World of Warcraft is a massive multi-player, online role-playing game set in the Warcraft universe. In it, thousands of players will be able to adventure together with a new,... more
online role-playing game set in the Warcraft universe. In it, thousands of players will be able to adventure together with a new, in-depth perspective on familiar lan...
World of Warcraft (Mac/PC)
World of Warcraft is a massive multi-player, online role-playing game set in the Warcraft ... more
universe. In it, thousands of players will be able to adventure together with a new, in-depth perspective on familiar lands, former battlefields and heroes fro...
universe. In it, thousands of players will be able to adventure together with a new, in-depth perspective on familiar lands, former battlefields and heroes fro...
the real-time strategy game played by thousands upon thousands of fans worldwide. Make sure you dont miss a game, by grabbing your copy of this fantastic World of Warcraft 2010 calendar, which not only features a brilliant illustration featuring the intriguing world of the Kingdom of Azeroth, but it also has plenty of space for writing dates, appointments, anniversaries to keep you organised throughout the year.
My name is Paul, I am 19, living in England. This is the first review I have written for Ciao, I wrote it based on both research and own knowledge. I have chosen to write a review on this game because I have played it now for almost 2 years. This review will seem on the whole, positive, but I will be exploring both positives and negatives of playing this game. I will be explaining facts about the game and sharing my opinion in certain parts. I like to write my reviews with structures, you may see similar structures to this in my other reviews, I do this to help organise my information for both you to read and for me to write.
a1.2 - Using This Review
I have created a contents section for this review because it is so big, I understand that 99% of the people will probably not want to read all of it, so I have broke it down into sections. To jump to a certain section, you can scroll down to the page, or you can copy the code next to the section heading and search it on the page (e.g. for this section the code is 'A1.2'. That aside, I hope you enjoy reading my review as much as I have writing it.
a1.3 - Introduction to WoW
World Of Warcraft (Also known as WoW) as released on Feb 11, 2005, published by Blizzard Entertainment, developed by Blizzard. This is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roll Playing Game), which means you can only pay for it online. It boasts stunning graphics, brilliant music and game play that for me is second to none. But what attracts around 9million people to play this gaming masterpiece? I am going to explain the ins and outs of the game as best I can, sharing information about the game that is good, bad and ugly.
World Of Warcraft comes from the strategy series of Warcraft, traditionally Orcs Vs Humans, however as the series began to evolve, so did the armies. This lead to races such as dwarves, humans, undead, orcs, trolls, elves, gnomes and taurens. I always thought the storylines in the series were rather weak and thrown together until Warcraft 3 came out. The Warcraft3 storyline for me, although not brilliant, became the foundation of Warcraft's storyline. It explains how horde are at war with alliance, and that the threat of The Scourge growing becomes far greater than the 2 great factions being at war, they join forces to take on the scourge and ultimately, destroy them.
In World Of Warcraft however, its is back to the good old days of Alliance (Humans, dwarves, elves and gnomes) at war with the Horde (Orcs, Trolls, Undead and Tauren), and although there is not much storyline going on for the game, quests help make up for that by adding little miniature stories based on certain characters/NPCs (non player characters). ============================== ===================== ===============
c3. Game Play
c3.1 - Races & Classes
There are 2 factions in WoW; Horde and Alliance. Each faction has 4 playable races. The Horde have Orcs, Trolls, Undead and Tauren, the Alliance have Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes. And each race has a different variety of classes they can be. The classes consist of: Warriors, Paladins, Shaman, Druids, Mages, Priests, Hunters and Warlocks. Certain races can only have certain classes, e.g. Tauren can only become Warriors, Hunters, Shaman or Druids.
Each race can design their characters to be either male or female, and each race has its own set of racial skills, these are what set the races apart other than appearance. And the characters that players make are quite customizable. Players creating their characters can change their sex, skin colour, face, hair, hair colour and facial hair. These give players' characters a distinctive appearance, however I personally think that Blizzard should have made the character designs slightly more customizable.
Each class has its own set of spells/skills, making them unique, strong and weak in certain areas of the game. For example mages do very good damage, but die very easily, where as paladins do not do much damage at all but are potentially the hardest to be killed.
c3.2 - Professions
You get 2 types of professions, primary professions and secondary professions. You can only learn 2 primary professions, however you can learn as many secondary professions as you wish. The primary professions are: Mining, blacksmithing, leather working, skinning, tailoring, enchanting, herbalism, and alchemy. The secondary professions are: First aid, fishing and cooking.
