| Review entitled 'If god made an MMORPG' |  | Initially I resisted playing World of Warcraft for any amount of time, however the constant exposure in the press and word of mouth from friends who were avid MMORPG fans was too difficult to ignore. Hailed by many as the best MMORPG ever created and recognized by many online and offline media outlets as the same the game had a lot to live up to.
What's up folks?
The first thing you will notice when hitting the character creation screen is the slight hint of cartoon-esque graphics used on the characters, this is especially true if you are used to realistic textures used in the likes of Lineage 2.
This feel in the character visuals is reflected in the scenery and monster population of Azeroth, unfortunately this can be a turn off for a lot of people who enjoy immersive gameplay and fantastic visuals but for many it is an easy adjustment to make.
Many of the games more grand structures, such as the human capital of Stormwind, remain quite a visual treat that many will enjoy; for awhile.
Epic sound
Initially music is only played on a short cycle of around 30-60 seconds once entering a new zone or city, this ensures that players do not grow bored of the jingles used when playing for lengthy periods of time.
However, the music in World of Warcraft does have a lot of production value and is usually quite well adjusted for the areas you enter, the majestic and heroic fanfare as you enter Stormwind to the crazy and unstable tunes of Gnomeregan.
There are a huge amount of varied sound effects used in the game, that are experienced all the way through the content.
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you
With 10 million subscribers spread over hundreds of different servers ranging from USA and Europe to Asia and beyond, every server has literally thousands of players to socialize and group with, and most of the population communicate through fantastic community tools provided by the default UI such as the chat rooms, guild panel and friend list.
Simply Unparalleled
One of the key ingredients to a successful MMORPG is solid gameplay and this is were World of Warcraft excels; there is an abundance of quests, humor and fantastic atmosphere in all areas from start to end.
There are nine classes with three talent trees each, which gives a massive amount of choice to play styles, with many dungeons available to five man all the way up to level seventy and then a host of ‘raid’
dungeons available for organizied guilds to conquer ranging from ten man to twenty-five man.
I'm myself one hundred percent, fifty percent of the time.
Upon starting your character you are given a choice of four servers, PvP (Player versus Player), PvE (No world Player versus Player), PvPRP (Player versus Player Role Playing) and RP (Role Playing with no world Player versus Player).
Ultimately this gives you two big choices, do you want to bait to the world as you quest, level and so on but also would you like to role play your character in World of Warcraft Lore, now, this is not to say that both servers are perfectly represented, you will find role players on non-RP servers and non-role players on RP servers, however Blizzard do try to maintain the RP aspect on the RP servers as much as possible, fourth wall breaking names are strictly forbidden and there are guidelines on how to act.
My experience with role playing servers is mixed, players in the lower regions are developing their characters and enjoying the experience of role playing the different quests and scenarios, however, as time goes on alot either quit or lose there intial excitement over role playing; hence the tone quickly settles with a moderate amount of role playing which is acceptable.
The one trillion pixel homecity
A variety of graphical settings give the games performance requirement a vast range from extremely small (Reports of people being able to get acceptable frame rates from a EeePC) to very respectable, mid-range PC's on higher resolutions will have trouble churning out enough performance in highly dense areas with alot of foilage; Major cities can be hell for some computers with as many as two hundred people gathered in the major cities.
On release World of Warcraft had some very appealing graphics with an aforementioned style that was different to most, but as time has gone on the game definately requires a graphics overhaul.
Prehaps the best MMORPG for your money
The costs for World of Warcraft rival some of the highest in the MMORPG market, this however reflects the content, with hundreds if not thousands of fresh gameplay and immense replay value between each class, race and faction. I would attest that this MMORPG is the best value for market available in this genre.
Many tools but little feedback
Blizzard obviously have to manage their resources carefully, with thousands of large servers housing over 10 million players and a limited amount of staff - the system they have in place for customer service has to be incredibly efficent to be effective. The ingame ticket system works like a telephone hold system and more often then not has no estimated waiting time. You can continue to play while you wait for your ticket to be answered but I found myself logging off before anyone got to me, blizzard did however send me an ingame message requesting some additional details.
You are not told anything about what happens to any offenders or problems and generally have to just hope the best happened.
HUD extreme
Using both LUA and XML for custom modifications to the UI, thousands of incredible modifications to the game have been created, from advanced functionality to beautiful aesthetics. The default UI, however, is improved with every patch, Blizzard puts alot of effort into improving the user experience, while still being basic enough to understand and flexible enough to serve the needs of the high end players the UI is one of the best features in the game.
A personnal favorite
This is my favorite MMORPG out of the entire range of games I have played, I am constantly in search of an alternative, as much as it is great to have an ultimate MMORPG that excels in all fields, having no choice at an alternative gameplay experience makes you feel trapped in the same game no matter how you are treated or feel, ultimately I and many others end up coming back to the game time after time. |
| | Reviewer | | 
Valane
Last active : 19/11/2008 7:23pm |
|
| | Review Scores | | | Graphics | 9 | | | Soundtrack | 10 | | | Community | 8 | | | Roleplaying | 9 | | | Performance | 9 | | | Customer | 9 | | | Fun | 10 | | | Value | 10 | | | UI | 10 | | | Tilt | 10 | |
Total Score
94 |
|
|
