What can we say. Nearly all of the monkeys are in World of Warcraft, and we can see already its going to be sucking away many many hours.

This game is Fun.. with a capital F. I can hosestly say that it is, hands down, the best MMO I’ve ever played, and I suspect others will agree. After spending nearly every waking hour (and a few I should have been sleeping) of my Thanksgiving vacation in game, I think I have a reasonable platform form which to judge the game. My lvl 20 Undead Warlock has seen many an interesting sight, and the world is just beginning to unfold. Trying to sum up all this in a coherent review is nigh impossible, so I will just free associate on the pros and cons (if there are any) that come to me.

Flying
This feature is a mode of transport in game. There are quests guiding you to it at the correct time in your adventures, and when you first experience it, its nothing short of amazing. You careen through zones with the action raging on below you. Banking, swooping, you pass many an interesting point and think, “wow.. cant wait till I go there”. In order to fly to a location, you first have to visit it, which means usually a long walk, but once the route is open, the trip can be had for a modest fee.

I should also mention the boats/zepplins These are the human/horde modes of inter-continental travel. They are free, and all you do is climb a tower and wait for the boat/zepplin to arrive. Hop in, and you’re on your way to new lands!

Combat
Comabat as a whole is nothing revolutionary for MMOs. Every class gets abilities/spells, and clicking them in the hotbar activates them. It makes for a fun combat, where turning on the “attack” key and sitting back is something you do to simply finish off a beast, or save up some mana/stamina. What makes it different, is how fun it is. It doesnt take too long to fight somthing unless it is SUPPOSED to be long. The combat involves some tactics with resistances, immunities, and interesting mob abilities at higher levels. The monsters have been varied and even cooler, they MAKE SENSE! In the haunted forests of the undead area, your fighting scary bats, and dog beasts, and undead. In the plains area of the Tauren, you fight plains cats, and giant birds, and the infamous Kodo (think Rhino.. only bigger). In the arid Orc lands you battle scorpions, dinosaurs, and wild desert boar. The monsters even feed on each other sometimes. I have seen wolves chase down and kill the occasional rabbit, which adds a nice touch to the game.

Later battles get very interesting. The Humanoid mages that spawn guard creatures, werewolves, and life sucking zombies were the norm in Silverpine Forest (an undead haunt). I can only surmise that similar interesting advancements will await other races in their respective lands.

Quests
Questing in WoW is quite simply: perfect. They are easy to get, fun to do, and the rewards are well worth it. If you see an exclamation point over someone’s head, you simply talk to them to get a quest. Then, the DETAILED instructions are present, and in general are more than enough to get you on your way. The quest log maintains everything in the quest that you have seen (including potential rewards), and you can look at it anytime.

Quests are also more than just fexEd, or collections of body parts. While the mechanics may end up being that, they never FEEL that way. There is always a deep story interwoven into the quest, and the variety of interactions make it feel different all the time. I have fought into a Dalaran Wizard camp to steal items from crates. I have raided deep into the not-quite-human town of Pyrewood and into the study of Apothecary Berard in order to obtain from him his book of recipes. I have even had to travel the lands of my contient to kill and acquire the hearts of two humans who had honest souls.

The best thing about quests is how they are designed to guide you into the next step of your life. In the Undead world, the storyline of the Scarlet Crusaders, an allied religious sect bent on destruction of all undead (me included), guided me through levels 6-15. It was a blast learning how to use my class, and at the same time uncovering more and more of the Scarlet Crusade’s deeds.

The Map
The map is awesome. Basically there are two maps. The minimap (think radar) and the big map. The minimap serves as a great way to identify landmarks (its basically a top down view of the world, and landmarks are identified), direct you, and identify targets. When you are grouped, there are arrows that constantly show you where your pals are if offradar, and a dot in place when in range. When you die, an arrow guides you to your body. Best of all, some classes and professions get tracking abilities (hunters get tracking, herbalists get herb finding..etc) which make items of the specific type (herbs, animals..etc) show up on the radar.

The minimap can alos have waypoints. If your in a big city, you can ask a guard for directions, which will also place a beacon on your minimap. When in a group, anyone can place a beacon, and the rest of the group can see it on their maps. This can help itendify danger areas, or indicate where they want to go.

