World of Warcraft (Mac/PC)

My friend first got Everquest 2, while his oldest brother got World Of Warcrfat. About 3 weeks after my friend got everquest 2 they brough out a 14 day trial to compete with World Of Warcrafts 10 day trial. So my friend gave me this trial. I got home and it took Everquest 2, 3 hours to install all 4 discs and then another 2 hours of downloads! I didnt get on it till bout 8 at night after school. Then when i did play it i loved it til i was about lvl 16. Then it was boring. It grinded slowly. I set my character to make some stuff in proffesions and i got to lvl 10 after 3 hours of doing it. Thankgod id been cleening my bedroom while my char crafted. Thats how slow it is, sometimes u arnt even needed at they keeboard for upto 20 mins. How joyful it is siting doing nothing in front of the comp. So after about 1 week playing everquest 2 i stoped playing it.

Then after I stopped playing Everquest 2 my friends brother gave him the 10 day free trial for WOW. My friend after 5 days on the trial quit his everquest 2 membership and ordered WOW (World Of Warcrat) Then wen my friend received WOW he gave me the 10 day free trial. After looking at their European website, before id even tried WOW out i already thought it was better than everquest 2. The WOW european website is http://www.wow-europe.com/en/. Its great and helpful. After 10 days of playing WOW the 10 day trial ran out but i had already ordered my own WOW of the internet.

WOW is great for many reasons, for a start there are 2 main factions that r split up into 4 different races each. 1 faction is called the Horde (the supposed bad guys) and the other, The Alliance (the gd guys). They r both totally unique and Blizzard have built a great sense of hatred between the the two sides. There are over 2200 quests to do in the game. then there are seperate repeatable ones. To adavance in the game u have to do quests, mainly to get exp (experience points) to gain lvls although u can get exp from kiling animals too. Also quests can help u gain reputation with allied races, reputation can let u save money from flying to places, paying to be trained or simply buying equipment. There are 12 proffesions and 9 seperate classes. The classes range from being able to shoot enemies dwn with a gun while having ur pet (that u trained urself from variouse beasts around the world) attack too to rogues sneaking around or warriors thrusting swords through enemies. The proffesions range from mining to alchemy, leatherworking and blacksmithing. Only a few were mensioned then.

There are also 3 different realm types, they are PvE (playervs environment) this consists of mainly fighting the 100s-1000s of animals in the world. This realm type is for beginners as well as experts as it limits PvP.

PvP (Playervs Player) realms are like the PvE realm just when u venture into unsafer territories u can get attacked my players of the opposin faction.

Then theres RP realms (Role Playing) these r like PvE just u have to act like ur a real person in WOW and u have to try and stick to the real storyline in WOW which is very extensive. U can not talk about the real world in tese realms or u may be kicked from the realm.

Later on when u get higher lvls u can start raiding enemy cities eg. i was in the Human City Stormwind when a group of 40 Hrde players game. They started attacking and killing the 100s of guards in my own city! So all the Alliance in Stormwind came to the Horde and we started fighting them. This started a 40v40 pvp battle to defend our city. Then in the little villages scattered in teriotries have defended them too. It builds a great sense of hatred to the enemy.

Recently a big patch introduced the Honour system where u get rewarded for PVP kills with better steeds and arour or weapons. Over 50 new weapons and armour pieces were introduced.

The the Battlegrounds were introduced. there are 2 ones a capture the flag (CTF). in this the teams have bases and compete in 10v10 combat to get each others flags.

Then theres Alterac Valley (AV) this is a whole map with numerous bases, towers, bridges, mines, Bandits , Graveyards and much more. Here 40v40 player battles happen with lots more NPC Guards fighting for each faction to help defend strategic points. Then soon Blizzard are bringing out siege machines for these battles. The possibilities are almost unlimited.

Then each different race have their own steeds etc.

The only problem is you have to pay 9 a month but that isnt bad since i havnt brought anything else with my money since i got this game, so trust me its worth it.

Oh and somewhere else in these Reviews about WOW some1 has mentioned RUNESCAPE to be better, trust me i was a memeber of this game for a month and it gets repetitive. You have to do lots of things again and aain to gain each lvl. It gets broing but if u want to see for urself heres the website www.runescape.co.uk trust me im not lying. Also note WOWs graphics are amazing too unlike Runescapes :D

Im sorry if this review dragged on a bit but plz rate it if it was helpful or not, i am trying to improve my reiews overall :).

