Warning: Sorry for the super-long review, but its impossible to do a SHORT wow review and still do the game justice
Now, before I get started, id like to send out a warning. Anyone who plays this game at any point in time, beware of the hook. Do not get addicted, as its an awful thing to be - a WoW addict.
Now, moving on - WORLD OF WARCRAFT
To be honest im not sure where to get started with this. Ive been a fan of the warcraft series since the release of warcraft 2, then I loved warcraft 3, the expansion (Frozen throne) and of course, battle.net, so obviously I was excited when I heard about WoW, especially since at the time MMO's were a fairly new concept, and warcraft seemed to have the perfect world for it - good lore, races, spells, and of course, a team that we know are great at making addictive games (Diablo 2, anyone?). Ive been playing since release (2004), so I think I know enough to write a review ^^
I better break this up into bite size chunks. And by the way, this is prolly gonna be one of the longest reviews you ever read.
First off, then!
Character Creation:
Making your character is a bit of a ceremony, because this guy (Or gal) could possibly reflect everything you do in the game henceforth. It will likely be your "Main" which is your highest level character, with the most money and awesomeness. Right off the block youve got 2 factions and 10 races.
Theres the alliance, the "Good guys" which consist of humans (Self explanatory) Night elves (Erm, basically dark elves from oblivion, by which I mean tall and purple.) dwarves (Midgets who love beer) gnomes (Even smaller than dwarves, and are very steampunk.) and dranei (a cross between a smurf, a goat, and davey jones. Seriously. AND theyre from outer space)
And the horde, who are totally evil and awesome. Orcs (Self explanatory) Undead (Zombies, pretty self explanatory) trolls (Tall, lanky, hunched, have tusks.) blood elves (High elves gone wrong, basically look like tall, handsome and somewhat gay humans. Probably the most populated horde race, even though by lore they are meant to be near extinction.)
Alright, before I move onto the classes, gotta explain a few things. For "instances" and "raids" which are just special places you go to with a group of 5 (Instance) or 10/25 (a raid) with lots of difficult monsters, bosses and best of all, LOOT, theres one of three roles you will have, depending on your class and combat specialization (Kinda a class within a class, every class has three specialisations.) And here they are:
Tank - has tons of health and moves that affect monsters all around, so he has to make sure everything attacks him all the time, so no one else gets hurt.
DPS (damage dealer/damage per second) - Hits things really hard as fast and strong as he can, the majority of people are dps as its the most used role. (3 dps in the 5 man instances, about 5 in the 10 man raids, and maybe 15 in the 25 man raids.)
Healer - He stays outta combat and heals anyone hurt, usually the tank.
You guys still with me? Got all that?
Alright, here we go with classes. *Sigh*
Theres the warrior, slightly self explanatory, uses a system called rage for combat, where he gains rage every time he auto-hits someone or gets hit, then uses his rage for special moves. Can Tank or DPS.Wears mail til 40, when he gets plate armor.
Mage, uses all kinds of cool spells, from creating portals for his whole party to use to any well known location, to conjuring food and water to turning his foes into sheep to shooting fireballs. Will always be a DPS. Uses mana for combat, a bar with a limited supply of power which he needs to use spells, when ran out must regenerate with a spell, drink, or let it auto-regenerate (V. slow) which is why he needs lots of mana, and therefore lots of awesome loot that gives him permenant extra mana. (The intellect stat)Wears cloth.
Preist - Uses plenty of holy spells, and obviously tons of healing. Can hold their own in combat for quests or emergency DPSing (sometimes will be a dps if shadow specialization) but usally a healer. Uses mana. Wears cloth armor.
Paladin - A cross between a warrior and a preist - a force to be reckoned with, alright. he'll punch you in the face, cut your head off, then heal himself in combat. Or strike fear into the hearts of his foes by creating an unbreakable bubble shield and running the fuck away. Can Tank, dps, AND heal, (One of only two classes that can do this) wears mail til lvl 40 when he can wear plate armor.
Warlock - Like a mage, but focuses more on shadow magic and the help of his demons, which he has a large and colourful variety of. Needs soulstones to summon them, which he gets from SUCKING OUT PEOPLES SOULS. cool, eh? Always DPS' and wear cloth armor.
Hunter: Focuses on ranged attacks with his bow or gun, using his pet to keep the attention of his foes while he picks them off from afar. A hunter can tame almost any beast-type monster in the game and make them his pet, using them in combat. He must feed them to keep them happy however, so if your gonna be a hunter, always carry around a ton of meat. (They do more damage when happy) DPS. Wears leather until 40, when he gets mail armor. Uses mana.
