World of Warcraft - Gamespot review

W

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
9.5

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/review.html

"The worst thing about World of Warcraft is that you can't just play it all the time. After all, chances are if you start, you'll never want to stop. Again, though, part of what makes this game so remarkable is it doesn't assume that all you have to do in your busy life is play this one game, and so it delivers a high-quality experience regardless of how much or how little time you're able to invest. Paradoxically, then, it can become the last game you'd need to play for weeks, months...who knows? The point is, World of Warcraft features an overall level of quality that's typically reserved for the best offline games, which have always had a leg up on online games in their ability to present tightly-woven, story-driven settings. But World of Warcraft achieves this in the context of a massive, evolving world populated by thousands of other players who you may choose to interact with, which makes the proceedings seem that much more meaningful. This is a stunning achievement that will make you feel privileged to be a game player."
 
I'm still concerned about what you will do when you're high level. What's the end game content besides PvP? Expansions? Etc.

aka, if I'm going to run into the problem plagueing FFXI, I don't want to bother any farther than my lvl 17 Warrior right now.

Nice review though.
 
It just seems to me that it still caters too much to the lower end of the scale. Its like FFXI was too demanding, but that, in the end, WoW may not be demanding enough. It might be fine for the casuals, but the real powergamers seem like they might get bored (unless they force themselves not to) within a matter of 2-3 months.
 
Belfast said:
It just seems to me that it still caters too much to the lower end of the scale. Its like FFXI was too demanding, but that, in the end, WoW may not be demanding enough. It might be fine for the casuals, but the real powergamers seem like they might get bored (unless they force themselves not to) within a matter of 2-3 months.
Click to expand...

I've already seen a lvl 40 Warlock today O.o
 
Kintaro said:
I'm still concerned about what you will do when you're high level. What's the end game content besides PvP? Expansions? Etc.

aka, if I'm going to run into the problem plagueing FFXI, I don't want to bother any farther than my lvl 17 Warrior right now.

Nice review though.
Click to expand...

With Blizzard earning roughly $3,000,000 + a month from this game, I'm sure they can afford to add content like crazy.
 
Kintaro said:
I'm still concerned about what you will do when you're high level. What's the end game content besides PvP? Expansions? Etc.

aka, if I'm going to run into the problem plagueing FFXI, I don't want to bother any farther than my lvl 17 Warrior right now.

Nice review though.
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shitloads more to do than FFXI, although you can also just farm stuff over and over again like in that game. there won't be any of the camping of FFXI and having to deal with gilsellers since the best way to get cash in WOW is instances (so while you can farm those, it doesn't ruin anybody else's game).

It has the EQ-style raids (that nobody beat in the beta), but it does also have pvp and intends to focus on that a lot (battlegrounds, and a pvp reward system meant to offer comparable rewards to the pve content)... for the soloer they said there would be hero classes but that looks more and more like an expansion. so they're trying to be everything to everyone which may not work out quite right, but at least they seem to give it more than just one thing to play for. if you don't like pvp I would just wait for an expansion/major patch though.
 
"The worst thing about World of Warcraft is that you can't just play it all the time.
Click to expand...

Mainly because the servers are always down

After all, chances are if you start, you'll never want to stop.
Click to expand...

Until the fucking servers crash

Again, though, part of what makes this game so remarkable is it doesn't assume that all you have to do in your busy life is play this one game, and so it delivers a high-quality experience regardless of how much or how little time you're able to invest.
Click to expand...

Especially considering the servers are only up a few hours a day


Note: I love this game and am trying to amuse myself while waiting on my servers
 
"but the real powergamers seem like they might get bored (unless they force themselves not to) within a matter of 2-3 months."

If they do they should move on. Catering to power gamers ruined EQ. I for one love the idea that I can play a few hours a day and actually progress the entire time doing it whether solo or grouped up. I can also move around the game world very easy too and it's actually halfway interesting to do so.

I plan to make a character for every class eventually. This is my game of choice for the next year. I'll take breaks from time to time, but I'll always have it on my system. It's awesome.
 
honestly I wonder about the powergamers. Seems like a lot of the big EQ guilds (FOH, legacy of steel, afterlife at least) chose WOW over EQ2, but they also seem to be focusing on pvp. as much as I hate powergamers I actually had some fun playing with the FOH horde guys in closed beta, they weren't nearly the assholes I thought they would be (and acted like on the WOW forums).
 
I haven't been keeping up with this game so excuse me if this is a dumb question.

