Hey all! Little Miss Squish here. I finally got a logo up, hooray! :D So, I'm announcing that the blog is now up and running, hooray! :D *confetti* Aaaand, to celebrate, I figured I'd review almost inarguably the most popular MMO right now: World of Warcraft. Why WoW? 'Cause.
Edit: BMB! also has a Facebook page. Visit and like it, or else I shall Smite you! >8D
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Buff-Me-Bitch/100723606674686
Game Basics:
Title: World of Warcraft
Publisher: Blizzard
Genre: Fantasy MMORPG
Website: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/
Monthly Subscription Cost: $15
Ratings:
Graphics: 3/5
Character Customization: 2/5
Beginning/Tutorial: 2/3
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.: 3/5
Story, Quests, Content: 4/5
Well, to be honest, I was one of those types who swore I'd never play WoW as long as I lived. When the graphics were updated (what seems a lot time ago) I decided to give it a shot, not really expecting to like it all that much. But I was soon hooked like so many others. Somehow, I had gotten tired of it and left WoW and then rediscovered it around a year and a half ago. And I was hooked again and fell out of it again. And now I'm back. So, why do I keep falling back to WoW? Honestly, it's not that great of a game. Sure, it's fun and all, but it's not the best thing since sliced bread that so many others claim it to be. All of the review will be pre-Cata, since it's unavailable to private servers. Anyway, let's start out with the graphics.
Graphics
I'm not a huge fan of WoW's graphics to begin with. Sure, the opening cinematics when you run an expansion for the first time are breathtaking, but once that's over, it's good-bye gorgeous animation and hello ugly, square designs and poor shading to a degree. When I had first launched the vanilla WoW client and finished with the cinematic, I almost started crying it was that beautiful. Okay, not really, but you get my point. And then I get to log into the game and make my standard priest, but OHMYGOD the graphics almost made me return the obscenely-priced game. I don't like that my character has fingers that looked like they were shoved out of a square cookie cutter before being stuck to her hands. I don't like that most of the gear looks relatively the same (I say most 'cause there are some... interesting designs, such as the semi-famous battle bikini. It's a mail piece, low 20s. I'll put a URL if I can find it.) And I hate how the shoulderpieces are RIDICULOUSLY huge. Some actually stand taller than your character's head. Not joking. Subtle, much?
By the time that Burning Crusade came around and with the Draenei and Blood Elf character, architecture, and map designs, I was praying that Blizzard would update the rest of the world and make it equally pretty or at least better than square-sausage-fingers. Nope. That would be too nice. Most of my characters that would have been Human or Night Elf are almost always Draenei now, simply because they're more asthetically pleasing, face-tentacles and all. Wrath of the Lich King made over-the-top shoulder and head pieces the newest fashion trend, and god help me, some of the designs are just painful to look at and are probably extremely unrealistic. Some of the landscapes are really cool, I'll admit, particularly the Eversong Woods, Ghostlands, and Nagrand. They're really neatly designed.
Character Customization Ugh. I HATE WoW's lack of character customization. Sure, there are some components, such as hair style, skin/hair color, and a random "racial" bonus, such as Draenei horns or piercings for others. But, let's face it, there aren't too many possibilities to choose from. Why can't a human have purple hair, for example? If they can dye clothes and armor, they can dye hair. Why are there not many "practical" hairstyles to choose from? (If I'm a Night Elf Hunter, you can bet your ass I'll want my hair up and out of my face, thank you.) Why can't I choose what color eyes I want, even if it's a limited number of choices? It kind of makes me cry.
The other customization feature is the class feature, which I both like and dislike. I appreciate the fact that not every race can play every class, but I would like to see wider possibilities (I know that's possible to some degree with Cata, but bear with me.) For example, why couldn't a human spend a LOT of time in Teldrassil, do enough quests with the Druid trainers and eventually be able to become a Druid? Likewise, if your race has a class "home base" (Druids in Night Elf/Tauren territory, for example), you should be allowed to make a Druid easily, since you're technically already emersed in that class's lore and such.
Beginning/Tutorial
I actually am happy with the beginning/tutorial section that WoW has. There's a brief cinematic that introduces your race and class to you before sending you off to newbie questdom. It's cool, I like it. The tutorial itself isn't fantastic; you have to figure out the controls on your own but at least they give you quests to learn skills and kill monsters as well as force you to visit your trainer who will give you class-specific quests as you level up. Of course, the real gem is the Death Knight's starting quests and area; it's simply AMAZING and you can clearly tell Blizzard put a lot of time and energy into making it as great as it is. I appreciate the quests themselves and also the fact that a good number of the NPCs you find there are ones you find in Strathholme, Scholomance, and Naxxramas, such as Instructor Rasuvious, Baron Rivendare, and Highlord Darion Mograine. I really wish that Blizzard would do something similar with the other classes, in terms of in-depth questing and attention to the class itself, as opposed to generic, race-related quests at the beginning. I know it's really hard to do, but it would make the character seem to fit the class better, instead of just a cookie-cutter structure.
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.