Bi


oh yes   November 8, 2004
Stephen Bray (huddersfield, uk)
167 out of 189 found this review helpful

blizzard are in my opinion, one of the best 4 games developers in the world, with the starcraft, diablo and warcraft series, they have proven themselves to know how to make fundamentally excellent and enjoyable games, which is exactly what an MMORPG needs to be

world of warcraft is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) set in the history-rich world of azeroth, you pick a team - there are two teams at "war" - the horde and the alliance, though that's not to say this is strictly a player vs player game though, there are non-pvp servers where the war atmosphere is maintained through other methods, the horde are comprised of orcs, undead, tuaren and trolls, while the alliance are humans, night elves, dwarves and gnomes.

along with choosing a team & race, you must choose a class, there are a number of classes such as:

Paladin: a holy knight, capable of taking damage well, who can also heal competently and has other support spells
Rogue: a sneaky chap who strikes from the shadows, causing incredible amounts of melee damage
Warrior: the warrior is typically the chap responsible for taking damage in fights, they have the most health and the best armour, along with skills designed around them taking damage and holding "hate" so the enemy sticks on the warrior instead of attacking weaker classes, although, quite uniquely in wow you can design your character around being an offensive warrior, or berserker, who can do melee damage which almost rivals that of a rogue
Hunter: the hunter is a ranged attacker (guns or bows) who commands the respect of animals, he can "charm" an animal to his side and it becomes his permanent pet, he is capable of reasonable damage with many utility spells
Mage: a powerful class designed around doing a lot of damage over a short period of time (direct damage spells)
Warlock: the warlock is a class designed around doing a lot of damage over a long period of time, on long encounters (raid bosses etc) their damage is unsurpassed, they also command demons pets which they may summon to their aid (including a warrior type pet and a rogue type pet, and more), warlocks also have many useful utility spells
Shaman: the shaman is described as a hybrid class, they are competent healers, able to take damage reasonably well when needed, and able to cause damage reasonably well, sort of a combination of a mage, warrior and priest, yet the sum of their parts is no more powerful than any one of their component classes, they also have powerful utility spells and "buffs"
Priest: the priest is the generic healer, he has powerful healing spells, resurrection spells and buffs (statistic improvements), or you can specialise in offensive damage as a priest
Druid: the druid is a difficult class to describe, in their natural state, they command nature magics, able to heal well and cause damage well, they also have what is described as the best buff in the game, yet their strength (and weakness) is their versatility, they are able to shapeshift into various forms, such as a cat (which gives them limited rogue abilities) a bear (which gives them limited warrior abilities) and more, their versatility means they can fill almost any role needed in a group, but since they do not do anything as well as the "parent" class, they are considered to be the "silver medal" of the game at this point

after you have decided on your class, you must venture out into the wide world, filled with hundreds, and probably even thousands of other players (depending on your server), here you adventure, quest, fight, gain experience, level up, and gain new abilities and spells. As you adventure you will learn more about the world, its history, and perhaps make friends along the way

although most MMOs are designed around group play (and wow is not especially different here), all classes are able to "solo" (fight alone) to a reasonable degree, group play is beneficial, but no longer will you have to sit for 40 minutes just to get in a group, like you did in, say, everquest. Also unlike everquest, the game isn't designed around the "grind" (tedious constant killing of enemies to gain experience), the game is more quest-based and the concept of "downtime" (having to rest to regain strength after fights) barely exists. Wow is a game of fun, not a game of work (unlike everquest & probably eq2). Players can also band togther to form guilds, guilds will bring a strong sense of community to the game

at high levels (60, and beyond as expansions are made), the game will cater for "raids", raids are events where guilds fight very powerful AI creatures which may take 40+ people to kill, but the loot (items) they drop will be incredibly powerful, unlike Everquest and other MMOs, wow will mostly have "instanced raids", this is where carbon copies of the zone are "spawned" specifically for your guild or group, meaning there will be no competition for items, quests and zones, meaning also that any guild will be able to get into raiding

