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World of Warcraft is quite possibly
Author's Note: To comply with GameFAQ file size restrictions,
this review has been heavily edited. The full review can be
found at the following link:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/player_review.html?id=251230
When I originally set out to review World of Warcraft, one of
the most critically and commercially successful games of all
time, I reconsidered. Despite being a regular on the GameFAQs
World of Warcraft forum for almost a year, and a regular visitor
of that website for almost four years, I had never before
reviewed a game. I decided to wait, build my chops by reviewing
a few other games first. That was two months ago as I write this
(January '06). Though admittedly I didn't exactly challenge
myself with the nine game's I chose to review (making this my
tenth, what I perceived to be a kind of milestone), I believe
have gotten a grasp on the art. Such a massively successful game
deserves a critical, in-depth examination of what made it so
popular in the first place.
Since it first appeared for the PC in the early 90s, the
Warcraft franchise has been one of the most phenomenally
successful franchises in PC gaming history (Only Half-Life and
Starcraft come close, and Starcraft is by the same developers).
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans created the Real Time Strategy genre,
and pioneered one of the earliest Peer to Peer multiplayer
options in PC Gaming. It's sequel, Tides of Darkness, improved
upon the infrastructure of the original by offering increased
micromanagement options and nearly tripling the tech tree.
Warcraft fell under the radar for a while when Blizzard
Entertainment turned it's attention to Diablo and Starcraft. It
proved to be a turning point in Blizzard's career - both games
supported Blizzard's new Battle.net computer network. For the
first time in the history of gaming, people from around the
world could meet anonymously and compete against one another
using this crazy gadget brought to us by the U.S. Government
called “The Internet.“ No more bungling around with TCP/IP
connections, no more exchanging phone numbers. Battle.net
revolutionized online gaming, and is arguably one of the
contributing factors towards the Internet's mainstream
popularity today. The phenomenal success of Diablo II solidified
Battle.net as the most successful internet gaming hub on the
planet.
When Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos appeared, Blizzard had once
again outdone themselves. While many maintain that Starcraft is
the superior game, Reign of Chaos had a few aspects in it's
favor which allowed it to hold it's own. First, the game had a
3-dimensional game engine, a first for a Blizzard RTS. Starcraft
utilized tricks of perspective to create a 3-dimensonial
environment; Reign of Chaos actually was 3D. But more
importantly, Blizzard introduced an experience system for Hero
units, an introduction to the franchise that would prove
prophetic.
When World of Warcraft was first announced, the response from
gamers was overwhelming. Blizzard already had some of the most
successful PC games of all time under their belts, and had
produced cult SNES classics like The Lost Vikings and Rock n'
Roll Racing. Blizzard was famous for working wonders with
anything they were given, and doubtless they could do the same
with the Massively Multiplayer Online RPG genre. But the choice
of Warcraft was interesting. Diablo was already the clearly
established RPG from Blizzard; why take such a great RTS formula
like Warcraft and make it into an MMO? In the end, it broke down
to backstory and pre-established characters, both of which
Warcraft completely whipped Diablo in.
The genre of Massively Multiplayer Online RPG was not only a
mouthful to say, it was a mouthful to play. The genre featured
seemingly limitless gameplay options, and indeed the first MMOs
released almost ten years ago still have small but highly active
communities. The first successful MMO was Ultima Online, which
took the cult text adventure game and created one of the first
worlds where people interacted in large groups. Everquest soon
followed, and immediately proved the superior. Indeed, Everquest
was arguably the most dominant of all the MMOs right up until
the release of World of Warcraft.
So Blizzard had a lot on their plate, and a lot to live up to.
They had the reputation of being one of the best (if not the
best) PC Game developers out there, had a legendary and famous
gaming world to create in it's entirety, and had already
successful MMOs like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot to
contend with. Long story short, Blizzard not only lived up to
expectations, Blizzard surpassed them. But the game has a few
flaws, and makes some claims which frankly it doesn't live up
to. And then there's the community of people who you have to
interact with. But more on that later.
Blizzard made no secret that most of the developers of World of
Warcraft were experienced players of other MMOs, particularly
Everquest. This experience would prove invaluable. SOE
(producers of Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and Matrix Online
MMOs to name a few) had been criticized for years for not
listening to their players, and making arbitrary changes based
on statistics and not actual game experience. In a sense,
Warcraft was being developed by players for players. And the
developers did a fantastic job, taking all of the great things
about games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima
Online and putting them into Warcraft, while leaving out the bad
things (grinding for endless hours and spawn camping being most
notable amongst these).
Other MMOs featured level caps which very few players would
actually reach. Even an extremely dedicated player could take a
year, perhaps longer, to reach the level cap. To make matters
worse, the constant stream of “Expansion Packs” (ironically a
concept pioneered by Blizzard) released for these games
regularly raised the level cap, but didn't really offer much in
terms of new content to actually gain those extra levels. This
is by far the way in which World of Warcraft stands out from
it's peers.
The average player can take anywhere between ten and twenty days
of total played time to reach the level cap, while other MMOs
the same amount of time would get you maybe halfway. Despite the
fact that Warcraft caters itself as the “Casual Player's MMO,”
you still need to dedicate a lot of time to it. If you don't
have the time to commit at least one or two hours a day to it,
you won't reasonably get anywhere. Once you reach the endgame
content, that time can easily reach to four or five hours a
day.. .
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