Gaming Signal: UPDATED: Review of World of Warcraft

UPDATED: Review of World of Warcraft

This is a repost, edit/update of my original review for World of Warcraft posted on SFSignal before GamingSignal came into being. This review has been remastered from the original and have been edited for content.

REVIEW SUMMARY: The "short version" is that "I still like it," for now. Feel free to read my updated extended comments.

Introduction:
Not sure if you know, or care, but my journey to WoW had been one fraught with many indecisions; I must've bought and returned the game at least five times since its release. As you, my friends, all know, I'm often fickle and emotional, so I guess that's why it had taken me so long to get here.

About a month ago, I played WoW on a friend's guest pass for 10 days. I quickly worked my human warlock character to level 10. But stopped after about the 5th day because I couldn't login anymore.

Note on the Guest Passes:While they're good for trying out WoW, expect to only play it during off-peak hours because you WILL sit in the login queue for a good amount of time while their regular paying customers cut in front of you in line.

WoW has many of the features that are ubiquitous in MMO games. In my review, I'll only discuss those that stood out for me.

Disclamer: Like I had mentioned, I play a Human (because that's the best looking toon) Warlock (because they get a free mount). I make no assumptions about its overpowered-ness or playability. But do bear in mind that my opinions may be biased because of playing that race and class combination. Basically, your mileage may vary.

Update: I just made level 47 on that Warlock last night. I've been making a strong push to 60 to join my guild brethren on the "end-game" raids.

*Deep breath*On to the review...

Gameplay:

Compare to other MMOs (EQ, EQ2, CoH, DAoC, etc.), WoW is very newbie friendly. Face it, we're all newbies in the beginning. A friendly interface will hold our hands during those tender early levels long enough to get us hooked.

The Grind:
First question everyone asks about an MMO is "What's the grind like?" At least, that's the question I always ask. and that's why WoW sat on my shelf for so long. I'm wonderfully surprised that the grind can be characterized as "enjoyable" to "endurable," mostly due to their quest system.

Update: Since the original post, I've played more of my Hunter and created a Druid. Still the Warlock is the most fun. The druid doesn't seem to get nearly enjoyable until level 20 -- which is a long time if you're playing alts. The Hunter is enjoyable as soon as you can tame your first pet.

Questing:
In their friendly interface, quest-giving NPCs are highlighted with a big yellow
exclamation point (!). Quest-completing NPCs are highlighted with a big question mark (?); they also show up, as a yellow dot, on my mini-map as you approach them. I've completed several quests while doing other things at the time because the dot popped up on my screen.

You know those other games where the word "quest" is in their name and they want to give you the impression that they offer a lot of them by using the word "ever" also? Well, WoW doesn't need a gimmick like that; but come to think of it, maybe "WoW" is short for "Wow, there are a lot of quests here!" I have to admit, probably 45-50% of my XP is gained from completing quests. Another ~45% are from working toward the quests themselves. That leaves about 5-10% actualy "grinding" and most of this time was spent just getting enough XP to finish out a level.

Update: I still spend a large part of my gameplay questing. The quests are getting harder and harder to complete as the level of the mobs go up. Some I can't even do solo because they have "elite" mobs -- for those, either I get a group or wait until I'm 4 - 5 level above the elite mob level to complete it solo. I just did one the other day where part of the quest was to use a "zapper" that takes away the mob's elite status -- gosh, I wish I have a zapper of every elite mob in the game!!

Quest Sharing: This is a very nice feature. Someone in your group can share a quest with you that you don't have so you can complete the same quest alongside with them. Wow, what a concept! Of course, some quests cannot be shared because they are the middle steps in a long series of quests.
Another nice feature is that quest mobs seems to have very short timers. There had been occassions where I was able to kill a quest mob before I got the quest and then a short time later, kill it for my quest. Very friendly indeed.
Update: Higher level mobs have longer timers, which is to be expected. But not once-a-day like that other game.

As an aside, one item that's worth mentioning is that many of the quests are little mini-arcs in the story. It is a lot of fun following the quest steps as the mini-story unfolds.

Grouping/Soloing
This is one of those areas where I think my class selection really helped me out. Warlocks are very solo-able with their pets. With that said, I've also grouped several times to complete quests.

