"World of Warcraft"

8/27/04

Today World of Warcraft officially launches and I'm super pumped up. I played a good portion of the beta and although the cartoony graphics are taking a bit of getting used to, the sound design is top notch and the game play has much smoother combat than Dark Age of Camelot. Like DAoC, there's a heavy PvP element, but there's only two factions instead of three: "Horde" and "Alliance". I think PvP only applies when you're on certain servers or in certain "PvP-enabled zones", called "Contested Regions".

Like DAoC, classes are locked to races and not every class can be played by every faction. Alliance, for example, have paladins (which are exactly what they sound like) and the Horde have "shaman", which are OP casters they do animal-totem stuff, I think. (I played an Alliance paladin exclusively in the beta). Alliance races are your standard D&D PC races: elves, dwarves, gnomes, and humans. Horde gets monster races: orcs, trolls, undead, and minotaurs.

The only thing I'm not too keen on (aside from the fact they stole the mini-map in the corner from Asheron's Call), is that there's a lot of forced grouping. You can't solo dungeons AT ALL. The terrain mobs are your usual "don't try to fight more than one at a time" and if you pull more than that, or if they are higher level, you'd better run or have some sort of skill that lets you feign death or something. If you die, you don't lose items or xp, which is weird, but I can see how they are probably trying to appeal to casual gamers. Your equipment does get damaged over time or when you die, so having to find a blacksmith to repair every so often is necessary and a little expensive.

Skills themselves are plentiful and really diverse. Like most other MMOs, skills are bought at trainers and level up the more you use them. Once you reach a certain level you start getting "Talent Points", which can be used to diversify your character. Sort of. A lot of the talents are a little underwhelming, like "+1% chance to hit", but others let you use new types of weapons or give you skills/spells to put on your limited power bar.

I haven't made up my mind on what class to play, but I'm leaning to either "mage" (which is a total glass cannon) or "hunter", which is like a mage, but with a pet. Hunters can use any weapon, although most use guns (!) or bows and let the pet handle melee. A dwarf with a gun appeals on a primal level, plus it looked really cool in the trailer video. Otherwise, it's a bit fiddly with inventory management. Mages require some spell components (but a LOT less than Asheron's Call), but hunters need to carry ammo (no shock there) to the point where they have to give up one bag slot for carrying it. Plus, you have to carry food for your pet to keep them happy (and effective). Each pet you can tame has its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own selective diet.
Overall, it's really fun, even if there are tons of bugs. Highly recommend.