Just for MPUK/Your Server

[zigsbad]

Just wondering if this WOWLAN is mainly open to all wow players or just the guys in MPUK guild?

Seen people talking about level requirements in other thread and wondered.

My guild came to i26 and are coming to i27 and we are a bit above level 25 :P (Nefarian on farm status working through AQ40 atm)

But we love to LAN and this "wow only LAN" sounds like our thing.. so wondered :)

[Baz]

its for everyone

[Elbonio]

Everyone is welcome - bring your whole clan along!

There's going to be people of all levels there.

One thing we are suggesting is perhaps making an alt either before or at the event on the same server as other people, just so we can play together.


If you dont want to do this ofc there's no problem - just come with your clan and play with them all weekend!


we're working on a character DB so we can see who's at what level and what servers people are on


that way we can co-ordinate things a little better ebfore the event

[LozB]

my thoughts.

i initially thought that wow lan sounded pretty cool. however im wondering apart from the obvious social element to the lan of actually getting away from your PC. what actually is the point of this? OK if your all on the xavius realm and in the MPUK guild i can see the fun. If your coming along as a guild then i guess its cool to meet your guild mates. However for someone whos not playing in a guild or in a guild where not many of the members are likely to come along what can this event expect to offer to a wow player. arent wow players by nature unsociable types? after all we spend hours / days sitting at our pcs playing wow. remember the song "wow is a feeling! who needs a social life?"....

ok my post might sound quite negative, but im wondering what would you get out of attending a wow lan (relating to wow) that you couldnt get from playing wow at home?

put it this way.

adsl connection + game price + wow subs = £25ish + £39ish + 12*£8 (home)

compared too

Home + travel costs + £50 sign up fee. (i could save probably £100 by just playing at home?

IMHO i would be looking for something extra interms of value that i couldnt get from just playing it home?

NOW if the lan was affiliated in someway to Blizzard and wow in some way that blizcon is now that would probably draw the crowds more. how about some stuff from blizzard? free guest trials to encourage new people to play wow (kinda like Guild wars @ i26) that hooked me on to GW after the trial?

am i just being a cynical old bastard? or am i just missing the point of wowlan?

thoughts please?:)

[Freelance]

murloc pets for attendees, and i might resubscribe/attend

[Elbonio]

We had a trial wowlan with about 15 people

It makes a big difference being in the same room

it was just more fun

[Lucifa]

Even when someone plays EQ2 all day long *cough*.

Maybe wowlan isn't for you then Lozb?

I kinda have the same problem, I would like to go, but I don't play wow anymore (kinda lost it's appeal after playing it for almost 18 months).
So all I would end up doing is playing eq2 and getting moaned at by Craig for playing the wrong game :p

So I would like to go, but I don't want to stop anyone going that will contribute to the wow playing.

[LozB]

Originally posted by Elbonio
We had a trial wowlan with about 15 people

It makes a big difference being in the same room

it was just more fun

only if your all same level or faction or same guild. i would agree with you then. yes you can shout at other people etc rather than frantically type do this etc.. i dont see how it really is gonna work unless people are prepared to put the time in on a new set of characters on a realm that they are probably gonna bin when the event ends?


dont get me wrong im very enthusiastic about WoW and i would like the event to be a success

[Er00]

I get what you mean, but I have a feeling not many people will turn up guildless, and if any do, then they could always make an alt and join the mpuk guild, or any other guild that anyone's in at the lan.

Playing in a party in the same room as everyone else = win. Damn one of my favourite guildies to party with living in Holland, we've already had him over twice this year.. XD

[Tsung]

I find you dont have to be in the same "guild" to play with other people, so whatever guild you are in it SHOULDN'T matter. Especially if your all in the same room, a little bit of thought and everybody can enjoy the game. If people are going to be anal about your not in our guild so were not playing with you... it wont work.

Unfortantly the same can not be said for the server/Horde/Alliance you are playing on. It would be a good idea for this lan to say we plan to play on server X as Horde/Alliance. You (and your guild) do not have to play on server X, however, this is where the majority MPUK players will be. Maybe in the signup page add server location? just so people have an idea if they will be able to enjoy this event or not. Being fluffly about the server/side, or deciding on X then playing on Y will upset the players who might spend time working on their Chars on X but not Y.

