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World of Warcraft Review
No game has done more to make MMORPG a household word in North
America than World of Warcraft (WoW). Since its launch in Nov.
2004, the game has been breaking records and receiving stellar
reviews. I think we can safely say that the world of persistent
worlds will never be the same. Without repeating too much of
what I've already said in previous articles on the game, here's
a look at the current state of WoW.
Just Another MMORPG?
It's worth considering what has made WoW such an incredible
success when at its core, it follows a formula many of us are
all too familiar with. Killing NPC mobs and completing rather
mundane quests to gain experience levels so that you can kill
tougher mobs is really nothing new. Nor is throwing in some
player versus player (PvP) combat at the end to give higher
level characters something else to do. Perhaps the most
exceptional thing about WoW is the pace at which this progress
is made.
Most MMORPGs force players into a significant amount of
"downtime." Downtime can involve everything from sitting to
regenerate your power bars after a fight, to having to run back
to your corpse after you die. It's time when your character
isn't directly engaged in gaining either experience or cash. You
are generally required to take one of these short breaks after
every few monsters you kill.
By comparison, WoW has reduced the amount of time you spend
doing nothing but watching your health and mana supply recover
to an absolute minimum. Food and water, which, as usual, speed
up the recovery process but can't be consumed in combat, are
abundant in WoW, and they act very quickly.
Combined with magical means of regeneration and a relatively
light death penality, the result is gameplay that has almost no
downtime whatsoever, apart from the odd mana recharge.
Graphics
Visually, WoW is quite stunning, even though this is due more to
artistry than it is to fancy technology. Anyone who has seen a
screenshot of it can see that the emphasis is not on realism,
but rather on creating a detailed world with the unique
personality of the strategy series. Things do have a somewhat
blocky appearance, but this has allowed Blizzard to use
extremely smooth animation and keep hardware requirements
relatively low.
The interface has improved over the last few months, giving
players more shortcut bars and a few other options they can
customize. It's intuitive and easy enough that you will adjust
quickly whether you've been playing MMORPGs for years or WoW is
your first one.
Your Character
Choosing a race and class are the most important decisions that
need to be made when creating a character. Your race determines
whether you belong to the Alliance or the Horde, which are
Azeroth's two warring factions.
Unlike RPGs that base your progress on which skills you use, WoW
uses the familiar class-based level system. The abilities and
equipment you will be able to use are decided largely by what
class you chose to play. While you gain a little flexibility
when you start receiving skill points at level 10, it's a long
way from the freedom you have in skill-based games like Ultima
Online, Asheron's Call, and Saga of Ryzom.
There are ways to customize your character's appearance, but
they are sparse compared to those of other MMORPGs. Combined
with classes that restrict what gear you can use, and a large
number of players, it's not uncommon to run into characters that
are almost identical to your own.
Quests
Quests are remarkably well-implemented in WoW. While the
majority are of the routine "collect this" and "deliver that"
variety, others are actually quite complex. In some cases, for
example, you will be required to protect a certain NPC as it
travels to another location. Hunting mobs is a viable way to
gain experience, but completing quests at the same time is the
quickest way to advance your character.
Quest givers are clearly marked with an exclamation mark over
their heads, and there are also various indicators to let you
know who you have talk to when the quest is complete. The quest
log is very convenient, and you can pursue as many as 20 quests
at the same time. For the most part, WoW is solo friendly, and,
unlike most MMORPGs, it's possible to reach the highest levels
of the game without being forced to group with other players.
As well as standard quests, there are also quests that are
connected to instanced zones which you can play through without
interference from outside your group. The game truly shines when
you are tackling instanced quests, as they are imaginatively
designed and require a great deal of cooperation with the rest
of your party. The downside is that finding an appropriate group
can be time consuming, and then it can take several hours to get
the job done. If key members of the group have to leave part way
through, it's unlikely that the remaining members will be able
to complete the quest.
Getting Around
Transportation has not been neglected in Azeroth. There are
ships, zeppelins, recall stones, teleport spells, flying
creatures, mounts, and even an underground train. You need to
visit points on the flight paths before you can use them, but
the running you are required to do is never excessive. Flying
between cities on a continent actually takes you on a fully
rendered trip through the world, rather than simply bringing up
a loading screen, which is a nice touch even though these become
good opportunities for a bathroom break after seeing them enough
times.
Crafting and Trading
As well as combat skills, characters in WoW can have a number of
trade skills, which include things like cooking, mining,
alchemy, and blacksmithing. Crafting with these skills is
nothing particularly new; you bring up a crafting window and
click a few buttons.
Your trade skills are limited by the level of your character, so
progressing through the game solely as crafter is not really
viable, even if you're willing to purchase all the necessary
materials at the auction.
Several major cities have Auction Houses, which are integrated
with the game's email system.
You must be at the Auction House to put items up for bid and
place bids, but the rest is handled very cleverly by Azeroth
mail. Your goods or money can be retrieved at any of the
mailboxes scattered thoughout the world.
PvP?
Given that the Alliance vs. Horde conflict is central to WoW,
the player vs. player combat is somewhat disappointing. On
regular servers PvP is entirely optional, and your PvP flag is
triggered only by attacking an enemy NPC or by using a /pvp
command. Once your PvP flag is up, you can be attacked by any
member of the opposing faction. Your PvP flag will remain up
until you go about 5 minutes without engaging the enemy.
On PvP servers, the world is divided into friendly, contested,
and enemy areas. In friendly zones, your PvP flag does not come
up unless you attack the enemy faction. This means that they
can't attack you unless you attack them first. In enemy
territory, you will be flagged for PvP, but again, they will
have to attack you before you can attack them. In contested
areas, all players are flagged for PvP, so both factions must be
on their guard. PvP Battlegrounds, when implemented, will be
available on both types of servers.
Given that there are no level restrictions on who may attack
whom, the PvP server system may seem an adequate compromise at
first glance, but unfortunately, it has some serious flaws.
Foremost among these is that there is really nothing to fight
over. It would be much better if, for example, you could change
the status of certain zones from contested to friendly, or from
enemy to contested, by achieving a set of objectives. As it
stands, territorial control in WoW is essentially static, and
corpses can't be looted. Raids occur regularly, but regardless
of the outcome, nothing vaguely significant is gained or lost.
Another problem is that death is handled the same way on both
server types. When someone gets killed they simply respawn as a
ghost at the nearest graveyard, at which point they can try to
recover their corpse, or be revived on the spot. The only
difference between these options is that the latter results in a
greater equipment damage penalty.
The consequence of this in PvP situations is that casualities of
the battle are often back in the fight mere seconds after dying,
once again attacking characters they just killed.
Getting revived in the graveyard can mean that you enter the
world right next to a member of the opposing faction. Under
these circumstances PvP is not just pointless, it's downright
absurd, and it makes playing on PvP server rather unappealing.
Battlegrounds, which are to be instanced, may help, but the
persistent portion of the world would still benefit tremendously
from a territorial control system, an honor system, or at least
some way to claim a graveyard. Frankly, the PvP in the game
right now feels like a complete afterthought.
The Bottom Line
Although WoW is fairly typical for a MMORPG, there are several
things about it that make it more compelling than most games of
this kind. Azeroth is dripping with character, detail, and
polish which truly instills a desire to explore it in the
player. The quest system and instanced dungeons tie it all
together beautifully, providing players with everything from an
introduction to the game to high-level raid content. Finally,
the reduction of downtime increases the fun factor considerably.
Even if you don't find yourself hooked on WoW for years, there
are few RPG fans who won't get many months of enjoyment out of
this game..
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