the game also has a number of "battlegrounds", where players can fight other players (remember, this is *war*craft), and possibly parttake in sieges on enemy cities and strongholds

along with all this, the game will have a rich tradeskill based economy, where players can gather components then produce items from them, then sell or use them

along with the "player vs environment" servers, there are also full on player vs player servers, where players can enjoy the full atmosphere of the war, with an honour system where people are rewared with honour for killing players near/above their level, and lose honour for killing players who are significantly lower than they are in level (with appropriate rewards/pubishments for having high/low honour) the game will stay fun and hopefully put off the "griefers" who just want to pvp to make other people's lives miserable

the game has so many little touches of brilliance, it's hard to sum them all up.. you can fly around the world by griffin, ride by beast or walk on foot, every class is unique and enjoyable, and develops well over the 60 levels

ultimately, world of warcraft is looking like being as close to perfect as you can get from an MMO, unfortunately the US release has been forced by the publishers so the game is probably going to launch unfinished, but with a february 05-ish release looking likely for UK, the game should be finely polished by then

blizzard are one of the best four games developers in the world in my opinion, and although they've made many mistakes (this is their first mmo afterall, and it's not even finished yet), it is looking like being another wonderful game, and a benchmark in MMO history


WoW - The MMORPG to look out for   February 14, 2004
112 out of 135 found this review helpful

World of Warcraft will be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, which is basically a game like diablo or baldurs gate, but with thousands of people playing together in the same world. There are many examples of MMORPG's around today, some better than others, but all have the same balancing and gameplay issues which make them tedious to play. World of Warcraft is made by blizzard, proud creators of spectacular games such as diablo, starcraft and warcraft. The warcraft world is a rich one, with a detailed history and as a result it was a perfect host for the latest of blizzards creations. The team behind the game are all game-players themselves and are all participants in many of the existing MMORPGs. As a result they know what people like and dont like about the existing games and so they can include and remove or change certain things to make the experience more enjoyable. Developers revealed that during the making of the game they repeatedly questioned what the player would be doing at this moment and if it was deemed boring or repetitive, it was changed. As a result, you no longer have to repeat operations in order to advance your character.

Your character will be very flexible in both appearance and purpose in the world. There are 8 races to choose from, separated into two sets of four, both opposiong one another. The opposing forces are the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance is mae up of Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Night Elves. The Horde is made up of Orcs, Trolls, Tauren and Undead. Within each race, your character can become a number of classes. Here is a list of the classes and a short description of each:

Paladin - Holy warrior adept at both combat and support spells.
Rogue - Cunning warrior specialising in stealth attacks.
Priest - A support caster specialising in healing and aiding allies (although rumour has it the priest will have a powerful attack spell)
Hunter - The hunter is a respectable fighter, however the real talent is in beat control. They are able to track beasts and tame them thus gaining a pwerful ally which will aid you and become stronger as it fights.
Warlock - The warlock is a powerful spellcaster adept at summoning demons to aid in battle and casting powerful spells.
Druid - The druid is able to assume many forms all with various advantages. It can become a bear for combat, and a crow for fast movement and there may be more forms it can take.
Warrior - The meaty melee brute sure to be a combat master with a number of devastating attack skills to use.
Mage - The mage can cast a number of offensive and defensive spells.
Shaman - The horde equivalent to the mage.

As well as these classes, your character can choose from a number a roles to play in the world, so not only can you be Sven the great Warrior, but you can be Sven the Great Warrior and Worlds No.1 Blacksmith. For a full list of tradeskills goto:
http://www.blizzard.com/wow/townhall/tradeskills.shtml
Unlike other MMORPGS where tradeskills are advanced by creating countless wooly hats, WoW tradeskills are advanced almost everytime you use them. The difference is, it takes a while to gather ingredients. Recipes for your tradeskill can be found all over the world - NPCs tell you them and monsters sometimes drop them. Once you have the ingredients - some of which will be in dangerous locations you can make your item. The best thing about WoW tradeskills is that all your hardwork will be worthwhile since everything you make will be useful - thats why its is so much harder to make stuff. Goodbye to tedious hacking of rocks to get ore to use again and again to advance high enough to make something worthwhile - Hello to exciting adventures to dangerous locales to get the piece of important and rare ore for your devastating Sword.

