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Fantasy Re-Review

World of Warcraft

by Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg

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World of Warcraft made my Most Anticipated Games list prior to its launch on November 23, 2004. But EverQuest II beat it to the punch, and that was the game I ended up playing. I did try WoW's open beta and it was then that I decided, even without having played EQ2, that I didn't like WoW. I still don't. I play it because I feel it's necessary for me to understand the game and its massive impact on the MMOG community, but I find no joy in it. So, why review it? Because I wanted to compare it to the other two games--EQ2 and Vanguard--that I've looked at in this review series. I wanted to see if I could posit why WoW took off and became the runaway success that it is while the other two games, more or less, have flat lined.

Want to learn more about World of Warcraft? Here are a couple of great resources:

• WoW Community Site
• WoW Wiki

What's Changed?

I haven't played WoW long enough to know what's changed, really, so I asked our resident WoW expert, our community site manager and lead, David "Xerin" Piner. He told me what I already suspected: aside from the Burning Crusade expansion which launched in early 2007 (right around the time Vanguard launched, which was an unhappy coincidence for the Vanguard team), nothing's new. The game is continually updated, but little of any significance has changed. It's basically the same game it was when it launched.

And you know what? That's fine. Blizzard discovered a successful formula and it worked to bring millions of new players to the MMOG genre. Who can argue with that?

Graphics and Performance

"I don't like the cartoony graphics," I hear gamers say. Yeah, I agree. I'm not a big fan of them either, and I tend to prefer a more realistic-looking game like Vanguard. But Blizzard's art direction is still a stroke of genius. Not only does it embody the Warcraft IP, but it works.

Did you hear that? I said it WORKS.

And that's important. There are no technology barriers to getting into WoW--an average PC will run the game smoothly. And whether you like the cartoony look or not, the game does look good. Creating a playable game with reasonable system specs is one of the many things Blizzard got right, and one of the lessons Sigil Games Online, creators of Vanguard, failed to learn by example. SOE could have also sensed that the "technology will catch up" angle wasn't a good one, but they released EQ2 just before WoW and hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

The only thing I wish Blizzard had taken the time to do better was to create more customization tweaks, or at least just more options, with WoW's character models. The current character customization system feels very old school to me--pick a face, pick a hairstyle, pick a hair color, pick an eye color...and go live in a world where you'll have a zillion clones. I want a game where I can adjust the height of my character's cheekbones and the distance between her pretty green eyes.

So, Blizzard has done everything right with the minor exception of character customization. I can't find much fault with graphics or performance with this game.

Graphics and Performance score: 9

Combat

There's really nothing new with combat in WoW, either. There are no fancy systems such as EQ2's Heroic Opportunities or Vanguard's finishers. It's just straight up point-and-shoot, baby. Click your hotkeys in the right order and at the right time and, the gaming gods willing, you'll walk away unscathed. I find it mind-numbing. Others find it accessible. With WoW, Blizzard made the learning curve nothing more than a gentle slope, and millions of gamers have climbed it with ease. Who can argue that?

The lack of innovation lowers my score, but the fact that WoW is so easy for people to get into brings it back up.

Combat score: 7

The Bling Factor

This is an odd category when it comes to WoW. In many senses, it still feels a bit archaic. Character

Dancing in WoW is one of the things that points to Blizzard's sense of humor.

customization is very limited, there are no waypoints to help you find locations (other than the dots on the mini-map which indicate quest givers), and there are no combat innovations to speak of. So what bling could WoW possibly have?

I'll go out on a limb: WoW has a sense of humor, and that's important in a game. It's clear that while Blizzard takes their game seriously, they don't take themselves very seriously. I've encountered only a few funnies in the time I've played WoW, but I hear they're abundant. And then there's the dancing. It's hard not to enjoy an orc dancing the M.C. Hammer dance, right?

And I come back to one more critical observation when it comes to shiny things: WoW may not be the most innovative game, but everything functions just as it should. Polish gives this game a more subtle shine than those with more immediate glitter, but polish also indicates substance over flash. For these reasons, I give WoW a decent bling score.

Bling Factor score: 8

Summing it Up

To boil my WoW re-review down to a handful of words: WoW is a good game. And if you base a review of WoW on sheer gorilla subscriber numbers, WoW is a legendary game. There are many reasons that it has done amazingly well, and they've been recounted time and time again by the likes of gamers, journalists, and blogging developers such as Steve "Moorguard" Danuser and Brian "Psychochild" Green. I won't strike a deceased equine.

The fact that I personally don't personally get into WoW, and that I suspect their recently released "9 million subscribers" number conveniently downplays the notion that many of those subscribers are likely coming from newer markets like China, I have to concede that WoW is as solid a game as MMOGs come. It will never be my game, but it may well be yours. And on the off chance that you've never played a MMOG, there's certainly no better place to start.

Final Score: 8