WoW is, according to Joi and now CNet, the new golf.
While some might view WoW's sophisticated socialization features, which allow people to chum around in the virtual world, as a sort of "new golf," Ito thinks it's more than just a way for people to hang with their own kind.
If there was one thing I would ask of Blizzard, it would be to open up all the servers on some kind of turn-up-fill-up basis. Like golf courses.
I need to server hop. I need to visit the US servers to say hi to people over there I know, maybe hit Luke up for some epix, say hi to the TerraNovans, to Joshua, Joi and others. I want to visit the Chinese servers, and check out the goings-on over there. Why are we permanently sharded, please - can't we be freed? We can be assigned a home server, but roaming can't be that technically complex, can it?
I can travel in real life, I can travel on the internet. Why can't I travel in WoW?
Play Guild Wars. Travel anywhere in International Districts. ;-)
Posted by: Account Deleted | February 16, 2006 at 03:50
I just got a bunch of my university buddies to join WoW only to find out the next day that character creation on Kilrogg was disabled. Le sigh.
Posted by: Deg | February 16, 2006 at 03:55
Cos we'd all realise where some big event was happened and boom - mass migration. From the patterns I've seen most of the servers do seem pretty finely balanced... I can imagine it wouldn't take a massive amount to swamp one.
Plus - think of the abuses in trade and the effect on any one servers economics?
Posted by: WandringSoul | February 16, 2006 at 09:18
For the record, I think it was Cory O that coined the remark:
--8<---
FWIW, the history of the comment of "WoW is the new golf" actually game from a discussion with Ian Linden. We were discussing a job candidate who was using WoW to meet senior game executives at large game companies. That seemed clever and Ian commented that -- for game developers -- WoW is clearly the new golf.
Posted by: Cory Ondrejka | Oct 26, 2005 6:56:36 AM
--8<--
Posted by: ren reynolds | February 16, 2006 at 09:27
if golf is 'a good walk ruined', what does that make WOW?
Posted by: anno | February 16, 2006 at 10:47
WS - I think it'd even out in the long run. Yes, events would fill a server, but each has a capacity, so . .who cares? My server is full half the time ANYWAY.
As for the economics - I doubt opening up the servers would do much more than add another layer to the in-game economics. Grab a bargain on Proudhoof now! Etc.
No, I still want it. WANT WANT WANT.
Posted by: Alice | February 16, 2006 at 11:03
YES.
It's a huge problem not being able to move between servers on WoW. There are, quite literally, hundreds of things that players would love to do that the server setup doesn't support.
For example, I've been considering setting up a LAN raid in Edinburgh - 40 people all in the same room, beating on Molten Core. That would be uber-cool, and I know enough WoW players with L60 characters that it would be trivial to get such a raid together - if it wasn't for the fact that we're all on different servers!
I do recall they're planning on implementing paid transfers, which would allow for limited server hopping. Sure, you wouldn't be able to bounce around servers chatting, but at least if your buddy wants to get 40 people together for an An'Quiraj raid, you could join him/her.
(Which has problems of its own, of course, as all the hard-core raiders transfer to realms where AQ is open already, and some realms *never* manage to finish opening it...)
Posted by: Hugh "Nomad" Hancock | February 16, 2006 at 11:49
Ooo, a MC LAN party would be wicked fun.
Posted by: Jen | February 16, 2006 at 13:12
Maybe they could just open a few free-for-all servers... for group meets, or raids, or.. live events.
Someone ring Blizzard! :)
Posted by: Alice | February 16, 2006 at 13:33
Even EU server-hopping would be nice.. *wist*
But check out this press release:
http://www.blizzard.co.uk/press/041122.shtml
"For those European gamers still wishing to play with their American friends on the North American servers, and vice versa, Blizzard will provide a means to make this possible after the European launch."
How long after?! I contacted them about this and got told NO in big letters.
As for WoW LAN parties, there was a sizeable contingent at i26 playing, and they looked to be having a blast :)
Posted by: Jez | February 16, 2006 at 14:16
I'm sure i read something on the official site last night about paid character transfers coming around patch 1.10 / burning crusade, you know....
Posted by: k | February 16, 2006 at 14:24
The benefits of free character movement have been outlined above and I certainly don't argue with them. However, I can think of a couple of drawbacks:
1) I'm not certain, but in WoW is everything instanced? If no then think what would happen to relatively easy/quick raid targets. A guild could conceivably hit the same target across 4 or 5 servers in a night.
2) This would make server overcrowding even worse with little benefit. Think the wait is bad now on your popular server? While it would be nice to go visit with your friend on another server, would it be worth dealing with the hassle on your regular server?
I don't think this has been thought through very well. It might be great for people who solo or craft alot, but if you enjoy playing with a steady group or guild then free server moving would be sorta useless. The same benefit could be had for less of a downside with just standard paid/nonpaid character moves.
3) Massive performance hits to servers as characters, their items, quest info, etc is all moved in/out of the server's database. This is the main reason that MMO's are sharded anyway.
Posted by: Aluvius | February 16, 2006 at 19:16
"3) Massive performance hits to servers as characters, their items, quest info, etc is all moved in/out of the server's database. This is the main reason that MMO's are sharded anyway."
umm... this entire game is just a huge rolling database with a pretty front end, and an IRC channel slapped on top for chatting. transfering a character from daggerspine to wildhammer would require editing one value of one cel in one database.
row X column Y != daggerspine, it now = wildhammer
hardly a 'massive performance hit'
paid transfers are just a way for blizzard to earn more money.
Posted by: isobelle | March 24, 2006 at 00:58
forgot to add... MMO's are sharded because they can't deal with 1000000 subscrbers standing in ogrimmar. not the burden of the player's inventory and questlogs...
each character is pretty much a walking text or excel file, probably measured in mere kilobytes.
Posted by: isobelle | March 24, 2006 at 01:01
You can change your server, just not with your character. Sad yes I know but every server has its own host link and you just change it in the realms.wtf file in your WoW file.
Posted by: Cantz | July 04, 2008 at 14:23