Eg... We're going play on Xevious Server as Alliance
Bob spends the next month working on a Hunter on the Xevious server.. Arrives at the lan, everybody is playing the game.. it looks cool.
He fires up WOW, signs in, asks where is everybody and the response is "Al'Akir"
Bob doesnt have a char on Al'akir, so spends the weekend playing alone or wasting time getting a low lvl char in Al'akir trained up..
Bob is sad.
Bob has wasted his time in Xevious.
Bob has wasted money on the lan.

So what im saying is, some people have got to decide that despite having powerful Alt's on Al'Akir, they will commit to playing the game in a xevious server for the weekend. However tempting it is to go and play on al'akir it will be for the good of the lan not to do this. Or you need a core of 5-10 people who will stay on the one server for the entire weekend. Or arrange a rotor to have 5-10 people on the one server at various times of the weekend so there is always someone to play with on the "choosen" server (like yellow shirt coverage at I series).

* Please note I have used Al'Akir and Xevious as examples. This is not a dig at anyone, they are just two servers I've picked at random (that I know mpuk are active in)

[LozB]

good post i think you hit my concerns bang on the head.

nothing will stop and should stop smaller groups of people from using main toons on other realms and not spending time on the realms that are set aside for the lan?

guidelines can be but in place saying "we will endeavour to all play together in X server" and have ranges of characters around to ensure that no one has to end up playing on there own. TBH little point leveling up together if your less that lvl 15 no advantages. when you hit 18 u can start doing group instances. etc etc etc.

i would be more happier if the attendance page had extra collumns for realm, class, faction and level i.e. 1-19/20-29/30-39/40-49/50-60. that would then give an indication of the folk signing up and to see if it was worth attending. or alternatively get the a thread going to post your character details that you can update as it goes and eventually add to the main WOWlan webpage.

[Tsung]

Originally posted by LozB
i would be more happier if the attendance page had extra collumns for realm, class, faction and level i.e. 1-19/20-29/30-39/40-49/50-60. that would then give an indication of the folk signing up and to see if it was worth attending.

Ahh now we hit the catch 22 situation.. Signups are not listed on the website, so you will only see those people who have paid, who is going to risk paying £50 for an event and be the first person on their choosen server?. I check the list for Stormrage, it isnt listed, so I dont sign up. 10 other people do the same, with the same result. No-one goes, but you had the 11 people interested who would of gone if a few were brave enough to be first. Equally I decide to be the first, the other 10 players all decide "well there is only 1 person in our server, we wont bother" or "he's not our level we wont bother". I'm now bob in my example above. People have to have a "risk free" option.

The only way I can see the lan working is if one or two things happen...

1. Guilds sign up enmass. This would be good for the Lan. It would work, guilds across servers would be great. I spoke to my guild about WOW lan but we have many european players (eg. not based in the UK), so I doubt they would attend.
2. A gurantee of x players in y server is given. Or a schedule is planned and released.

It's finding the balance of making the lan fun/special different with large raid groups / fun games, etc and allowing people to do whatever they want @ the lan.

Getting back to the key question,What does WOW Lan offer that people sitting at home playing wow couldnt get themself?.

I know WOW is an even better game when played in the room with people in the same server at a similar level doing the same quests/instances. but is this enough?. if you cannot offer this, then I cannot see why I (or indeed anyone) would attend?

[LozB]

im yet to actually play wow sitting next to my guildmates. they are a euro guild. the guys i play regularly with are swedish and few are uk based.

i agree theres does need a bit more incentive to attend. i guess for a normal lan party the draw is to play a variety of different games without lag across a lan that you normally play across the internet with lag. Whereas this is offering something slightly odd to the norm a lan party to play a game that doesnt actually use the lan but infact is primarily only using the internet.

Ok its a bold initiative and i hope it works. But like you im still trying to find that extra bit of "something" to make me sign up.

[Quietus]

I've got my seat. Have you got yours?

[Er00]

I think possibly, for this lan, having the old style attendence page might be necessary for the reasons shown above...

Perhaps you could have a lan schedule thing, try and get *everyone* playing with their xavius chars or whatever at certain times, then have a time for mains, so that when someone's playing on xav, they have other people to play with, rather than being all alone!

[LozB]

H. i agree, i think for this LAN to even get of the ground its gonna be neccesary to do something along the lines of guidelines for playing or signup/ attendance information.