All professions can be used to improve your character, make life easier playing your character but also to make game money. However some professions can actually end up costing you a lot of money, its up to you to decide what professions you want and how they will benefit you.
c3.3 - Levelling & Questing
The maximum level you can become is level 60, this can take quite a while to get to, I level up on average once a day when I pass level 20, which is probably about average, however I often see die-hard gamers who can get 2 to 5 levels a day. You can level up by gaining experience for defeating foes.
Quests are tasks given to you by NPCs, they usually involve killing things or collecting items, when you complete quests you will usually receive a reward and reputation bonus, and you will always receive experience. Most quests you can do on your own, however some quests require you to invite at least 1 player more, and towards end-game you can accept quests that require 20-40 players to fight with you.
Every 2 levels you obtain, you can purchase new skills from your class trainer, (level 2, level 4, level 6, etc). Doing this can either improve the skills you already know or make new skills possible to use. Starting at level 10, you acquire what is called a talent point each level after 10, you can spend talent points to improve certain areas of combat or defence. You must choose your talents wisely as it costs game money to relearn them.
c3.4 - Raids & Dungeons
Raids and Dungeons in the game are called instances, they are generally areas that contain better than average enemies that require a team of 5 or more to beat. You can get quests that require you to do instances, the quests quite often have better than average rewards.
Dungeons, although harder are very rewarding, they allow you to obtain powerful equipment, certain reagents, money and quite a lot of experience. Lower level instances can be done with 5 player teams, however as you get to 58+ you can do instances that require raids. Raids are teams of 20-40 players that go to instances that are very tough, and require great team work to play successfully.
c3.5 - Factions
There are other factions besides Horde and Alliance, such as Ratchet and Booty bay. You can increase your reputation in the factions by collecting items and giving them to certain people within the faction or completing quests for them. There are different levels of reputation in factions. They usually start at Neutral, then friendly, then honoured, revered and finally exalted. Your reputation can also decrease by doing certain things they would not agree with, for example; killing faction members.
Why increase the reputation? Because the higher your reputation, the more things you can unlock, such as items, equipment, mounts and new quests. The more respected you become, the greater the benefits!
Apart from the playable races, there are other races that play parts in the storyline, some friendly, some not so friendly. The side-race that plays the biggest part are almost definitely Goblins, however other races play big parts also. Some of the other races are furbolgs, murlocs, ogres, demons, moonkins, etc.
Videos do not really play a big part in this game, in fact the only video you will see is the introduction to the game, which can be watched over and over again from the menu. However, they went all out with this video, the graphics on it are stunning. I will not give anything away because I think it is a treat to watch, but it sums up the playable races and classes quite nicely. It is a nice video to watch and psych you up to play the game.
d4.2 - Interface
The default interface is quite nice, however I remember it took some time for me to get used to it. You cannot change the menu interfaces, however you can change the game interfaces. For example, what buttons you would like to click to perform certain skills. You can change how many buttons are on your interface, and what direction they are laid out.
The nice thing about WoW is, if you do not like their default interface (which I think you will do), you can download other interfaces which offer new and exciting features, or just lay things out in a different way which you may or may not prefer. The only thing I will say is that Blizzard do not approve of all add-ons, so make sure that it is a legal download before you download it, this way your account will be safe (Blizzard class some add-ons as cheats, and banable offences).
d4.3 - Environment
The environment in the game can only be described as either 'visually stunning' or a 'visual masterpiece' or something along those lines. There are many different terrains, jungle, fields, forests, mountains, deserts, etc. They are all very quick to load, and in my opinion it is worth playing the game just to see them all, they truly are a work of art. Even when you go underwater, the graphics react and you see a sort of fish tank effect, where the water actually sways. You see sand in the deserts blowing, you get rain, you get night and day (real time night and day), you see the sun, moon and clouds move, even the sky changes colour.
