E3 2007: Zulaman infos, Voice chat and Guild bank

Tinie

Tinie

New Member
E3 2007: Zulaman infos, Voice chat and Guild bank


Some fresh infos from E3 2007 (Gaming Event in Los Angeles) on the following subjects Zulaman, Voice Chat and Guild Banks.

Zulaman (10 mans instance)

- Outside raid zone
- 4 animal god bosses (dragonhawk god, bear god, a lynx god and a god of evil)
- 2 final bosses after you defeated the four animal bosses: A Witch doctor boss and Zul'Jin himself.
- no key or attunements required
- Trash mobs who can call for help by beating on nearby war drums
- There will be quests that take place within the dungeon, including hunting for treasure and liberating four different hostages. The rescue missions will apparently be timed and will yield better rewards if completed early.


Voice Chat

Voice chat will be added to the game free of charge, will mute the game slightly whenever someone talks (so that you won't need to talk over any onscreen battles), and will use onscreen icons to indicate who's saying what, so that you'll be able to quickly determine which team member in your party is asking for help.


Guild Banks

The guild banks, will let guild officers create vaults to store the guild's entire possessions, as well as set permissions to limit access to certain items if they care to.

Source

Teza
WoR reporter
 
E3 07: World of Warcraft Content Upate Impressions - The Dungeon of Zul'Aman
We take a sneak peek at some upcoming content for one of the most popular online games in the world.
By Andrew Park, GameSpot
Posted Jul 11, 2007 11:42 am PT
SANTA MONICA--All the sunshine and sandy beaches in the world couldn't keep us from visiting with Blizzard Entertainment at the E3 2007 media summit in Southern California. The developer was on hand to show off new content updates for its insanely popular massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, including some new gameplay features and a brand-new dungeon area.

The big news is the new Zul'Aman area, an outdoor dungeon in the mid-level Ghostlands area near the blood elves' homeland. The dungeon is inhabited by the forest trolls who first made their debut in Blizzard's real-time strategy game Warcraft II. ("Trolls love the outdoors," explains vice president of game design Rob Pardo.) The vast outdoor zone consists of ruined stone temples that reflect the trolls' shamanic beliefs growing through thick forests of trees. According to the story that Blizzard has penned for the area, Zul'Aman is the home of the troll warriors led by Zul'jin (a character from Warcraft II) and has become a stronghold from which the trolls have begun attacking the blood elves, thanks to a newfound power that a troll witch doctor has discovered. Apparently, this powerful troll spiritualist has somehow managed to steal away the essences of four troll animal gods and confer them to four mighty troll warriors. These avatars act as the early "boss" encounters for the dungeon.

Zul'Aman is a smaller raid dungeon that's better suited for 10-character parties than the full-on 25-character raids that some of the game's larger dungeons demand. Because the dungeon will not require any keys or attunements to enter, the dungeon seems intended to be more accessible to players on tight schedules. Much of the layout will call for methodical clearing of troll enemies who may call for help by beating on nearby war drums, which summon additional troll warriors to fight. Each of the four avatars, which have respectively been infused with the spirits of a bear god, a dragonhawk god, a lynx god, and finally, a god of evil, may also summon help, as well as assume different forms over the course of battle. Once players have defeated each avatar, they'll eventually take on the witch doctor that started the whole mess and finally do battle with Zul'Jin himself. The final troll boss will not only be a powerful foe; he'll also be able to draw upon the ghostly spirits of each of the four liberated animal gods and change his own shape to assume their powers.

In addition to offering challenging encounters against these mighty foes, Zul'Aman is apparently intended to encourage players to tackle it repeatedly to master its content. There will be several characters hanging around just outside the dungeon to give out quests that take place within the dungeon, including hunting for treasure and liberating four different hostages who have been taken captive by the armies of each of the four avatars. The rescue missions will apparently be timed and will yield better rewards if completed early.

Blizzard also plans to release additional, smaller patch updates before then that will add two new features: integrated voice chat and guild banks. Voice chat will be added to the game free of charge, will mute the game slightly whenever someone talks (so that you won't need to talk over any onscreen battles), and will use onscreen icons to indicate who's saying what, so that you'll be able to quickly determine which team member in your party is asking for help. The guild banks, on the other hand, will let guild officers create vaults to store the guild's entire possessions, as well as set permissions to limit access to certain items if they care to do so.

