11-22-2004, 06:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-22-2004, 06:43 PM by NuurAbSaal.)
The WoW US Beta has ended, the real deal starts tomorrow, yet some of us have still to wait for a seemingly endless amount of time to play the game. What a great opportunity to give my fellow Europeans (brothers and sisters in pain) something to drool over.
I played WoW. For three days. Maybe you were able to distill that much from the title, but it gets better. I will share my experiences ingame and my thoughts on the game for those that are still wondering if this game might be for them or not. All from the point of view of a noob, not someone who has been in the Closed Beta for some time and may have different opinions on some issues (however more valid they may be...).
DISCLAIMER: This is not a writeup in the style of MongoJerrys great Instance writeups*. There is little, if any WoW strategy to be found, no Boss strategies and most certainly no high level content. It is just the account of my brief foray into the World of Warcraft, a "first impression" some of you might find interesting. A word of caution. While I don't consider myself a "fanboi", I have been following the development of this game for years. I have liked what I have seen of this game and I am thrilled at the possibility of playing it. This does not an impartial observer make... I will try to remain objective but please keep in mind that the following has been written by someone who has a certain amount of euphoria going concerning this game. Thanks.
*for Mongos "Adventures of Neriad" check his sig or search the LL WoW forum.
So it begins...
Through some (no doubt shady) channels a friend of my brother's (somebody enlighten me if this "'s" is correct please) got two US Open Beta accounts for Wow. OK, he simply applied for them. He himself used one and my brother and I shared the other. Since my brother had procured the account, he got to play first, of course and he had started a Tauren warrior, leveled him to lvl6 at his place and then continued to play at my computer so I might watch and drool.
First impressions count
My brother fired up the game and *bling, there he was, a mighty Warrior, standing in the Tauren capital of Thunder Bluff. This game looks NICE in motion. You heard it before, screenshots don't do the game credit. Believe it. WoW has a certain "cartoonish" feel to it, or so some say, and you can either like or dislike that, but there is no denying that there is a tremendous amount of detail present. Everything looks exactly like it was "meant" to be where it is, the NPCs, the trees and other geographical features, it really looks like a "world" you are playing in. So, my first impression was great. Moving on.
If you, like me, have never played a MMO game before, gameplay may seem "slow" at first, especially if you are just watching, not playing yourself. Don't let that impression fool you though. While it is certainly true that you will never have battles with dozens of mobs at the same time (no River of Flame Maggot Mayhemâ¢), the monsters you are up against make up for lack of numbers with toughness and strength. In Diablo2 the damage you dealt was exponentiallly higher than the damage the you were able to take without dying, monsters typically had A LOT more health than you. This situation changes dramatically in WoW. I cannot give exact numbers here, sorry (noob), just imagine you and the monster you are up against have about the same amount of life and deal about the same amount of damage, and now comes the important part: if you have about the same level. From the PoV of my brother's warrior this meant, don't mess with guys 1 or 2 levels above you, if one of your skills misses or is blocked, you will most likely die. Face two at a time and if you don't have a way to neutralize one of them while you fight the other, you are toast. This is a fundamental change of playstyle from D2 and even I, who had absorbed every bit of information about WoW gameplay right until I jumped into the game myself was a bit surprised by the impact it had. Getting used to this may take some time but should not pose a real problem, if you are willing to adapt and learn.
So, this game looks nice but it's not LoD. Priceless information.
The first nit, minor (or is it?)
Luckily, my bro didn't have time to play the whole evening and I was finally allowed to enter the realms of Azeroth myself. I started an troll Rogue, or Rouge, in the forums and began fiddling with the appearance settings on the char creation screen. Hmmm, not much to do there. You can't change the height or weight of your char and you can't dramatically change his facial expression (this is unbelievably untrue for the undead, as I found out later). Oh well, who cares, I had read about that before anyways. Time to name my lil' Backstabber: Nuur'jin. "Names can only contain letters" (or something close to that). Right. Read about that too, still sucks, but if it makes names like |\|oob h4XX0r69 impossible, so be it.
Nuurjin - "Enter World" - yay
Rogues pwn, nerf mages
I soon found out that my rogue had little trouble destroying mobs a couple of levels above him and while that was just because the monsters you encounter in your races starting area are really easy, to an extent it held true into the higher level areas if I didn't have to fight two at a time and the mob didn't have any nasty special skills (bad Barrens Kodo! -> Stun). Rogues just deal more damage than warriors. This should come as no surprise to D2 players: different classes, different killing potential, different survivability in dire situations. Check this thread for a really nice short summary of the abilities of the various classes in WoW (scroll down for Mongos list).
