Tuesday, March 3, 2009

What I think about World of Warcraft

So I've been playing World of Warcraft.

Never really got around to trying this game before so a friend of mine mailed it to me from the UK. We are on an EU server, Ghostlands. Started playing around the second week of January and got to level 80, which is the current end game, about the second week of February.

So what do I think about this game? Well, if you look at the picture on the left you can see there sure are a lot of buttons! I have been playing a cow who can turn into different animals.

What makes WoW a good game are two important features. The first one is you can play solo or you can play in a group. There is no waiting unless you want to wait. To access the best gear in the end game content you must play in a group, but that goes without saying. The second feature is the ability to respec your character for different jobs. That means you and your friends will never have to wait for someone to level a new character to fill a missing role in your parties. The days of looking for a healer or looking for a tank player are mostly over. (albeit, most of the random bad players all level hunter because it's easy! Just don't invite them! I'm kidding.)

The game does have a lot to offer but you can see that it is getting along in years. While I leveled most no one was in the older content. That is a shame because so many dungeons and areas are just wasted now. Everyone plays end game- and that's it.

One nice thing about WoW is that you can stop in a dungeon (called a raid) and pick up where you left off next time you come back. This makes it easier for average players but it really helps with the time contstraints of people having different life schedules. The raid resets itself once a week, so you have a full week to get everything done.

When WoW first came out I said to msyelf, "I don't want to play this." I did not like the day glow colors and I don't particularly like orcs and trolls, etc. Games like Ultima online never really appealed to me due to the, how should I put this? more grotesque fantasy style. However, WoW is clean and the game engine itself is really polished. If you like online games and have some friends I really recommend this. Once you get past the beginning pretense there is a lot to keep you busy for a long while.