Specifically talking about classes, I'm rather impressed with the different classes and structures of the talent trees. They allow the player to have a unique character in both talents and abilities. Instead of just one option for a class, WoW's three-tree talent system gives three options for each class, typically one for soloing, one for raids/dungeons, and one for pvp. Of course, not every class's talent trees fit that, but a good number do. And, lucky for us, the Priest Shadow talent works to deal damage with... well, Shadow spells, obviously. There's also the Discipline tree (my favorite), which works on damage mitigation and increased survivability, which is good for raiding and pvp, so we're not as completely squishy as we have been in other games. WoW is also very courteous to give us not one but four healing classes: the Paladin (known as the heal-in-a-can), the Priest (the Angel), the Shaman and the Druid (the Jack-of-all-Trades of the classes) each of which have their own healing talent tree. I could go into detail about each class's healing-specifics, but that's for another post and another day. Each class gets a WIDE variety of skills to use regardless of which tree(s) you choose to specialize in and most trees give you additional, tree-specific skills, such as the Holy Priest's Lightwell spell. There are a specific number of talent points you get so you need to choose carefully, but you can reset them for a fee if you want to.
As for character "development", there really isn't any. Each quest (save for profession-, faction- or class-specific) is available for any other character you can create. There's no difference in quest from character X to character B23.5, honestly, which can make things rather boring rather quickly.
Story, Content, etc.
The one thing that I LOVE about WoW is its Lore. Whatever Blizzard does to make a section of lore for practically anything in the game, they need to keep doing it and spread the word around to other games. Not only are the lore pages GREAT reads on their own but they can dramatically change the context of the game in certain scenarios, such as the Blood Elves committing genocide against the Night Elves-- still feel awesome playing one? Well, good for you either way, I suppose (Just don't go around actually killing people, please!). I will have to admit, though, that the clear distinction between the Alliance and Horde in terms of technology and overall... appearance? is rather discomforting. Here you have on one side the glorious Alliance, with huge stone citadels and green open plains and then you have the notorious Horde, with huts and shacks, spears, and dead prairielands. I'm not trying to glorify the Alliance since I play them-- the only reason I DO play Alliance is because their maps are more appealing to me. (Of course, my only exception is the Blood Elf areas-- they're really pretty, albeit creepy sometimes...) I just find it so strange that Blizzard has made such a huge gap in technological/industrial development, as if to point at the Alliance and whisper "you really want to be on their side even though they're technically no better than the Horde".
I do like the diverse maps and instances you can go to, it really makes the world feel big and real. Especially when you get to higher level/different mount ability maps. To go from Elwynn Forest, which is about a 10 minute run on the basic mount to the HUGE map of Icecrown, which could easily take you an hour on the same mount just blows my mind. And, not to mention, the maps aren't just empty blank walls that you stare at for hours. No. Even a simple tree or two fills enough space so that you don't feel like you're the only thing to exist in the world, which is a nice feeling.
I've already done a bit on the gear situation in WoW, at least end-game, so I won't really cover that. I will, however, talk about the professions in WoW, which was one of the BIG draws for me to originally play the game. You can choose two primary professions and opt for three secondary (optional) professions. Some, like mining and blacksmithing, go hand-in-hand and need to be done together but a few, like enchanting and tailoring, can be rather independent. The amount of things you can produce from professions is practically mind-blowing. And leveling up the professions (I didn't mention that? Well, consider it to be like a minigame almost 'cause you don't HAVE to do any professions if you really don't want to, though it's probably more beneficial to do so than not.) can keep you occupied for quite a while. As someone who gets bored rather easily, I like leveling the professions and seeing what I can make next, especially if it's done while I'm leveling my character (which is probably the easiest, since the materials to make things require you to go to increasingly-higher-level areas).
Some useful healer professions are armor-producing (tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing for your respective class; they'll always have sets that are healer-friendly), enchanting/jewelcrafting (to make you more efficient at healing), alchemy (producing mana potions for yourself is nifty! Plus a lot of the creations are definitely geared towards healers), and inscription (making glyphs to improve the functionality of your class). The only downside is that professions suck money quicker than a slot machine. You thought paying for your class skills was expensive? Prices for some recipes can get over ten gold a piece to learn or can require hard-to-obtain items in exchange. It makes acquiring as many recipes as you can a challenge, for sure, but there are some benefits to getting them.
Achievements are another thing to keep you occupied (or at least me). They're little bonuses you get for accomplishing certain tasks, like getting to X level or obtaining Y number of mounts. They don't normally do anything for you except to make you look like you have less of a life than someone else, but some give you items (Like the Mountain o' Mounts achievement which gives you a faction-based Dragonhawk mount) and some give you titles (like "of the Ashen Verdict" when you reach exalted with the Ashen Verdict). Most of these are simply cosmetic, particularly the titles, but it gives you additional player prestige to have something rare.
Overall: I'm okay with WoW. I don't love it but I don't particularly dislike it, either. Sure, I don't like some parts of it, but it's a fun game to kill some time, play with other people and take a break from reality. Just remember: the first step to getting over an addiction (and yes, WoW can be addicting, especially for new players) is admitting you have a problem. Me? I don't have a problem, I've got it figured out. :P
This is Little Miss Squish, signing out! :)
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