|
buy wow gold Store, Open 24/7
World of Rinse Wash Repeat
When World of Warcraft first arrived in my household, I was
skeptical. I myself was busy with Everquest II and Eve Online,
but I was willing to give WoW a chance. Everyone was playing it;
friends, family, heck, even strangers would come up to me and
talk about it. Both those just mentioned and the media were
hyping it to be either A) the best game ever, or B) the funnest
MMO ever. So I was swept up into buying it.
Before I actually got to playing, I did a little research on the
classes and whatsnot. I chose a gnome warlock, and, well, I'll
kick off the official review right here. . .
-----
My first impression. . . the GRAPHICS:
I was a bit disappointed when I hit the character creation.
Before actually choosing my gnomelock, I messed around with the
other races' appearances. Only a few faces for each race/sex
combo, and each of them were almost painful to look at on the
males of any race. The hair and facial hair choices for each
race were varied, though again, most of the male characters
still looked a bit ridiculous. It seemed safe to surmise that
almost every player would look alike, and later on my prediction
seemed fairly accurate. I finish character creation with a
little warlock having a long moustache, goatee, and bald head.
Quite comic, but, sadly, it looked more 'respectable' than the
other customization options. But enough with my musings on
avatar creation. . . now we head into the world (of Warcraft!).
I see myself surrounded by snow, with a campfire and some wagons
nearby. Snow-covered trees pretty much dominated the view, and
rabbits, wolves, and a few other creatures stalked the vicinity.
My first two impressions were 'fairly believable environment'
and 'omgwtfbbq so cartoony!'. The snow on the ground had a
slightly annoying specular lighting effect, meaning it shined
and glowed when you looked at it from different angles due to
the sun. Maybe if it had slightly blinded you (like real snow in
the sun does to us gamers) or something, the effect would have
been more 'fitting', but I found myself wishing they would have
worked more on the detail of more important things, such as the
total game aesthetic.
I am fully aware that the cartoon graphics and the noticeably
stereotypical fantasy world are intended factors of the art, and
they do the job of being 'fitting' quite well, but in the end, I
just don't feel inspired, awed, or anything. A plus to this
'stiffness' of the world is that loading times are practically
nonexistant, like Halo 2; sure, theres a loading screen at the
beginning, but in-game it's seamless. This doesn't actually help
the immersion much, as I found myself suddenly going from
'snow-world' to 'loch-ness-wannabe-world', a la your typical
platformer minus the mine cart ride. Almost instantly, the
environment switches from snowy mountains/hills to green hills
surrounding a lake. From what little I know of the real outside
world, I have discerned that this is completely unbelievable.
I could go on and on about how bland the environments tend to
be, but, for sake of posterity, I'll just say that Blizzard did
a great job with the aesthetic, but seriously needs to put more
variety in. I got tired of seeing the same exact
inn/cave/building everywhere, along with other cosmetic
repetition in environments.
So, for the graphics. . . 7 out of 10
-Good aesthetic, bland execution
-----
GAMEPLAY
Of course, you can't stumble too far into a MMORPG (well any
decent game for that matter) without discovering its gameplay
mechanics. The gameplay category will be divided into 'Combat'
and 'World'.
Combat gameplay:
The very first thing I did was jump off the beaten path and
attack a few wolves and rabbits. I noticed it was the exact same
autoattack style from just about every other MMORPG, with the
few mandatory special abilities thrown in. If you've played
Everquest or any one of its clones before, just think the same
combat just quicker and more visually impressing. If you haven't
played any other mmo's, well, you just hit auto-attack and your
character attacks, and then you manually activate abilities
which recharge over time. I can't remember exactly what spells I
had, but it made no difference- just use them in whatever manner
it takes to kill the creature fast enough. When not fighting the
'newbie creatures', you'll find that not using your abilities
intelligently will get you killed. I had fun making my own
patterns of ability usage, and a smart player of any class could
probably take on a creature 3-4 levels higher than him with no
problem. Unfortunately, I see many other people out there who
just hammer the same powerful ability over and over with no
regard to their group's strategies or any strategy at all.
