I enjoy reading, drawing, painting and gaming. I work in a computer game store and study Web Design
I enjoy reading, drawing, painting and gaming. I work in a computer game store and study Web Design
Member since:21.06.2006
Reviews:16
Members who trust:1
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 if you own Wrath of the Lich King) classes. You can customise your looks and choose your name, then you're ready to set off on your adventure. Depending on your race you will belong to either The Alliance or The Horde. These are two opposing player factions that cannot talk to each other.
Each class has set skills and spells that they will learn as they level up. When you level, you need to visit your class trainer to buy your new spells, and upgrade old ones. In order to help you be different to others of your class however, you also earn 'talent points' for each level up after level 10. These talent points can be spent in 'talent trees'; these are like skill trees that contain both passive and active skills and spells that you can unlock. These skills usually have a prerequisite of talent points to be spent lower down the tree before you can unlock the higher end skills. Each class has 3 of these trees, allowing you to specialise in one role or become a bit of a jack of all trades.
As your character progresses you can also take on professions - crafting skills that allow you an extra source of income rather than just killing monsters. These vary from gathering skills, such as mining, to creation skills such as blacksmithy to survival skills, such as First Aid. They can be very useful in helping to progress everyones main focus: gearing up, either by earning you gold or by creating the gear you require.
For gear is the main thing in WoW. To fight in the hardest of dungeons you need good enough
equipment. A very skilled player can of course go in with below-par equipment but for the majority, there are certain 'levels' of gear that will be necessary in order to complete certain areas.
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 good for a specific level range and will contain lots of quests to help you work your way through these levels. All the monsters and npcs there will correspond roughly to those levels (with the odd exception of a world raid boss, which can come as a nasty surprise to a low level!). The sub-zones will also differ in aesthetics from those around them. For example you have the fiery mountains and chasms of The Burning Steps not far from the wintery farmlands of Dun Morogh.
Each race has its own city, where the majority of that faction will hang out and spend their gold. Cities have tons of shops, including banks to store your items, auction houses to sell your items and profession and class trainers, as well as many others. Most players will hang out in certain cities; for Alliance it tends to be Stormwind or Ironforge, for the Horde it is usually Orgrimmar or Undercity. As well as these large cities there are towns dotted about in each subzone. These towns have the basic necessities and are usually joined to each other and the cities by Flight Paths; essentially in-game taxis that make travelling far easier (provided you already collected the Flight Path from where you wish to go previously). You can also travel around the world on your own mount once you reach the required level and gold.
Graphics
The graphics of WoW will be something you generally either love or hate. They're not realistic, being of a cartoony style, but anyone who has played the RTS Warcraft games knows that this is simply the style they always have been, and probably always will be. If you're not a fan it may be a little offputting at first but once you get used to them you'll actually realise they're very well done. The character animations are generally incredibly smooth and well put together. The spells and skills also fit with the character classes incredibly well and really help to add to the atmosphere, particularly in raids or dungeons. They can however bog down even quite good pcs when there are a lot of them concentrated in one area.
Each zone has its own feel and fits in nicely with the adjoining ones, even if they're of a completely different style of landscape. Countryside, towns and enemies alike all fit nicely into each zone whilst still maintaining an overall 'Azeroth' feel (or Outland or Northrend if playing any of the expansions). Water sparkles, slime oozes, trees cast shadows... and speaking of shadows the client updates for Wrath of the Lich King improved the shadows and lighting effects, making the world that much more beautiful and believable.
Some of the best animations are on the flying mounts however. I really cannot describe how perfectly they are done; the take off and landing is perfectly fluid (and automatic!) and the creatures just seem to skim through the air with ease. You have to experience it to appreciate it.
Ease of Play
WoW has always been incredibly easy to play, and now has been made even more so to encourage those who have yet to try it, to pick it up. The first 10 levels have a fantastic tutorial that teach you the basics of the game very well, and the first 20 have very well done areas to ease you into fighting tougher monsters and figuring out how everything works together.
The interface is incredibly simple to use and get used to, and can also be customised a lot to fit in with your own preferences (read below for more in the Customisation section). Low level dungeons and group experience will help you work out your class role quickly and easily as well (if you get with some helpful people at least) and prepare you for the rigors of high level instances and raiding.
Sound
The sound fits very well with the game. I can't comment on the music as I always have it turned off (just my personal gaming preference) but the atmospheric sounds are superbly done. In towns and cities you can hear everything that is going on around you, be it players running by or people showing off their new skills. Pets and minions have their own idle sounds and animations as well, and even standing still on your mount and pressing 'jump' can lead to some fun sounds (such as your neighing, rearing horse that is bound to get annoying after the tenth time!)
Even out in the wilderness you can hear monsters going about their daily routines, hear the wind in the trees, the wolves howling, patrols... patrolling. Yet with all this noise, it can be an incredibly peaceful game as well. Everything fits and nothing is overdone. If you're lucky enough to own a flying mount, take to the skies and listen to the wind as it whistles past you.
Replayability
There is a lot of replayability in this game. First and foremost you have the two different factions, Alliance and Horde, and both get to see the world in very different ways. Then you have all the different classes and races that you can play (each race having its own starting zone, and each class having class-specific quests). The levelling up can become a trifle annoying each time, but they recently dropped the experience needed to get to 70 so it goes much faster than it used to. And if you really can't face levelling up again, there is tons to keep you busy on your main character anyway. Faction grinding, normal instances, heroic instances, raid dungeons, heroic raid dungeons, professions, daily quests, achievements... the list just goes on. I often find when I'm doing nothing on WoW, it's not because I'm bored but because there is so much I want to do and I just can't decide on one single thing.
Customisation
Customisation is almost a game in itself for some dedicated community members. WoW allows the creation and use of 'add ons'. These usually take the form of some interface improvement to help you play the game you want. These addons cannot allow you to do something you wouldn't otherwise be able to do; for example they won't allow you to automatically recast a buff on a player when it runs out, but they can ease the more annoying tasks, such as turn the process of selecting said player, choosing the buff you desire and then casting it into a one-click process. For the crafters among us you can get addons to store different marketing shouts, and use those to ply your trade rather than manually typing in your own spiel each time. The list of addons is endless but they greatly enhance the gameplay.
Conclusion
Overall I have enjoyed my 2 years (and still going!) of WoW greatly. However having said that, while it is not a bad game by any means, it is also not the best. Blizzard simply copied an already winning formula, slapped on the well-loved brand of Warcraft and threw millions of dollars into it. If you're a fan of MMOs expect to lose your life to this one rapidly.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Product Description Product Description World of Warcraft is a massive multi-player, ... 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...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
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...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
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...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Advantages: Beautiful music, stunning graphics and amazing gameplay Disadvantages: Potentially addictive, requires alot of downloading, can only play online
pnbrady 18.04.2007 (18.04.2007)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of World of Warcraft (PC)
Advantages: Truly epic, huge game world, rich and vibrant community, tonnes to do, utterly astounding. Disadvantages: Subscription based (£8.99 per month).
Advantages: Beautiful music, stunning graphics and amazing gameplay Disadvantages: Potentially addictive, requires alot of downloading, can only play online
pnbrady 18.04.2007 (18.04.2007)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of World of Warcraft (PC)
Advantages: Truly epic, huge game world, rich and vibrant community, tonnes to do, utterly astounding. Disadvantages: Subscription based (£8.99 per month).
Mar 20th, 2009
exceptional by (23%):
very helpful by (77%):