You can actually make progress by playing solo? That's amazing as all MMORPGs on the market today basically force you to group up... which is not always the easiest thing to do.
 
Yep you can solo. Some of the elite quests though will require you to group up. You can carry like 20 to 25 quests at a time. And normally every city if you are exploring close to your level has a bunch of quests to do.
 
I remember Blizzard saying they have 5 years worth of storylines and events already planned for WoW.

I really need to get a new PC. No WoW/Pirates/Half-Life 2 = sad gamer.
 
Mashing said:
I haven't been keeping up with this game so excuse me if this is a dumb question.

You can actually make progress by playing solo? That's amazing as all MMORPGs on the market today basically force you to group up... which is not always the easiest thing to do.
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yeah, actually, there was a lot of bitching in the beta from some of the powergamer guilds I mentioned above that the game was so easy to solo in that it made people bad at grouping. I soloed most of my levels on every character I made in the beta.
 
Oh hell yeah that sounds great. I don't mind grouping on occassion but I find it much more rewarding if I can conquer a challenge on my own. I'm going to have to pick this game up.
 
FFXI forced you down the partying route so you end up wait before you can really do anything.

How is WoW in terms of being a loner gamer?
 
As far as I can tell you level more quickly doing quests, I havent seen any groups grinding out exp. Most of the quests you can solo depending on your class. There are a few more difficult ones that require a group and they are totally worth the effort, especially the instances. If your a loner, the quests where you need help, so far its easy to find it. Youll just go to the location of the quest and see a bunch of other people running around solo, or a group that isnt full. Most are more than willing to help. There is even a feature that allows you to share certian quests with party members if they didnt have it.
 
This IMO, one of the best things to ever happen to MMORPGs and it's so simple I'm surprised no one has thought of it prior:

Another of the game's subtle but important design innovations is there to benefit those who can't necessarily commit to making World of Warcraft a huge part of everyday life (as much as it can threaten to do so). The way it works is that whenever you're not playing the game, your character is considered to be in a rest state. When you return to a well-rested character, you'll temporarily accrue double the experience points you'd normally earn by defeating monsters, and the more time you spend between play sessions, the longer you'll enjoy the experience bonus when you resume play. The result isn't a system that penalizes hardcore players because they are still going to advance much faster than those who can't spare as much time. It mostly just gives everyone else a little incentive to keep coming back and to not feel bad about taking several days off from the game. You'll get a nice tailwind as you try to catch up to your friends who kept playing during the time that you took off.
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That's just really slick
 
WoW > Halo 2 > Half Life 2 > FFXI !!!

Just felt like blowing the score out of proportion like most people tend to do with Gamespot's scores. ;)
 
I wonder if Diablo 3 will end up been a MMORPG?

I think it'd be best if they had SP portion as well as MMORPG portion... so have the SP in Diablo 2 style... but the MMORPG, WoW style, with the reuse of assets in SP/MP and MMORPG and a lot of exclusive content for the MMORPG (like raids and tradeskills and the general whole non-randomly generated massive world).
 
They should add double money aswell. When I play RPG's it is all about getting the "phat lewt", not levelling up.
 
I'm still concerned about what you will do when you're high level.
Click to expand...

*cough*CoH*cough* If you consider lvl 25 a "high" level

as for WoW....I'm biting my tounge now cause my characters may or may not have been deleted

edit....

after rereading it seems like I'm saying play CoH after you run out of stuff to do in WoW...I mean CoH gets stale after 25 and there is no end game content that you haven't beaten to dust by the time you get there...and no Re-rolling an uber toon isn't content.
 
CrimsonSkies said:
"but the real powergamers seem like they might get bored (unless they force themselves not to) within a matter of 2-3 months."

If they do they should move on. Catering to power gamers ruined EQ. I for one love the idea that I can play a few hours a day and actually progress the entire time doing it whether solo or grouped up. I can also move around the game world very easy too and it's actually halfway interesting to do so.

I plan to make a character for every class eventually. This is my game of choice for the next year. I'll take breaks from time to time, but I'll always have it on my system. It's awesome.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the problem comes from the idea of getting too much reward for too little effort. On the other end of the spectrum is FFXI which was often a case of a lot of effort for little actual reward (besides the sense of accomplishment, of course). Its like feeding giving a little kid what he wants every time. Eventually, he won't be satisfied with anything because it comes just a little too easy. Perhaps FFXI isn't the perfect model, but I don't think WoW is, either. And I don't think its something that becomes apparent until you get farther into the game. If you feel like moving on after that, that's cool, but MMORPGs are generally long-term investments by nature. Whether the time spent in them is made up of fun stuff or tedium, they are MEANT to be played for months and years on end. When you end up only playing for a fraction of that time and feel as if you've done all you can, then it ends up being a rather unchallenging, unsatisafying experience.

