World of Warcraft

[Rageburst]

As you might already know, there\'s a large scale closed beta test going on for WoW. Results are that it doesn\'t have anything innovative, but the gameplay is top notch according to gamesite reviews.

The following info comes from worldofwarcraft.com:

Although it is mostly combat-oriented, the gameplay is nicely supported by fun trade skills. Best of all, these trade skills don\'t follow the miss/success leveling system... your skill improves without the hassle of %missing.

Some cool trade skills I noticed:
Fishing is really a mini-game where you wait for the ball to wiggle, and depending on the location, you get different fish types and loot typically found beneath the sea.

Cooking allows you to drastically improve the healing rate of food and comes with a ridiculous array of recipes found/bought.

Some of the trade skills are actually quite useful for some classes such as the warlock or the rogue. At lvl 20, a rogue is allowed to train poison skills, which basically allows you to bestow different types of poison charges on your weapons (or someone else\'s via the chat screen). Herbalism, a skill to find ingredients allows you to find the necessary contents for different poison recipes.

The game is quest-oriented. Killing monsters alone won\'t level you near as much as doing the endless variety of quests. They also plan to regularly add \"epic\" quests.

The game looks to be quite the time-waster. Out of fear of addiction, I think I\'ll pass.

[ForteX]

and it looks like that now if you play X time you will have to leave your character in a inn resting for X time (hours) in other words, if you woke up after a gaming night you will most likely have a tired char =P
The quest system is the strong characterist of the game, since it seems very cool, but I\'ll stick with PS =)
No thanks wow

[kyp14]

Yes, I\'ve heard good things about this MMORPG, blizzard (I think thats the name of the company correct me if I am wrong.) are very good at refining there games to perfection before releasing them.

But of course the per month price tag turns me off as usual.  :]

[Caldazar]

Originally posted by ForteX
and it looks like that now if you play X time you will have to leave your character in a inn resting for X time (hours) in other words, if you woke up after a gaming night you will most likely have a tired char =P

This might be one of the most brilliant ideas I have ever seen in a MMORPG. By doing so, Blizzard creates a HUGE timesink, which means that people will have to play (i.e pay) longer to reach the endgame.
And, they can say that they created it due to the fact that many people become addicted to MMOGs.

[Rageburst]

It\'s a nice way of hiding sources of time sinks.

However, it also allows the gameplay to be more fast-paced. You won\'t find groups boss camping for 60 minutes.

Their reasoning for this system is that hardcore players won\'t be too far ahead of anyone else. Casual players usually feel pressured to catch up to their friends and end up \"forced\" to push themselves further in level.

It is a win-win situation for both the company and the players.

From the company side, they retain customers longer and reduce the number of people trafficking the servers. From the  customer side, they can choose to play more casually rather than play long hours to try to get as much value as they can from the game subscription; or not have to play long hours to catch up to their friends.