Druid: My personal favourite, along with paladin - has the ability to 1. use lots of sweet nature spells (Root your enemy to the spot with roots that come out of the ground. Pun intended, hurl a wave at them, knocking them backwards and, if your a dick during PvP, off a cliff, or trap them in a tornado. Or..shoot them with ye ole damage spells.) 2. The coolest ability ever - can turn into animals. Bear is tank, panther is DPS, sea lion is...for swimming fast in emergencies. Kinda pointless form, but wtf, its fun. The tree is healing, and boomkin (strange kinda bear-bird crossover beast) is Spell-using dps, and the bird is, obviously, flying around the place and looking cool. Can tank, dps and heal. Uses mana and wears leather.
Death Knight: The first "hero class" starts at level 55, and plays through a unique prequel storyline to Wrath of the lich king, consisting of three levels. Then you get out in the open world, level 58 and ready to have some fun. A fairly overpowered class, usually a dps and quite fun to play. Dont go running off deciding to play them yet, guys, you need a level 55 of your own before your allowed use death knights. use a complicated combat system called rune power which I dont have the space to explain, but it works, I guess. Dps, Can tank in instances, usually not in hard raids though. Wear plate always.
Rogue: The assasin, he can stealth around the place, stun people, do backstabs, and be an all around nuisance in play vs. player. Uses energy, which is like a cross between mana and rage. It starts full, like mana, but runs out quicker and regenarates quickly in combat, allowing for a very flowing, fun and tactical combat system. Is dps always, wears leather.
Shaman: Controls the elements, is very powerful. Shoots LIGHTNING from his hands. can DPS or heal, wears leather til 40 when he gets mail armor.
You obviously customise your guys name and appearance, and off you go.
OK! the classes are finally done, so we can move on to the juicy bit, the gameplay.
You will go into warcraft with maybe one or two moves, very little health, very little power and very little knowledge of how to play. The best way to do this is to simply ask a nearby player who might have a little more experience. You will do quests - basically missions, which can have all sorts of objectives, from gathering, to rescuing, to escorting, to killing, to exploring, to investigating to speaking to someone to travelling up a mountain and speaking with your dark side, or your future self. You will get the most important thing at the time - EXP, which you need to level up, and of course you will get money, which is Hugely important in warcraft, which HAS AN ECONOMY BETTER THAN THAT OF KENYA. Although each server has a different economy, with gold seeming to have different values - for instance, you might find a level 45 axe in the auction house on one server going at an average price of 25gold, with another server and the same axe going at an average of 53 gold.
You will also sometimes get all-important loot from some quests, which will help you be more generally awesome. and every second level, you can go to your class trainer and learn some new moves, and upgrade your old ones.
For the most part, you will spend your time doing instances and quests until you hit the cap, level 80, but of course the game only begins then. You will start doing the aforementioned raids, starting with 10 man ones, then when you have enough good armor and weapons, you will move onto the hard 25 man ones for more good gear.
And of course then theres the PvP. For PvP theres several things they've got, the main being Battlegrounds. You qeue up and eventually are teleported into a special battleground with people from all different servers within a few levels of you so its fair, and you fight against players of the opposing faction. Theres all the old favourites - Team deathmatch + territory capture, simple king of the hill esque territory capture, two flag capture the flag - that kinda thing. theres wintergrasp, which is a new thing with the WOTLK expansion, where your all sent to a kinda battleground esque zone with one fortress that has raid dungeon at the back containing very good loot. Theres 2 and a half hours between the half-hour long battles, and whichever team won the last battle has the fortress to themselves for the near 3 hours, and they must defend it during the next battle. There are also seige weapons here - catapults, steampunk tanks, that sorta thing. and steampunkish turrets as well - its an all round laugh.
And the arena, but I can get into that another time.
And of course theres ALL kinds of things you can do besides just the very core, root gameplay - you can make your fortune in commerce, using your profession (Maybe your a blacksmith who mines his own materials? or a alchemist who spends his days picking herbs for his expensive concoctions? or an engineer?) you can get drunk (Makes your screen blurry, you speak wierd, cant walk straight) on some ale in the local inn while chatting to some friends, you can roleplay (certain servers are quite dedicated to this) and you can all round have a good laugh. You can help some low-level friends with a tricky quest, or make a rogue, get him to a certain battleground level, and buy him lots of expensive gear, then just use him to kill tons of people in pvP (Called a 'twink') and when you get bored of your character, just make a new one! You can make about 13 characters per server, so feel free to try every class.
And most of all, have fun, and PWN DEM NUBS.
Bottom Line WoW is a very well polished MMORPG with an absolutely massive game world and tons to do. At the very least, play the trial.
Hope you enjoyed this review, even if it was more of a summary of WoW. Please give some feedback, and im sorry if its too long.
