WOW Review after almost 1 Year

[nobbie]

Gameplay Monthly have now a WOW review up which basically reflects my personal feelings and opinions about the game (at the moment):

"World of Warcraft for the PC"

World of Warcraft  (PC)

Genre: MMORPG


It’s November and World of Warcraft has already been out for nearly a year. Although it had a launch that was unstable at best, World of Warcraft has been hailed as one of the greatest Massively Multiplayer Online Games ever created. This may be true, but World of Warcraft stills suffer from many of the same issues that plague the other games of this genre.


Gameplay is a mixed bag in the World of Warcraft. The engine itself is very structured, and the user interface is very easily modded, and Blizzard has done a great job giving players control over what they want on their screen at any given time (button wise). WoW’s user interface is very simple and user friendly, as everything essentially rests on one bar on the bottom of your screen, and new buttons can be added to open slots through simple dragging and dropping. It’s easier to run out of button space with caster classes, but there are plenty of mods out there for UI’s that will solve this problem, in addition to the extra optional bars that blizzard has added recently in a patch. In this aspect of gameplay, the World of Warcraft is significantly more accessible to an average player than most other MMORPGS.

The character creation process is somewhat dull and not very complex. Blizzard allows a player to Pick a race and a class, and then adjust some hair and skin color and that’s just about it. Characters of the races, especially the non-human ones, seem to look very similar to each other, which doesn’t really help to create any diversity in the game.


Once inside of the world you are immersed with the Warcraft lore and are immediately pointed to your first quest which starts your adventure. This is also one of World of Warcraft’s high points, as many MMORPG’s start you off with a small amount of money and then let you off on your own to figure out where to go and what to do. The world of Warcraft undoubtedly guides a player by the hand for the first ten levels and far into the teens by giving ample amounts of quests and varying the areas of these so that the player will get into correct zones for their level as they progress through. These quests range from killing arbitrary numbers of mobs, or finding rare drops, and rarely an exploration or escorting quests. Once you have completed a quest you can return it to whoever gave it to you for even more experience points to level up your character. Essentially Blizzard has used the quest system to mask the “grinding” system that makes up the heart of most MMORPGS.


This works surprisingly well as these quests don’t really start to lose their charm until you have progressed hundreds of hours into the game, when they stop being more beneficial than just straight out killing any mob in sight. However, those with short attention spans should be warned, after passing through your teen levels your gameplay and strategies for finding most mobs will be identical throughout the next few hundred hours of gameplay.

Blizzard tries to aid their players in this with instances, trade skills and Player versus player combat. Instances, or small group dungeon crawls where 5 characters trek through a series of computer controlled enemies in order to get high quality “loot” (Treasure), make up most of the “end game” (the point at which your character can level up no more) content, and there are usually two for every 10 levels of character build up. At the end of these instances there are usually epic bosses that drop prime treasure that although should be rare, is seen pretty readily in major cities among many characters of the same class. Some good items can be made through WoW’s trade system, such as special armor and enchantments. This helps to get away from the repetitive gameplay when it catches up to you. Yet again, this is somewhat useless as the items created by these trade skills are significantly less powerful than the ones found in instanced dungeons. Other trade skills include gathering like mining and skinning, which can be used to skins and ores to make leather and metallic armor or sold in the auction houses to get cash. In addition to these things, when one is bored of typical combat, there is always player versus player combat.


Based upon your race, your character has a tie with some faction, and therefore is hostile towards the other faction ( Alliance vs. Horde). Blizzard has tackled the problem of PvP that many MMORPG’s struggle with by setting up 3 distinct server types, Roleplaying, Player Versus Environment, and Player versus Player. The first two servers follow a route much closer to FFXI, in which the goal is to simply level up your character and make it most viable for grouping. PVP on these servers is very limited, but with the release of Battlegrounds (separate instanced areas for PVP), it won’t really be a significant difference. On a PVP any contested area is field of battle.


If there is someone of a different faction they may attack you in any contested area no matter what their level or class is. With the new PVP honor system that has recently been released in a patch, players can receive honor for player kills within a certain range of their level. This honor contributes to a rank which then can allow a player to buy high quality items. Unfortunately at this moment, this has caused the WoW population to reach levels of barbarity and bloodlust in which questions is practically impossible in many locations. The release of Battlegrounds will undoubtedly aid this problem, but a potential buyer should know that on a PVP server with an implemented honor system, it will be significantly harder to level up.

