World of Warcraft - Staff Editorial

We had a couple recent editorials where we questioned if Blizzard was on the right track with a few aspects of WoW's gameplay. The feedback from the community was mixed, some saying that we jumped to conclusions others that any criticism prior to launch is pointless. As an editorial position, we'll always stand firmly with the belief that devs can certainly make mistakes and sometimes some grumbling from the community can help steer them towards better plans. However, what's prompted this editorial, is a few posts on the official boards that say the entire staff at Stratics somehow hates the Blizzard and WoW.

Does anyone post on forums, write articles or spend any amount of their time supporting games that they hate or aren't excited about? Of course not. There's a reason why we're all here working on WoW and not the Sims or SWG.

Since people thought the whole team must agree with a couple of our editorials, we decided to find out just what we all thought. We took a poll of our team to find out what we all think Blizzard has done right and where WoW's strengths lie. The results show just how dynamic MMORPGs are expected to be. In fact, there were only a few areas where we all agreed. It acted as a reminder of just how tough a road Blizzard has to travel. You've got hundreds of thousands of people out there each with a top five of their own. Meet their expectations and they'll play for years, fail to meet them and you end up in the bargain bin giving out free months of service if you bring in a friend.

Eighty percent of the staff, placed the history of the gameword in their top 5 and 60% as number 1. It was the run away category with us here at Stratics. Perhaps sometimes when thinking about races and classes you forget just how much depth the world of Azeroth is going to offer. When the devs of Ahseron's call or Everquest sat down and started creating their world, they were making it up as they went along. Some ruins here or there were added to look cool. But when Blizz developers go to an area of the map, they know for a fact that Dalaran once stood there, so they'll add a ruined city. When they do underwater locations, they know what the shipwrecks from the second war looked like, or that the Naga ruins should look like ancient Night elf architecture. What is even more important is that we the players will have that same sense of history. When you see the corrupted lands of Lodaeron, you'll know how it happened, instead of just being in some generic "undead forest". From day one, 90% of players are going to know why orcs don't like humans and vice versa. Instead of just being told you don't by the game's faction system.

Number two on the list was WoW's graphics. 80% put it in the top 5 but it averaged third among our staff. Some people scoff at the cartoon style of WoW. However, it is hard to deny its visual appeal. EQ2 is pumping obscene numbers of polygons in to their models, but don't have the style or the attitude that a WoW nightelf or orc can capture. In WoW each screen shot looks like it could be cell of animation. Yet the area the comic book look really shines is the world itself. EQ2 might have realistic players, but current cards and processors can't render a tree with every single individual leaf blowing in the wind. The result is that EQ2s characters might look real but the world still looks boxy, square and surreal. With WoW however, the characters blend right in to the world. What's more, it helps elevate the feeling of immersion. Take a look at the architecture in the towns that have been revealed. Each race actually has a truly unique feel to them. Maybe Blizzard can't talk about their polygon count or the way their water refracts yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. Screw it. It looks cooler than the competition.

Three of us also chose music and sound to place in our top five. Though sometimes overlooked in games, Blizzard has us hooked with the sounds and music they've released so far. Right now we're all hoping beyond hope that the voice acting we all know and love makes it in to WoW. What would a fight be without a human yelling "For Lodaeron!" or an orc muttering "Zug. Zug.".

From there we each had our own individual hopes and dreams for WoW. Two of us placed the intuitive interface in our lists. Its hard to argue that Blizzard has ever produced an interface that wasn't smooth as silk. The E3 videos seem as if there is no interface at all and that speaks to its potential.

I think Blizzard might as well copyright the term Polish as they seem to have the market for it covered. Though not something you can point at directly, it managed to creep in to the top five of two us. For those of you knew to Blizzard's work, polish (like for shoes, not like the hot dog) is that extra bit of tweaking that Blizzard seems to always do to make the whole package come together perfectly. They have yet to release a box office bomb since releasing Orcs and Humans. So the mythical term "polish" still seems to come up when discussing Blizzard.

What was left was a hodge podge of hopes and dreams. We all have our own personal hopes for what will make WoW better than the rest. Server Stability was pinned to Blizz's prowess garnered through Battlenet. Community service springs from the same thoughts. One of us was just excited to see guns in a fantasy setting. The thought of questing hooked another. The numerous emotes and interesting animations was someone else's drool generator.

When it comes down to it, there are a lot of reasons why the folks here at WoW Stratics are excited. We're all fan boys and girls at heart or we wouldn't be working so hard to support the game. Yet even after having said that, we all also have our list of worries almost as long as our list of things to anticipate. MMORPGs have burned each of us enough times to be worried that WoW will fall in to the same pitfalls. But we'll leave that for next week