World of Warcraft

phasing is the worst thing that can happen to MMORPGs. The world is no longer unique, shared by players. Its a different world for every player, its like playing a single player game with lots of bots that affect nothing your experience. Now, its not enough that you got to rescue the same princess that 5000 players have rescued already. Now, you even see the forest that has already been burned down on your same server hundreds of times already.

Anybody praising this need to try a real online world.

Originally posted by ssstupido

phasing is the worst thing that can happen to MMORPGs. The world is no longer unique, shared by players. Its a different world for every player, its like playing a single player game with lots of bots that affect nothing your experience. Now, its not enough that you got to rescue the same princess that 5000 players have rescued already. Now, you even see the forest that has already been burned down on your same server hundreds of times already.

Anybody praising this need to try a real online world.

You realy have no first hand experience with it, have you?

This technology is by far the most story enchancing tool I've experienced in all the MMOs I've played so far. I'm just hoping that SW:TOR is looking at this, because it can make such a huge implact into actual storyplaying instead of mere storytelling.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by ssstupido

phasing is the worst thing that can happen to MMORPGs. The world is no longer unique, shared by players. Its a different world for every player, its like playing a single player game with lots of bots that affect nothing your experience. Now, its not enough that you got to rescue the same princess that 5000 players have rescued already. Now, you even see the forest that has already been burned down on your same server hundreds of times already.

Anybody praising this need to try a real online world.

 

You realy have no first hand experience with it, have you?

This technology is by far the most story enchancing tool I've experienced in all the MMOs I've played so far. I'm just hoping that SW:TOR is looking at this, because it can make such a huge implact into actual storyplaying instead of mere storytelling.

Ohhhhh great way to put things.  "storyplaying instead of mere storytelling". WoW still does this "storyplaying" in a linear fashiion.  While it is still fun to me and many other people, I can see where the argument arises that the phasing portion is minion, compared to what it can be.  Assault on undercity anbybody?  Truly amazing. YET!!!!!!!! Imagine for one second that you were the first level 73 alliance on your server, and you did start the quest.  Imagine that you, and you alone were the first person to do the quest, and stake your holding in undercity, and assult Thrall while doing so.  THEN, the server changed, because of you, because of your actions.  That is a different version of phasing, but I think its what many people on this forum hope for. 

I dont know the answer, but it sure as hell is fun testing out the current solutions

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by ssstupido

phasing is the worst thing that can happen to MMORPGs. The world is no longer unique, shared by players. Its a different world for every player, its like playing a single player game with lots of bots that affect nothing your experience. Now, its not enough that you got to rescue the same princess that 5000 players have rescued already. Now, you even see the forest that has already been burned down on your same server hundreds of times already.

Anybody praising this need to try a real online world.

 

You realy have no first hand experience with it, have you?

This technology is by far the most story enchancing tool I've experienced in all the MMOs I've played so far. I'm just hoping that SW:TOR is looking at this, because it can make such a huge implact into actual storyplaying instead of mere storytelling.

that's what single player games and books are for.

Really? I guess being part of an adventurers group going out on an epic quest never crossed your mind when playing MMOs.

the fact that this thread is [presently] 11 pages long speaks a lot for the impact WoW has on the market.

Everyone is rushing to build a wow grinder and dip into the pie but WoW offers very little that is new. Blizzard are experts at making games fun.

If Blizzard would make Blizzard games and other companies would make sandbox games i'd be happy. The frustrating part is the current produced by this WoW fandom strips away any chance for a real mmorpg to emerge.

Originally posted by grimal

I am not discounting the cool technology behind phasing, but then making the huge leap in saying that Blizzard now leads the path to future MMOs is overstating it a bit.  I guess this is one of the very few new things Blizzard has brought to MMOs.  They didnt change anything in so much as other titles before it.

Blizzard has never been about new or innovative ideas with WoW.  For all it's polish, many still say that Blizzard has done more harm than good to the genre.

 

 

11m said it good, how many said it harm?

Originally posted by ssstupido

phasing is the worst thing that can happen to MMORPGs. The world is no longer unique, shared by players. Its a different world for every player, its like playing a single player game with lots of bots that affect nothing your experience. Now, its not enough that you got to rescue the same princess that 5000 players have rescued already. Now, you even see the forest that has already been burned down on your same server hundreds of times already.

Anybody praising this need to try a real online world.

Agree. I think that if they apply this technology to some quests thats fine, but this is a MULTIPLAYER game and applying "phasing" to the whole world it's going to ruin it. I guess that the solo players that like to pay monthly fees and play MMOs like single player games will love it though.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Elikal

WOW is not my kind of game, but anyone who says WOW hasnt brought a ton of changes to the MMO genre is simply fooling himself. You may really make a difference between "changes I like" and "changes which became influental".

The genius of the Blizzard devs is not inventing everything new, but perfecting things and making them popular. They didnt invent radar or symbols over quest givers head, but they caused those things to become standard in most MMOs. Is just as it IS. Now you are free to hate those changes, but saying they dont exist is like covering your eyes with your hands and yelling "you cant see me".

Yelling someone down because he is 18 and WOW his frist MMO is plain dumb. If experience would make humans wiser we would have a gerontocracy and live in paradise by now.

I really would like to know what this phasing exactly is? Can someone describe it to me please?

I'll describe it as I've seen it in four occassions. This is from personal experience. If you're looking about mechanics, you need to speak to people more qualified than me.

1. Starter areas. Death Knight starting area is a big demonstration of this technology. I won't go into spoilers but the whole area around you changes with every quest line you complete. For example, first the fields have farmers running away from their houses, later on the same houses are burning etc etc. You're never alone. You can still see all the people on the starting area, but they see the world around them differently, depending on their actions. For you the farmers may still evacuating the areas, for them the villages is already burning.

2. Daily quests. Dragonblight daily to defend the tower have you attack dragons while you're mounted. The difference is that you get many more aggressive dragons when you get the quest than they normally fly on the area.

3. Story telling progression quests. Same zone, once you completed a certain long questline, you participate in a storytelling event in a part of that zone. From that moment on, that particular side of the zone changes for you.

4. Raid bosses. Blue dragonflight dragons (the time shifters) create paralel realities. You're in the same place with the rest of the raid and you're not. The transition is seamless, no loading screens etc. It's like putting a filter in front of your eyes and suddenly you can see the shadows but not part of the real world any more (hope that made sense).

Anyway, they use this in various spots. It's a really storytelling enchancing mechanism. To whoever said that it's not the same with LOTRO starting area, he is right, it's not. LOTRO starting area is cut off from the rest of the world. In this case we're talking about a transition that is happening in and out of in real time, sometimes having temporary effect on the character, sometimes a more permanent effect.

Lets hope that other storytelling MMOs pick up this techniqu