GameSpot WOW Review

[nobbie]

Consider the difference between hype and critical review. ...

Occhi,

I'm playing PC games for over a decade now (since Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island etc), have read hundreds of commercial game magazines (print + web) since then, and know well to read between the lines ;)

With the event of WOW - the most anticipated MMOG ever - being released this year, every game magazine of course wants to review it while the cake is hot. I bet you won't find a commercial magazine anywhere in the world during the upcoming months where WOW will not get max. scores in almost all areas, and which will not have truck-loads of WOW strategy guides and tipps. An exception may be a few magazines which maintain a close relationship to Sony (EverQuest II). Look at "Half-Life 2": although it lacks true multiplayer, which I'd personally consider a vital part of a complex FPS game these days, it gets best total scores in all magazines just because of some fancy physics and such, and it's moreover celebrated as best FPS game ever, sometimes even as best game. So much about "hype" about games in general, which was and is made about every major title that is expected to become a million-seller. If game magazine reviewers wouldn't be naturally limited to a 100% score, I bet we would have reached the 200% mark already after the last decade of computer gaming ;) Point in case: Most (early) commercial game magazine "reviews" are often hardly worth the paper they are printed on, from an objective standpoint. How good WOW and its support - especially in the "2nd class" Europe - actually are, and how stable and cheat/hack-safe its very important (item) economy is, can be said by the end of next year in winter 2005. Anything else is nothing but pure speculation.

All hype about WOW aside, I do believe that the current noise is justified, because WOW is special and a milestone for the future of PC gaming. Blizzard establishes with WOW the "pay-per-play" concept for the first time among a very broad audience, ranging from casual to hardcore gamers, even kids (for which the parents will pay the fees), and they will certainly do everything possible to satisfy their customers, so that this multiplayer concept can be expanded on future titles as well. The until today cost-free "Battle.net" platform will most likely be the last free multiplayer-platform of such a scale. The downside of this development is that gaming on large-scale multiplayer-platforms will probably generally not be cost-free anymore, resulting in a kind of 2-class gaming society: those who can afford to play subscription games, and those who can not. The upside is that those who can afford the fees will get much better support and cheat-/hack-control through a 24/7 online-team of GM's, resulting in an online gaming experience that is actually worth the label "enjoyable". The phrase "You get what you pay for" will be true for PC gaming as it is already in every other market segment. Blizzard might have plans to further support their free multiplayer gaming platform "Battle.net", for example for upcoming "StarCraft" and "WarCraft" RTS titles, and finance those extra costs with their income from subscription games and RTS event sponsors, but they might as well drop Battle.net support completely during the next years. The huge popularity of the commercial, world-wide sponsored "StarCraft" and "WarCraft" RTS competitions these days speak rather against than for a free Battle.net support in the future. The upcoming "Diablo III", which is most likely Blizzard's next big title, will probably be a subscription game, too. The remaining "single player" Blizzard titles, which we all like so much, will likely be just their console games a la "StarCraft: Ghost". At the moment, this is of course all speculation on my part, but I have the strong feeling that it's the future of gaming. "Single player" games (with free, large-scale multiplayer support), I'm sure, will soon become dinosaurs because of their low ROI (Return On Investment) value. Welcome to the 21st century of global capitalistic computer gaming ;)

About the PvP portion of the GameSpot WOW "review": Like MongoJerry said already, the GameSpot reporter is reviewing the game as a PvE game as is, but for completeness sake, he discusses some aspects of PvP that are in the works. In fact, the brief mention of PvP already indicates which role this flavor of WOW will actually play in the near future: A rather minor one for those who like to play PvP from time to time, but nothing more. Blizzard will refine PvP to an acceptable level to satisfy that portion of their audience as well, but the focus is clearly on PvE with frequent content updates to keep the main portion of their subscribers interested. If I were a true PvP fan, I wouldn't play WOW for that anyway, but buy a multiplayer FPS game instead.