Now, before I get started, id like to send out a warning. Anyone who plays this game at any point in time, beware of the hook. Do not get addicted, as its an awful thing to be - a WoW addict.
Now, moving on - WORLD OF WARCRAFT
To be honest im not sure where to get started with this. Ive been a fan of the warcraft series since the release of warcraft 2, then I loved warcraft 3, the expansion (Frozen throne) and of course, battle.net, so obviously I was excited when I heard about WoW, especially since at the time MMO's were a fairly new concept, and warcraft seemed to have the perfect world for it - good lore, races, spells, and of course, a team that we know are great at making addictive games (Diablo 2, anyone?). Ive been playing since release (2004), so I think I know enough to write a review ^^
I better break this up into bite size chunks. And by the way, this is prolly gonna be one of the longest reviews you ever read.
First off, then!
Character Creation:
Making your character is a bit of a ceremony, because this guy (Or gal) could possibly reflect everything you do in the game henceforth. It will likely be your "Main" which is your highest level character, with the most money and awesomeness. Right off the block youve got 2 factions and 10 races.
Theres the alliance, the "Good guys" which consist of humans (Self explanatory) Night elves (Erm, basically dark elves from oblivion, by which I mean tall and purple.) dwarves (Midgets who love beer) gnomes (Even smaller than dwarves, and are very steampunk.) and dranei (a cross between a smurf, a goat, and davey jones. Seriously. AND theyre from outer space)
And the horde, who are totally evil and awesome. Orcs (Self explanatory) Undead (Zombies, pretty self explanatory) trolls (Tall, lanky, hunched, have tusks.) blood elves (High elves gone wrong, basically look like tall, handsome and somewhat gay humans. Probably the most populated horde race, even though by lore they are meant to be near extinction.)
Alright, before I move onto the classes, gotta explain a few things. For "instances" and "raids" which are just special places you go to with a group of 5 (Instance) or 10/25 (a raid) with lots of difficult monsters, bosses and best of all, LOOT, theres one of three roles you will have, depending on your class and combat specialization (Kinda a class within a class, every class has three specialisations.) And here they are:
Tank - has tons of health and moves that affect monsters all around, so he has to make sure everything attacks him all the time, so no one else gets hurt.
DPS (damage dealer/damage per second) - Hits things really hard as fast and strong as he can, the majority of people are dps as its the most used role. (3 dps in the 5 man instances, about 5 in the 10 man raids, and maybe 15 in the 25 man raids.)
Healer - He stays outta combat and heals anyone hurt, usually the tank.
You guys still with me? Got all that?
Alright, here we go with classes. *Sigh*
Theres the warrior, slightly self explanatory, uses a system called rage for combat, where he gains rage every time he auto-hits someone or gets hit, then uses his rage for special moves. Can Tank or DPS.Wears mail til 40, when he gets plate armor.
Mage, uses all kinds of cool spells, from creating portals for his whole party to use to any well known location, to conjuring food and water to turning his foes into sheep to shooting fireballs. Will always be a DPS. Uses mana for combat, a bar with a limited supply of power which he needs to use spells, when ran out must regenerate with a spell, drink, or let it auto-regenerate (V. slow) which is why he needs lots of mana, and therefore lots of awesome loot that gives him permenant extra mana. (The intellect stat)Wears cloth.
Preist - Uses plenty of holy spells, and obviously tons of healing. Can hold their own in combat for quests or emergency DPSing (sometimes will be a dps if shadow specialization) but usally a healer. Uses mana. Wears cloth armor.
Paladin - A cross between a warrior and a preist - a force to be reckoned with, alright. he'll punch you in the face, cut your head off, then heal himself in combat. Or strike fear into the hearts of his foes by creating an unbreakable bubble shield and running the fuck away. Can Tank, dps, AND heal, (One of only two classes that can do this) wears mail til lvl 40 when he can wear plate armor.
Warlock - Like a mage, but focuses more on shadow magic and the help of his demons, which he has a large and colourful variety of. Needs soulstones to summon them, which he gets from SUCKING OUT PEOPLES SOULS. cool, eh? Always DPS' and wear cloth armor.
Hunter: Focuses on ranged attacks with his bow or gun, using his pet to keep the attention of his foes while he picks them off from afar. A hunter can tame almost any beast-type monster in the game and make them his pet, using them in combat. He must feed them to keep them happy however, so if your gonna be a hunter, always carry around a ton of meat. (They do more damage when happy) DPS. Wears leather until 40, when he gets mail armor. Uses mana.