Last but not least, when you have a person to talk to as a step in a quest, they show up on the radar as a dot… ahh.. finding Zethor the Apothecary has never been so easy.

The big map is another thing of beauty. It always begins shrouded in mystery. Each zone is broken down into sections. As you explore a section the name of the section shows up in game for a moment, letting you konw you’ve entered it. Walk a little deeper in, and if you have not explored this area before, you get a small exp bonus, and the portion of the map that the area covers is unshrouded. You dont have to look in every little section, you just uncover the area as a whole.. very nice. The details on the map are enough to make navigation work easily, and things like caves, dungeons, ruins, famrs, etc.. all show up easily on it.

Chat
Nothing too different here. Its chat. The one thing that makes it stand out however is so simple its wonderful. Hyperlinks. When chatting, shift-left clicking on an item, or a recipe, shows the item/recipie in the chat window with brackets around it. This means anyone seeing the chat can see the item/recipe and see its stats. It makes trading items, and just basic communication so mych simpler. Even when someone loots an item, it shows up linked so everyone can see what it is. No more wondering if you should bother asking for that Cloak of the Owl. Now you can see it.

Instanced Dungeons
THey are hard, they are fun, and they are ALL YOURS! Having a dungeon instanced to you and your party is nothing short of phenominal. Blizzards decision to limit the instancing to dungeons was a great choice. THey can control the experience better, yet still give the rest of the world that busy life like feeling. The dungeons are well thought out, have very interesting content, and really make for a great experience. I have experienced 3, and each was unique, challenging, and fun. I cant wait for more

I could probably go on with much much more, but I’ll leave the other monkeys to point out their favorite features. I’ll just sum up to say that when you wonder where the next post is, you’ll just have to wait, cuz we’re in World of Warcraft living another life.. and its filled with adventure and amazement.

Wow.

wmf movie file (14 MB)

Oh yeah baby!

I was low– with all the games out I hadn’t really put in enough time into GTA:SA to unlock the other cities… but I had heard about the parachute on the forums, and I already knew how to get the Lear Jet from the airport– and so a great plan formed in my mind.

First, scramble to the center of town and pick up the parachute — but don’t use it, instead go back down and drive to the airport, hijack a Lear jet and then set a waypoint into uncharted territory.

The plan was to bypass the game’s roadblocks by flying deep into “restricted” airspace and then “HALO” jump from high altitude into a remote section and infiltrate the northwestern city.

Taking off on runway 6-9er.. all went well (yeah, I know I didn’t gear up, thanks) — flying to waypoint… and then I cross the river and instantly get 4 stars! OMG.. well those stupid choppers can’t get me up here I think.

All of the sudden I catch a glimpse of an F-14 or F-15 (still can’t be sure) military jet!! Ok, they’re serious. I spot an air-to-air missle trail swing past me — now it’s time for evasive tactics… (haha).

Ok, nearing the waypoint… it’s good… AARRRRRRAAHHHHHHHH! I jump from an unbelivable height and streak down in tuck position towards the earth. At the last minute I pull the chute I’m wearing and glide into the remote hilltop, however police are already swarming… it looks bad — in fact so bad I forget to flare and bite it on the landing…

Brushing that “dust off my shoulder” I get back up and try to make a run for it… where o where are the Pay and Spray’s on this side? Can I even get to one? The choppers are closing in by now. Wait! There’s a bike, noooo! damn sheriff bumps me of the bike with his 4×4… nevermind RUN RUNN!!!!! I’m not thinking clearly now, simply running from hell to hell…

And then I stumble on a gun — the last thing pumping through my mind is a blind rage — aimed more or less at the few officers I can find…

Honestly I thought for a second I’d respawn at a hospital on the other side of the river, but no such luck.

Oh well, you have to try these things, don’t ya?!

This article is pretty funny, and a rather well done comparison of Doom 3 and HL2 head to head.

Doom 3 easily wins the ‘Hype® Drive” portion of the comparison, with incredible use of such words as “masterpiece”, hyper-realistic”, and even the daring exclamation point. I’m not sure I want to play a hyper-realistic game (it sounds like a game written from the viewpoint of an overactive eight-year-old).

