Blizzard dies and Bobby rides

As long as we are watching Blizzard die and reliving our memories...

I was in beta on either Test Server 4 or 5. To this day, I can't remember which one it was.

One evening, all the mobs despawned, and nothing respawned. It was like this for at least a half hour. The whole world was empty except for players.

So, the majority of the server created Gnomes with bright green, pink, and red hair, stripped down to their skimpies, and we all marched from Ironforge to Undercity.

It was a massive parade of naked gnomes marching to Undercity. Was the most hilarious thing ever to witness.

The only thing I remember about the WoW release is that Wal-Mart set the pallet, with WoW on it, out in the isle at around 9pm, but never opened the cardboard boxes to put them on the shelf. So I walked up, popped open the box and helped Wal-Mart break the street date.

I started up my Tauren druid as soon as I got home and was level 7 by the time of the official launch.

To bad the group of EQ people I was going to play with decided, at the last minute, to go Alliance. So, I had to reroll to a NE rogue, the next day.

Hahaha

Elidroth said:

That wasn't the only reason though.. WoW was going to be serious competition for EQ at that moment in time regardless, and then the EQ team SERIOUSLY dropped the ball at the worst possible time. Also, Uqua was Salius's zone, and he quit SOE and went to Sigil just as he was supposed to tune the zone in beta. So yeah, it went out broke as fuck with nobody around who knew how to fix it.

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What a shocker it was partly Silius's fault. I usually don't like to single out a specific developer but I remember having a visceral hatred for him when he was the lead on VG towards the end. I think the lvl 55 cap increase was quite possibly the worst content update in any MMO I've every played.. and I've played a lot.

Elidroth said:

That wasn't the only reason though.. WoW was going to be serious competition for EQ at that moment in time regardless, and then the EQ team SERIOUSLY dropped the ball at the worst possible time. Also, Uqua was Salius's zone, and he quit SOE and went to Sigil just as he was supposed to tune the zone in beta. So yeah, it went out broke as fuck with nobody around who knew how to fix it.

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This... explains a lot.

Lunis said:

Hahaha

What a shocker it was partly Silius's fault. I usually don't like to single out a specific developer but I remember having a visceral hatred for him when he was the lead on VG towards the end. I think the lvl 55 cap increase was quite possibly the worst content update in any MMO I've every played.. and I've played a lot.

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I absolutely hated Silius. That guy can go fuck himself.

Elderan said:

I do remember playing the friends and family alpha like a year before release so 2003. I want to say around November. There were a few phases to friends and family alpha if I recall though.

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We had a massive problem in our endgame farm status guild with the leadership logging on their EQ character and leaving it AFK for weeks on end during GoD. But officers were unable to do anything about it due to a weak officer core-- the people doing it had privilege and clout. If you were in a serious EQ raid guild at the time WoW began alpha and then closed beta, you felt the heat. We knocked the stuffing out of the "log in EQ and alt tab" crew and it escalated every week.

It was a very negative experience for everyone involved that didn't move to WoW. And a really dark time for EQ.

The "alt tab" era still makes me a little sick to this day.

Elderan said:

I do remember playing the friends and family alpha like a year before release so 2003. I want to say around November. There were a few phases to friends and family alpha if I recall though.

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Ya, I forget what year it was, but I got into the closed beta/alpha patch where they had literally just added Forsaken as a race to the game. There was still no mailboxes or auction house from what I recall - people who played FFXI were asking they add that and it was in the next major update.

You used to be able to do so much fun shit in those old versions. You could run into a dungeon as a ghost, Forsaken were the only race that could speak to both horde and alliance, warlock banish worked on anything, druids could feign death. Warlock pets were such dogshit, though. Early voidwalker couldnt tank or keep aggro for shit.

d3 being Teen rating is what ruined d3

Elderan said:

I do remember playing the friends and family alpha like a year before release so 2003. I want to say around November. There were a few phases to friends and family alpha if I recall though.

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Yeah, one of the original WoW level designers (he did Uldaman/Scholomance and forgot what else) was in my EQ Test Server guild and gave me a F&F Alpha invite sometime in 2003. This was before the original talent system was added; they had "skill points" you could grind infinitely to level up all your skills and trades.

They were hardcore about the NDA too, you had to fax them a picture of your driver's license and some other stuff. I remember having to drive to Kinko's to fax it to them, they replied and said it was too blurry so I had to drive back there and fax it again. They threatened to sue your ass off if you so much as even talked about the game in public.

Mist said:

Open beta was very late, but tons of people were playing long before that. People who got to a high level in the stress tests got invites to the closed beta that had already been running for many months, and people had been in the Alpha long before that. You can find some very interesting screenshots from Alpha if you go digging.

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It wasn't well known at the time but they had a hidden algorithm in their screenshots that had your character, time, location and account name embedded in it. I don't recall anyone actually leaking any screenshots during the NDA period, at least on any public forums. I didn't post jack shit about WoW here or anywhere else out of fear of getting banned/sued (even it was just lore/speculation/etc).

Cybsled said:

You used to be able to do so much fun shit in those old versions. You could run into a dungeon as a ghost, Forsaken were the only race that could speak to both horde and alliance, warlock banish worked on anything, druids could feign death. Warlock pets were such dogshit, though. Early voidwalker couldnt tank or keep aggro for shit.

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Mages had Sleep (like the WC3 spell), which was later changed to Polymorph. Mobs didn't regen while sheeped and you could eat/drink in combat, so you could solo a lot of shit you weren't supposed to. I remember spending like 30 minutes killing some level 40 named elite demon in Desolace when the level cap was 30 or 35.

Also Invisibility lasted a full 10 minutes (no random breaks), and didn't break until the end of your spell cast. You could walk up to people and shoot a Pyroblast up their ass and have another one halfway cast before they even knew you were there.

Yup, I remember the mage snipers at Tarren Mill. They would literally 1 shot warriors from invis. I used to run around with see invis and fuck them up on my warlock, because most of them didn't realize there was a counter for their cheese. The forums used to be so damned salty about mages back then.

There were a few stress tests you could get into if you got a paid subscription to FilePlanet. Never got into official beta but I did use that option to get a look. You only got to play for a few days though. Don't remember too much other than there being some huge KoS golems blocking the way from Tirisfal to Plaguelands, and that the griffins were bugged and sometimes you'd get one you could control and fly around with.

reavor said:

it was more that the story was garbage and the classes badly inplemented.

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WoWifying it for mass appeal did put a dent in the Diablo brand though.

Paladins could use their anti undead spells on forsaken. Turn Undead was instant cast and had no DR.