NDA Lifted = Bad Thing

With the NDA lifted, by 5 months are over, every fansite will have spoilers all over, the end encounters already killed and taken screenshots off.. That takes away that immerse feeling...



But most of all, the only people that will continue to experience the immerse feeling are the naive, newbie MMORPG players and the beta people who got lucky getting in.



This sucks..


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[DhavolKobal]

Dont read spoilers? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/tongue.gif ALT=":p">


</p>

[Wester 42]

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>the only people that will continue to experience the immerse feeling are the naive, newbie MMORPG players and the beta people who got lucky getting in. <hr></blockquote>



...and the people who didnt read spoiler sites? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)">


<div style="text-align:center">http://www.relinpor.com/stromm/sigs/wester.gif (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=745397)</div></p>

Cykou, you're like those people who listen to radio stations they hate, to see if they say any dirty words. And then complain to the FCC.



Seriously, if you don't want the game "spoiled", why would you log into a forum named World of Warcraft Beta?


<span style="color:red;">Ancil Mercurial

60 Rogue (formerly) of the Elitists

Tribunal Server (retired)</span></p>

I might not read spoilers, but other people do, thousands do, thousands effect YOUR group, YOUR guild, YOUR fun


</p>

but other people do, thousands do, thousands effect YOUR group, YOUR guild, YOUR fun



I make my own fun surrounded by friends who have similiar play times/styles, goals and sense of accomplishment.



other people WILL read spoilers and out level / gear those who don't. and a few monthes after release they will have "beaten" the game while I still have a world to explore.



of course if your sense of self worth is how you measure up compared to other people then you're damned if you and damned if you don't (spoilers etc), and you will never "win"



relax, have fun, from what I hear levelling / gearing up is just a side effect of playing the game






</p>

You want a spoiler? I'll give you a spoiler: You will die alone!

(guess that quote... <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/laugh.gif ALT=":lol"> )


</p>

Triumph the Comic Dog.



He has a point. When things are spoiled it takes away from the experience of doing it the first time...even if you don't read the spoilers.



But there are also a lot of good things about not having an NDA which I think will outweigh the bad.


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Most likely they will also save some content for the release game. Not just for beta and such.


Corsec</p>

[Fatal]

I havent seen anything in WOW that requires a spoiler.

The quests dont make you guess what is needed. They tell you. When you get a quest item, it lets you know.



10,000 people knowing how to do a quest you don't is not going to impact you, especially when you get all of the quest information the moment you 'discover' the quest.



if you dont like spoiler sites, dont read them. And from what i can see, there is no reason to.








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[The Yanger]

who is to say the best stuff will even be in the beta? They don't really need to unleash the full game to test everything, certain specific mobs they can test easily enough internally, don't even have to be able to kill it (heck verant never bothers, they just 'assum'e the players will find some way to kill things, and they're usually right.


http://www1.iswest.com/theyanger/blizzismean.gif</p>

Go look at the train wreck that is DAOC Trials of Atlantis as a good lesson in what happens when the NDA isn't lifted until launch. I'd say being able to get honest and semi-unbiased opinions of any game before launch to be huge advantage to the consumer as well as a strong indicator of a solid title. What is the purpose of NDAs these days anyway? With the massive amounts of time and people involved in an MMO development it isn't like secrets are being kept from competitors up until launch.



Exploration? This is nostalgia for the most part and no.. not about better games but about your first online gaming experiences. For you it might be EQ but for me it was the muds that UO and EQ were based on. When EQ came out I saw it as little more than a poor mud engine with some graphics slapped on (still think of it that way really). I'm not trying to bash EQ though.. my point is that exploration/discovery that is referred to nostalgically is about the goals and playstyle of the player much more than it is the game. It certainly isn't about information being hidden from the player by NDAs or stupid game design. In other words, if the gameplay is so facile, static, and lame that it can be "spoiled" by a website then I question the quality of the design.


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[DhavolKobal]

Ehh... where did they say Beta chars wasnt going to be deleted?



Think you might think of Lineage 2 open beta where chars will be left intact.


