example of this, where the cities that are easiest to get around are the most popular.
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Yes, a lot of places were wasted space there, but intelligent placement of NPCs could have fixed that easily.
But what type of NPCs? SWG tried this with NPCs that were involved in or started quests to fill in its emptier areas. The areas still go unused.
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Or I will explore it of my own because it looks cool, and although I may not go back there all the time, I will still remember it and be "Damn, that is one seriously cool castle!"
But it'll wear off. I remember being amazed the first time I saw the dwarf over the entrance to Kaladim. A couple months later I never paid it any attention when passing by the city. I'm not saying the areas don't provide their use, but WoW seems to have a lot of these empty areas.
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I am quite sure there will be powergaming uber smacktards that will never see the inside of any building not directly associated with powerlevelling, but quite frankly I don't care about them
Problem is, every MMOG maker has pays more attention to powergamers than normal players or casual players. I very much doubt Blizzard will be the one to break the trend, as it will only result in causing problems. So while you may not care, Bizzard does.
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Hell, I would place key NPCs like trainers on the biggest spires or in the deepest basements just to make players run around and explore. And if they do that too, I will be even happier
Its a good idea in theory, but the majority of players hate it. Its been done to a small extent in SWG and in the Horizons beta. In bother situations the NPCs are harder to find, causing newer players to vent their frustrations. If a trainer were to be incredibly hard to find the bitching would begin.
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As for the size of cities, remember that cities are just another zone. Thinking of a city as a place that you only need for banking and tradeskilling is forcing other games into EQ terms.
Actually, you're forcing it more into EQ terms than I am really. DAoC failed at making a city more than a city. SWG failed, though not as badly. AO has been the only game to really suceed at having a city more than a city. (Yes, I forgot about AO in my original post.) Even then there's a good part of its cities that are underutilized.
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"Efficient" cities make no more sense than "efficient" hunting grounds where all the mobs are lined up, ordered by level, for you to kill over and over again until you're ub0r.
Welp, got me there. I'm sure the powergamers would love that.
I'd really like to note that I'm not against having great looking sprawling cities. Its great that they can do it. I'm just pointing out that the only MMOG to actually suceed in having a city that's actually a city is AO, and that's not perfect. I dsimply doubt WoW will achieve incredible success where these games have failed, and much of these cities will go wasted as a result.
I respect Blizzard for making the world interesting and not just catering to the minority of uber fucktards. I would certainly not say EQs cities were a failure, I still have fond memories of Freeport and Kelethin and Neriak (That oh so lovable maze), even if I despise the game itself. Sure, people may not be visiting every single building 15 times a day to somehow qualify it as successful, which either way doesn't effect the game in the slightest, but everyone (Well, PL'd uber fucktards most likely exempt, but who cares) has been there and remembers it. That is what makes it unique, it isn't just "The collection of merchants where wood elves spawn", it is Kelethin, that city you fell off of several times and died from.
And if there is anything I've noticed from Blizzard on the forums is, they don't take shit from the uber people. They understand that the uber (referring to War3 right now, latest example) people can have good ideas, but they are the minority in the game. And even more-so, they don't give a flying damn when some high levels claims he is going to quit or whatever because of some imbalance or another.
Hell, even Blizzard employees openly make fun of Tillerman, who was widely regarded as the best War3 player, on the forums after he tried pulling a few drama queen events. He got all pissy and quit for a few months, but in the end he came back, and has gone from hugely respected to a running joke (To the point someone made a shockwave soundboard of funny lines from him)
When high level ladder players bitch about how they think the game is and how Blizzard 'has' to do something because they are right blah blah blah, they just tell them "Stop bothering, we have more info than you do, we know everything you do about this game and more. If there is an imbalance, it will show in the numbers".
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Talonus had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
Its probably best to agree to disagree here eh Vorago?
Oh I'm certainly not going to agree to THAT!
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This one time, at Vorago camp:
Oh I'm certainly not going to agree to THAT!