Druid: My personal favourite, along with paladin - has the ability to 1. use lots of sweet nature spells (Root your enemy to the spot with roots that come out of the ground. Pun intended, hurl a wave at them, knocking them backwards and, if your a dick during PvP, off a cliff, or trap them in a tornado. Or..shoot them with ye ole damage spells.) 2. The coolest ability ever - can turn into animals. Bear is tank, panther is DPS, sea lion is...for swimming fast in emergencies. Kinda pointless form, but wtf, its fun. The tree is healing, and boomkin (strange kinda bear-bird crossover beast) is Spell-using dps, and the bird is, obviously, flying around the place and looking cool. Can tank, dps and heal. Uses mana and wears leather.
Death Knight: The first "hero class" starts at level 55, and plays through a unique prequel storyline to Wrath of the lich king, consisting of three levels. Then you get out in the open world, level 58 and ready to have some fun. A fairly overpowered class, usually a dps and quite fun to play. Dont go running off deciding to play them yet, guys, you need a level 55 of your own before your allowed use death knights. use a complicated combat system called rune power which I dont have the space to explain, but it works, I guess. Dps, Can tank in instances, usually not in hard raids though. Wear plate always.
Rogue: The assasin, he can stealth around the place, stun people, do backstabs, and be an all around nuisance in play vs. player. Uses energy, which is like a cross between mana and rage. It starts full, like mana, but runs out quicker and regenarates quickly in combat, allowing for a very flowing, fun and tactical combat system. Is dps always, wears leather.
Shaman: Controls the elements, is very powerful. Shoots LIGHTNING from his hands. can DPS or heal, wears leather til 40 when he gets mail armor.
You obviously customise your guys name and appearance, and off you go.
OK! the classes are finally done, so we can move on to the juicy bit, the gameplay.
You will go into warcraft with maybe one or two moves, very little health, very little power and very little knowledge of how to play. The best way to do this is to simply ask a nearby player who might have a little more experience. You will do quests - basically missions, which can have all sorts of objectives, from gathering, to rescuing, to escorting, to killing, to exploring, to investigating to speaking to someone to travelling up a mountain and speaking with your dark side, or your future self. You will get the most important thing at the time - EXP, which you need to level up, and of course you will get money, which is Hugely important in warcraft, which HAS AN ECONOMY BETTER THAN THAT OF KENYA. Although each server has a different economy, with gold seeming to have different values - for instance, you might find a level 45 axe in the auction house on one server going at an average price of 25gold, with another server and the same axe going at an average of 53 gold.
You will also sometimes get all-important loot from some quests, which will help you be more generally awesome. and every second level, you can go to your class trainer and learn some new moves, and upgrade your old ones.
For the most part, you will spend your time doing instances and quests until you hit the cap, level 80, but of course the game only begins then. You will start doing the aforementioned raids, starting with 10 man ones, then when you have enough good armor and weapons, you will move onto the hard 25 man ones for more good gear.
And of course then theres the PvP. For PvP theres several things they've got, the main being Battlegrounds. You qeue up and eventually are teleported into a special battleground with people from all different servers within a few levels of you so its fair, and you fight against players of the opposing faction. Theres all the old favourites - Team deathmatch + territory capture, simple king of the hill esque territory capture, two flag capture the flag - that kinda thing. theres wintergrasp, which is a new thing with the WOTLK expansion, where your all sent to a kinda battleground esque zone with one fortress that has raid dungeon at the back containing very good loot. Theres 2 and a half hours between the half-hour long battles, and whichever team won the last battle has the fortress to themselves for the near 3 hours, and they must defend it during the next battle. There are also seige weapons here - catapults, steampunk tanks, that sorta thing. and steampunkish turrets as well - its an all round laugh.
And the arena, but I can get into that another time.
And of course theres ALL kinds of things you can do besides just the very core, root gameplay - you can make your fortune in commerce, using your profession (Maybe your a blacksmith who mines his own materials? or a alchemist who spends his days picking herbs for his expensive concoctions? or an engineer?) you can get drunk (Makes your screen blurry, you speak wierd, cant walk straight) on some ale in the local inn while chatting to some friends, you can roleplay (certain servers are quite dedicated to this) and you can all round have a good laugh. You can help some low-level friends with a tricky quest, or make a rogue, get him to a certain battleground level, and buy him lots of expensive gear, then just use him to kill tons of people in pvP (Called a 'twink') and when you get bored of your character, just make a new one! You can make about 13 characters per server, so feel free to try every class.
And most of all, have fun, and PWN DEM NUBS.
Bottom Line WoW is a very well polished MMORPG with an absolutely massive game world and tons to do. At the very least, play the trial.
Hope you enjoyed this review, even if it was more of a summary of WoW. Please give some feedback, and im sorry if its too long.