</p>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub147.ezboard.com/bmonklybusiness43508.showUserPublicProfile?gid=dha volkobal>DhavolKobal</A> at: 3/29/04 5:46 am

The problem with this is that on release day all the spoiler folks will know where to go to camp what, etc. If everyone because theres no NDA finds out that X mob in X zone drops X loot, I GUARANTEE you that it will be one of the first places to get camped up. Plus, they stated that beta testers wont be wiped, all the high level folks will pillage the economy with insanely high priced junk that noobs oogle over that they obtain easily with their level 50 characters made in beta. People will all be doing the same quests theat gets them the best items, there will be minimal mystery in WOW. I can start the game with maps of every area, know all the quests I want to do and know where to level without every having logged in once.


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<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Go look at the train wreck that is DAOC Trials of Atlantis as a good lesson in what happens when the NDA isn't lifted until launch<hr></blockquote>



Horizons is a better example of an NDA that should have been lifted pre-release. Trials was just an expansion


What I Was in the World (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=195825)

Where I Was in the World (http://www.raarcentral.com)</p>

All the NDA would do is delay the release of spoilers by a day or two. So for your reasons to not want the NDA you'd get 2 days of people not knowing the crap that you'd complain they know.



In exchange you get a company that is put on the spotlight from the getgo. What do we get out of that? Knowing that unlike some other companies S*cough*O*hack*E, we'll be able to watch the back and fort, to see if they actually listen to the bug reports. Rather than simply wait till the bugs are in the game to a point where you can't log in, then be asked to bug report them by using the handy dandy ingame bug report tool that you can't get to <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">



Nah I'm not bitter! heh



Seriously though, what you would lose to spoilers I think will be made up 10 fold by having the process open to the media, and the fans to watch.


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OMG, EQ had spoiler sites and fan sites from the start. It is now 5 years and going strong (getting weaker but not because of spoiler sites). What is your freaking points? These sites make the game popular. If you don't want to read spoiler sites, DON'T! You don't have to control other people. If you played Monk or any other classes in EQ, did you actually go thru each NPC and try to find out epic or any other quest by yourself? If you did that, I'll bet you didn't even finish any quest in EQ.


Transcendent Sensei Savager (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=250625)



http://www.releaseteam.com/bol/yabbse/attachments/savagersig.jpg</p>

And... isn't there a level cap of 30 on the beta, where the game can go to lvl 60? Or did I misunderstand someone...



Don't worry about the NDA being lifted... there hasn't been too much of, if you're this class and this race do this quest first, kill only these mobs, don't kill these... etc.



Course maybe I'm avoiding enough of those posts that I will be one of those clueless people you're talking about.


Zhao Vizier

Guild Leader of the Mystic Healers

Baron/Transcendent on Xev



</p>

[Lenardo]

here is the ultimate spoiler for wow





play the game have fun

do every quest you want to do



...



don't die :P


Brother Lenardo Draconis

65th Transcendant of the Celestial Fists

The First Seal

The Nameless

Magelo ('http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=329805')</p>

Here is a thought.



If there was an NDA, day 1 of the game 10000 sites would suddenly unveil by those in beta, waiting for the very second for the NDA to be lifted, and we would STILL have spoilter sites.



NDA or no NDA spoiler sites will go live, day 1.



Just like they did for DAOC.


</p>

[Norpin]

EQ pretty much forced me to go to spoiler sites because of how they tend to write their quests. Once you got past the newbie quests, you generally didn't know where you had to go, the name of the next NPC to talk to, or what is the name of the item(s) you needed. And as if that isn't enough of a chgallenge, you had to puzzle out the proper combination of keywords just to get the NPCs to do what you need. That's what I had to look up half the time. I could remember the rest.



Take the Shackle of Bronze quest.



You say, 'i will assist old rinmark in completing his rock garden'

an iksar master pours the pebbles into his pocket and hands the box to you. 'Take my box. Fill and combine within my box the following; a radiant meteorite, frontier fool's gold, petrified redwood, Rile's sand coin, sulfur stone, fragment of tektite, plains pebble, jade magma, heart of ice, and an unholy coldstone. Return the full tin box to me and I shall reward you with a shackle of bronze.'