Greetings players,

As many people are discussing the server queues, allow me to give some insight on topic.

Server caps have been set lower than normal so there are some people not being allowed onto a server.

While we would like to allow players to enjoy the game on whichever server they choose, we also want to make the launch week game play a positive one for everyone. If there were no server caps during this time, it would result in an extremely high number of people in a small area. Instead we use the server cap method to encourage players to try one of the other numerous servers available in all time zones.

We also saw an issue with a small number of servers incorrectly displaying their player population. This issue has now been corrected.

We thank our players for their patience during this very hectic time. We want to provide the best possible experience, and are working toward that goal even as we speak.

[Update]
If you are playing the game for the first time, and the game is showing you the queue, please go back, and select another server from the server list. Several servers are seeing very high populations, while others are relatively low.

[Update2]
Server caps have been increased for the few servers that were showing the queue. There is still one server that has a very high population but the queue has been greatly decreased and we hope all players can get into the game shortly.

[Update3]
We are currently seeing queues on 4 servers: Archimonde, Illidan, Mal’Ganis, Stormreaver, and Mannoroth out of the current 41.

We are expanding servers in the most heavily populated time zones and are working to improve the situation with the queues. We also encourage players who are trying to log on for the first time to please select another server if you are trying to create a character on these 4 servers.

This article is a rather nice look at the online gaming media outlets (amazingly Monkeygames was not listed ;p) and how they rate with respect to each other on their ratings.

I have always been a little skeptical of sites that are clearly deriving their revenue from game reviews, and have often wondered at their impartiality. Though, it seems that overall you can get a fairly clear picture of a game when you put 2-3 sites in your game browsing rotation. How refreshing.

The game is out and the servers are up! Initial discusions have the Monkeys landing on the Horde side of the east coast PvE server “Stormrage”. The other east coast servers are:

Eastern PvE (normal)

Stormrage [our server]

Zul’jin

Medivh

Durotan

Bloodhoof

Khadgar

Dalaran

Elune

Lothar

Eastern PvP

Arthas

Mannoroth

Warsong

Shattered Hand

Bleeding Hollow

Skullcrusher

Eastern Role Play

Argent Dawn

This has gotta be a record for the largest number of servers at launch. The complete list can be found on the WorldOfWarcraft site.

Its officially a bug, and word is they have a fix, and it will be out via steam hopefully tomorrow.

JOY!

I have this bug, and using the info in an earlier posting, I was able to improve it some, but not totally. Well it looks like even though I have nearly completed the game, my last few hours wont be stuttery

Wow. There have been a couple of stories recently about some whistleblowers working for EA describing their sick work hours (read: 80-90 a week for months on end). Its nice to see the mainstream Media picking up on this and airing it.

We love games, but not at the expense of the toiling developer. So to all of you devs who visit MonkeyGames, we’re with you, and we hope things straighten up out there.

My friend… let’s just call him Steve. Went shopping today out in California. He and his wife were heading to do some shopping at Costco. They were looking for Q-Tips, and unfortunately — there were out. So, they decided to go to Target instead since it was nearby. While he was there, he figured, “What the hell, I’ll see if World of Warcraft is in” And guess what. It was!!! He bought all of the copies they had. (yes, quite a few) Of coures his wife said, “You’re spending $500 on video games?!” Yes, those are some expensive Q-Tips.

Of course, now that I have my key. I’m just sitting waiting by the Signup Page. I keep refreshing it, though it doesn’t seem to want to change. Just tells me that I need to wait.

Maybe if I hit the refresh button harder…

Christopher’s Technorati

So After Fed Ex losing a package, I finally did what I should have done from the beginning, and bought HL2 again over steam. I figure I’ll sell back the box if it ever arrives. I must say, everyone is right. HL2 is a stunning game in its depth, and realism.

My only two complaints thus far are
1) Longer than I expected Load times.
2) An occasional stutter in audio.

Well it turns out people have solved #2. Awesome
This thread on some forums claims to solve the HL 2 Stuttering problems. I have yet to try them, but it seems reasonable enough.

I’ll post a comment here after I try them to confirm or deny if they work.