After getting used to the new game, you spend some time killing the two or three mob types in your starting area for quests and this can get a bit annoying if there are twenty players trying to get 10 scorpion kills and there are only thirty scorpions around. But respawns in the starting zones are usually fast (exception: Rattlecage Skeletons in the Undead starting zone) and the critterswill only attack if provoked. Kill x of mob y quests could be accomplished A LOT faster if players realized that all members of a party get credit for party member kills. But what do you expect in a starting zone? Colllection quests (get x amount of y from mob z) can be really tough in a group though, as each member has to loot the required item by him/herself, multiplying the amount of mobs that need tobe kill for the quest. Easy rule (not always applicable) " x Kills" quests are best done in a group, "x Items" quests are best done solo, if you can handle the according mobs.
I really like the quest system, you never run out of things to do and most of them have a nice little story for you to enjoy. Be warned however, that trying to complete all quests you are offered may sllow you down, if your goal is to level fast. You may also consider bypassing some quests and travelling to your races Capital City to get started on your professions, since not all trade skills can be picked up at the outpost you start in or the village you are sent to next. You will eventually end up in the Capital (around lvl9-10, IIRC) but to some this may take too long.
Beware the change in monster agressiveness if you leave your starting zone. Slaughtering boars and scorpions one at a time, while the other wildlife walks harmlessly by is one thing, facing three angry scorpions who all aggroed on you because you ran by too close to them is a very different thing. It usually is death.
Death. You will die, some more, some less, but all will die. Well, I did. I heard a lot about the infamous "corpse runs" to find them annoying BEFORE I had ever died, once I had to do them they were a mild inconvenience at worst. Opinions may (and will) vary wildly but I firmly believe that if I die, I should be punished by the game. And I don't advocate a "play it safe" playstyle at all. Sure, there are those deaths that you could hardly have avoided, the respawn on top of you just as you finished off a really tough opponent, a wandering mob you had no chance of seeing until it was within aggro range or falling off a cliff because of bad autorun management. But in my experience the deaths from risky fights you chose to take far outweigh the number of the "D'oh! Respawn" deaths. This may be different at higher levels, so take with a grain of salt please (as everything else).
OK, time to look at what I wrote. Hmm, little chance that this will turn into a coherent "experience report" at this point and I ran out of time for today. I think I will continue with some observations on my low level rogue, combat in general and other things I encountered (travel time, other players, Auction Houses) if anybody has an interest in it. And after I clear up the first part, I guess.
Hope this was interesting or at least slightly amusing for some.
Advice on how this could have turned out better (planning? duh) and on use of the English language are appreciated.
Greetings
Nuur
I played WoW. For three days. Maybe you were able to distill that much from the title, but it gets better. I will share my experiences ingame and my thoughts on the game for those that are still wondering if this game might be for them or not. All from the point of view of a noob, not someone who has been in the Closed Beta for some time and may have different opinions on some issues (however more valid they may be...).
DISCLAIMER: This is not a writeup in the style of MongoJerrys great Instance writeups*. There is little, if any WoW strategy to be found, no Boss strategies and most certainly no high level content. It is just the account of my brief foray into the World of Warcraft, a "first impression" some of you might find interesting. A word of caution. While I don't consider myself a "fanboi", I have been following the development of this game for years. I have liked what I have seen of this game and I am thrilled at the possibility of playing it. This does not an impartial observer make... I will try to remain objective but please keep in mind that the following has been written by someone who has a certain amount of euphoria going concerning this game. Thanks.
*for Mongos "Adventures of Neriad" check his sig or search the LL WoW forum.
So it begins...
Through some (no doubt shady) channels a friend of my brother's (somebody enlighten me if this "'s" is correct please) got two US Open Beta accounts for Wow. OK, he simply applied for them. He himself used one and my brother and I shared the other. Since my brother had procured the account, he got to play first, of course and he had started a Tauren warrior, leveled him to lvl6 at his place and then continued to play at my computer so I might watch and drool.
First impressions count
My brother fired up the game and *bling, there he was, a mighty Warrior, standing in the Tauren capital of Thunder Bluff. This game looks NICE in motion. You heard it before, screenshots don't do the game credit. Believe it. WoW has a certain "cartoonish" feel to it, or so some say, and you can either like or dislike that, but there is no denying that there is a tremendous amount of detail present. Everything looks exactly like it was "meant" to be where it is, the NPCs, the trees and other geographical features, it really looks like a "world" you are playing in. So, my first impression was great. Moving on.
