posted by
chromas
on Wednesday August 28 2019, @01:08AM
from the If-we-had-gone-to-the-gym-instead-we-would-be-so-buff dept.
from the If-we-had-gone-to-the-gym-instead-we-would-be-so-buff dept.
Due to popular demand Blizzard has brought a new version of World of Warcraft online that closely resembles the original version: WoW Classic. Some players already have access, and the rest of the world can go queue.
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Blizzard Re-Releases World of Warcraft Classic
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(1)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:06AM (7 children)
I completely missed the whole WoW craze
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:24AM (3 children)
You'll have to wait in line. In game.
At least the requirements [systemrequirementslab.com] are reasonable.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Acabatag on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)
I have a WOTLK server on my wife's old laptop. And a classic server with the game client fits on a single DVD-ROM. Classic is a real bear, though. I expect they have introduced a lot of QoL updates. There are no map icons or directions for questing. Character progression is very slow compared to modern WoW.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:36AM
They are sandbagging to help prove that you don't want that [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:18PM
I started playing last night. They didn't. And despite the screams of "you don't actually want that," from certain quarters... I did. And apparently, a lot of other people did too. The servers were packed.
(Score: 2) by mth on Wednesday August 28 2019, @07:50AM (2 children)
I deliberately missed it. When someone first described WoW to me, my conclusion was "this is basically a MUD with graphics" and decided it would be too much of a time sink. I had seen people sitting behind university terminals playing MUDs for days and while I do enjoy adventure games, the grinding didn't look appealing at all.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday August 28 2019, @08:12AM
I deliberately missed it, because I didn't like the subscription model. A friend who was thoroughly into it gave me an introductory free trial code or somesuch, despite my protesting "I'll vever play it after the free period, give it to someone who'll appreciate it".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @01:27PM
MUDs were awesome. So many people couldn't tell you were even playing a game. Just sit in the labs for hours wandering around. Does wonders for the memory.
I played Discworld MUD for years. I have no time these days, but the fond memories still surface from time to time.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday August 28 2019, @10:06AM (3 children)
I would suggest that the people that care most about this article are actually playing WOW right now... NOT reading Soylent News. =)
***--- That being said... keep the video game submissions coming...
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 28 2019, @11:56AM (2 children)
Didn't they have multi-hour wait times at launch? They probably need something to do while waiting.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 28 2019, @08:01PM (1 child)
Just like it was when it was new. Isn't that part of the "Classic" experience that they wanted?
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday August 29 2019, @12:49AM
I am lazy and prefer playing WOTLK.
The one thing I will not do is play current WoW. It's a completely different game. More like Fortnite where you dress up (transmog) and endgame.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday August 28 2019, @11:22AM (3 children)
I was there and played it when it was just called WOW. It was great, for it's time. But I'm not so blinded by nostalgia that I would want to play it again, the game moved on -- it evolved. Some bad things, there was a lot of bad things in "Classic" WOW got fixed -- some good things got removed to. But I don't think, or really understand, why someone would want to, pay to, play it all over again. I already did all the zones, dungeons and raids back then -- no need to go back.
I did not put a lot of effort into it but you have to pay to play it, I assume it's free if you have an active WOW subscription. So why play the old game (that is a giant timesink of epic proportions) when you can play the "new" and current version -- yes Battle for Azeroth (the current version) is kind of shit -- infact so shit I don't even play it at the moment and have not played for almost a year now. Still I don't believe a "Classic" injection will fix that or change my mind.
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug apparently. Not only is there WOW classic but for the last year or so they have "remastering" a lot of old games, not just Blizzard, and there have been all of them re-released Consoles as "mini"-versions (that in essence as just an emulator in a box). I'm sort of wondering if this is mainly for people that missed the hype and glory that was WOW in its beginning. I think they are going to get very surprised, depending on how classic "Classic" actually is. Compared to the game of today it was a slog, a grind and an epic timesink. I am left to wonder for how long those people are going to be around playing the old game; it's an MMO so there is no end, ending or winner. It all just starts over again on reset day (except your gear and such carries over -- but all the monsters come back in their raids).
So eventually they will have to release then WOW Classic Burning Crusade, then WOW Classic Wrath of the Lich King ... and eventually in a decade or so they will come full circle and do WOW Classic Battle for Azeroth.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 28 2019, @11:55AM
I'm going to try to use RasPi4B for emulation later. At least up to N64 should be doable, which I reckon is way more desirable than NES/SNES which Nintendo has released classic consoles for.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Wednesday August 28 2019, @02:09PM
I play the old version because I enjoy it more than the new version.