Although the gameplay for WoW may sound great from the above paragraphs, as you may tell from my tone in certain places, there are huge flaws that are pretty consistent in most MMORPG’s. First of all, this game is EXTREMELY REPETETIVE, as any player versus environment combat is pretty much the same with the exception of instances. PVP is also flawed as classes are blatantly imbalanced, and high level players have no penalty for “ganking” lower level players (a level 60 character can kill a group of level 1 character for hours if they want). Blizzard also uses the same communication policy that they have in all of their previous games, which is leaving their customers in the dark as to not enrage their player base if they miss a deadline or say something that may not be 100% true. The omni-conservative policy is extremely inefficient in an MMORPG where the player base has a huge say in the games development. Blizzard has recently increased their patching frequency for new updates, but many servers suffer from constant outages, something that should have been fixed within the first few weeks of launch. WoW also becomes much like other MMO’s as the game completes and one reaches end game, there is almost no variety in content as your only choice is to do high end instanced dungeons or aid your low level friends in their adventures. Gameplay in WoW is an entirely mixed bag, which although probably is the cream of the crop, it is still fundamentally flawed.


This game sure looks and sounds like Warcraft. For anyone that has played previous Warcraft games, they will be able to spot out familiar locations and characters with great ease. This gives the game a distinct cartoonish look, which although fits the universe well, isn’t all that spectacular. The graphics rarely amaze the player even at their highest levels. The sound in this game is absolutely superb. Everything from the Warcraft universe has been perfectly implemented. If I click on a peon it does indeed give me the “watchu want; me not that kind of orc!” sayings that I am accustomed to hearing from the Warcraft real time strategy series. The music is decent, but can get kind of annoying, as can hearing the same emotes and character voice saying “out of mana” or “I can’t do that!”, but it never becomes annoying.

World of Warcraft is a great, but flawed MMORPG. Although it does have some solid game play fundamentals and is very easy to pick up, it does eventually turn into a masked, but endless grind with interspersed PVP. This is an immersive, all encompassing Warcraft adventure which will be sure to sap hours of your life. However, after a long time with this game, reality sets in and the grind becomes apparent. This game will leave you feeling empty and disappointed. For an experienced MMORPG player, this game will be a great short term experience, but in the end won’t really be worth your time. However, for a first timer in the genre, this game will be a great introduction especially if this game is played at a casual pace.

[castille]

Soooo, to sum up, it's like the other MMORPGs, but they've fixed a lot of the little things that get really annoying with other games.. They can't really change the core of MMORPGs, and they've done a good job on making sure everyone can play where they want ...

I guess I miss the point; was it that WoW is a good MMORPG that gives its users a lot of customization ability over what they see, not so much over what the character looks like (City of Heroes spoiled that for most people), and doesn't tell people what or when patches are going to be, just so they don't get their hopes up...?

[swirly]

The release of Battlegrounds will undoubtedly aid this problem, but a potential buyer should know that on a PVP server with an implemented honor system, it will be significantly harder to level up.

Doesn't that make it sound like this was written before battlegrounds were even put out? It kind of feels like a review that could have been written a month or two after release instead of a year after. No real meantion of raiding, 5 player instances seems to be their "end game". Battlegrounds only meantioned as upcoming. Seems like an odd review to me.

[Chesspiece_face]

yes, whoever edited that review should be shot. Or told to stop hiring people based on a review they sent in to Gamefaqs.

[ima_nerd]

Yeah, that review was strange. Sounds more like it was writen in January then November.

[MongoJerry]

I agree with the author's assertion that WoW suffers from repetitiveness. There definitely needs to be more and varied high end content, and several trade skills need reworking. However, it seems like the author hasn't actually played on PvP servers and is using second-hand information and guesswork to justify his or her ideas. Some pertinent quotes:

This honor contributes to a rank which then can allow a player to buy high quality items. Unfortunately at this moment, this has caused the WoW population to reach levels of barbarity and bloodlust in which questions is practically impossible in many locations.  The release of Battlegrounds will undoubtedly aid this problem, but a potential buyer should know that on a PVP server with an implemented honor system, it will be significantly harder to level up.

Battlegrounds have been out for six months now, and this person has no idea how they've affected the PvP landscape? Let me tell you that it's completely changed. Before BG's came out, there were a lot of bored level 60's going around griefing, because they had nothing else to do. After BG's came out, all those bored 60's are out of the world and into BG's or waiting for queues in their respective capital cities. It is definitely now possible to level up on PvP servers. Sure, you will get into PvP battles and depending on what areas you're in, you'll get hit by drive-by gankingsw brought about by people going farming, but generally, the ganking and griefing has been dramatically reduced. Most of your fights will in fact be with others more nearly your level.