World of Warcraft is still running strong with millions of subscribers worldwide. Unfortunately, there's no set release date planned for the Zul'Aman update, beyond "when it's ready," though we're told that the voice chat and guild bank updates should be coming sooner to the game.

-GameSpot
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worl...174183&part=rss&tag=gs_all_games&subj=6174183
 
Tigole
Blizzard Poster 0. Zul'Aman Clarification | 07/12/2007 04:03:08 PM UTC
I've been following a lot of the reactions on the WoW forums as well as the fansite forums to our announcement of Zul'Aman. I've noticed that there's a little bit of confusion as to some comments that were made in various articles that said that (I am paraphrasing here) "Zul'Aman will be more casual than Karazhan."'

Of course, what most of us in the WoW community have come to realize over the past few years is that the term "casual" means different things to different people. In fact, I am at the point where I try to avoid using the term at all. I've come to discover that most players consider themselves "Casual" when it supports their argument and likewise, they think of themselves as "hardcore" when convenient. We have the largest Casual Hardcore (or Hardcore Casual) community of any MMO out there!

All joking aside, the clarification is this:

--Zul'Aman will be a 10-person raid zone
--Zul'Aman will be on a quicker reset than 7 days (some might call this "casual")
--Zul'Aman will be MORE difficult than Karazhan and drop better loot (some might call this hardcore)
--Zul'Aman will feature 6 bosses and it's our goal that you can kill them all in one night -- perhaps 2-3 hour clear times (some might call this casual)
--Zul'Aman will not have a key requirement. Nor will it have an attunement quest\ (some might call this casual)
--Zul'Aman will have a VERY challenging timed quest for those who choose to participate in it. This *will be* hardcore and will be very rewarding. Players do not have to engage in the timed run (very similar to the Baron run in Stratholme)
--We're tuning the first boss in Zul'Aman to require less raid coordination than some other raid bosses. He will still hit very hard so you'll need to be geared properly but it won't take 15 minutes to explain the fight. It will be a simple yet challenging fight. The other boss fights get more complex and challenging from there. If players want a basis of comparison, imagine the tuning of ZA started around Nightbane/Prince difficulty and ramped up from there.

ZA is a very cool looking zone. It will feature brand new troll models -- Forest Trolls. They are very impressive looking. There will also be a large amount of brand new item art in the zone. We'll get screenshots of this out soon.

I know this question is going to come up so I'll answer it now -- Yes, you can totally skip Karazhan if you're an amazingly elite guild who doesn't have time to key up for KZ yet can face the challenges of ZA without gearing up in KZ. Have fun storming the castle.
[ Post edited by Tigole ]
 
E3 Look Forward: World of Warcraft
Blizzard Entertainment (developer) / Vivendi (publisher)
Article by Dana Massey

Into Zul'Aman you go, Sonny!To say that World of Warcraft has a deathgrip on the MMO genre is an understatement. Quite honestly, they transcend it. This week they announced their 9 millionth subscriber worldwide. As a sign of their dominance, they were able to bring a content patch to E3 and get significant ink. The show afforded us the chance to see Zul'Aman, the new 10 man raid dungeon.

The new content, which is part of their regular 3-4 month patch cycle, is roughly equivalent to Karazhan in level (70+) and as mentioned, is intended for 10 players at a time. It marks the return of the Forest Trolls, sworn enemies of the Blood Elves and is located in the Ghostlands. The natural bent of the enemies allowed them to make another epic, outdoor dungeon, which means that the hardcore dungeon crawlers can use Zul'Aman to get some much needed Vitamin D.

In an effort to appeal to a broader subset of their players, Blizzard not only made it for a smaller party, but also designed the dungeon so that it could be completed in chunks. Upon entering, players can go in any one of four directions. Each one pits them against a series of monsters, themed after one of the four "Gods", who are in reality the transfigured lieutenants of Zul'jin. They are, in no particular order:


The Bear (Loas): This area contains, you guessed it, a bunch of bears. At the end, you meet Loas, who is, a big evil giant bear. Some of those creatures actually are trolls who ride bears into battle. Good news, that bear is a new mount the patch introduces.
The Eagle (Akil'Zon): The eagle area, not shockingly, includes an Eagle theme. It also has perhaps the best, most unintentionally hilarious boss monster ever created. I thought he looked like the fighting Chicken-man from Family Guy, personally, although the name Big Bird was also bandied about.
The Lynx (Halazzi): The ambiguous cat-dogs return in this area, as players fight through the followers of Halazzi.
The Dragonhawk (Jan'Alai): Of course, they had to leave nature a little bit. This area is the one we saw in most depth. More on it later.

