Having been overlooked for the initial round of World of Warcraft beta testing (no doubt due to a lack of 1337ness and h4X0Ring on my part) it looks like for now the closest I’ll get is this World of Warcraft Television site. By television they mean in-game screen caps updated every 20 seconds whenever one of 4 lucky bastards who actually got picked for the beta happen to be playing. Which is not nearly enough I should mention. In fact, the only feed that I’ve found to consistently work is this one. Still, its a generous sacrifice of bandwidth and maybe even frame rate on their part, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Actually, its not so much the screenshots that have me looking forward to this game but rather what I’ve been reading about it at places like the Penny-Arcade forums, where most people have been proclaiming it the most humane MMORPG to date meaning that it scales back on the amount of endless treadmill work that has been the staple of these types of games to date. Of course, games often are made more difficult after the beta ends but if this is really an online RPG that one can enjoy without spending 30-40 hours a week playing then I’m all for it and will likely be hooked.

Comments

Comment by Tobin on 2004-04-14 11:47:19 +0000

I’ve never played any MMORPG’s yet. If this is good, maybe I’ll try it. You’ll have to let me know.

Comment by Neal on 2004-04-14 17:43:45 +0000

I know that Dana is absolutely obsessed with WOW, but I’m betting that it won’t run on Linux (making it not an option for me).

My current MMORPG of choice is Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. (http://puzzlepirates.com) If you’re looking for an anti-level-treadmill MMORPG, Puzzlepirates is it. There is no leveling at all. Your performance while sailing a ship or fighting brigands is based solely on how well you do in the various Tetris-y puzzle games that you play to make the ship go, etc. You do get skill/experiance ratings in the various puzzles, but they don’t affect the game at all except for seeding when you enter a swordfighting or drinking tournament (yes, I said drinking tournament – drinking is a competative puzzle).

Comment by Kimmee on 2004-04-14 18:31:30 +0000

Will! I haven’t read your blog in so long! it’s redesigned! it’s updated! there’s PICTURES! i’m so outta the loop!

Comment by Will on 2004-04-14 23:27:41 +0000

Kimmee – Yup, I switched to a better hosting service a while back and decided it was finally time to resurrect the old blog. Glad to see that your latest jetset adventure went well!

Neal – I’ve seen banner ads for puzzle pirates various places and thought it looked pretty cool. If I weren’t playing so much Unreal 2004 and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow I would have given it a try by now. Can you choose who you play with in a game, or does it just random assign matches?

Comment by Neal on 2004-04-15 00:10:10 +0000

The main activity in PuzzlePirates is pillaging on the high seas. Most of your time pillaging is spent operating the “sailing” puzzle, the “bilge” puzzle or the “carpentry” puzzle needed to make the ship go – those aren’t head-to-head puzzles. Once you finally collide with and board another ship you play the swordfighting puzzle against the entire other crew. As long as there are multiple opponents on the other side of the sword fight you can choose which opponent to send your attacks to by clicking on them. (The ideal number of pirates to have teamed up on one opponent is 2 or 3. Any more than that is wasteful.)