Which then brings us to the next point. Different kinds of players like different things. People who join PvP servers like the bloodlust. They like the fact that they can find themselves in (or initiate) random PvP fights. PvEers like this author might say that these activities "disrupt" their gameplay. PvPers would say that these activities break up the previously discussed monotony of the game and adds thrill to it. What the author seems to imply is a weakness of the game is in fact one of its best strengths -- that the different server types allow people with different personality types to enjoy the game the way they want.

high level players have no penalty for “ganking” lower level players (a level 60 character can kill a group of level 1 character for hours if they want)

Once again, this shows a lack of any experience on a PvP server. The only way a level 60 could even attack a level 1 character is if that level 1 character for inexplicable reasons traveled to a level 20+ zone. Even then, that level 1 character has a 40 yard radius in which to rez and get a head start to travel to a safer zone. No way could a level 60 grief a level 1 for hours. What's more, let's turn to the more realistic griefing of a level 20-30 player. The level 60 is not overtly punished for it, but the griefer gets nothing for it. While that level 60 is griefing the level 20-30 player, all those other level 60's are in BG's earning tons more cp than the griefer is, and that griefer is going to lose his or her rank by wasting their time doing this. What's more, a level 60 guardian angel can arrive and kill the griefer and, get this, get rewarded with contribution points for helping to kill the griefer. Finally, a griefer who repeatedly attacks someone closer to his or her own level gets affected by diminishing returns, so they stop getting rewarded for it.

So, all in all, it's a pretty good system. Not all griefing is prevented, of course. But the situation is pretty good without the use of artificial game mechanisms. If some system were put in place to actively punish a level 60 who killed a level 30 player, the griefing situation would merely reverse itself. The griefers would be level 30's who stand around where level 60's are aoe'ing and laugh as all those level 60's lose their contribution points. I like the current system personally, and yes, I've played a new character on an already established PvP server. For those people who like the "bloodlust," the system works. For those who don't, that's what the PvE servers are for.

PVP is also flawed as classes are blatantly imbalanced.

The author simply makes this assertion but makes no statements to back it up, so reading this line, I'm left to wonder which classes he specifically believes are imbalanced. I've done plenty of complaining about PvP balance, but let's take a step back a moment and look at the bigger picture. Let's take a low threshhold approach to see how well WoW PvP is balanced. Is there any class in the game that can take on any two characters of any other class and win? No. OK, that may sound like a low bar to set, but coming from Diablo II's idea of PvP "balance," that's pretty good. Alright, never mind rock-paper-scissors issues of specific class to specific class balance. Is there any class in the game that can dominate every single other class in the game and is almost guaranteed to easily win any one-on-one matchup? No. There are some classes who are better for dueling than others and will win more fights than others, but is there any class that will completely dominate all fights? No. And compared to other games, that's a pretty remarkable statement. OK, is there any class who will always lose all fights? Well, not long ago, I would have said warlocks, unless they specifically had the right pet out according to whomever they're dueling. However, the addition of Death Coil has really helped the warlock by giving them a badly needed escape mechanism. And, besides, a warlock was tied to be the first person on Tichondrius to get High Warlord, so warlocks are clearly not as gimped in PvP (at least, in group PvP) as is generally believed.

OK, let's look at group PvP now. Is there any class where if one just had a group made up of only that class that it would dominate a mixed class team? For example, would a team of 15 warriors crush all opposition in Arathi Basin? No, they'd get crowd controlled too easily and without healing, they'd die one by one to directed fire. How about 15 shaman? Again, they'd be crowd controled too easily and while they could provide each other healing, they'd take more damage than the warriors would and would die before enough heals could land. How about 15 paladins? They couldn't be crowd controled and they'd be almost impossible to kill with them healing and dispelling each other, but they couldn't kill anything either. 15 Hunters? Don't make me laugh. 15 Druids? Hmm... thinking about it, that actually might work if the group knew how to work together. Somehow, you'd have to get 15 druids together all at once. I'm going to move on from this point for now, though, because I somehow doubt that the author's complaints about class balance were due to fears of 15-druid teams. And even a 15-druid team wouldn't necessarily dominate a mixed class team.