There is no game like it for the environment, it is way ahead of its time, even after playing it for so long, they still impress me, and they constantly bring out new updates to add or improve to it. ============================== ============================== ======
e5. Sounds & Music
e5.1 - Music
The music is very nicely written, just about all the music is orchestral to provide ultimate quality in the music you listen to. The music is so good in fact, they have live orchestras playing the music at BlizzCons (blizzard festivals). The only criticism I would have of the music is that in some areas, the music can be a bit too slow and make me a little sleepy. It didn't at first, but I think after you have listened to the music quite a lot, it tends to make people sleepy. That aside, the music is a treat to listen to every time I log into the game.
e5.2 - Voices
There are a different variety of voices in the game, different voices for each sex and race, and at first they seem rather cool, and it can take a while for you to hear them all, however I find that after a while of playing the game, they begin to get quite repetitive, and almost annoying. For example when I am a warrior and I do not have enough rage to perform a skill, the character will say 'not enough rage' or 'need more rage' or whatever. This happens a lot, so much in fact, I have actually turned voices off. However for those new to the game, or even if you don't mind the voices, I think they are nice at first.
e5.3 - Sound Effects
There are literally hundreds of sound effects in the game, for different skills, weapons, creations, etc. Even the environments have different sounds, such as waterfalls or rain drops. The sound effects bring a sense of realism to the game and I think Blizzard delivered them very well.
f6. Features
f6.1 - Parental Control
For those parents who have kids that play the game and do not want them playing 'too much' of it, Blizzard have a parental control system on their website that allows you to customize the hours aloud to play each day or they hours of the day they can log into the game, so you can rest assured that your children are not becoming addicted. However, if you are going to do this, make sure your children do not know the password to the website, otherwise they can change or remove the parental control hours.
f6.2 - Beta Testing
Blizzard have a beta test which allows you to play the upcoming update, the idea of this is you play the beta and report bugs/issues that go wrong with the game, In return blizzard give you an end game level character to play about with very powerful equipment. The Beta can be downloaded on the WoW Website. Beta tests are only playable for certain durations at certain times, Blizzard will inform you when the times will open/close.
f6.3 - Unlockables
In the game there are certain things that are unlockable, such as pets and mounts, these can be obtained by doing certain things, for example if you attended at Blizzcon, you get a murloc pet or if you purchase the WoW card game packs you can obtain a turtle mount. They just make it a bit more interesting and offer a chance to be that little bit more unique than the other WoW players.
f6.4 - Different Languages
WoW can be played in different languages, English, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, English, German, French, etc. You can download mods to change the language of your game at the WoW Website.============================== ======================= =============G7. Costs & Payments:
g7.1 - Costs Of Playing Online
Unfortunately, a game this good comes at a price, a monthly fee even. I live in England, so I pay £9.00 a month to play this game, and although I am not sure of the actual price for other countries, I have converted £9.00 to euros and dollars using my phone, and then rounded them to the nearest 0.50: In Europe you would pay around €13.50 and in the USA, you would expect to pay around $18.00.
g7.2 - How to pay
Blizzard understand that people would all like to pay differently, so there are a variety of different ways for people to pay. First of all, there is the most popular way, paying online using a credit card. Blizzard will accept Mastercard, Visa, Electron, JCB, Switch, Solo, Electra and American Express. For those who cannot pay online for whatever reason (e.g. do not have a credit card, or do not feel safe paying online), there is an alternative method of payment. Besides paying by card, you can also pay by purchasing a 'game card' from a high street store. This basically works by buying a card from the store, taking it home, logging into your account management on the WoW website, scratching the back of a card to reveal the code, entering the code and if successful, it enables you to play 2 months of WoW. ============================== ============================= =======
h8. Requirements
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP Intel Pentium III 800 mhz or AMD Athlon 800mhz, 256 RAM, 32 MB 3D graphics card with transform and lighting such as an NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or above. Direct X 9.0c (included with game CD) and latest video drivers, 4.0gb available HD Space, 56k or better internet connection.
Mac OS X 10.3.5 or Newer 933 MHz G4/G5 processor, 512 MB Ram, DDR RAM recommended, NVIDIA or ATI GPU with 32 MB VRAM, 64 MB recommended. 4.0 GB HD space, 4x CD-ROM drive, 56k or better internet connection.
- They do not mention this on the game box/cover, but you also need additional hard drive space to download updates, I would like to say how much room specifically but they bring out a lot of updates so it is pointless to say what I have downloaded so far because it would only increase come next week. Just make sure that if you need 4gb to install the game, you have about 4gb room to install the updates.
i9. Conclusion
All in all, I think WoW is potentially the best game out there, or at least the leader of its genre, I think it is unfortunate that you have to pay monthly for it, however I think it is worth it, especially when they release all the updates, so it is not like you are not getting anything besides game play for your money. I think the game is great to play for all kinds of people who like all kinds of games, it is also good for most ages as it is not really violent (no blood/gore).