[GeeDee]

Personally I think you're being a little cynical about this LozB.

I don't play WoW myself; but there was a group of people who played a lot of it together at StaffLAN, at the last StratLAN I was at and at the i-series and they all really enjoyed being able to play the game together from the same place (So much so that the rest of us just couldn't make them stop for anything :p: )

Your argument just sounds like the one regarding the death of LAN Parties because of increased broadband availability - clearly that didn't happen. It's just better when you play the game alongside others all in the same place.

I'm sure there are issues regarding characters / levels / servers; but the LAN will be big enough for you to play with other people at the LAN on the same server as you, (whatever that might be) or for you to create a new LAN character and join some different people.

I think it's a great idea. :)

[LozB]

Originally posted by LozB
dont get me wrong im very enthusiastic about WoW and i would like the event to be a success

yes. i did say that im cynical. ;)

[Tsung]

Geedee, the problems with WOW are as follows...

There are 78 European English speaking servers, the level range is from 1 to 60 for each toon. To have an enjoyable game with other people ideally you need to be within 3 levels above or below them. Eg.. if your level 10, you should be able to quest with levels 7 to 13. Over 13, it would be a bit difficult for you, under 7 far too easy. Later in the game the level range for enjoyable games grows slightly and there is some leeway for higher level players to help lower level players. I'm not saying people cant help each other out, sure they can, but the way the game works is if you are lvl 10 and a lvl 30 helps you out, you get no XP's for the kills (both players). Boring for the lvl 30, and the lvl 10 doesnt make any progress. Oh and it takes about 15 days (24hrs a day) to level from 1 to 60, depending on what they do with their time.

People playing together at lans does work, I've seen it work, I've also seen it "not work". It works if you normally play together and/or similar levels.

All that is needed is a simple plan / scheudle produced. Doesnt have to be too strict but something that people attending can follow.. Just like mass games / timetables @ a normal startlan.. Eg.

Friday Night :- 1800 -> 2200 People arrive, get connected.. Freeplay.
2200 -> Late Alakir Mass Raid on Ironforge all levels welcome.
Sat Morning :- Freeplay
Sat Afternoon:- Noon -8pm Xevious Server Mid level
Sat Evening :- 8pm -> 10pm Fun runs, battles, etc.
Sat Evening :- 10pm -> Late Al'akir Mass Raid on Stormwind.. All levels welcome
Sun Morning :- Freeplay
Sun Afternoon :- Al'Akir... Random instance dungeon ... All Levels welcome. (try taking a few low levels into a High level instance)

Of course if you could get blizzard down (devleopers / GM's / Company) that would be a major bonus and certanly be worth going to the lan for.

[LozB]

of course if it was like GW we could merrily hop between any of the euro servers and all live happily toghether. but then i guess the economy and population would be totally screwed on some highly populated realms.

personally if i see 1/3 of the attendance fill up i.e. 30+ people signed up i will definitely sign up purely out of support to make the event happen. but it does need more structure , pre planing than your average lan. i keep saying it. if nothing happens to tempt us to sign up its a catch 22 no one signs up...

I like the idea of a schedule simlar to the one for big games at other events.

purely out of curiosity what the minimum number of attendees for this event to happen?

[Er00]

I'm glad WoW isn't like GW, GW isn't an MMO :P People can only change different servers in cities, so it's a lot different to the way that WOW works.

[Sharkra]

I love the idea of a WoWLan! Simply because my guild would go along and we love Lan'ing whether its WoW or Dota or Trackmania or so many other games. Its would be great fun to do ZG, AQ20, Battlegrounds or just Ganking together.

XW used to run an Alt night. We all started lvl 1 characters and spent one evening a week pwning the environment and we all still think back and remark on how much fun it was. We did loose interest at about lvl 30 and that was mainly because it felt less fun making smaller and smaller amounts of progress each week, but also by then most ppl had leveled their mains to 60 so we could play mains together anyway. We are however talking about doing a similar thing at WoWLan.

Some friends of mine also love to do low level PvP. If there are enough people it might be fun to create teams of 10 people, starting new characters both horde and alliance, level these characters to lvl 10 at the event and then have some WSG tournaments. I haven't joined in myself but I am willing to bet that the Public Test Realm Contests have been great fun for those taking part.