You have to go to nine different zone, two of which aren't on Kunark, to find all this stuff, and they don't even give you a hint as to which zones, let alone how you get them, in the quest dialogue. EQ is enough of a time sink as it is, without having to puzzle this junk out.



In contrast, based on what I've read here, WoW quests will be completely different. Not only will they tell you where to look for what you need, they'll also tell you who to talk to next, and where they are, every time. Plus, when you finish one quest, it'll point you to another one. Not only that, but quest NPCs will have gold or silver markers over their heads to make them easy to identify.



Stuff like that is why I never felt the need to go to spoiler sites for NWN quests like I did for EQ. Solving quests in NWN was actually fun and straightforward. WoW sounds like it will be like that, only combined with dynamic content, encounters, and groups.


</p>

Excellent example, Norpin. Can you imagine trying to do that quest without spoiler sites? It was annoying enough when you knew exactly where to go! With no spoilers, you would literally have to go to every zone in EQ (~100 at the time) and Forage for a few hours to see if anything came up.


<span style="color:red;">Ancil Mercurial

60 Rogue (formerly) of the Elitists

Tribunal Server (retired)</span></p>

I think it's too bad that when it goes live, those who got lucky and got into beta will have had 5 months to level up, do all the quests they could do, and publish everything so everyone you end up playing with will know. Unfortunatly I don't think there's anything that can be done for that.



I remember the most fun I had in EQ was when a new expension was released. Kunark, and then Velious, where we would take the boat to the first zone in the new continent with no idea what to expect, and be amazed at the ice tower, bridge, etc..



How many WoW screenshots and reviews did you read so far? So much for mystery..




http://merileafcatwalker.homestead.com/files/dendsig.jpg

Sensei Dendory (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=259582) - <span style="color:red;">Retired</span></p>

Im just afraid they will spoil the raid encounters in beta, I kinda like till release to hear about em...



Ive already seen the dragon and gorilla, thats all I want to see.


</p>

[Norpin]

Well if the max level in the beta is 30 (out of 60), then there is only so much they can spoil before release.


</p>

I was chatting with one of my old EQ friends today discussing WoW. When I first mentioned it about a week ago, he said that there was no way he was leaving his character he had built up for so many years to a new game unless everyone he knew left EQ. Today, he sends me a tell explaining to me how he had visited various sites about WoW. He read the detailed information, checked out the screenshots etc. His next tell summed it up. He said he was going to work on getting all his currently banked items into platinum asap. He was going to work on farming every bit of high selling gear he could, and would sell his account right before the release of WoW.



You'd have to know my friend better to understand the impact of what he said. He's not a guy in a Time raiding guild. He's never been much of a power gamer. He plays pretty often, but he never devotes large chunks of time to raiding. He enjoys the people in the game and sticks to small events. His enjoyment comes from having fun, without a hardcore attitude. If a guild involves a large political scheme, he avoids it. I've tried to get him to play DAoC, (I played it for 6 months straight at release, and a little bit here and there since), and he wouldn't touch it. I mentioned I had been playing SW:KOTOR and he scoffed at me for not sticking to EQ...(he didn't even know KOTOR was a single player game.../sigh) I figured he'd be one of the last people to be playing EQ before they shut down the servers. When he tells me he's leaving EQ just as soon as WoW comes out based on what he read, what he saw, all the class information, all the pictures, that he didn't have a single doubt....I see the benefit to the lack of a NDA during beta.



As far as spoilers....I know I don't know of any, but I seriously doubt that it's because there aren't any out there...I just don't search for them. I want this game to be an exploration adventure. I don't want my first trip from City A to City B printed out on a map I downloaded from some spoiler site. I don't want to know where I go to find the mob that opens up a quest to uber item X. That's my choice, and if someone else uses that information for their benefit, by all means, that is their choice. If I join a guild that requires me to have vast knowledge of Mob D for their first attempt, I'm finding a less intense guild.






Uroc Deku (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=355320)

I don't die. I just pretend.

Dietrich (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=762348)

I don't pretend. I just die.





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