You can also download a 10 day trial of the game to see what it is like from the Warcraft websites, experience the game that around 9million players worldwide log into each day, it's a whole new world, waiting to be explored!
Useful related websites:
WoW Website (US): www.worldofwarcraft.com
WoW Website (Europe): www.wow-europe.com
Thank you for reading my review, total length: around 3000 words. I hope you found it useful.
Advantages: Huge player base, fantastic graphics and atmosphere, tons to do Disadvantages: Plenty of 'idiots' in the community, not a unique game by any stretch
With over 11 million subscribers, World of Warcraft (or 'WoW') clearly has done something right within the MMO world. Anyone who has already played Everquest 2 will recognise the game from the start; the interface, levelling system and quest system is pretty much exactly the same. The Characters World of Warcraft plays very much like a typical MMO. You create your character from 8 races (10 if you own Burning Crusade) and choose one of 9 (10 ... ...The World The world of Azeroth consists of two continents; The Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Generally speaking, Eastern Kingdoms is considered to be Alliance territory and Kalimdor is Horde, but there is a mix of towns and cities on both continents. If you own The Burning Crusade you can also get to The Outlands and with Wrath of the Lich King you can get to a third continent, Northrend. Each continent is split into sub-zones. These are generally ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Easy to fit into timetable, Good Sequel to good series Disadvantages: Slightly Repetitive, Not certain about 'Massively Multiplayer'
...for the introduction to the World of WarCraft. The game doesn't exactly hold your hand, it doesn't treat you like you're five years old. On the other hand, you don't feel lost. The game gives you just enough instruction and story so that you know what you are supposed to do, and, just as importantly, the quest givers tell you a little background as to why they ask you to do this.
For these first few starter levels, I certainly feel the game has ... ...even with 9 million subscribers world wide, I have yet to find a group on my (new player/character recommended) realm in a shorter time than it takes to grind that next level. In short, I can go for hours at a time without so much as seeing someone else.
The Game Economy
Well, I don't think I can describe it any better than the worst I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Basing your whole player economy around a less-than-easy to search ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Truly epic, huge game world, rich and vibrant community, tonnes to do, utterly astounding. Disadvantages: Subscription based (£8.99 per month).
...problems that I have with World of Warcraft and get it out of the way straight away. The quests, whilst having differing storylines, are fairly samey. They're mostly of the "Kill these" and "Collect that" and "Talk to him" variety. The game comes on FIVE discs that eat up a fairly significant 6Gb of hard drive space. I am having MAJOR trouble registering with the community forum. And to top it all off, it eats £8.99 a month from my bank account for ... ...absolutely justified.
The game world is absolute HUGE! Each territory takes around 5 minutes (estimate, I've never timed it) to run across non-stop. Off the top of my head, that means it will take approximate 45 minutes to span a continent from North to South. And there are TWO of them, each territoy containing differing terrain features from the dense forest of Elwynn to the snowy peaks surrounding Ironforge. And within this gargantuan world are ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Gameplay/Playability
Graphics
Sound
Value for Money
Longevity
very helpful
01.11.2006
MMORG Review ofWorld of Warcraft (PC)by
donnabroom
World of Warcraft: I recently started playing War of Warcraft, (WOW), mainly as a way to pass the time but it has become a bit of a habit each day. I decided I needed a break, (well actually my trial subscription has run out and I am waiting for the full game to turn up, lol), so I thought I'd write a review of it instead. For those of you that haven't heard of World of Warcraft it is a MMORG, (massively mult-player online role-playing game), that ... ...like Drainai and Taurans. The world that you play in in WOW is HUGE and the game is fairly free-roaming. The quests are level based so you need to complete them in order to some extent but within each area and each level you can do them in any order you wish. The huge world is one of the games downfalls for me; I tend to spend ages running from one area to the other rather than actually 'playing' the game. It is also this same vast universe that ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: massive game, never boring, constantly updated Disadvantages: long, very long, and highly addictive
...players from many countries. The World of warcraft servers are slightly different in the way that they are group by country. Being from the uk there are loads of servers to choose from. A lot of them contain other nationalties (mainly swedish or dutch) which are only european as the american and asian versions of the game have entirely different servers.
