Blizzard's newest classic is as easy to recommend as it is enjoyable to play.
User Rating: 9 | World of Warcraft PC
Many gamers have worried that the MMORPG genre became stagnant before it ever had a real chance to take off, and they certainly have a valid point. Many MMO’s with great promise are simply recycled versions of Everquest, with a few tweaks here and there to make them stand out from the crowd. Attempts at true originality, such as The Sims Online and Planetside, were bland and uneven, further cementing the notion that persistent online worlds may have stalled before they ever got started. Enter World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s answer to the jaded naysayers, and a superb game that proves that online RPG’s are far from dead. WoW does not turn the genre on its head; instead, it brings that unquantifiable “it” that the developer has infused into its previous titles to a vast, detailed world brimming with activity and personality. While other online RPG’s feel too much like work, World of Warcraft is unadulterated fun at all character levels, with all classes, with all professions, and with all quests. The Warcraft mythos translates extremely well to the new format. While at launch there was no singular story thread such as those that tied together titles like Anarchy Online or the now-defunct Earth and Beyond, snippets of backstory are brimming from every possible angle. The meat of these narrative bits, as well of the gameplay itself, is in the almost endless quests available at every turn from various NPC’s. While Everquest 2 and other recent MMO’s have introduced players to the game world with a clear tutorial that showcases the basic play mechanics, World of Warcraft dumps new players directly into their starting area and offers tips by way of glowing exclamation points at the bottom of the screen. Beginner quests are available everywhere you look, so it shouldn’t take long for new players to get into the swing. Even experienced levelers will enjoy the starting quests available, since they draw you in immediately, making even the simplest of “kill wildlife” quests feel as though they have significance because of the lore fueling every goal. You choose your character from one of 8 races in 2 realms. Races in the Alliance include Humans, Gnomes, Night Elves, and Dwarves; Horde races are Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Undead. Each race has specific classes available to it, so for example, only Tauren and Night Elves can become druids, while only Humans and Dwarves can be Paladins. Players used to customizing every bit of their avatar’s appearance will be initially disappointed, since there are limited face, hair, and skin options. This is proof, however, that beauty is only skin deep, and as you progress further, you will be surprised at just how individual your character becomes. Armor, clothing, and other odds and ends you equip will ensure you never feel as though you are buried in the crowd, and the enormous number of professions and talents you can develop will cause you to forget about your physical appearance rather quickly. Once you have gotten used to your basic abilities and skills, you can choose from 8 primary professions (such as alchemy and enchanting) and 4 secondary professions (such as cooking and fishing). Choosing a profession opens up an entirely new world to you, giving you additional spells and abilities that support your new job. You can choose as many secondary professions as are available, although you are limited to two primary professions. While certain classes are more suited to certain jobs, you can choose any primary profession you wish, and this is where your true individuality will take root. Soon afterwards, you will also begin to earn “talent” points, with which you can enhance your current spells and abilities, making your avatar even more unique. For example, you may be able to put points in a ranged attack talent, giving you a smaller chance of missing your target. Eventually, you will be able to follow branching talent paths to further develop your character. You will spend most of your playtime fulfilling the many quests assigned to you via discussions with various NPC’s, who are identified with exclamation points above their heads – or question marks, if you have an open quest involving the character. Most are solo quests, often requiring multiple steps, so while they may seem at first to be your standard run-of-the-mill delivery or combat assignments, they end up taking on a lot more meaning, and you will notice actual relationships develop between NPC’s as a result. Additionally, many of these quests introduce you to entirely new aspects of the game, such as traveling methods, or further explanation of the mythology imbuing the entire landscape. For example, destroying a bevy of roaming spirits so you can read an ancient stone tablet reveals a fresh glimpse into Azeroth’s history; a simple delivery mission introduces gryphon travel to those unacquainted with it. Most “elite” quests, on the other hand, require a group to be effective, although you can share your solo quests with group members that would like to come along for the ride. The combat that is alternately addicting and somewhat hollow in most online RPG’s is a pleasure in World of Warcraft, in no small part because of the array of different enemy behaviors. Some foes will flee to grab assistance from their comrades, some will cast various spells, lending an added dimension of strategy, and others can move with amazing speed, making for some nail-biting chases uncommon in the genre. While some may still complain that the leveling grind is as apparent as ever, Blizzard has used varied NPC artificial intelligence and behavior to add spice to the usual fare. Of course, grouping provides the best adventuring, and in fact, the enemy AI, combined with the multitude of spells and skills at players’ fingertips, makes for an extremely tactical experience. The combat even