Sure, MMOs might be a dime a dozen. Sure, WoW is a big investment ($50, $15/mo, plus potential upgrades needed on computer or peripherals such as 2+ button mouse).
But, you know what? I don’t care. Blizzard has taken a look at every MMORPG currently on the market and said, “We could do better.” And they have. They’ve taken good features from other MMOs and given them that Blizzard flare. You can argue that there are only two or three different types of quests (fetch/rescue, kill, and, uh… deliver a message/item), but that doesn’t detract from the beauty of World of Warcraft (W0W).
WoW’s stylized graphics are superb. Even the best video cards can’t run WoW on the Mac with every video option all the way up. Well, to be more specific - you can’t turn all of them all the way up and expect frame rates high enough to make the game playable.
WoW’s play control is simple, but expandable. Almost every thing can be mapped to a key or mouse button allowing for less hunt-and-peck play within the UI. The varying methods of communicating with other players are well executed and the way you can communicate weapon/item specs by shift-clicking them from your inventory while a text input field is open is very nice. The social side of WoW is also well done, with guilds, party options, raid options, and things like Players versus Player combat and diuels.
The UI is slick and elegant in WoW. The toolbars don’t take up too much space and are easy to navigate. The icons are usually intuitive and very easy to remember. Plus, with one-key keyboard shortcuts available for pretty much all of the common commands, you can access controls even faster (pressing M to bring up the map, rather than clicking on the globe icon, for example). The UI is also customizable to some extent, and many mods for the game exist providing changes to the interface and even, so far as I know without having used any, to the gameplay.
There are three different server types to play WoW on. Normal (Player vs Environment, or PvE), Player vs Players (PvP), and Role Play (RP). Perosnally, I’ll stick with Normal or RP to avoid the petty, annoying children playing on PvP servers. I really don’t appreciate starting a brand new character only to constantly pestered by level 60 characters from an opposing force taunting me with chicken noises and repeatedly challenging me to duels I clearly can not win. That’s a childish way to play the game and it’s not worth spending $15 a month on a game just to harass people. Then again, since most of the people doing that are probably under the age of 16, they’re probably not paying for their service.
The character creation system in WoW is a lot of fun. There are jsut enough options that I rarely ever see characters that look the same. As you progress and find new weapons and armor, mixing and matching styles, everyone looks pretty unique.
I’ve made a number of friends in the nearly one-month long time I’ve been playing WoW and on the non-PvP servers I rarely encounter anyone I might feel compelled to call an a-hole (changing that - to ss).
One of the nice feature of WoW is that you don’t have to throw away your life you enjoy it. By not playing, you can build rest time so that the next time you play, monsters give you twice as much experience, giving you a chance to catch up. If you’re like me, you can only play once a week (part of my excuse is not having a computer capable of playing the game, so I go to my use my dad’s at my parents’ house), so this feature doesn’t balance out quite like it should.
I’ve invested about 2 whole days of my life into the game so far experimenting with 5 different characters (two on PvP, one on RP) and have thoroughly enjoyed every moment. I enjoy simple things. Or cute things, which is why I’m a sucker for Pokémon. That said, I will gladly spend two hours fishing in WoW or stop in the middle of a quest to mix some herbs into potions or create bandages out of linen. The skills and professions add a lot to the experience of the game. Finding items that other people can utilize with their professions allows you a chance to make some extra money, or gives you something to try and trade in order to get items you need for your professions. There are just enough professions that if you can maintain a steady group of friends to play with, or four of five-man group can compliment eachother so very well.
This, clearly, is not the best review you’ll read, but I’m not the best writer. Regardless, I apologize and hope that if you were interested in any way in playing WoW, that this might just sway you to do it. Maybe I’d see you on…
Note, however, that WoW, like many games, is not for everyone. Some people only like sports games, some only like racing games, some only like fighting games, FPSs, or console RPGs like Final Fantasy. Me? I like good games, and WoW is one of them.