Neglecting the possibility of a well functioning all druid team, the most effective PvP team is a mixed team. You want the warriors who can take a lot of damage and deal a lot of damage carving up the opponent's softies. You want the priests healing and dispelling crowd control spells on your party and throwing out those ever so disruptive aoe fears every 30 seconds. You want the mages sheeping and frost nova'ing to disrupt the other team and providing that magic punch. You want the shaman to purge buffs on the opposing party, disrupt their casting, and provide an offensive punch. You want those indestructible paladins healing and dispelling everything in sight and throwing out their stuns. You want rogues to suprise the other side at the worst moments and force the other team to leave valuable teammates behind to guard resources just in case your rogue happens to roam. You want druids for their jack of all trades abilities and their abilities to never be crowd controled. You want hunters to provide powerful ranged attacks and disruptive crowd control, and to provide some excellent anti-rogue and anti-druid abilities. You even might want a warlock along to provide some ranged punch with disruptive fears and charms and to also provide some good resource/flag defensive capabilities.

So, in the end, you have a PvP system where no one class completely dominates all the others and one where every class has a role to play in group PvP. That's pretty good, in my opinion. Mind you, this does not mean that the situation could not be improved. We've had many discussions on these forums about some of the shortcomings of various classes and how the situation can be improved. However, on the whole, the changes that are necessary are on the level of tweaking things a little bit rather than on the level of throwing out the whole system and starting over.

And the situation is certainly far better than the one the author describes as "blatently unbalanced" while providing no evidence to back up his claim.

[Sheep]

"The music is decent, but can get kind of annoying, as can hearing the same emotes and character voice saying “out of mana” or “I can’t do that!”, but it never becomes annoying."

'Nuff said.

[Drasca]

Coordinated Moonfire spam was my mage friend's worst theorized nightmare that has not yet been realized. Only downfall? Mana inefficiency... and that doesn't matter in Group PvP.

I'll chime in that leveling a warlock on a PvP server, having the biggest purple "attack me" sign on its class head, was never terribly inconvenienced--not even on the worst of bored 60 days.

Fights at Sun Rock Retreat were important to us too :)

[MongoJerry]

Coordinated Moonfire spam was my mage friend's worst theorized nightmare that has not yet been realized. Only downfall? Mana inefficiency... and that doesn't matter in Group PvP.

Hm, I was thinking with the new druid changes having coordinated feral druids stealthing up to people and taking down a couple soft targets and then switching to other targets. If a druid gets attacked, the druid switches to bear form while a second druid heals him or her. Meanwhile, those druids who don't get attacked stay in cat form and dish out the damage. As different druids get attacked, they pop in and out of bear, cat, and healer form as needed.

[oldmandennis]

Well..... when they announced the honor system, but said BG's were a couple months off, I predicted a lot of griefing. Unfortunatly, that was about when I was going from 50-60. It was bad, at least on my server, which is relativly high population. BG's made it much better.

[savaughn]

1) "extra optional bars that blizzard has added recently" - That was what, February?
2) "Characters of the races, especially the non-human ones, seem to look very similar to each other" - Yes, and all those asians look exactly alike, too.
3) "when they stop being more beneficial than just straight out killing" - At no point in time is questing less beneficial than straight out killing.
4) "strategies for finding most mobs will be identical throughout the next few hundred hours of gameplay" - unless you actually learn the questing system and find yourself trying to do things like stack your Feralas quests with your Tanaris and Hinterlands quests, etc. Unless "finding most mobs" means "searching Thottbot".
5) "small group dungeon crawls where 5 characters trek ... make up most of the “end game”" - 5-man is the end game? Did this person even get past lvl 50?!?
6) "epic bosses that drop prime treasure that although should be rare, is seen pretty readily in major cities" - BS. Most 60's in cities are wearing their pieced together blue sets, not their T1 or T2 epics. But then, I don't think this guy even knows what an epic is....
7) "this is somewhat useless as the items created by these trade skills are significantly less powerful than the ones found in instanced dungeons" - This used to be true. It isn't anymore. I'll take Flarecore Leggings over nearly anything.
8) "by setting up 3 distinct server types" - There are 4 server types.
9) "If there is someone of a different faction they may attack you in any contested area no matter what their level or class is." - This is not true on PvE or RP servers.
10) "the new PVP honor system that has recently been released in a patch" - Taking the word "recent" to new heights of absurdity.
11) "this has caused the WoW population to reach levels of barbarity and bloodlust in which questions is practically impossible in many locations" - This was true what until the first BG went in. Was this review written last March?
12) "a PVP server with an implemented honor system, it will be significantly harder to level up" - A flat out lie.
13) "PVP is also flawed as classes are blatantly imbalanced" - Right now, from 0-60, PvP is incredibly balanced. The only serious issue is the post 60 itemization issue - and trust me this guy never got there.
14) "a level 60 character can kill a group of level 1 character for hours if they want" - As MJ pointed out, this one goes past "lie" and "damned lie" and right into "statistic" level.
15) "The graphics rarely amaze the player even at their highest levels" - I long ago lost track of the number of times I had to stop and go "WOW" at the graphics in this game. I don't know of anyone who got to inner Mara and wasn't impressed.