What I'm getting at is that while some of the things that MMORPGs generally make you do are like pulling teeth, the end result, that feeling of accomplishment, is what really makes up for it. Without that feeling, it just seems like time wasted to me.
 
Loving the game myself, to bad its down half the time I want to play. Its really laggy to, makes healing as a Paladin very hard.
 
Belfast said:
Yeah, but the problem comes from the idea of getting too much reward for too little effort. On the other end of the spectrum is FFXI which was often a case of a lot of effort for little actual reward (besides the sense of accomplishment, of course). Its like feeding giving a little kid what he wants every time. Eventually, he won't be satisfied with anything because it comes just a little too easy. Perhaps FFXI isn't the perfect model, but I don't think WoW is, either. And I don't think its something that becomes apparent until you get farther into the game. If you feel like moving on after that, that's cool, but MMORPGs are generally long-term investments by nature. Whether the time spent in them is made up of fun stuff or tedium, they are MEANT to be played for months and years on end. When you end up only playing for a fraction of that time and feel as if you've done all you can, then it ends up being a rather unchallenging, unsatisafying experience.

What I'm getting at is that while some of the things that MMORPGs generally make you do are like pulling teeth, the end result, that feeling of accomplishment, is what really makes up for it. Without that feeling, it just seems like time wasted to me.
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IMO: the game is a friggin' cakewalk up until about level 55, but you will learn a lot about how to play your class along the way whether you solo or group. When you try the level 55 and up instance dungeons, you'll find that the game is a lot more challenging but still fun as hell. The higher level dungeons feel like tons of risk for a decent reward. It could be better but it isn't that bad, and they seem very focused on adding more to the cloth items for mages, warlocks and priests. It's not the perfect balance at all and it swings way more in the reward favor for most of the game, but the risks of high-end dungeons are pretty big, and I don't even know about the raids' rewards but the risks of those are huge.

Individually the quests are tuned really well for risk vs reward for the most part. The quests where you need to beat the boss of an instance give way better rewards than any other quest, and similarly, most elite quests (except ones you can do on the way to an instance boss) give a lot better reward than non-elite quests.
 
Nice score. I'll probably pick this up several months down the line when the community is a tad fleshed out and Blizzard brings the stick down.

On another note, I hate to be a broken record but Belfast, check your PMs =P.
 
Great fun game.

Official GA server is Darkspear. The Dark Stars of Destiny is our guild:) Well if I'm able to log back in and get the final signature.
 
So...I guess I gotta ask...

...how well does this game perform for 56k?
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Decently. I play WoW on a 28.8 kbs connection (don't laugh) and haven't had any problems. Mostly solo but I have partied a couple of times without trouble. I don't know if you'd be at a disadvantage for PvP though (I went PvE for that reason).

My latency ranges from 300-700 ms (playing on a Pacific server from Texas to boot) and the game still plays fine. Patching was a bitch though :lol
 
i hate you people for making me even the least bit interested in this game. i swore that i would never play a mmorpg. ..........but that was years ago. and those screens look soooooo nice.
 
I think id be more worried about solo-ing when it comes to heated PvP.

PvP/Realm vs Realm demands a Specer. Which sorta sucks.

PvE Solo does not produce a speccer. It produces a character that can solo PvE really well. From what I remember as a Warden, people sorta just want you to form as a part of a unit, rather than an Army of One. A flaw? obviously, but one that has been grappled with for hundreds of years.

Is it more important to specialize, or be a jack of all trades, which is the most efficient. In reality it depends on many unpredictable factors, in the DAoC universe however its all about speccing.

Whether this applies to WoW I dunno.

I am looking forward to Mythic's futuristic mmorpg tho. And catacombs comes out soon. More PvE goodness.
 
with wow its fine if you spec for pve while leveling up and respec for pvp when you need to.

alot of the high level content wasnt revealed in beta, so people dont really know whats in store. its there though.
 
Doesn't cater to power gamers? Too easy? Try running the dungeon instances, they are intense, fun, challenging and full of great items and whatnot. They are specifical designed for hardcore players and are absolutely amazingly well designed.
 
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