gets quite visceral, as there is never a shortage of enemies. In fact, the swarms of enemies and frequent spawns can cause one of WoW’s few frustrations: it’s sometimes a little too easy to die, making it tough on the solo adventurer – or small groups that find themselves in over their heads. Fortunately, running away is actually an option much of the time, as many adversaries will give up the chase if you have been fleeing long enough. Death penalties and a lack of quick travel options are amongst the most common frustrations of experienced role-players, and Blizzard has widely chosen to concentrate its few innovations in these areas. Choosing to rest at an inn will make a glowing pool near the area your resurrection point, and when you perish, your ghost will appear there, near a spirit that can resurrect you with a 25% effectiveness penalty on all your items (which can then be repaired for a fairly small fee by a vendor, if necessary). Should you want to avoid the penalty, you can travel to the location of your corpse and resurrect with no punishment whatsoever, although you take the risk of reincarnating near the same foe that vanquished you a moment earlier. As for travel, you will undoubtedly be getting around primarily on foot, but not only does the varied game world keep it from becoming weary, but once you have discovered a new city, you can travel there on the back of one creature or another, be it an enormous tiger or a winged hippogryph. The interface and map system helps make it easy to get around, for the most part. The shortcut bar at the bottom of the screen makes casting spells and performing actions simple, although it’s sometimes too easy to accidentally drag an icon from the bar and delete it in the heat of battle. In a stroke of genius, not every entity is always available to view in the map. Instead, certain classes can cast spells to illuminate one type of being or another – and you must choose what kind of being (such as wildlife or humanoid) to reveal at any given time. Finding trainers, auction houses, and other locales is as simple as getting directions from city sentries, who will kindly mark them on your map, although they will only mark one at a time. On the other hand, we would have liked to have seen a waypoint system such as the superior ones in Star Wars Galaxies or Everquest 2, as finding your quest location can sometimes be a hassle. Fortunately, quest logs are generally quite specific about the location of your mission object, although roaming around is still impossible to avoid. It’s at these times that you will be grateful that exploration in WoW is more enjoyable than almost any other MMO, thanks to your fascinating, colorful surroundings. World of Warcraft may concentrate on Player-versus-Environment combat, but the Player-versus-Player aspect has not been forgotten. Players can engage in one-on-one combat if they so desire, but full-on realm vs. realm battles are possible, particularly in PvP-specific servers, even if they are presently rather uncommon. The huge number of race-class-profession-talent combinations makes for an exciting, rousing skirmish every time though, unless you are harmlessly milling about one of these areas and find yourself the unwitting target of an aggressive player. Successful PvP’ers earn honor points, which they can use to purchase certain upgrades, and in a terrific twist, higher-level players that consistently battle lower-level ones earn dishonor, which penalizes the player with various hits to their abilities or belongings. Blizzard has done an outstanding job at creating a detailed, charming depiction of Azeroth and its inhabitants that faithfully recreates a world familiar to players of Warcraft III and its predecessors. WoW doesn’t feature many of the technologically impressive features of other games, such as full real-time shadows and millions of polygons. However, what the game lacks in technological marvel it makes up for in colorful environments with unusual, stylized buildings, flora, and fauna. Character models are loaded with personality, and animations are top-notch. It’s also worth noting that Azeroth is, with almost no glitches, practically seamless. You will travel dozens of in-game miles without ever seeing a single loading screen, ensuring you will never be anything less than completely immersed. There are still tiny issues here and there, such as corpses that remain animated, and a strange implementation of ranged attacks that allows the attacker’s arrow to fly through the landscape. However, these are small quibbles in a game designed to look great and run exquisitely on a wide range of systems. The game’s sound is similarly glowing, particularly in the music, which is never less than completely appropriate and atmospheric. In fact, we often wished there was more of it, particularly during combat, when you usually only hear the sounds of the battle. Thankfully, the objects of your wrath squeal, grunt, and moan with great personality, and the roar of a hunter’s pet is eminently satisfying. Voice acting is of high quality, and while NPC’s don’t give long soliloquies, each one has a variety of phrases that lends him a good deal of character. On our 5.1 system, the sound was as overwhelming and exciting as the best battles, although there were times when the environmental sound made it difficult to hear an NPC's spoken dialogue. Outside of a few opening-day glitches, World of Warcraft has been completely stable during our testing period, which is just as well: we don’t want anything coming between us and perhaps the most fascinating 3D game world ever created for an MMO. That “it” will keep you coming back for more, regardless of your prior experience in the genre. While WoW could have benefited from a few more original touches, and perhaps a few more tweaks found in other recent MMO’s, the choice is clear: if you are looking to play a new online RPG, Blizzard’s newest classic is as easy to recommend as it is enjoyable to play.