Each area is intended to take 45 minutes to an hour for a good group. Once complete, a torch is lit at the main crossroads, which signifies an area complete by the group. Light all four torches and the group gains access to the first of two final bosses. These two encounters must be done in one swoop, unlike the first four. First, players fight the Witch Doctor who helped Zul'jin transfigure (and it turns out imprison) his lieutenants in their animal forms.

After the Witch Doctor comes Zul'jin himself. The art for Zul'jin was not complete, but the encounter is already scripted. Using a place holder evil bad guy, we watched as they fought. Each of the four lieutenant's ethereal shades was on hand to witness. As Zul'jin went down in power, he'd transform into each one in turn. Then, at a certain point, he'd skip to the next one, before finally going back to his own form just prior to his ultimate defeat. It will be fun to see how they model this famous Warcraft character.

Akil'Zon's Eagle AreaIn Loas's bear area, Blizzard showed off some light puzzles that should make the dungeon crawl a bit more fun. As the players engage the enemies outside the final area, one of the enemies breaks for it and tries to ring a gong. This brings reinforcements and will continue to do so until someone stops them. If the group is really clever, they can actually intercept and defeat the gong-ringer before any reinforcements come.

What about faction, you ask? Well, they made this a non-faction dungeon expressly to liberate their content designers for this kind of innovation. In a more traditional dungeon, people would practically buff the gong-ringer to get more faction. Obviously, that's an exploit. This approach gives them more variety in gameplay.

So if not for faction, what's the replay value of Zul'Aman? This time they're going with a timed dungeon. The faster a group can kill each boss and rescue his hostages, the better the loot. Blizzard fully expects this to become a competitive sport.

In the Dragonhawk area, we got to see an example of Blizzard's reputation for quirky gameplay. As our demo hero rounded a corner, he came upon four Forest Trolls playing keep away with a disgruntled Dragonhawk's egg. It was an absurd sight. Then, when they noticed they had company, not only did the five of them attack, but the troll with the egg actually threw it at the player. Best yet, whomever it hits will find an egg in their backpack. It's little touches like this that give Blizzard its solid reputation. It would be easy to make them just stand there and drool menacingly, but that's just not their style.

The final encounter with Jan'Alai is also a puzzle of sorts. The big creature stands on its pedestal ready to fight, but there's a catch: to the left and the right are banks of eggs. Decoration right? Wrong! Part way through the battle, a minion runs up on stage and starts hatching the little devils. Then, the group needs to contend with a steady stream of Dragonhawks along with the boss monster.

There are a couple strategies: The group can kill the hatcher or they can deal with the stream. Be careful though, once Jan'Alai gets low on health he heads to both sides and frees the unhatched in a single wave, a move that might turn sure victory into agonizing defeat.

Blizzard also did a good job on foreshadowing. In one fork of the dungeon, the boss monster actually comes down from the start. They've rigged it so the group can never reach him before the final battle, but he's always there, just out of reach. He's always there though to throw people into battle and run away once they get themselves killed. It's a nice touch that lends a sense of urgency to the adventure, and given that it's a race against time, that's not a bad thing.

The dungeon's modular nature means a group can take a break and reconvene between chunks. This is a large four to six hour gameplay experience, but for those with jobs and families to attend to, it's really four 45 minute to 1 hour chunks and then one, slightly more involved raid at the end. A theme from the MMO community this E3 was their desire to open up epic content to more players, since statistics show a vast majority of players never can experience it. Zul'Aman is a good step in that direction for World of Warcraft.

Aside from the dungeon, Blizzard also discussed their plans for integrated voice chat. This service is free of charge, unlike most other MMOs that charge a premium fee, and works just like traditional text chat (in terms of channels and such), but with voice. They hope the quality will be as good as Ventrillo and rave about its quality during internal testing, but it remains to be seen how it will hold up when exposed to their millions of subscribers. They also mentioned that they hope to look at things like voice fonts (distortion that makes the user's voice sound a bit like the creature they're playing), but for now, they're focused on the basics. If you're like me and prefer not to do voice in games, don't worry, it's very much optional. And parents needn't worry, there are controls for them to make sure little Johnny doesn't get any premature anatomy lessons.

