Nearly 10 years ago, the gaming world was changed when the first MMOGwas released to the masses. Not only did it combine mass amount ofplayers in a single area, but was extremely addicting and fun. Now,MMOG’s are everywhere, every genre has been touched and a wide varietycan be chosen. So you must be asking yourself, which genre is my styleof play, if you like Science Fiction then it’s Anarchy Online, or yourcup of tea might be war, WWII Online. But, there are those few gameswhich come and gives us all a second look into what we like most, a funaction oriented game that brings everything we love from those genresinto one.
World of Warcraft has been on the market for a few months now, andhas the worlds 2nd largest playerbase, second to Lineage. With 1.5Million subscribers and growing, there seems to be no end to thedominance WoW brings. Much to the dismay of recent MMOG titles, WoW hada near perfect launch, with only a few server mishaps andauthentication problems. Blizzard has put up a valiant effort to makethe servers stable and bug free.
MMOG’s backbones are quests and a great storyline, and WoW is noexception. It takes place 4 years after the events from Warcraft III:Reign of Chaos. The races of Azeroth have beaten back the BurningLegion and decided to rebuild their war torn world. The Night Elvesstill dwell in the forests to the North of Kalimdor. The Orcs nowsettle to the South of Kalimdor in the great city of Ogrimmar. Thehumans now take shelter in Southern Lordearon in the great city ofStormwind, whilst the Undead still haunt the fallen kingdom ofLordearon. Though, with their differences aside, an alliance with theraces have all but been shattered and open war has been declared again.This is where you come in, to become a great leader of the race of yourchoosing and defend your lands.
Controls/Gameplay:
I found the controls to be great; it follows theW A S D format to move your characters. Simple point-and-click whilepicking up loots is easy enough and pathfinding seems very fluid. TheGameplay is the best I’ve seen in a MMOG, fighting monsters andleveling your character is more action oriented rather than boring andmonotonous. Like every MMOG, you’ll find a lot of people putting manyhours of time into there character, with WoWs new take on “resting” incities, you could be out of game for 3+ weeks and when you come backyou’ll have twice the amount of XP while leveling, giving you theopportunity of catching up with your high level friends. Most of thegameplay is centralized on you getting a Quest from an NPC andcompleting that quest for Experience Points (XP).
Sound:
What can I say, you feel like you’re in the World ofWarcraft. If you are familiar with the previous RTS titles, then you’llbe familiar with many of the sounds in WoW. Everything is alive in theenvironment and the sound effects are incorporated with it. One of themany effects I found cool is during death. Some instances, you can moveyour ghost to places, which your live character would not go, there youcan hear many of the cinematics from the previous warcraft games.
Graphics:
Graphics aren’t the backbone of WoW, the game play is.But as many of my previous reviews states, graphics isn’t everything.If you can get by some of the corny animations and environments thenyou can really appreciate what Blizzard is trying to do. Warcraft is avery distinct RPG, and Blizzard tried to stay clear of the prettygraphics and have everyone realize the true essence of the WarcraftWorld. You feel like you are playing the RPG in a third person view.It’s an amazing job, and an experience worth savoring.
Overall:
I liked everything about WoW; I still play it to this dayand still have countless amounts of fun. Blizzard has promised newcontent with future patches, and the world can only get bigger withtime. World of Warcraft is the best MMOG on the market right now. Ihighly recommend it to fans of the series and MMOG travelers alike.
"World of Warcraft (PC)" is on sale November 23, 2004 and is rated T. RPG.
