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Terrific Neighborhood; Shame About The Neighbors
When it comes to refining gameplay, Blizzard is king. As a
company, they don't do that much to innovate and create new play
concepts. But if you need somebody to take an established genre
and really make it sparkle, look no further. With World of
WarCraft, Blizzard is taking on their biggest challenge yet: the
savage world of the MMORPG. Have they learned from the mistakes
of their predecessors yet again, and crafted the perfect game?
Well, yes and no. While World of Warcraft's gameplay is without
peer in its genre, the game itself is often undermined by the
very community it is built around. Thoughtless, reckless, and
plain old clueless players can often make the experience
frustrating and tiresome. While this is hardly Blizzard's fault
(they can't be expected to be surrogate babysitters for millions
of players), it still effects their game, and hence, my final
score.
While World of WarCraft bears the unique charm and personality
you'd expect from a Blizzard game, it is very much a traditional
fantasy-based MMORPG. Orcs, wizards, elves, paladins... you know
the drill. Your two real major choices are whether to join the
Horde or Alliance, and to decide which class to become. While
your choice of faction is largely based on aesthetics (the
Alliance are the clean-cut 'good guys' of sorts, while the Horde
feature the rugged mugs of orcs and the living dead), each
individual race has special traits that can be an asset in your
World of WarCraft career. Since you'll be looking at your
character for MANY hours, be sure it's someone you'll enjoy
spending a lot of time with.
Your choice of class basically determines your role in the game,
especially when you're in a group. Warriors are the
damage-enduring 'tanks,' priests stay back and keep everyone
healthy, and so on. As you get into higher-level areas and the
other players get more dedicated, you'll often be chided for
deviating from your specified purpose. Priests that 'waste'
their magic points on attack spells, for example, tend to get an
earful from their allies. Not surprisingly, players have really
number-crunched World of WarCraft into oblivion over the years,
and have calculated what the 'best' skills and talents are for
each class in a group or solo setting. Hardcore players may
criticize you if you use less-than-optimal attacks or powers,
which can be a turn-off for those who just want to play the game
the way they feel like. You might want to read up on your
character class before you make your choice, although you can
create plenty of multiple characters with one account, if you
want to sample all of them.
As you might expect, there's no real singular goal in World of
WarCraft. Reaching level 60 and doing the big-time raids is one
route, although some people find those overly long and
distasteful, and would rather spend their time battling other
players. You can even sit in a tavern all day and chat with
anyone who walks in. It's your call. Most likely, you'll spend
your days out in the wild, battling monsters for experience and
profit, or as part of a quest.
Questing is one of the nicest features of World of WarCraft, and
is the heart of playing solo. Various characters in the game
will give you missions to perform, and will reward you with
goodies and experience for completing them. While the writing
for these quests is hardly Shakespearean stuff, there's enough
flavor there to make the missions seem more exciting than they
would be normally. You can juggle up to 20 quests at once, and
there's no penalty for dropping one, so you can go back and get
it later if you want to. There's some serious satisfaction in
returning to town after a hard day's questing, and getting the
big pile of experience and treasure from 'cashing in' your
completed missions.
As you gain levels, you can purchase more powerful skills from
trainers. You also get a 'talent point' for every level from ten
on up, which get placed into one of three talent trees that will
instantly remind Blizzard fans of their past love, Diablo II.
While the purchasable skills are the same for each player
sharing a class, there's a finite number of talent points,
allowing you to customize your character and make him/her a
little more unique. You'll probably end up putting most of your
talent points into one tree, making your character a
'specialist' of sorts. (Fire mages do more damage, for example,
while frost mages can use the power of cold to slow or
immobilize their enemies for safety's sake.) This is what gives
World of WarCraft its addictive quality... the promise of new
powers that are JUST around the corner, with which to destroy
all local wildlife.
Still, sometimes those overworld monsters just aren't enough for
you. You want to go into a dungeon (referred to as an 'instance'
in World of WarCraft) and take on some elite baddies. The risk
is higher, of course, but so is the reward. The trick here is
that elite monsters, if they're at your level, are almost
impossible to kill by yourself, especially when they come at you
with friends. So you'll need to form a group, up to five players
for the early instances, to get the job done. Groups, needless
to say, involve other players, and here's where problems arise.
Just finding four other players can be tough, and you often have
to yak on the channels for quite a while, repeatedly asking for
allies until you can round up enough people. Adding to the
problem is that the two most crucial roles - the warrior and the
priest - are in short supply. Everyone seems to want to DO
damage, and not absorb or heal it away. This has led to a
grotesque surplus of rogues, who can dish it out but can't take
it all that well. In any case, Blizzard should explore ways to
make warriors and priests a bit more glamorous, to help populate
the realms. Half of the few warriors/priests I've met took those
characters just to be more marketable for grouping, which seems
a little sad. You shouldn't create a fantasy adventure character
with market forces in mind. (For the record, being a priest is
really rather exciting. Keeping your team alive and healing a
wounded ally at the last minute is rather like being a medieval
paramedic. I've never played a warrior, but hey, you get to wear
shiny armor!).
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