Rivalwatch: World of Warcraft. New articles on Gamespy

[BigJonno]

Gamespy have the first of three articles (http://www.gamespy.com/previews/january04/wowpc/index.shtml) on WoW up. There's some good info and it looks to me like Blizzard are continuing their tradition of making games that are really good, just not exactly revolutionary.

"Our original plan called for 600 quests by the time we shipped," Kaplan said. "To date we've created about 1,400 and more get added every day."

That I like.

[BigJonno]

The second article (http://www.gamespy.com/previews/january04/wow2pc/index.shtml) is up, focussing on newbie experience in the Undead starting zone.

I told Kaplan that I felt like there just weren't enough character customization options; at the least, I should be able to tweak the design of my face. Kaplan said that that was the most common complaint about the game so far and the team was looking into adding new features.

Nice to see the devs are listening and responding to criticism.

[esion]

Well I hope that the Mythica Devs listen to our uproars about character creation...we already have had two huge threads on how badly we want to be able to customize our characters upon creation. Here (http://www.mythicahq.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7274#post7274) and here. (http://www.mythicahq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1054)

I really hope they reconsider this statement...
Instead of choosing slightly different features for one generic face, however, you’ll have a full array of different heads from which to select.
It was a long time ago so maybe they have done some tweaking since then...

[JonnyG]

Part 3 of the article is up, this time it's an interview (http://www.gamespy.com/interviews/january04/wow/).
GameSpy: Will guild halls be released with the game, and what specific privileges will be associated with them?
Kaplan: Guild halls will not be released with the game. We have a very robust player housing system which includes guild-specific content. Many of the backend programming is already complete on the housing system, but we do not anticipate that our player housing system will ship with the initial product. We want it to be perfect first.So WoW is planning on shipping without housing. I was counting on Blizzard (and MS) to deliver when ready. Do you think they might be rushing?

[Yigg Yous]

My best friend is very exicted about this game, so he is gonna get it and try it out. Ill check it out at his place, then ill inform you. I dunno, i dont like the look compared to Mythica, it seems more like the Warcraft3 or something games. Its a little to polygonish (for lack of better word). Mythica's graphics are insanly better in my opinion, and allow for more exploration. if you look at the terrain shots, go to the 2nd to last row and note that there is a person on the hill in the left pic. Mabye that is what the game will actually look like? <hopes>

[Taedrun]

Theres a very distinct reason why WoW
seems more like the Warcraft3 or something games.

Its World of Warcraft :P

It is supposed to be based on the Warcraft series and incorporate the races and backstory of the series of games. Obviously they've added and changed alot of things, but it is going to be a MMOG so some of the previous Warcraft games aspects have to be modified to work.

Other than that, I love the previous Warcraft games, so I'll definetly be checking this one out. It's no where near what Mythica will fill in my gaming regimen, so I don't consider it to really compete with Mythica on the same level.

[Scarne]

To me, there just doesn't seem to be much 'new' about WOW. Just a refinement of some ideas already around. As such, I could only really see myself playing it if I wasn't playing any other MMORPG at the time.