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Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

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Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#41

Post by hugja »

kbutler wrote: post #34
hugja wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first thought too. Although I must admit I didn't play WoW until the release of BC (Burning Crusade) and stopped when Cata finished. So I never really got to experience what was special about Vanilla. More specifically for why I'd want WOTLK is for Arena. The last season was the most balanced that I ever experienced it and some of the most fun I've ever had playing WoW or any game in general. Jumping back…

But it will be very, very hard to keep that experience. Where you used to have to turn to other players for help, building those social relationships as they struggled through the same challenges, now the web environment surrounding the game has evolved with very complete documentation an alt-tab away, and all the other players have that as well.

Oh most definitely! It's certainly not for everyone. I mean even back then, if I'm remembering correctly. There was a site called Thottbot for exactly that. Which I occasionally turned to when the quest was lacking in information. Even before Blizzard officially added a quest helper to the game there was a third party add-on. However, with sites like Thottbot you still had to investigate to figure out what you had to do and I think this still gives you sense of accomplishment over just being told what and where all the time.

Edit: words

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#42

Post by seanalltogether »

hugja wrote: post #10
vcfg wrote: post #2

I like wotlk better, I think it was the best expansion, and I’m sure wotlk servers have more players than vanilla servers now. I don’t know why they chose vanilla over wotlk. :/

This was my first thought too. Although I must admit I didn't play WoW until the release of BC (Burning Crusade) and stopped when Cata finished. So I never really got to experience what was special about Vanilla. More specifically for why I'd want WOTLK is for Arena. The last season was the most balanced that I ever experienced it and some of the most fun I've ever had playing WoW or any game in general. Jumping back…

What made vanilla special was the restrictions placed on the world. Everybody packed into Ironforge or Orgrimmar because that's where the auction houses were. You could chat with tons of people or easily join groups to raid dungeons. Physicality in the world was an important part of the experience. You hung out at the gates of a battleground to play in them, so there was usually a crowd to chat with. When BC came along I remember feeling disappointed that the player base became so fractured all of a sudden. Places that used to be lively were now dead. Sure you always had guild chat to keep the conversation going, but as the expansions grew I remember feeling less connected to the rest of the people on my server.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#44

Post by feefie »

The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journey and you'd usually become friends by the time it was over.

Of course everyone knows how to get there now, so I don't know how they can recreate the fun of helping someone out that is inexperienced. The same goes with dungeon fights, etc., -- everyone will already know all the tricks I expect.

I certainly miss the days of exploring a brand new world, the likes I had never seen in a video game before, and helping others (and being helped by others) along the way. Wonderful times! :-)

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#45

Post by Const-me »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #17
dnate wrote: post #12

I was surprised to find a game as big as WoW to have a data strucutre which clearly violates some basic forms [1] of database formalization. Isn't database normalizaton something that any cs program teaches in the first few semesters? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization

Normalization is the ideal, but sometimes you have to de-normalize for performance. Big, complex joins can be a performance killer. Most apps won't reach the scale where they need to worry about this, but WoW definitely has reached it.

> Most apps won't reach the scale where they need to worry about this

That’s true for servers running on modern hardware (lots of RAM, extremely fast SSDs), but when I’m working on desktop, mobile or embedded apps, some of them need embedded databases, and I still need to worry about it.

On desktops not all users have SSDs, so when the data is larger than a couple of GB i.e. can’t be cached in RAM, every IO takes 4-5ms because HDD seek latency.

Mobile/embedded devices typically have flash memory so the IO latency is lower, but that flash memory is not as fast as modern desktop or servers SSDs. E.g. some Android phones have 2000 random read IOPS, 220 random write IOPS https://www.phonearena.com/news/Android-storage-speed-compar...

P.S. I even need to worry about this when I’m designing RAM-only data structures. On modern systems, RAM is block device (the block size is 128 bit for dual-channel RAM), and there’s a pre-fetcher silicon in CPUs making sequential access much faster than random access.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#46

Post by hugja »

seanalltogether wrote: post #42
hugja wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my first thought too. Although I must admit I didn't play WoW until the release of BC (Burning Crusade) and stopped when Cata finished. So I never really got to experience what was special about Vanilla. More specifically for why I'd want WOTLK is for Arena. The last season was the most balanced that I ever experienced it and some of the most fun I've ever had playing WoW or any game in general. Jumping back…

What made vanilla special was the restrictions placed on the world. Everybody packed into Ironforge or Orgrimmar because that's where the auction houses were. You could chat with tons of people or easily join groups to raid dungeons. Physicality in the world was an important part of the experience. You hung out at the gates of a battleground to play in them, so there was usually a crowd to chat with. When BC came alo…

Although I didn't play Vanilla, as I said above. I've experienced this with the end of Wotlk and beginning of Cata. The introduction to group finder and the ability queue from anywhere for anything really ruined that experience. This caused the game's world to feel empty at least for me anyways.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#47

Post by wingerlang »

feefie wrote: post #44

The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players. One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journe…

I never played WOW in its heyday, but literally most of my friends did. I've been considering checking WOW out without reading any guides - as I think 'optimal play' makes games boring.

So there might at least one 'new' player.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#48

Post by aphextron »

It makes me really sad that they are including Battlegrounds in WoW classic. There was a magical period from release date to the first Battlegrounds patch where people actually took part in large scale, world PVP. Guilds would get together and raid towns, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO. If you wanted to do something, it took lots of planning and working together with people, not just clicking a queue button while you sit in Ironforge. I feel like the vast majority of people started joining post-BC and never experienced this, but it was amazing.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#49

Post by abakker »

wingerlang wrote: post #47
feefie wrote: post #44

The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players. One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journe…

I never played WOW in its heyday, but literally most of my friends did. I've been considering checking WOW out without reading any guides - as I think 'optimal play' makes games boring. So there might at least one 'new' player.

Do it, there’s really very little to lose, and a lot to gain.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#50

Post by kitsunesoba »

hugja wrote: post #46
seanalltogether wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made vanilla special was the restrictions placed on the world. Everybody packed into Ironforge or Orgrimmar because that's where the auction houses were. You could chat with tons of people or easily join groups to raid dungeons. Physicality in the world was an important part of the experience. You hung out at the gates of a battleground to play in them, so there was usually a crowd to chat with. When BC came alo…

Although I didn't play Vanilla, as I said above. I've experienced this with the end of Wotlk and beginning of Cata. The introduction to group finder and the ability queue from anywhere for anything really ruined that experience. This caused the game's world to feel empty at least for me anyways.

I agree, late WotLK and Cata took a game that felt like a living breathing world and downgraded it to feeing like a game. The one click cross server dungeon queues and the Disneyland style on rails no detours questing are likely the primary culprits.
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