As near as I can tell, this guy hasn't played WoW since March, never got to 60, has never actually played a battleground (note: he doesn't think they're in the game yet), and has never done more than a 5-man raid. This is a worthless review.

[Drasca]

Hm, I was thinking with the new druid changes having coordinated feral druids ...
[right][snapback]94369[/snapback][/right]

I've never been a fan of feral druids for PvP, as they just don't have the stun/disorient abilities of rogues. Multiple mini-ambushes are nice but consider this:

Moonfire IC spam from multiple druids, coupled with their insane ability to escape or endure on-the-fly. Since moonfire has no cooldown, any target without healing support would simply die or quite possibly be overwhelmed by uninteruptable ranged arcane dps from sources extremely difficult to track down and kill.

Individual burst damage doesn't compare, but a 'skirmisher' group of coordinated MF spam could be scary. 5 Druids dynamically kiting with MF spam? 2 Druids own smaller BG battlefields as it is.

[Ruvanal]

As near as I can tell, this guy hasn't played WoW since March, never got to 60, has never actually played a battleground (note: he doesn't think they're in the game yet), and has never done more than a 5-man raid.  This is a worthless review.
[right][snapback]94411[/snapback][/right]

Agreed. And last March was approximately one year after the closed beta started. More than likely this was a review from someone that played in the closed beta some and then did a poor review of it shortly after the game went retail.

[Chesspiece_face]

Agreed.  And last March was approximately one year after the closed beta started.  More than likely this was a review from someone that played in the closed beta some and then did a poor review of it shortly after the game went retail.
[right][snapback]94422[/snapback][/right]

If only that were true. The first line of the article states:

It’s November and World of Warcraft has already been out for nearly a year.

The linked page also has a date of 11/06/05.

[Guest]

I think its a weak review. Its mostly correct in what it covers but it avoids the games main issues.

My thoughts(and I know these are not original nor profound)....
The end game is nothing like the leveling game. This is odd since an obvious huge effort went into creating the leveling game.

Leveling is great with pick up groups, well constructed groups, solo or duo.
The end game requires very specific full groups.

Leveling can be done any time block you have available and has almost no down time.
The end game requires hours set aside at once and has a great deal of down time while you round up groups.

Leveling is rather varied, you move all over, quests every where, and a lot of exploring.
The end game becomes repetaive in just a few weeks.

[MongoJerry]

Well said, Ghostiger.

[fractaled]

Well said, it's nice to see someone make clear the dichotomy between levels 1-59 and 60.

It's almost like they designed everything at level 60 for the hardcore guilded players, thinking that the casual players would never get there... and yet the level cap is not that high compared to some other MMORPGs.

[LavCat]

...
The end game becomes repetaive in just a few weeks.
[right][snapback]94492[/snapback][/right]

Which makes me think (hope) the current end game is only temporary. I spend most of my time grinding for reputation or getting new characters to 60.

[savaughn]

Well said, it's nice to see someone make clear the dichotomy between levels 1-59 and 60.

It's almost like they designed everything at level 60 for the hardcore guilded players, thinking that the casual players would never get there... and yet the level cap is not that high compared to some other MMORPGs.
[right][snapback]94642[/snapback][/right]

I think that's absolutely correct. I think they know this though. They have said repeatedly that the reason the new level cap is going to be so low in the expansion is because they want people to actually have something to do when they hit 70 this time instead of Raid/Rep/BG all over again.

[savaughn]

I sent a note to the e-zine and mentioned how out of date the article was. I had kind of assumed that it would be lost in the nether, but I got this back in return:

Thanks for pointing that out.  When we posted the review, I had assumed it was current.  We've since then removed that review and replaced it with a more up-to-date one (http://www.gameplaymonthly.com/reviews/wow.htm).  Thanks again for pointing that out.

The new article comes at the game from a radically different perspective, although it still fails to point out the gap at the end game or some of the other comments that were generated in this thread.