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 It was a stormy (Well, certainly slightly cloudy and maybe raining a bit ) night (actually it was the morning) when I set off on my journey. The mission I had been given, to go to a Vivendi press event for World of Warcraft. All that ran through my mind on the hour-long train journey to the venue was 'What have I volunteered for now?' Even with my doubts I bravely pressed on, steaming hot mocha in one hand, book in the other. On my arrival I was confronted with that most fearsome of creatures… a college reception. Upon interrogation of the guardians I managed to find that in fact I was in the wrong place, and so much to my relief I fled the educational establishment and walked slightly more easily next door. As soon as I turned the corner however my heart sank, as there guarding the gateway stood a pair of Orc guards. I had no choice but to think fast, and so with my weapon in my hand I calmly approached the hulking warriors. I then waited till I had their attention, and using the bright flash of my weapon (ie. my digital camera) bedazzled the sentinels and in the ensuing confusion fled inside. I felt that I was safe for now. The fact that the room containing the other humans did in fact have tea and biscuits in was reassuring.
 After the initial excitement I drank a nice cup of tea and started talking to some of the people. I am I have to admit not that good with names, so whilst there was a brief period where I had many names flung at me I have unfortunately managed to forget many of them. After talking a bit with some of the other writers that were attending I got a chance to talk with George Wang for a bit. The fact that I didn't really know anything about World of Warcraft didn't really help during this exchange, but I did my best. It was indicated that Blizzard plan to look into an option for people to move across regions, that is for a player from Europe to move onto the US servers if they wish. This would be possible because Blizzard are managing all the accounts themselves as well as all the support staff across all regions being Blizzard staff, the EU staff being based in France, unlike with many other MMORPGS that have been released in Europe (i.e. Dark Age of Camelot, where the European versions were effectively franchises). It was also said that whilst the EU servers would be released after US and Korean servers, the period between the releases would hopefully be short. It was also indicated that EU beta is due to start very soon with Chris Sigety giving an estimate of within 2 weeks, and then later on indicating that the beta may be so close as to be within days, but more about that later. It was at this point that lunch arrived in the form of many plates of little yummy-looking treats including, but not limited to, a plate of mini éclairs and mini jam tarts.
European Support
After lunch it was time for us to get on a coach to be whisked away to the next destination, yet another large house where we were to be given a presentation by Chris Sigety. Much to my relief the Orcs were not invited. The purpose of the event seemed to be on emphasizing that Blizzard are planning to provide equal support to Europe as they will to the US and Korea, as mentioned earlier, by providing GM's based in Europe that are contactable at European office hours, patching all servers worldwide simultaneously, and releasing the EU version soon after the US and Korean versions. Chris also hinted at there being a possibility of different versions of the game, i.e. US and EU versions, being tailored to the tastes of each region. The example cited was that it would be possible, for example, to provide special events on the French servers to celebrate July the 14th.
Character Creation
Next we were shown the character creation briefly with a quick flick through the various options. Chris said that they had chosen the method of character creation that they had to ensure that a player wouldn't be able to really gimp their character based on what they did before they played the game as with other games, where a new player might place points in a statistic that to them meant nothing, but in later levels is cause for regret when they find that the points would have been better spent elsewhere. Chris created an Orc warrior named Grom and logged into the game.
Questing
Next there was a demonstration of the questing system. My impressions were that the questing system in World of Warcraft is more used as a method to guide players to appropriate hunting grounds as much as to progress the storyline at present. The whole system is very intuitive and actually being able to tell whether or not an NPC has a quest for you is easily done by use of icons above the head of any NPC with quests for you. After the questing system had been shown came a brief demo of the e-motes which, for me at least, provided much entertainment. I have never seen a huge Orc prance around like *that* before. As for the chicken dance…
Mailing and Auction system
At this point the setting was changed as Chris switched to a Human priestess in the city of Stormwind. This is where I first got shown the mailing system in World of Warcraft. There are post boxes scattered around the world where players can go to leave messages. Every player has an inbox and so the mailing system provides a system for messages to be left for players that are not in game. You are also able to attach money and/or items to a mail and so enabling trading with characters that are out of the game. Another part of the mailing system is the auction system, where you can put up an item for sale with a minimum reserve price and other players will bid on the item for 24 hours. At the end of the 24 hours the winning bidder receives the item through the mail, and the seller receives the payment. I found it refreshing to see such a system in an MMORPG when so many others in the genre have been lacking in such options.
