WoW 0wnz j00!

I've been hammering away at World of Warcraft for nearly 3 weeks now, primarily on weekends. Blizzard has released a game that has led to my relapse into the MMO world. I was free of these cursed games from 2000-2004, but now that has ended. Damn you, Blizzard!

WoW - Pros
The Graphics. Some people will tell you that they fail in comparison to EQII or other high-end graphic games out there, and those people are right. If you're looking for a game that is going to push your card to the limits, push ungodly numbers of pixels, or look photo-realistic, WoW is NOT going to do that. What WoW will do is amaze you with it's art direction, with each location having a very distinct pallet of colors that creates a certain ambiance and atmosphere. The art direction for this game follows with other Warcraft games. Brilliant.

The User Interface (UI). Blizzard continues to release games with intuitive UIs. I think this is part of the reason this game is doing so well. MMO newbies can pick it up and feel at home in less than a half hour. Plus, you can customize the UI, or download apps. like Cosmos that customize the UI for you.

The Quest System. This might be the best aspect of the game (and the worst on rare occasions). Right from the start of the game, you feel like you're a part of the world and the environment. Whether it be slaying 5 wolves and collecting their fangs for a potion, to slaying some elite creature, you're always part of the lore.

Instances. The instances are used sparingly, primarily for high-level areas and dungeons. This works out well in that most of your game time is spent in the company of many other players, so grouping and socializing is easy. But for the very difficult quests, you need to have a tight group of players who know how to work together in difficult zones...without the fear of getting ganked.

The Rest System. By not playing WoW for a couple days, upon logging back in, I can raise my experience very fast because my character is considered 'rested'. Fabulous idea blizzard! This makes keeping pace with friends, even if they play more frequently then you, much easier.

WoW - Cons
Ganking. In any contested level (that means a level where both horde and alliance quest and is open to player vs. player combat), you can easily be ganked by another character, regardless of their level. Once you reach ~level 25 or so, you have to go to these areas to continue questing. So in the middle of a quest, some random chump 10 levels higher than you can walk by while you are fighting a creature, wait until your HPs are low, then decide to jump in and kill you when you're already close to dead. There's really no reason for this in the framework of the game (no rewards or incentives) but a lot of players do it anyway. If you want to fight someone, at least try and fight someone close to your level.

Quests (only a fraction of the time). Certain quests are just flat-out impossible to find, and or very confusing, or worse yet, bugged. Granted, this is the minority, but nothing is more irritating than not being able to find a quest, or completing a quest but not getting credit for it.


Overall, this game is very good and addictive. I'm sure I'll spend loads of time playing this weekend, hopefully avoiding the alliance gankers for the most part. This will probably be the last post of the year, so have a happy holiday, and be sure to check out www.fromthebasement.org at some point. If you're into podcasting, or just looking for something to listen to on your MP3 player, give it a whirl.