This combat system can get quite repetitive, however. . . it
boils down to a fairly varied set of abilities that you gain
during your adventures(some can only be obtained from quests)
that can be upgraded at certain points.You will find yourself
using the same patterns and abilities over and over again. The
paladin will always be expected to do this, the mage that, so on
so forth. Combat, as contradictary as this might sound, has a
wide variety in individual choice but a lack of strategy(it all
boils down to everyone seeing how fast they can do damage). You
can't really do much more than that with an MMORPG, anyway, so I
suppose this is decent.
Combat recieves an 8/10
-Repetitive combat, but manages to be fun with its visuals and
timing
World gameplay
"Excuse me! Sir! How would you like a barebones world
infrastructure?"
That pretty much sums up my feelings about the game world. I'll
start with the quest system, since it's what you'll be involved
with most of the time.
Sure, the quest system is deeper than just about anything else
in MMORPGs, about the equal of EQ2's quest system. Interesting
narrative from the non-player characters, a managable quest log,
detailed description of objectives. But this is where pretty
much all MMO's fail with their task systems: do you *really*
want to kill 20 hogs in attempt to gain 3 hog livers for that
pie that the cook of the local village's inn will make for
you(yes, it seems only certain hogs have livers, however much
sense that makes)? It seems there are no exceptions to the fact
that you are either A)killing certain enemies,
B)fetching/delivering useless doodads, or C)escorting someone in
your quests. Blizzard simply uses the quest system as a
prettied-up method for players to gain items, experience, and
money. The only quests I found enjoyable were the escort quests
simply because they were a break from the other two types. My
reaction for the start of any quest usually involved me saying
either "Ah I can deal with that' or "Come on Blizzard. . .'.
Despite the repetitiveness (which, if you haven't noticed by
now, I feel is a problem seen throughout the game), the quests
somehow feel a bit satisfying when you complete them.
One of the bigger subjects is character development. 8 races, 8
classes. This seems like bad variety compared to some current
games, and it is a bit limiting, but I found the classes to have
their own playstyles and thats definitely a plus. Getting to the
max level, level 60, doesn't take all that long, but with all
the characters you can make, you're surely to get more time out
of this game than just one guy at level 60. All characters have
skills with weapons, and those get higher the more you use that
weapon, though each weapon skill is capped by your level. 99% of
players dont take their time to max out their weapon skill for
their level, instead choosing to just shoot up to level 60 as
fast they can. I guess it's just a habit of mine, but I like to
keep my characters at tip-top shape before moving on,. At 10th
level(about 2 hours of gameplay if you're just starting), you
gain a set of traits that pertains to your class. It is very
much like Diablo 2, both in organization(most of the traits
require that you have previous traits/a certain level, and there
are multiple trees of traits) and the fact that, for lack of
better words, you are screwed over if you don't map out your
traits right(you only get a certain number of points to spend
over the game). You can pay money to reset you traits map,
however. Before playing a character, I'd advise you go to a big
World of Warcraft website and look at good character builds for
traits. . . a good trait map can make a big difference in
gameplay.
The economy. . . there is none, really. Why do I say this, when
there are plenty of tradeskillers selling their wares and
services, when there is a fully featured Ebay-like auction
house, and when there are ALOT of people buying stuff? Because
it's so darned easy to make money in this game if you can stay
focused on a goal for more than 20 minutes. I'm not exactly a
market expert, but I've found ways to get rich fast, and then
max out my equipment and training for my level as if I was only
spending loose change. What's the point of making a player spend
money if he doesn't feel like he's actually giving away
something valuable for equipment? All it involves is camping
enemies 10 levels lower than you for the tradeskill supplies
they drop. Hoarde the stuff, then go sell it all for the lowest
price of anyone on the market. I did this by killing weakling
kobolds for their linen cloth, and I believe I had around 4 gold
by the time I was level 15. . . enough to supply myself for the
next 5 to 10 levels. And the worst part is that I could go and
do that anytime. The actual auction house is easy to take
advantage of- just sell for a slightly lower price then everyone
else, search for the cheapest stuff when buying, voila you've
played the market like a pro but with minimal effort. Also, many
of the pieces of player equipment are 'binded' when you equip
them- only you can use that sword, for example, from then on. So
it doesn't become like Diablo II online, where a powerful item
you used and sold a year ago is still being passed around the
trading circuits, but rather a Goodwill where you can find
things that other people didn't really need to begin with.