Transportation
Next there was a demonstration of the transportation options. First of all we were shown a Gryphon ride that forms a taxi service between two cities. The animation of the Gryphon itself and the scenery that it flew over was stunning. We were told that on the back of a Gryphon (or other creatures that offer these taxi services) you cannot be attacked (and cannot yourself attack) and so they offer you a method to view creatures that you otherwise would not be able to see. There next came a demonstration of the Zeppelin transport that seemed effectively to be a platform that you could jump onto at various Zeppelin stations to get faster transport around the world, or more precisely between continents. It is possible to attack and be attacked on a Zeppelin, and it is also possible (though unadvised) to jump off mid-flight. If you are on a Zeppelin or one of the taxi creatures and get cut off from the internet or need to log out for whatever reason then we were told that when you log back in you will appear wherever it was that you were heading. Finally we were shown the last method of transportation, mounts. Mounts are available from around level 40 onwards and provide a faster method of moving around the world. They are summoned from your backpack and you control them much like you control your own character. Each race and class has their own specific mounts, in addition to some other generic mounts. We were shown a dwarf upon his ram mount. Unlike with Gryphons you can be attacked on mounts, however you can jump off easily and fight or run away easily because you are able to go so fast (if you don't feel like fighting). You cannot summon a mount when in combat.
Professions
Next Chris switched to a night elf character in the middle of some wood-lands where he showed us a couple of the professions. The reason for the change to allow only 2 professions per character is an effort to influence a player-driven economy by forcing players effectively to have a need to cooperate. A clan could for example have a group of gathers that would go collecting herbs and skinning creatures who would then give the gathered materials to other clan crafters who could then use them to create products for the clan. The first profession shown was that of skinning, and all in all it seemed quite simple. First the creature needs to be killed and any items are collected as normal. Then if you have the skinning ability then you are able to right-click the corpse and a progress bar pops up on the screen. Once the bar is filled then a small window much like the looting window appears and you are able to take the skin of the creature. The other skill shown was alchemy where we were shown how simple it was for potions to be created. All that was needed to be done (once materials had been collected of course) was for the player to click on the button to create the appropriate potion, and after a few second the potion would be complete and available for use. Every time you make an item using a profession then you gain skill in that profession, and whilst you are only able to have 2 professions at a time you are able to change professions at any time. The only down side of changing professions is that any skill in the profession you drop is lost permanently, but in exchange for trying a new profession that in itself didn't seem like too much of a penalty.
Instances
Chris then switched to a higher level character, a level 43 Dwarf, in order to show us the instances (in addition to the mounts as detailed earlier). The instance we were shown was one of the blue instances. Blue instances are made for groups, and in the blue instances up to 5 people can group up to battle through. Each group effectively gets its own dungeon, and unlike the rest of the world inside an instance the creatures don't re-spawn. This means that no longer do you have to battle through a dungeon to the big bad boss to find that some other group has been camping it, as each group will have their own instance of the big bad boss. The other type of instance mentioned is the raid instances that are distinguished by having a blue portal instead of green. In raid instances larger groups of people, for example a clan, can go through to battle through a more elaborate instance.
Talents
After this we were given a brief overview of the talents system. Talents are the abilities that distinguish a character from another and are gained by spending the points you earn when you gain levels. The talents will not be able to be released, like professions, when you wish in order to prevent players changing their talents to fit a cookie-cutter class. Even with this limitation Chris indicated that there may be a possibility of a quest or something to allow re-spending of spent talent points, however that they did not want this to be something that could be done on a whim.
Play-test
And so with the presentation at an end came the chance at last to try the game itself (after of course a brief drink). I sat down at one of the computers, typed in my nickname, and promptly wanted to go and create a dwarf with a beard to the ground. I decided to change the sex to female, and reached for the facial hair controls. Much to my dismay no facial hair appeared, only some jewellery. Not one that likes to be distracted by a lack of facial hair I decided to change my race to Human and made a male rogue named Aeiedil. I appeared in front of a pleasant guard who directed me towards my first quest, a matter of some pest control. The controls were easy to use, and the camera all in all was easy to control and I didn't really end up with a problem often experienced with 3D games where a camera ends up getting stuck in awkward positions. The fact that there was so little downtime was reassuring, and whilst I only managed to achieve level 4 I found the game itself quite pleasant even at such a low level. I tried to not get distracted by the fact that every few minutes someone from my team would get killed. The ability to share quests I found refreshing, if a bit confusing at first, however once I got used to it then it seemed to be common sense.
Whilst when I arrived I was so heavily set against World of Warcraft, when I left I was almost the opposite and I can finally see what all the fuss has been about. I am looking forward to getting to try it out again when European beta starts (as mentioned earlier within the next couple of weeks hopefully), and if all goes well look forward to being able to play alongside my clan-mates in retail at some point in December. World of Warcraft shone so much to be of so many of the points of Dark Age of Camelot that really made the game worthwhile to play combined with the unique styling of the Warcraft world. World of Warcraft is definitely a game worth watching.
Written by Aeiedil Anamor
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