State of the WoW?

[Rywill]

I tried to get to the "State of the WoW" column using the link on the front page, and got a blank column (i.e., I got the logo and menus and background, but just a big empty blue box where the text should be). I don't see a topic for it here, either. Just thought I'd let you know.

XP and IE.

[Alan Au]

Of course, maybe that is the state of the WoW. :shock:

- Alan

[Matthew Gallant]

Inside joke:

<NYI>

[Mark Asher]

Yeah, I need to look at that. Hmmm.

[chet]

Should work now.

Chet

[Nathan]

....but the real reason why players want to be hunters is because hunters can tame animals as pets, and it looks like there's a ton of different animals they can tame. There are pet trainers in cities that players can use to improve their pets, and I've seen trainers with giant spiders, raptors, jungle beasts, etc.

This almost kills my interest in WoW. When I played Star Wars: Galaxies, I just got utterly sick of walking into a city and seeing everyone with their goddamned Pokemon. In a game that barely resembled Star Wars, that was the most not-Star-Wars thing I saw. Maybe Blizzard will balance it right, so that the pets don't just become NPC damage-sinks. Maybe it will just look better in a fantasy setting. Or, maybe it'll just make every gathering of players look like some kind of portable zoo.

[Mark Asher]

Hard to tell until we see the pets in action, but pets are a part of these games now. DAoC's got 'em, EQ's got 'em, Shadowbane's got 'em, and even CoH has them.

There's a lot of pent up interest among the beta testers also just due to hunters being the last bit of undiscovered country among the character classes. Druids were the heavily-played class this round because they were introduced. Hunters will get their day in the sun when they are introduced.

Blizzard does have to balance them carefully, though. If hunters use bows, get stealth, and have pets they will be very popular. I don't know about the bows and stealth -- that's just a guess.