Ok then, for all those (one, maybe two) of you interested in this, here is my second installment in the World of Warcraft Review, wherein I, the hero, whine incessantly about things not being "perfect". Ready? Oh good, let's begin.
When we last left our intrepid hero, he didn't exist. I couldn't even get into the game because of the patch. Apparently, this happens every Tuesday. A patch every week? isn't that a little extreme? Anyway, I can get past that. So, with a small amount of EULA dread, I clicked the shiny little WoW icon.
See, now when you do that, it pops up a little window with a button that says play, much like EQ2. This may be just because I'm on the 10-day trial, but it seems to me that if you already have code for this little window with the play button, couldn't you put the code to check for a patch there, instead of me hitting play, starting the 3D environment, scrolling through 2 EULA's, logging in, then checking? It's a little thing that makes life simply... happier.
Ok, ok, so I click "Play". Then I scroll the EULA and click agree, then I do it again, just in case I might have missed something in my not reading the first one. Actually, it's kind of clever. I sort of want to read them both now to see if they're different EULAs or just a re-posting of the same one. But I won't. In fact, I'm not sure I can. You see, and WoW gets Kudos for this, after I was able to log into the game and create a character, the next time in it jumped right to the log-in. No EULAs to deal with at all. I guess my problem was just that I hadn't really been in the game yet. Points for WoW.
So I log in, select the US as my location of choice (although this time there was another option for "oceanic", good to know that Atlanteans get to play too, but NYC is NOT Atlantis), then I chose RP server and click "Suggest a Server" thinking that it might, you know, suggest one. Instead, it comes up with a dialog box that says "SuchandSuch server has been chosen for you". What? Fuck you. I select my own server dammit. Fortunately, there's a button there that allows me to check out the server list. And now I realize why they want to choose one for you.
WoW has a literal Ass Ton (a technical math term you may not be familiar with which means more than 30 and less than 100) of servers. It looks like the server it chose for me was the lowest population RP server. So I picked that one.
Aha, finally, a chance to create a character. Now, here you must understand that EQ2, the game I've been playing most recently, has 17 races to choose from and 24 classes to choose from. Since not every race can be every class, it's roughly about 272 possible race/class combinations. WoW has 8 races (10 if you have the expansion). Ok, I can deal with that, but if you're on a game that has such a huge population, and with so few choices for the race... doesn't it get... I don't know... sort of like playing deja-vu, the game?
Ok, enough of that. I picked a dwarf. A human would have been my second alliance choice. I can't say I was at all interested in the night elves, and the gnomes... I just wasn't gonna go there. So, dwarf, it is. Then I looked at my options for a class. I got... 5??? Um. Ok. Warrior, hunter, rogue, paladin, priest. Ok, those are pretty generic. I picked hunter. Now I got to customize my character. Aha, good times.
Or so I thought. Again, going back to EQ2, because it's what I've most recently played When you want to customize your character you can spend days doing it. You don't just choose from a random collection of premade faces, you can adjust forehead size, cheekbones, jawline, mouth size, etc. In fact, it is really unlikely that you'll ever run into anyone that looks exactly like you, although they may come close.
The WoW character customizations actually reminded me of when I started playing EQ1, about 7 years ago. You have a few preset faces, several hairstyles, and skin colors. Then a distinctive item or two (like dwarven beards or Tauren Horns). That's it. It took me about 3 minutes to customize my character. Weak.
Ok, so, I have my dwarf, but he needs a name. I click the name generator a few times and it seems like they give dwarves a "Norse" flavor. Ok, I can work with that, so I name my Dwarf, Thorvik. The name is available, and my dwarf is born. Now for a nice touch...
When I click “Enter World”, it starts by playing a race-specific movie. It gives me a background of the dwarven people and a sense of purpose upon entering the world. That's a really nice touch, and I liked it a lot.
So now Thorvik, the mighty hunter, is standing in the snow as tutorial windows start popping up. I read through them, close them, and then immediately start going through the video, sound, and interface options to see what I can screw up. Hmm. There aren't a lot of options here. I set things the way they should be for my computer, then set the interface so I can deal with it and get back to the world. The first thing I do then is start clicking random buttons on the screen to see what they do. I've played, tons, perhaps even an Ass Ton, of computer RPGs over the years, all the things here are pretty standard, just as I would expect from an experienced developer like Blizzard. in fact, it's sort of reminiscent of Diablo, which makes sense. Same developer and all.
