|
buy wow gold Store, Open 24/7
A Solid MMO
It's mid-April, World of Warcraft has already been out for 4
months and is steadily approaching its half year mark. Although
it had a launch that was unstable at best, World of Warcraft has
been hailed as one of the greatest Massively Multiplayer Online
Games ever created. This may be true, but World of Warcraft
stills suffer from many of the same issues that plague the other
games of this genre.
Gameplay is a mixed bag in the World of Warcraft. The engine
itself is very structured, and the user interface is very easily
modded, and Blizzard has done a great job giving players control
over what they want on their screen at any given time (button
wise). WoW's user interface is very simple and user friendly, as
everything essentially rests on one bar on the bottom of your
screen, and new buttons can be added to open slots through
simple dragging and dropping. It's easier to run out of button
space with caster classes, but there are plenty of mods out
there for UI's that will solve this problem, in addition to the
extra optional bars that blizzard has added recently in a patch.
In this aspect of gameplay, the World of Warcraft is
significantly more accessible to an average player than most
other MMORPGS.
The character creation process is somewhat dull and not very
complex. Blizzard allows a player to Pick a race and a class,
and then adjust some hair and skin color and that's just about
it. Characters of the races, especially the non-human ones, seem
to look very similar to each other, which doesn't really help to
create any diversity in the game.
Once inside of the world you are immersed with the Warcraft lore
and are immediately pointed to your first quests which starts
your adventure. This is also one of World of Warcraft's high
points, as many MMORPG's start you off with a small amount of
money and then let you off on your own to figure out where to go
and what to do. The world of warcraft undoubtedly guides a
player by the hand for the first ten levels and far into the
teens by giving ample amounts of quests and varying the areas of
these so that the player will get into correct zones for their
level as they progress through. These quests range from killing
arbitrary numbers of mobs, or finding rare drops, and rarely an
exploration or escorting quests. Once you have completed a quest
you can return it to whoever gave it to you for even more
experience points to level up your character. Essentially
Blizzard has used the quest system to mask the “grinding” system
that makes up the heart of most MMORPGS. This works surprisingly
well as these quests don't really start to lose their charm
until you have progressed hundreds of hours into the game, when
they stop being more beneficial than just straight out killing
any mob in sight. However, those with short attention spans
should be warned, after passing through your teen levels your
gameplay and strategies for finding most mobs will be identical
throughout the next few hundred hours of gameplay.
Blizzard tries to aid their players in this with instances,
trade skills and Player versus player combat. Instances, or
small group dungeon crawls where 5 characters trek through a
series of computer controlled enemies in order to get high
quality “loot” (Treasure), make up most of the “end game” (the
point at which your character can level up no more) content, and
there are usually two for every 10 levels of character build up.
At the end of these instances there are usually epic bosses that
drop prime treasure that although should be rare, is seen pretty
readily in major cities among many characters of the same class.
Some good items can be made through WoW's trade system, such as
special armor and enchantments. This helps to get away from the
repetitive gameplay when it catches up to you. Yet again, this
is somewhat useless as the items created by these trade skills
are significantly less powerful than the ones found in instanced
dungeons. Other trade skills include gathering like mining and
skinning, which can be used to skins and ores to make leather
and metallic armor or sold in the auction houses to get cash. In
addition to these things, when one is bored of typical combat,
there is always player versus player combat. Based upon your
race, your character has a tie with some faction, and therefore
is hostile towards the other faction (Alliance vs. Horde).
Blizzard has tackled the problem of PvP that many MMORPG's
struggle with by setting up 3 distinct server types,
Roleplaying, Player Versus Environment, and Player versus
Player. The first two servers follow a route much closer to
FFXI, in which the goal is to simply level up your character and
make it most viable for grouping. PVP on these servers is very
limited, but with the release of Battlegrounds (separate
instanced areas for PVP), it won't really be a significant
difference. On a PVP any contested area is field of battle. If
there is someone of a different faction they may attack you in
any contested area no matter what their level or class is. With
the new PVP honor system that has recently been released in a
patch, players can receive honor for player kills within a
certain range of their level. This honor contributes to a rank
which then can allow a player to buy high quality items.
Unfortunately at this moment, this has caused the WoW population
to reach levels of barbarity and bloodlust in which questions is
practically impossible in many locations. The release of
Battlegrounds will undoubtedly aid this problem, but a potential
buyer should know that on a PVP server with an implemented honor
system, it will be significantly harder to level up.
Although the gameplay for WoW may sound great from the above
paragraphs, as you may tell from my tone in certain places,
there are huge flaws that are pretty consistent in most
MMORPG's. First of all, this game is EXTREMELY REPETETIVE, as
any player versus environment combat is pretty much the same
with the exception of instances. PVP is also flawed as classes
are blatantly imbalanced, and high level players have no penalty
for “ganking” lower level players (a level 60 character can kill
a group of level 1 character for hours if they want). Blizzard
also uses the same communication policy that they have in all of
their previous games, which is leaving their customers in the
dark as to not enrage their player base if they miss a deadline
or say something that may not be 100% true. The
omni-conservative policy is extremely inefficient in an MMORPG
where the player base has a huge say in the games development.
Blizzard has recently increased their patching frequency for new
updates, but many servers suffer from constant outages,
something that should have been fixed within the first few weeks
of launch. WoW also becomes much like other MMO's as the game
completes and one reaches end game, there is almost no variety
in content as your only choice is to do high end instanced
dungeons or aid your low level friends in their adventures.
Gameplay in WoW is an entirely mixed bag, which although
probably is the crème of the crop, it is still
fundamentally flawed.
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Graphics and Sound:
This game sure looks and sounds like Warcraft. For anyone that
has played previous warcraft games, they will be able to spot
out familiar locations and characters with great ease. This
gives the game a distinct cartoonish look, which although fits
the universe well, isn't all that spectacular. The graphics
rarely amaze the player even at their highest levels. The sound
in this game is absolutely superb. Everything from the warcraft
universe has been perfectly implemented. If I click on a peon it
does indeed give me the “watchu want. Me not that kind of orc!”
sayings that I am accustomed to hearing from the warcraft real
time strategy series. The music is decent, but can get kind of
annoying, as can hearing the same emotes and character voice
saying “out of mana” or “I can't do that!”, but it never becomes
annoying.
Graphics and Sound: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
World of Warcraft is a great, but flawed MMORPG. Although it
does have some solid game play fundamentals and is very easy to
pick up, it does eventually turn into a masked, but endless
grind with interspersed PVP. This an immersive, all encompassing
warcraft adventure which will be sure to sap hours of your life.
However, after a long time with this game, reality sets in and
the grind becomes apparent. This game will leave you feeling
empty and disappointed. For an experienced MMORPG player, this
game will be a great short term experience, but in the end won't
really be worth your time. However, for a first timer in the
genre, this game will be a great introduction especially if this
game is played at a casual pace. .. .
|