|
buy wow gold Store, Open 24/7
If you don't like MMORPGs, you probably wont like this game
World of Warcraft is intended to be an MMORPG that gets rid of
many critical flaws of other MMORPGS, but I find the game to be
unplayable, much as I find any MMORPG. I played the game
throughout the beta test and upon release.
GAMEPLAY (1 out of 10)
Firstly, I'll review gameplay from my own taste, but recognizing
the fact that I haven't previously liked any other MMORPG, I'll
attempt to more objectively evaluate the merits of WOW compared
to competing MMORPG's:
First of all, thank God that this game doesn't have an awkward
tutorial like Everquest 1 or 2. I was able to immediately get
into the game, create my character, and start running around.
Immediately however I run into the problem that I observe in all
other mmorpgs, fighting random, weak, and solo badguys (called
"mobs" in mmorpg terminology). The fact of the mater is, that
this, in and of itself, is completely non fun. All mmorpgs share
this mistake. They assume that people will recognize that later
on one can gain strength and fight epic battles and actually use
strategy or reflexes, but the fact of the matter is you have to
get to that level by doing activity that I can't imagine anyone
having fun doing. Im biased against the RPG gameplay form, but
even in Warcraft 3 fighting creeps was more fun, at least there
was always large groups of them and there was lots of things
going on with spells and debuffs. There is no reason why this
couldn't happen at an early level in an MMORPG, especially with
the style of netcode that they use.
The main innovation or focus of WOW, is instead of always
fighting random roaming bad guys to gain levels, you can also
talk to townspeople to get "quests", which can be completed to
gain levels and items. "Quests" however, for most of the first
levels, are nothing more then being told to go to a specific
place on the land to fight like ten roaming monsters. Now to me,
this system is worse then just fighting random roaming monsters,
because:
*It often doesn't seem to solve the "camping" problem that it
was designed to stop. The "camping" problem is when there are a
bunch of players waiting for a monster they need to kill to
enter the world again. Quests are supposedly designed to
seperate out players to avoid this problem but this is not very
effective.
*The quest system involves what I call "maze" gameplay,
essentially gameplay where you are forced to find your way to a
specific place. This is called "exploration" gameplay by
supporters, but to me it is more like a "maze" because most
often the places all look alike and look boring. It takes a
while to find the place unless you ask in the chatroom (an
element that ruins the immersion for me and feels like
cheating). Not only do you have to find the place, but then you
must find your way back to the specific townsperson hiding
somewhere in some building who originally gave you the quest to
find your reward. If it was just fighting random monsters, I
would be motivated to explore to see the world and new eye
candy. I also could be motivated to explore to hunt certain
animals or gather resources as part of a trade system. But the
system of forced exploration inherent in the quest system is a
big downside to me.
Many of these problems would be mitigated by a larger or total
use of instance dungeons, which are essentially "private
dungeons" analogous to the "underworld levels" in the Legend of
Zelda. But these don't occour untill you are higher in level. By
that time I was largely turned off by the gameplay. I'd rather
them focus on the leveling segment entirely by instance
dungeons, and the "endgame" (the state of the game when your
character is completely leveled up) revolve around faction vs.
faction fighting.
Now let me discuss the game from the perspective of those who do
like existing MMORPG games. WOW has a much less steep learning
curve, and can certainly feel like much less of a grind then
other mmorpgs. Combined with the great graphics and warcraft
universe storyline, most mmorpg gamers were looking to the game
to be the best mmorpg to date. I need to warn you though about
the way Blizzard has handled and will probably continue to
handle the gameplay (as MMORPGS all constantly evolve so its
important to look at developer's patterns):
*Blizzard has a history of "nerfing" things that are
overpowered, but unique, to the point where they lose their
uniqueness. Take for example a purely hypothetical situation
about the hunter's guns in the game. The gun's, which instantly
hit their target at a long distance upon being shot, are
considered too powerful. Blizzard would, instead of weakening
their damage, change them so that they fire a visible and slow
moving projectile. In other words, from a gameplay mechanics
standpoint, guns are no longer strategically different from bows
and arrows. This type of nerfing makes the game more one
dimensional, and Blizzard is notorious for that. Blizzard seems
to have a belief that if something general is overpowered, such
as a race, that if they tweak a bunch of small attributes
somehow everything will magically work.
*Before release Blizzard put in this "decay" process, whereby as
you use your weapons and armor they decay to the point of
usefullness and have to be repaired, costing money. This was put
in as a "moneysink" to avoid inflation. When first implimented
however, it obviously effected primarily warriors and other
classes which primarily use weapons and armor, and less effected
magic users. This example highlights many possible problems with
Blizzard: 1. They unbelievably didn't have the forsight to
imagine how this change would be biased towards magic users. 2.
Instead of creating a money sink that was fun or adds to the
game, such as gambling or player built housing, they do a very
"fun disruptive" thing like decay. I make these points to let
MMORPG fans know what types of things they might expect in
future updates.
Player vs. Player gameplay is fun, and intense. This to me is
the true gem and heart of the game, but its unfortunate that it
takes so long to get to this level.
Graphics (7 out of 10):
Graphically this is by far the best looking MMORPG. Although it
technically doesn't have the highest polygon count and broadest
use of special effects, its the only 3d MMORPG with any artistic
style and personality. This is mainly the fault of other
MMORPG's, who seem to build everything out of "stock footage" 3d
presets. The world is immense and much more varied then other
MMORPGS (although still too plain or repative in some places to
overcome the "maze-gameplay" problem).
Sound(4 out of 10):
The sound in this, like other MMORPGS, is extremely weak. All
the spell and battle sounds completely lack personality and
"oomph". The sound designers apperently didn't feel the need to
associate pleasureable sounds with pleasurable events, like
leveling up.
Overall (3 out of 10):
If you have never played any MMORPG games, I'd seriously advise
you to somehow try and see if you can try this game out in a
store or a friends house to get an understanding of what an
mmorpg is all about. When I had first played an MMORPG, I was
shocked at how surealistically bad they were, and so I would
advise someone not familiar with the genre to somehow try the
game out. MMORPG fans, bearing in mind what I have said here
with regards to your specific prefrences, should find this game
a good buy... .
|