The torches light when a section is complete.Guild banks are another feature on the way. They are just what one would assume, a communal home for guilds. Leaders can of course apply a full range of permissions onto players. Each "bag" within the bank can have a specific ruleset, so if for example the guild makes a "newbie armor bag", they can give everyone full deposit and withdrawal privileges, but if they only one their top generals to have access to the coin, just throw it in another bag.

We were also told about a philosophical change at Blizzard, namely logical loot. Previously, the loot tables were somewhat random. They're not going back and fixing years of content, but now, players can expect creatures to drop things that one would expect. If that bad guy is holding a big, shiny axe, then odds are his loot is a big shiny axe. This is a general goal and a monumental exercise in inter-departmental organization (they need to make sure the artists and loot guys play nice with each other), but one they seem rather committed to. It's a small touch, but it sure beats wolves coughing up fishing poles!

Blizzard believes they're about half way through the process on this particular update, which means it could be out in the next couple months. The content's all there and a vast majority of the art, which is not an insignificant challenge given the number of brand new creatures this dungeon demanded. However, as per usual, they're going to spend a lot of time testing the heck out of it to ensure they maintain their reputation for polished content.

http://wow.warcry.com/news/view/75268
 
The Bear (Loas): This area contains, you guessed it, a bunch of bears. At the end, you meet Loas, who is, a big evil giant bear. Some of those creatures actually are trolls who ride bears into battle. Good news, that bear is a new mount the patch introduces.
Click to expand...

Rideable druids! :)
 
I think we, as hunters, should be able to tame all matter of creatures, including them druids. Call it some form of mind control.
 
The 3rd boss (hunter) in Underbog has a bear druid as a pet... I think they rest of you hunters are just slacking.

ooooh, could you imagine PvP? Interesting...
 
Voice Chat FAQ: Blue Post


Nethaera just posted a FAQ about their new ingame feature: Voice Chat

Q: What is the new voice chat feature in World of Warcraft?
A: The voice chat feature is the proprietary in-game voice communication system for World of Warcraft. It allows World of Warcraft players to communicate with each other using a simple-to-use interface that is seamlessly integrated with the game.

Q: Is the voice chat feature free?
A: There is no additional charge to use the voice chat feature; it is included with your monthly subscription fee.

Q: How does the voice chat feature work?
A: The voice chat feature is fully integrated within World of Warcraft. You can enable voice chat by accessing the sound options screen and turning it on. When enabled, it can be configured to transmit your voice either whenever you speak or only while you hold down a button. You can also use it to listen to other players without transmitting your own voice.

Q: Can I speak in more than one channel at a time?
A: While you can join multiple chat channels, you can only have voice chat enabled in one channel at a time. You can switch voice chat between channels by using the new chat interface found in the social window, or by clicking on the voice chat options button located near the mini-map.

Q: Why did you choose to implement voice chat?
A: Since launching World of Warcraft, we have made a number of improvements to the interface to offer players more convenience and ease of use. The voice chat system is another such feature. It is simple to use and fully integrated into World of Warcraft, making it that much easier for players to communicate with each other.

Q: Can I still use third-party voice chat programs with World of Warcraft?
A: Yes, you can still use third-party voice chat programs while the integrated voice chat is disabled. However, World of Warcraft’s voice chat feature allows you to use a simple system built into the game’s user interface rather than toggling between multiple programs. Additionally, the voice chat feature in World of Warcraft displays who is speaking at any given time directly in the game interface.

Q: Will I be able to customize voice chat through World of Warcraft, or is it accessed via the account management webpage?
A: You can access the voice chat options via the in-game options menu. The parental control options of the voice chat feature are accessible via the parental control system located on the official World of Warcraft website.

Q: As a parent or guardian, how can I control my children’s access to the voice chat feature?
A: Parents and guardians have the ability to manage voice chat via the parental control system found on the official World of Warcraft website. You can turn voice chat off entirely or allow your children to listen but not speak in voice chat. The voice chat feature defaults to “off.” If parental controls are enabled on an account, you will need to turn on voice chat via the parental control system (found in the account-management section of WorldofWarcraft.com) before it can be used in the game.

https://www.worldofwarcraft.co...l-schedule.html

Q: Can I speak in custom voice chat channels?
A: Yes, custom voice chat channels seamlessly work with existing custom chat channels such as raid, group, battlegrounds, healing, melee, etc. You can also create custom chat channels and use them to communicate with any other players who are in them.