But if all weapons are good, how do i become the best? In WoW the best weapons will be available to everyone (eventually), but for the power gamers blizzard have included a treat. Your weapon may be the same strength as your friends, but does his burst into flames when its used? Throughout the world there are a number of 'epic' items. These will be just as powerful as their 'legendary' counterpart, but they will have a stunning visual effect. As a result they will take a great deal of time and effort to make or find and may even be one of a kind on your server.

Blizzard understand that the uniqueness of your character is important hence why they included the items with extra-ordinary effects. On top of those there are more things available to the average gamer to make their character extra special. All sorts of things like badges, and guild logos can be attached to your character and at higher levels you can even get an animal to ride around the world.

The world itself is huge and every inch is intricatly detailed - for example different insects will linger around different plants. In order to enjoy the full beauty I advise you upgrade your computer for the game's arrival. It will be well worth it because exploring the whole world alone will take months and months. The map itself takes about 6 hours real-time to walk from the top to the bottom, and about the same to walk from the west to the east if you push the 2 separate continents together. Whats more, to explore it all you wont have to plod along fighting random encounters. Thanks to the quest system you will be gently guided around the world and if you are very observant during quests you may even find special things that lead you to secret locations. The quests will get harder as you progress so you will prbably need to make some friends to help you. You can party with upto five people for normal quests but there are some special quests and organised guild events which may require more in which case parties can link together to form a big group.

Guilds will be a huge part of WoW since the game emphasises community. Your guild will get thier very own logo and guild hall will be able to participate in a number of hosted events each with unique prizes. If that doesnt interest you then you and your guild can just enjoy the game together, advancing as a team and you wont even have to worry about item sharing. Why is that? Because of the unique item drop selection system. There are 3 types of item drop - You can have all the items goto one person who will divide them, you can all recieve an item in turn, or you can just play grabbers keepers.

There is much more to know about this great game but I hape I have influenced your oppinion on the game. It will be an amazing game well worth your money. For those of you who hesistate about paying a monthly fee, remember there is a team of developers working on it 24/7 even after release meaning you will never get bored so in fact your monthly fee will be like buying a new cheap game every month. Look forward to seeing you all in the game.


Fantastic game but way too time consuming   October 17, 2005
Mr. G. Harper (London)
70 out of 81 found this review helpful

This is, without a doubt one of the best games I have ever played. The sheer depth of it is astounding, I put in over 20 full days (that's 480 hours!) on one single character and was still 10 levels off the elusive level 60 and that is why I stopped playing.

For the first 20 - 30 levels the game is great, there are loads of quests you can complete by yourself, loads of new armor, weapons and items to get and lots of abilities to learn. However the further into the game you get the more you realize how much time everything is actually going to take. From about level 40 onwards you will very rarely find a new weapon or piece of armor that you will actually use, you are more likely to spend a few gold pieces at the Auction House buying new stuff, everything you get from completing quests is worthless which makes completing the quests worthless.

Certain bosses in the dungeons will drop quality items but firstly the chance of the item dropping is slim and secondly the chance of you winning the roll against everyone else in the group is slim, meaning you keep doing the same dungeon over and over again just trying to get this nice sword or piece of armor.

The other people that you play with are of a very young age and many can be immature which completely ruins your game, if your half way through a dungeon and two kiddies in your group decide to leave because their mum has told them to go to bed or they didn't win a roll on an item then you are screwed and have to leave, find another two people and start again.

You are generally questing in contested areas which means anyone from the opposing faction can attack you, if you are trying to complete quests and are getting killed by groups of players 10 levels higher than you it becomes very frustrating.

The quests become repetitive and increasing difficult to complete on your own. Now if you have no job etc then you have enough time to get into the game and make it worthwhile, however if like me you work everyday and most will have 3 to 4 hours a night to play you simply cannot do what needs to be done. For example, it can take around an hour to find a group to go to a dungeon, 15 minutes to get there and then a couple of hours to complete it. There goes your entire evening and if you don't win the drops then it's a waste of time. It gets much worse when you hit level 60, you will need 8 to 10 hours to do the end of game dungeons and bosses, absolutely no chance.

So I have hung up my sword and canceled my subscription, fantastic game but impossible to play if you have a life!