Summary
This holiday season gamers have a lot choices. Halo 2, Half-Life 2, and GTA San Andreas have already hit the market with a large amount of media and inside buzz. Blizzard has stormed into the fray and entered the crowded Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) genre with World of Warcraft. According to the official website WoW sold an estimated 250,000 copies on its opening day. Good? Bad? This gamer takes a look at one of the most hyped MMORPG’s in a long time.
Review
Basics first, those watching the genre know that WoW is based on the popular Warcraft franchise that has been Blizzard’s mainstay along with Diablo and the classic Starcraft. The swords and sorcery market has been well plundered in the past few years, with Ultima, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Asheron’s Call. As a long-time player and fan of MMORPG’s, I was first hesitant to shell out my $50 for yet another dungeon crawling experience. My last foray into the genre was Final Fantasy XI – arguably one of the more quality additions to the swords and sorcery market in recent times. Yet the hype of playing in Azeroth finally got to me, particularly Blizzard’s insistence that WoW would appeal to both the hardcore, and more importantly, the casual player – which I consider myself to be. Lucky enough to get into both the closed and open beta versions, and no
w retail, I’ve been playing in Azeroth for over a month now. My verdict so far – Blizzard has produced an excellent game that all MMORPG fans should consider.
Let me first say, knowing (and fearful) that a lot of WoW players in retail would be battle.net Diablo kiddies, I deliberately chose priest as my class anticipating that most players would choose melee classes. Players have a choice of priests and mages as casters, and warriors or rogues for flat out killing. There are also “in-between” classes offered such as warlocks who can summon entities to fight for them, paladins who both fight and heal, and hunters who can charm mobs as well, who offer a nice degree of diversity for those seeking an experience not type-cast to a particular role. It must also be mentioned that WoW divides the world of Azeroth into two enemy camps – the Alliance and the Horde. Reviews on IGN and other sites have already outlined the Alliance v. Horde rivalry, but to sum up, Alliance equals the “good guys” composed of humans, dwarves and night elves and the Horde are composed of the evil undead, trolls, tauren and orcs. I chose to join the Horde as a troll.
Upon my first experience with WoW in closed beta I was very impressed. You spawn in a friendly area composed of starter NPC’s who offer quests that allow you to gain experience points killing low level mobs and partaking in easy tasks like finding items. Within the first few hours, I was able to level to 5 while staying in a relatively secure environment without having to worry about being “ganked” by alliance players or higher level mobs. By this time, and thanks to an in-system tutorial which provides you with user-friendly control tips, you get a grasp on familiarizing yourself with a very instinctual user interface. You click a mob and you can attack it. After its dead, you click on its corpse to loot any items. For casters, you click on a skill – say heal – and then click on your character in game to cast the heal. What is very helpful is that WoW helps you out in the learning process. You can immediately identify an NPC with an available quest because they are marked with exclamation point above their head. When you complete the quest, the NPC then has a question mark over their head that lets you know who exactly to turn the quest in to. No more running around for ages trying to remember who gives what quests. Your character also has a quest log, allowing you to keep up to 20 quests simultaneously. If you obtain a quest from an NPC and don’t have the time or interest to complete it, finish up another one and then go back to the first one later. Each quest rewards you with either experience points, loot, or both, that progresses your character and encourages you to explore the rest of Azeroth while building on the WoW storyline of Alliance v. Horde.
Besides quests, of course, one can simply opt for the grind to progress your character. As a priest, I initially found grinding to be difficult. For a warrior or rogue, it was probably much easier. After reaching level 10, however, the party play becomes more important. Parties can have up to 5 characters, and the social aspect of WoW really begins to kick in. Party members can share quests with each other so all players can fight for a common objective. If one member of the party needs a particular objective, say, kill a boss mob in a particular dungeon, he can share that quest with the other party members so the entire group can join in and obtain experience after
the deed is done. Which gets me to one of the key strengths of the WoW construct – the instance system. As opposed to Asheron’s Call or Final Fantasy XI, players don’t have to endlessly camp areas for particular objectives or loot in many areas. Instead, Blizzard created “instances” – which are “private” dungeons for parties to enter. Although there may be 20 or 30 toons out there who need to enter the Wailing Caverns dungeon and are waiting at the entrance, once you and your 4 other party members enter the dungeon, it becomes a zone exclusive to your party only to venture into. No more competing with dozens of others waiting for that one mob to spawn and drop the item your party needs. You and your party are the only ones in the dungeon to complete the necessary quest.
The world’s economy is quite straightforward. Similar to Final Fantasy XI, there are auction houses available in major cities, where players can bid for and auction off items they obtain through killing mobs or finishing quests. If you bid for an item and don’t win it, the money is returned to you via the in-game mail system. If your auction was successful, you get the bidders money in the mail as well. Playing the auction system well can be worthwhile. You can set your items at high buy-out prices, for example, earning much more money than an item is worth if there is a willing buyer. If you do some research, you might be able to find something someone is selling at a low price, and resell it for 5 times its price as well. Also, you do not have to use the auction house. You can sell your items to NPC vendors who are abundant throughout the world at a uniform price.
Another important form of the economy is crafting. You may choose up to 2 professions ranging from alchemy (making potions) to enchanting (increasing an item’s magical characteristics). You also have corresponding “gathering professions” as well, such as mining, or hide skinning. As a priest, I chose the alchemy and herbalism professions, so I could find herbs available throughout the world and craft them into healing and mana potions. Finding these items can be very easy, depending on its rarity. Crafting them into finished projects is also nice because you can never fail to craft a product and waste materials. In other words, once you have gathered the herbs for a greater speed potion, you craft it and it never fails to be created, increasing your skill level in that profession. You can also auction off the materials you gather to people who need them for crafting. I routinely come across silk from killing humanoid mobs and sell them at the auction house for nice profits, or provide them to guildmates who are in the tailoring profession.