If you, like me, have never played a MMO game before, gameplay may seem "slow" at first, especially if you are just watching, not playing yourself. Don't let that impression fool you though. While it is certainly true that you will never have battles with dozens of mobs at the same time (no River of Flame Maggot Mayhemâ¢), the monsters you are up against make up for lack of numbers with toughness and strength. In Diablo2 the damage you dealt was exponentiallly higher than the damage the you were able to take without dying, monsters typically had A LOT more health than you. This situation changes dramatically in WoW. I cannot give exact numbers here, sorry (noob), just imagine you and the monster you are up against have about the same amount of life and deal about the same amount of damage, and now comes the important part: if you have about the same level. From the PoV of my brother's warrior this meant, don't mess with guys 1 or 2 levels above you, if one of your skills misses or is blocked, you will most likely die. Face two at a time and if you don't have a way to neutralize one of them while you fight the other, you are toast. This is a fundamental change of playstyle from D2 and even I, who had absorbed every bit of information about WoW gameplay right until I jumped into the game myself was a bit surprised by the impact it had. Getting used to this may take some time but should not pose a real problem, if you are willing to adapt and learn.
So, this game looks nice but it's not LoD. Priceless information.
The first nit, minor (or is it?)
Luckily, my bro didn't have time to play the whole evening and I was finally allowed to enter the realms of Azeroth myself. I started an troll Rogue, or Rouge, in the forums and began fiddling with the appearance settings on the char creation screen. Hmmm, not much to do there. You can't change the height or weight of your char and you can't dramatically change his facial expression (this is unbelievably untrue for the undead, as I found out later). Oh well, who cares, I had read about that before anyways. Time to name my lil' Backstabber: Nuur'jin. "Names can only contain letters" (or something close to that). Right. Read about that too, still sucks, but if it makes names like |\|oob h4XX0r69 impossible, so be it.
Nuurjin - "Enter World" - yay
Rogues pwn, nerf mages
I soon found out that my rogue had little trouble destroying mobs a couple of levels above him and while that was just because the monsters you encounter in your races starting area are really easy, to an extent it held true into the higher level areas if I didn't have to fight two at a time and the mob didn't have any nasty special skills (bad Barrens Kodo! -> Stun). Rogues just deal more damage than warriors. This should come as no surprise to D2 players: different classes, different killing potential, different survivability in dire situations. Check this thread for a really nice short summary of the abilities of the various classes in WoW (scroll down for Mongos list).
After getting used to the new game, you spend some time killing the two or three mob types in your starting area for quests and this can get a bit annoying if there are twenty players trying to get 10 scorpion kills and there are only thirty scorpions around. But respawns in the starting zones are usually fast (exception: Rattlecage Skeletons in the Undead starting zone) and the critterswill only attack if provoked. Kill x of mob y quests could be accomplished A LOT faster if players realized that all members of a party get credit for party member kills. But what do you expect in a starting zone? Colllection quests (get x amount of y from mob z) can be really tough in a group though, as each member has to loot the required item by him/herself, multiplying the amount of mobs that need tobe kill for the quest. Easy rule (not always applicable) " x Kills" quests are best done in a group, "x Items" quests are best done solo, if you can handle the according mobs.
I really like the quest system, you never run out of things to do and most of them have a nice little story for you to enjoy. Be warned however, that trying to complete all quests you are offered may sllow you down, if your goal is to level fast. You may also consider bypassing some quests and travelling to your races Capital City to get started on your professions, since not all trade skills can be picked up at the outpost you start in or the village you are sent to next. You will eventually end up in the Capital (around lvl9-10, IIRC) but to some this may take too long.
Beware the change in monster agressiveness if you leave your starting zone. Slaughtering boars and scorpions one at a time, while the other wildlife walks harmlessly by is one thing, facing three angry scorpions who all aggroed on you because you ran by too close to them is a very different thing. It usually is death.
Death. You will die, some more, some less, but all will die. Well, I did. I heard a lot about the infamous "corpse runs" to find them annoying BEFORE I had ever died, once I had to do them they were a mild inconvenience at worst. Opinions may (and will) vary wildly but I firmly believe that if I die, I should be punished by the game. And I don't advocate a "play it safe" playstyle at all. Sure, there are those deaths that you could hardly have avoided, the respawn on top of you just as you finished off a really tough opponent, a wandering mob you had no chance of seeing until it was within aggro range or falling off a cliff because of bad autorun management. But in my experience the deaths from risky fights you chose to take far outweigh the number of the "D'oh! Respawn" deaths. This may be different at higher levels, so take with a grain of salt please (as everything else).
OK, time to look at what I wrote. Hmm, little chance that this will turn into a coherent "experience report" at this point and I ran out of time for today. I think I will continue with some observations on my low level rogue, combat in general and other things I encountered (travel time, other players, Auction Houses) if anybody has an interest in it. And after I clear up the first part, I guess.
Hope this was interesting or at least slightly amusing for some.
Advice on how this could have turned out better (planning? duh) and on use of the English language are appreciated.
Greetings
Nuur
"I'm a cynical optimistic realist. I have hopes. I suspect they are all in vain. I find a lot of humor in that." -Pete
I'll remember you.
I'll remember you.