Choosing your server: There are 4 types of server to choose from when you first start the game ... ...Normal: these types of server are classed as the neutral servers. They enable you to create a character on each side of the fight within one server, although you wont be able to trade communicate or anything with opposite sides. This server is less pvp based and focuses more on epic quests and raids. The only time you can be attacked by a member of the opposing side is when you are in a battleground or you enter an enemy stronghold.
PVP: This type ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Brilliant and fun Disadvantages: Addictive and expensive
...To be honest with you I only started to play World of Warcraft this month. I have avoided it for years as I have wanted to concentrate on uni work and other such things. I recently found myself with a few months where I may find some time to play it. This is an expansion pack to the original game and you therefore do need to buy the original game before you can play this expansion. More on money later though!
What is World of Warcraft
From no on I will refer to the game as WOW (its common abbreviation). This game is essentially a role playing game, it has a few twists however. The game has been around for a good few years now and even the most casual gamer will have heard of it. It seemed to find a place in gamers hearts straight away, not only appealing to many people but bringing new gamers in.
The game involves you...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: More levels, more zones, more instances. Disadvantages: More of the same.
...First up, this is probably going to turn into quite a long review so I'll quickly sum it up here for the people who just want the gist of it:
If you play World of Warcraft already, then Wrath of the Lich King is pretty much compulsory. If you're thinking of joining the legion of players already online, then Wrath of the Lich King makes the game much more accessible to new players due to the continued dumbing down, but with World of Warcraft 2 in the pipeline and many other, similar games out there that are just starting out, you may be better off shopping around elsewhere for your MMORPG cravings. If you don't have said cravings, then steer clear of Wrath of the Lich King because that's all it's going to satisfy.
Okay, the actual review. World of Warcraft is everywhere, so for those of you who have never heard of it then welcome to...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Once again be transported to another world Disadvantages: TOO ADDICTIVE
...Wrap up warm as northrend can get a lil chilly!! The latest expansion to world of warcraft is here and its better then i could of imagined!! Once more a new race has been added and they are a nasty bunch, ladies and gents please welcome the DEATH KNIGHTS!!!...
How they have imagines to take the WoW experience to another level amazes me!! angasin adding a new continent with new opponents quest and dungeons.. to be the best now you have to be on top of your game have the best gear and the money to get around this is where your trades comes in handy.. Now the time for friends is upon us as to defeat our foes we must stand together and fight!!...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack (PC)
Product details
Age: 12+
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Genre: Role-Playing Game (RPG)
Sub Genre: MMORPG
Release Date: 23rd November 2004
EAN: 3348542193864
Operating System: Windows XP / , Mac OS X, Macintosh
Ciao
Listed on Ciao since : 20/04/2005
Manufacturer's product description
World of Warcraft is a massive multi-player, online role-playing game set in the Warcraft universe. In it, thousands of players will be able to adventure together with a new, in-depth perspective on familiar lands, former battlefields and heroes from the legendary universe. In addition, World of Warcraft will introduce new, uncharted territories and new deadly foes.World of Warcraft takes place four years following the aftermath of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, where a great tension has settled over the ravaged world of Azeroth. As the various races begin to rebuild their shattered kingdoms, new threats, both ancient and terrifying, have arisen to plague the world once again. Players must explore the lands of Azeroth, forge fellowships with other players and build their strength in order to prevail.An action-packed combat system delivers fast, furious combat against multiple opponents, while minimising delays between battles to keep players on the move. A rich, evolving story and questing system will keep players engrossed as the world is regularly updated with new content.Fully customisable character classes, innovative races, and thousands of weapons allow for a truly diverse gameplay experience that will appeal to both hard-core and novice gamers alike. A simple, intuitive user interface will allow players of various skill levels to easily join the adventure. World of Warcraft also features support for advanced graphics hardware, giving the player superlative graphical enhancements, as well as a sophisticated, massively multiplayer network architecture capable of supporting thousands of players in a world simultaneously.
World of warcraft have released this stratergy guide to help you through the expansion that was relased for the burning cusade.The best price i have currently seen it for is around the £10.00 mark.
The main problem with this guide is first of all its... more
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
19.11.2008
28.01.2009