One thing should be noted about the world itself. It is large, but manageable. Players can travel long distances via air zeppelins, boats and windrider posts. At higher levels, toons gain the ability to purchase permanent mounts as well that makes traveling over land quick. If you happen to be a shaman, you also have the ability to shapeshift into a beast form, and run faster. There are other forms of travel as well to discover.
On the subject of class dependence, one important thing needs to be disclosed: the designers intended the game to appeal to those who enjoy joining with a party or soloing. Toons are very capable of going out on their own to adventure without a party or even a partner, since Blizzard opted to make classes somewhat self-reliant, but to a degree. That degree,
allows individuals the freedom to choose whether they want to partner up with others or solo on their own. For example, a warrior does have the ability to make and use “first aid” bandages so they can solo on their own and not be reliant on a healer to be present. Likewise, a priest has melee capabilities as well, and can fight mobs on his or her own, although certainly not as well as a warrior could. By structuring the class system in this way, Blizzard has managed to do two very nice things. First, you don’t have to spend up to an hour a night just putting together a party or wait for your guildmates to log-in just to adventure. Although you certainly would need a partner or party for large and difficult dungeons or quests, you can spend quite a bit of time soloing on your own. Secondly, this makes the game appealing to casual players. Many of us, myself included, do not have the time to play 8 or more hours a day. I am looking for an entertaining game to play in my spare hours, not a second job. Players can log-in for 90 minutes a night after work or school, complete lower-level quests on their own and gain experience and loot soloing. On the weekends, you can then party up with friends when you have more time to do some of the longer missions.
The PvP System
Make no mistake about it, the player vs player aspect of WoW is a critical feature of the game, and is, at the time of this writing, still not fully implemented into the game. This aspect of the game could be an article in itself, but I will try to keep it minimal. Azeroth is divided into Horde areas, Alliance areas, and contested areas uncontrolled by either faction. If you choose to venture out of a friendly area and are looking for an actual human to combat instead of a computer programmed mob, you may want to wander over to one of the uncontested or enemy controlled areas. All rival players are easily identifiable by the red markers over their heads. Raiding enemy areas is of course only recommended if you are high level enough, and preferably with a party. For larger raids, your side can also form large invasion parties of over 40 members and take over entire enemy towns. Last night, for instance, the Horde put together a huge crew and actually raided the night elf town far to the north. It was a lot of fun, and very team oriented.
Typically, the PvP experience develops along these lines: You and your party may be running up the road in the contested Ashenvale area to do a quest, for instance, and come across the rival Alliance. Usually, there is a “stare down” where party members are sizing each other up, their levels and classes. Then either one party decides to flee, or there is an engagement. When the fight ensues, your team fights as one. The melee classes will charge into the fight after getting a defense buff from the priest. Mages and distance damagers will let loose with spells, arrows or guns. The rogue may “sap” rival players, stunning them into inactive status and effectively taking them out of the game. Other magic users will try and simultaneously buff and heal their party members, while casting spells on their opponents to silence, stun, or slow them down. If you die in combat, you are resurrected in a nearby area and must run back to obtain your body, where you can join back in the next fight. Often times, the engagements can be protracted. A few nights ago, I was in the Hillsbrad area, and my party (myself, a rogue and two warriors) kept running into an Alliance group. We soundly defeat
ed them twice, but they also got some good ambushes in on us to return the favor. One important note to make as well when it comes to dying: You do NOT lose items, money, or experience. I can remember the frustrating nights playing Final Fantasy XI where I would actually lose a level just from being killed repeatedly.
Of course, the excitement of PvP’ing has its annoying aspects. As in all PvP games, you will find your griefers: opponents 10 levels higher than you who wait in ambush and then camp your dead body so you cannot retrieve it. Blizzard is now working on an honor system that should alleviate some of this drudgery, and they seem to be observing the PvP dynamics carefully at the moment. In its ideal form, players will gain honor only from killing opponents at similar level ranges. They will lose honor from, say, ganking the same noob level 1 players who have just started learning the game. The level of honor you have will supposedly affect things ranging from cost of items you purchase from NPC vendors, to opening up entire new items and options for those special few who manage to “play honorably” in the game. If you are so dishonorable, you will become “hated” even by your own side, and NPC’s in your friendly towns will attack you! The honor system, some say, will make or break the game. Of course, you have the option of not PvPing at all. I chose to play on a PvP only server, but you can also play on a PvE server. PvP of course, ups the challenge. You and your party might need to finish up a particular quest, say, invading an abandoned castle to kill a boss mob and his minions in the Alterac Mountains, when a rival party comes along and you end up having to deal with not only the computer generated mobs but the human opponents as well. At present, a dynamic has set in, at least on the server I play on. Some areas are just known for ganking and camping. As a member of the Horde, every time I and fellow Horde members have tried to complete quests in the Arathi Highlands castle, we’ve found much higher Alliance waiting in ambush. I am hoping that the honor system, when it is implemented, will help alleviate some of this to a degree.
I will write more on the honor system and how PvP progresses at a later stage, after it is fully implemented. In the meantime, for those of you who make the wise decision to join in on World of Warcraft, look me up. My name is Timur, I’m a level 42 Troll Priest on the Burning Legion server with the Black Hand Clan!
Comments
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Congratulations on your first entry, Mr. T!
I really should join you in one of your gaming adventures one of these days. But I am WAY out of the loop when it comes to gamer lingo and other facets of modern gaming. Heck, the last computer game I played on a regular basis was Sim City…
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