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Having read some of the submissions for beta impressions over the last week, I felt compelled to write one of my own. I owe a lot to my significant other for this review; she was nice enough to let me have a turn now and then to play! I wanted to come up with a good title, a good way to capsulate my review in a few words. I wanted to avoid "Ten Ways WoW Rocks My Former MMORPG", although very tempting as it was, and passed on "WoW Will Be Better Than [insert upcoming MMO name here]". I hesitated on the otherwise aptly chosen "Ten Ways Blizzard Will Cash the Checks" title, and decided to sum up my beta impressions in ten bullets; one for each day of the stress test.
ONE. Character class diversity. I was very impressed by the huge difference in gameplay style between the character classes, and how distinct each of those styles were. A warrior and a rogue may have similar goals, and even some similar paradigms (do more damage in less time), but overall the playstyle and even the interface is totally different. This isn't just a case of having more than one way to skin a rabbit, it is a total shift in premeditation and strategy. The difference between the warrior and the rogue is nothing compared to the difference between a warrior and a hunter, or a hunter and a shaman. Even the spellcasting classes are quite distinctive of each other. This difference translates into awesome group dynamics and certainly will make for cool PvP later on. The difference between the classes gets more profound as you get past tenth level and start choosing your class talents. Class talents work a lot like the Diablo 2 character skill trees. Presumably this wou!
ld make it so that even two equal level warriors could be different, although there is certain to be "uber templates" for talents for PvP.
TWO. Real content. I cannot state enough how much attention to detail goes into the world and NPCs that are in it. There are no useless spaces or buildings or empty boring places. Everywhere I turned I found something, and every time I wandered from the beaten path, I was rewarded with something I might not have seen if I hadn't left the trail. Finding an out of the way cave, monster hut, abandoned camp or something else interesting (and likely important to know at some point) became the rule and not the exception. In fact, some areas are bursting at the seams with content. In several of the previous games I've played the land and cities were littered with unused buildings and space. Here in Azeroth, you will make note of the empty rooms for their rarity. I can recall approximately where in Ironforge I found an empty room as well as I can recall where in a former game I would find the only non-empty room in a certain building. The full magnitude of what kind of difference th!
is makes won't be apparent until you see it for yourself.
THREE. Nice learning curve. I'm a veteran of four or five other online games so having to spend hours reading guides and FAQs and help menus should just be part of the game by now, right? Wrong. This game is exceptionally easy to get into and just play. Right out the door you start within plain sight of your first quest NPC and equipped for combat. The newbie monsters are also typically close enough to examine. I mean you couldn't possibly have it more handed to you when you start. A non-intrusive help bubble directs the non-initiated on the very basics of interface control, and unless you've never played a videogame in your life everything is where you expect it should be, like inside a familiar car. The beginning quests help you learn the beginning area, a few key NPCs and the rudimentary combat basics. Don't let the toddler-easy introduction fool you, your intro to the world is brief and the real gameplay starts long before the intro gets old. I didn't ever feel like I wa!
s just "out gaining XP" at low levels, and the start-up quests whisk you around, through and straight out of the newbie areas. Again, this is a detail that you probably cannot fully appreciate until you see it yourself. The new player experience is so well engineered it is like a form of art.
FOUR. Thematic Elements. This game should be rated I for Inversive. There is more Warcraft in World of Warcraft than you can shake a stick at. Granted Blizzard created the Warcraft universe to begin with and has a decade of content to work with, but the fact it survived the translation to World of Warcraft is worth mentioning. In fact, it shines. I won't mention other MMOs based on existing fictions that failed at this seemingly simple task. My hat's off to Blizzard for doing what they do well; create a unique world with a distinct look at feel. Each area is quite different and most are gushing with content from Warcraft 3. In several cases you are given to feel that the story from Warcraft 3 didn't ever really end - it just got a whole lot more interesting all the sudden and you're in the story! Other times the references to Warcraft lore of old is more along the lines of a grin or tongue in cheek. Anyone recall a placed named booty bay?
FIVE. Graphics and Style. World of Warcraft delivers a beautiful world and well done characters that are definitely Warcraft - the look at feel is unmistakable. The animations, artwork and attention to detail are stunning. The graphics have a certain comic-book style to it that is easy on the eyes and more effective than trying to be too realistic or push the envelope too far. You may not be able to count the grass blades in the world or have a million face combinations to choose from, but the graphics are awesome anyway. The screen shots don't do justice as to how cool some things look in game. Ironforge, for example, simply cannot be represented in the frame of a single screen shot. Or five, or twenty. You'll see.
SIX. Performance. The game runs better than some released games I know. This is typical of Blizzard titles. I was also quite impressed at how quick the game loads from desktop, to login, to being in game. We're talking fast. Think Warcraft 3 and then a little quicker. And once your in game that's it, no more loading required. Ever.
SEVEN. Challenge. Above I mentioned starting the game is easy. Well the challenge sets in pretty quick, probably before the end of your first sitting. Soon after level 3 or so you're compelled to leave the relative safety of your starting area and discover the world. And just as quickly you find there's a lot out there to eat you. The balance is tuned to you at your best, so don't plan on starting a fight and making a sandwich. You can hunt solo, but you learn some tough lessons quick. If you do like to hunt alone, prepare to make some compromises on the tougher of the areas. Fortunately for us solo players, the game is very forgiving when there are a few solo players hunting in the same area. By pseudo-cooperation you can break down camps and dungeons normally too difficult to hunt alone, without outright demanding that you be grouped. If you do group with even just one person, it makes a huge difference in where you can go. Speaking of challenge, the death system is pretty!
nice. When you die you appear at the nearest graveyard and can res on the spot for some xp, or choose to walk as a ghost back to your corpse and have no xp penalty. Since you are likely headed back to where you died anyway, the luxury of walking back as a ghost (invulnerable and unable to chat or interact with the world) in a way consolidates the trip. You will get tired of the trip back to your corpse enough to fear death, but without death also costing you work.
EIGHT. No Camping, no repetition. I never once felt like I had been resigned to one spot long enough to get tired of it. There were always choices of where to hunt and never too much of a linear feel to how I was supposed to get about my tasks. On the contrary, I feel as if I was rewarded more for playing on the move. It seemed that staying in one place just wasn't as effective, which is a welcome change.
NINE. Griffon Riding. Dude. Whoa. Go and add in another seven over-used Keanu Reeves quotes. You HAVE to try this.
TEN. Quests. I saved the best for last. All of the depth and thematic praise I've piled on the game comes through a very serious, very deep quest system that is really beyond what anyone else has to offer. These aren't quests from an ad-lib random quest generator machine, nor are they meaningless stupid tasks. In fact, you can't even repeat quests, and wouldn't need to. As far as I made it during the stress test, you can level up by doing quests alone and not even have to do all of the quests that are available. I'm serious, if you do nothing but do quests, you will continue to level up, expand your borders and do new things. I never once had to hunt just to get xp, and there were more quests I could have done and passed up. The story unfolds through the quests and the NPCs you meet, and a lot of the quests open more quests, and some quests aren't available until you are the right level to do them. You might revisit an older area of the game and find new stuff to do. Some of!
the quests can even lead you into an "instanced" portion of the world that only you and your group (and those you invite) are in. Imagine your most memorable high-end dungeon raids, and then make that experience exclusive to you and your buddies. No competition, no showing up and finding the "end guy" camped. It is readily apparent that quests and quest content weren't an afterthought in World of Warcraft; they were a mission statement. It shows, and it is some serious fun.
Thank you Blizzard for the chance to participate in the stress test. I had a great time, and yes, I WILL tell my friends.
~IanAsh
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