Different people like different stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @01:30PM
I quite like the SNES Mini. Would buy again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 28 2019, @01:56PM (5 children)
I wonder what this says about the video game industry. Not just WoW Classic but the swath of Nintendo (and other) classic consoles being re-release (in a way). And also the longevity of some games EverQuest (from 1999) is still going Asheron's Call (also 1999) only recently shut down in 2017. Dungeons & Dragons Online (2006) is also still going strong. those are only off the top of my head.
What does this say about newer games that don't have nearly the longevity. Is it really that hard to make an engaging game (almost certainly)? Are newer games sacrificing something for a quick early profit? Are the newer revenue generating schemes that pretty much require constantly purchasing virtual consumables killing games quicker? Is there something about the more modern games that require inherently higher cost of infrastructure to maintain?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 28 2019, @03:11PM (2 children)
People who played NES, SNES, PS1, etc. as kids are now spending cash as parents. They have nostalgia for the titles they grew up on, and might be lost when it comes to newer games (e.g. Super Mario vs. GTA V). The classic console releases are a convenient way to get a box with a number of games and HDMI output, so it will "just work". It helps that the companies can just take an open source emulator and ship it on an ARM SoC as an official product [wikipedia.org]. You also have old games ported to the Xbox, PS, and Nintendo [wikipedia.org] online stores.
At some point, graphics doesn't necessarily enhance the gameplay or fun experienced. Maybe you might not want to play some of the CGA/EGA graphics clunkers released in the 80s, but many thousands of games are playable and just as fun as they always were. And they accumulate. Today's games are competing against many other current games, as well as previous decades of games. You can boot up a game like Duke Nukem 3D from 1996, graphically enhanced by many ports/mods over the years, working on modern systems and higher resolutions, and with new content released in 2016. Or you can play NetHack. Any minute spent playing these is a minute not spent playing a current microtransaction-riddled AAA release.
A number of multiplayer games have broken over the years, but there are often efforts to run on community-operated servers. Sometimes supported by the developers, sometimes in spite of them. But in some cases, you see support over a long period of time, as Blizzard has kept Starcraft 1 and other games playable on Battle.net.
With WoW Classic and other MMOs, there is a community aspect mixed with the nostalgia. I'm sure people are reuniting with their old guilds, etc. There is a lot of interest for now, but the shine will probably wear off eventually, just as WoW has declined over the years. You can play a single player game from 25 years ago and enjoy it, but a massively multiplayer game depends on the community sticking around. Unless we start throwing strong AI (N)PCs into them decades from now.
Current games are a mixed bag. People love GTA V, Witcher 3, etc. Looks like Cyberpunk 2077 will be great. Bethesda used to be well regarded but their legacy has dimmed, with over a decade of buggy releases culminating in the Fallout 76 disaster. EA and Activision are on the forefront of microtransaction shenanigans, loot boxes, milking franchises to death, etc. Free-to-play multiplayer games with cosmetic items are a viable business strategy, as demonstrated by Fortnite.
Extra: There is a strong community [youtube.com] of people playing AOE2, a 1999-2000 real time strategy game that got several remakes and expansions from 2013-2019. Back in the 2000s, I would never have predicted this resurgence.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by black6host on Thursday August 29 2019, @01:36AM (1 child)
And some of the older ones are spending cash as grandparents I reckon...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 29 2019, @01:49AM
They are buying pinball cabinets.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 28 2019, @05:02PM (1 child)
Yes.
There are good games now, certainly. Using "popular" as a proxy, Fortnite, Super Mario Maker 2, Overwatch, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5, Mario Kart 8, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, are all pretty good new-ish games.
There are also tons of "meh" games. Just scroll randomly through Steam.
We shouldn't be surprised that people still like classic games, though. Just because The Martian was a great movie doesn't mean we don't go back and watch Forrest Gump.
And much like movies (and books, and pretty much every artistic medium), there are eras for different kinds of them. If you like Westerns, you're probably going to be watching the classics, because there are so few new Westerns and they will never be the epitome of the genre like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly was.
Similarly, there was a time for the Real-Time Strategy game, and that time is not now. Go play your Age of Empires 2, your Starcraft, your Red Alert. Because those games aren't being made anymore.
We'll have more good games in the future. But I have absolutely no reason to believe Candy Crush should make my love of Super Metroid disappear, just because it's newer. Even with all the great new Metroidvanias right now, I'm not throwing away the classic just because now I have Axiom Verge or Ori and the Blind Forest.
...oh, and yeah, games are super expensive now. Good 3D takes waaay more time to draw and rig than good 2D.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 28 2019, @06:28PM
The costs could take a dive in the future with a little machine learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW1_Sidq3m8 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTup-cvELK0 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL6U6iasUxs [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxzKLrCpyk [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjwhMDhbqAs [youtube.com]
And if there's enough orders of magnitude of improvement on both the software and hardware sides, you could see "AI" practically making the games from scratch.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]