World of Warcraft

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by Aethios

Originally posted by strategy

Crazy. Just plain crazy and a first in the MMORPG field, because these world changes arre happening in full adventure lines (not at a beginning or intro or not in between a temporarely shifting of a quest).

 

It's absolutely NOT a "first in the MMORPG field."

In Runescape, phasing is used on farming plots so that each plot can be used by every player. You see only the crops that you have planted yourself.

They also have dozens of quests where mobs or objects appear/disappear based on events happening through the storyline (and most of their quests are considerably longer than Blizzard's).

Plus, when they do phasing, you can still see other players and they can still see you, which in some cases means your friends can help you with quests or activities they have already completed.

When Blizzard can allow players to change servers at will (and for free), have phased content that still allows you to see and play with your friends, and use phasing to its full extent (not just where it's convenient for them) then you can talk about "crazy." Right now it's just dabbling with technology.

 

The OP made me laugh too. Appearently WoW is the only game he played.

LOTRO also used this kind of phasing technique (unfortunately not on all, but a lot).

WAR has this kind of phasing as well. Also unfortunately not everywhere, but still.

So Blizzard isn't the first with this.

Cheers

I do not recall phasing in LOTRO, although i dint play too far into it, so please remind me. The first 5 levels were not phased.

And to the person banging on about CoX and it's 3d world thing.. He didnt simply mean that you can fly in wow he means that the Outland region is a full 3D enviroment that is seemingly seemless, you can fly from Hellfire to Netherstorm if you wish. In Cox   everything is hard zoned with a barrier and portal.

Originally posted by kxmode

Originally posted by strategy

Deep within WotLK lays a wonderfull technique that's called "Phasing".

Oh, Blizzard mentioned it a few times, but hey they let the players discover things. Within WotLK is indeed the new MMORPG revolution. Your world is no longer the same as ... my world in Wow 2009.

And for those who think they saw phasing at work in the Sunwell patch (2.4), let me say that compares to the phasing used in WotLK as the first telephone with the new I-Phone.

Those who said, well Blizzard didn't change "the game", well they don't follow up on the used techniques...

In TBC they made a complete 3D world (no longer gates to pass through a zone). Complete calculated 3D worlds to fly over. No wonder everyone who played AoC or War said they had this "imprisoned feeling". These products still used the old 2D/3D bordered world edges.

Now in WotLK Blizzard added phasing in a big way. Let everyone just explore it their way. While it's only being used in the longer questlines (and sometimes being accompanied with cinematics), it shows what is coming to us in the future.

And believe me the professional future of MMO's lay  in the hands of Blizzard. No doubt about it after seeing this applied in WotLK.

Crazy. Just plain crazy and a first in the MMORPG field, because these world changes are happening in full adventure lines (not at a beginning or intro or not in between a temporarely shifting of a quest).

Crazy talk about new MMO's overhere, while Blizzard just applies it in their expansion.

The big compliments go to a company that actually DO things instead of publishing thin air hype. 

 

This pretty much sums up ALL the arguments against MMOs that the diehard MMO haters have been complaining about for years. With WOTLK the "your actions have NO impact on the world" complaint no longer applies. YES your actions actually do CHANGE the game. If you NEVER do quests in Stormpeaks and Icecrown you WILL NOT access that content. Until YOU decide to act locations will remain unavailable to you and mobs will remain your enemy. Blizzard's use of on-the-fly instanced content in WOTLK is absolutely brilliant and the best thing about the expansion. :)

First off, when they came out with BC, they moved away from developing thier game using 3d studios max. This was stated in on of thier first interviews after BC launched that the sole reason you could not fly in BC was because of the Old World design using 3d studios. This was more noticable when flying into Stormwind on the flight path. Secondly phasing was introduced long before BC when Blizzard came up with the AQ event. It pretty much spawned from that idea. Phasing really is not that innovative either. They just made content only accesible by completing certain goals.

Originally posted by kxmode

With WOTLK the "your actions have NO impact on the world" complaint no longer applies. YES your actions actually do CHANGE the game. If you NEVER do quests in Stormpeaks and Icecrown you WILL NOT access that content. Until YOU decide to act locations will remain unavailable to you and mobs will remain your enemy.

Thats the stupidest argument I have ever heard. By the same logic if I never do quests in Goldshire I will not access the content. Until I decide to leave Goldshire then I will never get to Westfall.

Effecting only your client does not count as having impact on the world. An impact on the world will be felt by all, not just whomever has completed X quest line.

Originally posted by strategy

And believe me the professional future of MMO's lay  in the hands of Blizzard. No doubt about it after seeing this applied in WotLK.

  

This is when the Fanboi Flag officially became unfurled. 

As others have said, phasing isn't a new thing and it won't save mmos.

Phasing is used in LotrO but not very much (just some small things). They usually use instancing instead to lock/unlock story.

So even if Blizzard didnt innovate we can say that it havent been used on that scale as in Wotlk. Nice to see that Blizzard are doing something to evolve atleast...

 Blizzard probably didn't invent the idea but they used it well and thats all i care about, i don't care where they get things from to add to the game, as long as its fun thats all that matters to me.  I"m just wondering why these companies can't seem to copyright their ideas if they somehow created them..or perhaps its just the simple fact that all mmo's copy each others ideas.

Originally posted by Scalebane

 Blizzard probably didn't invent the idea but they used it well and thats all i care about, i don't care where they get things from to add to the game, as long as its fun thats all that matters to me.  I"m just wondering why these companies can't seem to copyright their ideas if they somehow created them..or perhaps its just the simple fact that all mmo's copy each others ideas.

if it were legal to believe me they would.

<< Sigh. CoX had a complete 3D world as far as movement is concerned years before WoW. And this "phasing" is nothing new and exists in other MMOs. LOTRO has been doing similar and I would say more developed things like this since its release.

 I can't believe people fall for this Blizzard is innovative crap. Especailly in regards to flying mounts. Give me a break. You can actually fight and fly in CoX. Complete my foot. >>

<edited for grammar>

I don't remember which came out first off-hand, but you can fly in Shadowbane, too.  SB had lots of ingenuity but was horrible in too many ways...  As for CoX, the character positioning/updating is behind Wow's.  Plus - CoX doesn't have vehicles (no mounts, no flying mounts, just trains that you zone into, etc.)  So while I love Coh/Cox, WoW is still the first/best in flying mounts.  And unfortunately very few other games to this day have given us any flying at all.  WAR's helicopter ride made me puke.

The no-zoning (other than into dungeons) thing is cool in TBC, AC1 did that first I think but WoW did it better because it has more than just lots of terrain and a few buildings.  And because it has flying rather than just obscene jumping skills.