Feeling secure in how things work in this game, I look around a bit. And I have to say, the graphics are... old. Specifically, several years old. The cartoon-like look of the people I don't mind since I've played the original Warcraft games. But these graphics just look dated. I was expecting something at least on the level of Warcraft III, which had some really beautiful elements to it, but the graphics here seem even older than this game's predecessor. O.k., it's supposed to help the game run on lower-end systems, so I'll let that go.
Now I head over to a familiar-looking dwarf (really, all the dwarves look familiar, there are only like 10 different models) with a big yellow exclamation point above his head to start my first quest. (ok, ok. There are technically more than 10 models, but discounting skin color, and all but the generic hair colors (white, blond, red, brown, black), and the faces, because with a dwarf you only see eyes and nose, there aren't too many differences.) While talking to the guy the quest journal opens and he starts writing in it. There's even a sound of writing as the text appears. Problem is, I read faster than these guys write. But at least I can fix that in the options.
First quest. Kill stuff. Pretty standard quest fare. I look over the ridge and see my targets milling around in innocent bliss. Ah, good. Wholesale slaughter for the good of our race, off we go.
Combat. The real make-up of most computer RPGs. I have a gun (something I expected having played the Warcraft strategy games). I have an axe. Let's get to work. I target something and am somewhat dismayed to see that there is no real indication of how easy or hard the ting will be to fight, a common element in most modern MMORPGs. Ah well, it shows the critter's level in its target info, so I assume something of the same level won't hand me my ass. I shoot at the thing and it starts running towards me.
Now here, I must say, WoW does something that impressed me. A simple thing, but one that simplifies things and was unexpected. As the critter got too close for ranged weapons, Thorvik, a fairly intelligent dwarf, automatically switched to melee weapons. And I didn't have to do anything. That's nice. That makes combat flow a bit nicer. Rather than, say, trying to put an arrow in a creature's head while they quickly try to disembowel you.
Unfortunately, before I got to try out my different combat abilities, the thing was dead. Damn. Ok, I loot it, then move on looking for another kill. After fighting a few I'd had a chance to try out most of my abilities and was fairly comfortable with what they did. But stuff dies so fast. I also discovered two things I didn't like during this exploration of combat.
First, when an ability is recharging, if you try to activate it, your character whines about not being ready. It's a small thing, but it annoys me, and here's why. In EQ2, if an ability isn't ready yet, and you click it, it enters a sort of one-ability queue, so that when the ability is ready again, it automatically activates. Makes managing things a little bit simpler when you have multiple actions to perform.
Secondly, when you loot an item you can wear, you have to mouse over it to see its stats. That's fine, but to compare it to what I'm already wearing I have to open another window, and mouse over what I'm wearing. This pissed me off. Comparing items happens almost constantly in these games, and that's just annoying. Almost every computer RPG these days has some method of easily letting you compare an item to what you have on. What made me even more annoyed by this was when I went to a merchant, moused over an item and it popped up a small overlay next to the item's stats to show what I was wearing! This means, they have the code to do this, but only in a shop! WTF! Would it really be so hard to make that code work in your bags, or in the loot window?
O.k., those two things aside, the combat was smooth and easy to get used to. Just quick. I mean, the stuff I was fighting couldn't come close to doing any real damage to me. But, within a few kills, I was level 2 and done with that quest. So I started picking up every quest I could find.
Now things were sailing pretty smoothly until I had to enter a cave. I enter the cave and framerate drops to hell, but intermittently, usually when sounds would be going off. Basically, the video freezes/chokes/stutters and the sound does the same thing. That's messed up. I have a fairly high-end gaming system, and this game is supposed to cater to fairly low-end systems. There's something wrong here. I finish up as best I can and get the hell out of the cave, but it happens again when I enter the keep. Basically, any time I enter a building/cave/closed area, it happens again. It's virtually unplayable within a closed area.
The fact that it happens most when sounds would be going off leads me to believe it's a sound bug, maybe an echo-type thing (what with being inside). But then I turned off all the sound options, and it still happened. ok, so I try the video settings, dropping everything down to the bare minimums... still happens. And there just aren't that many options in the sound and video settings. This bugs me. A lot.
Ah well, I can mostly try to avoid closed areas for now, so I continue on. Soon my dwarf is a leveling madman and I need to upgrade my abilities. Which cost money. ok, that's fair. But looking at them, they take a lot of money. Pretty much everything I have. That's ok, what else do I need to buy? I'm getting armor and weapons from mobs and quests, so it's all good.
Then it happens. Someone finally says something in general chat. What are these prophetic words of wisdom?