To say that WoW is "group-friendly" is an understatement. Basically, there is no level limitation between the group members. I was in my low 20s when I grouped with a level 60 (max level) guildmate for a quest because noone else was around to help me and I was able to get XP (not very much, but still) and quest loot. Sure, people say that this will give way to twinking, but you can choose not to group like that.

Programmability:
Surely, this is not something that is to be expected in an MMO game but yes, WoW adopted an existing scripting language (LUA) into its interface to make modding possible. I'm using several mods that range from helping me to get a good auction price to finding new abilities for my hunter pet (an alt of mine). There are tons of mods out there. It's great that Blizzard lets players have that capability.

Tech Spec:
Probably due to its cartoony graphics, the hardware requirement is not as high as in other MMO games, which is fortunate for me. As it turns out, my personal laptop (with 1GB RAM), was able to play it very nicely (even with the integrated Intel video adapter although it's been crashing it intermittenly lately since the last patch).

Overall:
For now, I'm really enjoying the game. Long time readers know that I'm fickle and proned to quick judgement. I've, often, given glowing reviews about something only to come back dissatisfied later on. So be sure to check back whether I'll be unhappy with WoW later... ROFL.

Update: Well, it's later, and I still like the game. But eagle-eyed readers might noticed that I've dropped the overall rating by a whole star since the original post. This is because of a most annoying and seemingly under-addressed (is that word?) problem with WoW -- LAG!! Blizzard swears up and down in their forum posts that they're working the issue, but the lag just seems to get worse.

COMMENTARY:

Beware of Addiction - WoW is very addictive; be prepare to lose contact with your friends and family if you're one of those with an addictive personality.

Beware of Lag - At times, WoW can be VERY LAGGY. I've lost count of the number of times that Blizzard promises to "look into the lag" and nothing results. There are even times when you looking at a 45+ minute (not counting the 10-15 minutes you stare at the screen while they try to "Retrieve your characters") wait time just to log in only to find out that when you logged in, you can't access your mail, you can't sell things to vendors, you can't interact with NPCs, and the ultimate loserville item -- the boat crashes (a la the orignal EverQuest, what is this? The 20th century??). Because #1 above, the lag and inaccessibility can turn into major frustration. My advice, feel free to rant and rave into the WoW forum calling Blizzard personnel by every unkind name you know. If anyone reply that you should leave because you're unhappy, tell them they're the reason you can't log in, which is the truth, and tell them to eat a lot of fatty food and smoke like a chimney so they can drop dead soon, like tomorrow! Sometimes, it's good to vent -- not venting causes cancer and you don't want get cancer over those stupid people, especially when most of them are ... see #3.

Beware of Children - Because of the accessibility (hardware-wise, not necessarily the ability to log in), WoW attract MANY MANY children. These are children who ranges from the ages of say, 10 and 11, to ones old enough to have children that can have children. Obviously, I'm talking about the mentality of the players. While most are very nice, especially when I'm soloing and I overpull (which is rare being a Warlock and all -- you can't over pull if you have a sack of soul shards because you can always sac your VW for a fresh one, but I digressed.) You see really whiney people when you have pick-up groups (PUGs). As a general rule, I don't get into PUGs. One of the only times I shout for PUGs is when I have to complete a dungeon run for a quest. When I do that, I drop all expectation of getting loot because the point is not to get items but to complete the quest. If I want items, I'll run it with a level 60 from my guild who will give me first choice in every green and blue item in there.

Grouping in WoW has taught me that there are basically two groups of children that play WoW...

There is the group of those who won't STFU about all the crap that they have and proceed to link everything in their inventory into the party chat followed by the incessant talking about how they got all this "Rested XP" stored up and blah blah blah... These are the kids that I can imagine their parents gladly paying for their WoW accounts because they won't have to listen to their stupid kids yak!
The second group are those who want every blue and green drop in the dungeon regardless of whether they can use it or not. It's always "Need" to them because they have alts that "need" the items. The other night, I ran Zul-Farrak and we had two "children" in the group who kept bickering who gets what blue items. After a while, when we got wiped which is inevitably the result when you play with a PUG with children, I just ress'd at the graveyard, tell them I'm not coming back, then I write their names down on this little piece of paper so I know never to group with them again!

Posted by Peter on Wednesday March 08, 2006 at 2:56 PM