Q: What are custom channels, how do I use them?
A: With the new chat channel interface you’ll see a section labelled “Custom.” These are the same channels you can join by typing /join and then a custom channel name. By clicking the New button you can create your own channel, as well as set a password.

Q: Does voice chat work in guild chat or when using the “/say” command to talk to characters in your immediate vicinity?
A: At this time, the integrated voice chat feature does not work in guild chat, “/say,” global defense, trade, or any public chat channel. However, we may look into offering voice chat functionality for the guild chat channel in the future.

Q: Are there raid, group, and one-on-one channels?
A: Yes, there are raid, group, and one-on-one voice chat channels. You can select what private channel to speak in via the in-game chat menu system. For example, you can move back and forth among private voice chat channels without leaving the game.

Q: Do raid leaders have moderator rights?
A: Yes, raid leaders have moderator rights and can mute players in the raid voice chat channel for all other players in that channel.

Q: Can I mask my voice?
A: Voice masking is not currently available. This is a feature we are looking into and may consider for the future.

Q: Is there a limit on how many people can talk at one time?
A: Each channel is limited to 40 voice chat-enabled players. While more than 40 players can be present in a channel, only 40 may have that channel as their active voice chat channel. In addition, only four players may speak simultaneously in a voice chat channel.

Q: Can you mute individuals by character name?
A: Yes, you can mute another player by right-clicking on his or her character name. This will prevent you from hearing anything said by that player. Any players already on your ignore list or added to it will also be muted. These two lists together will allow you to mute voice chat for 75 unique players.

Q: How can I deal with someone who’s being disruptive in voice chat?
A: While voice chat is not moderated by our in-game support team, we’ve provided tools to enable players to appropriately block or otherwise avoid voice chat from unwanted sources. At any time, you can right-click a player’s name and select the Mute option to avoid receiving voice chat from that player. If you right-click a player’s name and select the Ignore option, you will not receive voice chat or text chat from that player. To avoid having uninvited players join your private chat channel, you can set a password for the channel. We also recommend viewing the updated Parental Controls page in account management, which now includes the ability to block or alter the use of voice chat on an account. For more information on how to use the voice chat features and controls, please visit our online voice chat manual. (Parental Controls Page and Voice Chat Manual should be available soon.)

Q: Will voice chat affect my gameplay (performance) or latency?
A: Voice chat does use additional bandwidth, but with a high speed Internet connection such as DSL or cable it shouldn’t be noticeable. If you are already experiencing high latency or performance issues, enabling voice chat may increase them.

Q: My voice quality is poor, how can I improve it?
A: As voice chat does run in a separate thread from the game some newer multi-core or multi-threaded processors may help improve voice chat performance, and in some cases quality. We’ve found that USB headsets can, in most cases, be easier to configure and provide better outgoing audio quality. Other factors can include the quality of your Internet connection and the quality of the microphone being used.

Q: What happens to voice chat while I’m loading into a new zone?
A: Voice chat will continue to function while zoning, and even while Alt-Tabbed out of the game.

Q: When can I try it out?
A: You can help us test the voice chat feature right now by logging in to the Public Test Realm and trying it out. Visit the PTR section ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ptr/ ) of account management (located at WorldofWarcraft.com) to download the PTR client. If you want to play on the PTR using an existing character, instructions for copying a character to the PTR are also available at the page linked to above.

Teza
WoR reporter
http://boards.worldofraids.com/topic-6395-1.html
 
Guild Banks coming in 2.3

Vaneras confirmed Guild Banks would be coming with patch 2.3; the guild banks, will let guild officers create vaults to store the guild's entire possessions, as well as set permissions to limit access to certain items if they care to.

A while back we hinted that we were working on implementing Guild banks into the game, which was a feature originally intended for The Burning Crusade that was postponed for a later patch: http://forums.wow-europe.com/t...60946&sid=1

A lot of work has gone underway since then and now we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Guild bank feature is still being worked on, however it is currently scheduled for release in the future patch 2.3.

Source

Teza
WoR reporter
http://boards.worldofraids.com/topic-6568-1.html
 
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