"Billz: I sleep with small children"
Wow. I'm speechless. Then the logical part of my brain kicks in and I say, well sure. Of course, you do. It would stand to reason since you must be a small child yourself. I shake my head and continue on, I mean, you get that in every game, forum, BB, chat-room, etc. But to be the very first words I hear from other players. Just sad. But then I get a drive-by guild invite to the "Lunatic Brigade of Death", which I promptly declined. Then I get a tell... from a gold seller. Yep, spam, within an hour of playing the game. That has to be a record. In over a year of playing EQ2, I've gotten 3 spam tells. None in 6 years of EQ1, None in DAoC, None in SWG. Just. Amazing.
I keep going, I keep leveling, and within a few short hours, I'm level 10. I've died twice, not because the creatures got tougher, but because I was fighting in a cave. We went over that. Now I get to play with pets. And this is something WoW does really well. In EQ1 and EQ2, you just get your pets when you level, or as a reward for a quest, etc. Then they valiantly fight for you and never ask themselves why.
In WoW, you have to go out into the wilds, find a suitable creature, then spend some time taming it while it tries to kill you. That was fun. But then it's following you, but obviously unhappy with you. So you feed it to make it happy. Then it follows you around, fighting with you, and over time (provided it's kept happy), it becomes more loyal to you. It's like a Tamagotchi game within the game. And you get to try a few animals out before deciding on what you pick. I have a bear, his name is Grarrl.
But now... I mean, fights were easy before. With the bear, they're just ridiculous. Apparently, there are some mobs whose targeting icons have a gold dragon around them. This labels the mob as "Elite", perfect for groups. However, I and my bear, at level 10, were able to kill a level 11 "elite", without coming close to getting killed, in a cave, no less! My bear and I then went on to complete a "group" quest and kill another elite mob. I hope this game gets harder. I really do.
I also started playing with trade skills. You can have two primary professions, and as many secondary professions as you want. After talking to a friend, I found out that your two primary professions should match (ie, skinning & leatherworking, herbalism & alchemy, etc), so I picked up skinning and leatherworking. I also picked up first aid and cooking for secondary professions, and will pick up fishing as soon as I find the person to teach me.
Now, you have to understand, it's hard to make trade skills work well. In EQ1 trade skills were originally tedious and repetitive, and the recipes were unknown until "discovered". In DAoC, they gave you the recipes, and trade skills just took time. In EQ2 I think they have the best method so far, you actually have abilities that affect the outcome of the process, and you can get hurt doing it. In short, EQ2 trade skills can be almost as enjoyable as adventuring.
Trade skills in WoW are, well, pointless. I mean sure you can make some neat stuff, and it's cool that after killing an animal mob I can skin it, but the trade skills themselves, there's nothing to them. I get a stack of light leather. I can just make light armor kits to get my skill up. Light armor kits require no other parts... just light leather. They're useful too, which is cool that I can immediately make something I can use, but not exactly hard. The trade skills are ranked in levels of apprentice, journeyman, expert, then artisan. Apprentice level goes up to a skill of 75, though you can train as a journeyman at 50.
Ok, I thought, this may take a little time. So I got some leather, made an armor kit, and applied it to my armor. Cool. Then I noticed a button that says "create all". Uh oh. I got a bunch of leather, got to a safe spot, hit "create all" and watched my leatherworker level from skill-level 2 to 45 in a matter of minutes. So now, within about 30 minutes of being trained in the profession, I am a journeyman skinner and leatherworker. I only stopped progressing because the creatures in the area don't give me the right materials for the next level of stuff. This has to be the least challenging trade-skilling I've yet encountered.
So here my dwarf sits. He's level 12, and about to move into a new zone, looking for new things to hunt. Oh, a note about zones. Yes, there are zones. Even though the world is "seamless" there are still zones. I went from one zone to another before I camped and "seamless" is a misnomer. Sure, there's no "loading... Please wait..." message, but My dwarf was hanging out on an icy mountain. Through a very short tunnel, he walks, to find himself in a temperate/tropical area. That's not exactly seamless. DAoC did it better, but with too many dead spots.
Oh, the only other thing I really noticed was that I can't move around interface elements. That bugs me. I should be able to drag bags around, move progress bars, and move hotbars around as I like. Maybe that's just because I'm spoiled from EQ, and maybe I could fix that with an interface mod, but I shouldn't have to add a mod just for a little comfort. Someone also suggested a mod for the spam messages. Again, I shouldn't have to add a mod for something like that. The spam, incidentally, is up to 6 spam tells. In just a few hours. That's absurd.
I also started a Tauren Shaman on a PVP server and got him to level 5 in an hour or so. This game is just too easy to be fun.
Feeling: disappointed.