The tradeskill system is decent enough, and unlike most other
aspects of the game, this takes a while to build up. It's very
simple and quick. You have starting recipes. You find some of
the ingredients in the wild, some have to be bought from
tradeskill merchants. You make item. Your skill increases, buy
new recipes, repeat. It does take alot of time and spending to
make good stuff and I applaud that. Unlike EQII, there are no
levels of quality for your items, nor is there actually any sort
active involvement with your success at tradeskilling. In WoW,
it's just no-risks item making. You have the ingredients(which
are usually VERY easy to acquire; if you can't get it in wild,
just buy it off auction house), you have the item, no questions
asked.
One thing that really irks me is the PvP(Player versus
Player)/faction environment. There are two main factions, the
Alliance and the Horde, and according to the book, the Alliance
is goodly and the Horde is more like a neutral collection of
warmongering races. . . they don't want to make your life
miserable, they just want to better their own. But anyway,
enough with that since the setting is completely forgettable
unless you're a Blizzard/Warcraft fan. You choose a race, and
you automatically belong to the faction that race belongs to.
Sorry, no invidual character beliefs allowed, all dwarves are
goodly and all trolls just want to murder and betray in this
world. Basically, all this faction system boils down to is A)
you will be attacked by NPCs and be made a target for players
when in enemy territory, and B) you basically just stick with
your own. There are future plans for battlegrounds between the
two factions, but then, looking back at Star Wars Galaxies'
Imperial/Rebel battlefields. . . it will probably be nothing
more than a diversion, and an empty one at that. The PvP in this
game is horribly thought out yet still fun. There are no
rewards, there are no penalties, which is the absolute wrong way
to handle PvP in my opinion. You can only die if you're fighting
a member of an enemy faction. So basically, PvP is nothing more
than just a fun test of skill, a slight diversion. In most other
games there are penalties and gains involved, making PvP
meaningful. On a side note, the classes aren't very well
balanced against each other. Expect the dueling circuit to be
dominated by PvP oriented Paladins, Rogues, and Shamans.
And that brings me to the more general issue of death in this
game; along with some other aspects of WoW, it babies players
too much. You can either respawn as a ghost or wait for a healer
player to ressurect you on the spot. If you respawn as the
ghost, you'll start in the nearest graveyard. Everything about
undeath(or if you are playing an Undead character, un-undeath I
guess) reeks of 'awesome', I must admit. Everything becomes
shades of gray, theres a huge vortex in the sky, and there's
this cool looking angel sort of character hovering in front of
you. If you talk to her, you'll ressurect instantly, with some
minor equipment damage. And the cost for repairing that is
almost a joke. Or you can run back to your corpse, and come back
to life with no penalties. Oh wait, you *do* get a decrease to
all your statistics for a few minutes if you just ressurect at
the angel, but its not long enough to be truly punishing.
Also, the monsters. Before, I talked about how the environments
can be classified as the 'iceworld' or the 'lavaworld'. The
monsters are nothing more than a set of statistics for you to
kill with appearances themed to your location. But my actual
point is their involvement with the world; every single non-city
location in the game seems to be solely designed for harboring
monsters and quests. You stumble into the majestic forest, only
to discover that every single meter of it is covered by some
monster or another. The beaten path and little villages contain
quest givers. That's how simple this game's environment this is.
In summary, it all feels like the world is nothing more than
your monster killing/quest finishing zone.
World: 4 points out of 10
-Barebones and too much babying. The world infrastructure, from
economy to adventuring, is designed with one goal in mind:
letting players get powerful/rich as easily as possible.
OVERALL GAMEPLAY-6 out of 10
-Fun moments with the adventuring. Most of this background
infrastructure stuff won't be noticed/cared about by the average
player, but it's really lacking... .
|