29th November 2004, 8:54 PM
I'd say it's rated a bit too highly... but probably it's my dislike for some of the basics of how MMORPGs operate more than anything against Blizzard. For a MMORPG it is definitely a fantastic game. And I'll certainly admit that the game style is fun... but MMORPGs mix so much into it that there are a lot of elements that aren't as fun even in this game. The amount of time you must spend in it is the primary one. The world is big and getting anywhere is a major pain. You walk a lot. And then you die or want to go back to town and have to do another long walk because each area has just one town and graveyard. Fun.
As for quests, they are alright but no amount of good writing (the writing for the quests is much better here than in most MMORPGs and the stories they have behind them are pretty good, considering) and cloaking (occasional other kinds of missions and how varied the things you collect from the corpses are) can hide the nature of them: "get X number of Y's and return them to me for prize Z". Tedious in many cases. This also leads to a lack of player satisfaction... in most games when you do things things change. You feel like your actions are having an impact. But in this... speaking of Northshire Abbey, where Human players start... you get a quest to kill bandits and get their red bandannas and return them for gold. So you go over there and kill some. They respawn constantly. You kill them and then get the other quest and kill their leader (that's a quite annoying thing about WoW: you must have a quest to get the related materials, and often "dungeon" areas have multiple quests -- 'Explore' and then succeed that quest and return and you get 'Kill Boss'. This is very frusterating as you have to redo areas you've already done all the time for these new quests, often to kill monsters you've killed before (but because you didn't have the quest you didn't get the quest reward item(s)). Stupid.). So you do. And what happens? Nothing. They are there forever. It leaves a feeling that you are just doing make-work and not having any impact on the world... it's still fun to kill the goblins infesting the mine, but it's not nearly as satisfying as it is in, say, Icewind Dale II where I can go back there and look at the now clear area and have the feeling that I have had an impact on the world and my character's progress goes beyond just the statistics and items I have accumulated on my person.
This is not to say that the game is bad. It is not. It's actually quite good. I understand that in a MMORPG you cannot have any kind of feeling of your own impact because future players must be able to do that quest as well. And once you get used to the combat and the interface system it works well and is fun so the battles are entertaining enough to make you want to keep playing. It also rewards you well for quests. Between the items you can buy, the ones you get as quest rewards, and what you get from drops you will be fine for the early game. Later on of course the player professions (you can choose two, and they involve either collecting raw materials (hides from dead things, minerals from specific mining points, etc), making things (clothing, armor, etc), fishing, healing, and a few more) and trading will deal with that. For that there's an Auction House system in the towns so that it's really easy to buy and sell items with other players. Also, of course, the artwork is absolutely stunning. Yes, it doesn't have the best engine technically, but you quickly get used to that fact and recognize what a fantastic job they have done with the artwork. Such a huge world and still every area of it I saw (which admittedly wasn't too many of them) was both beautiful and at least in some way unique...
As for quests, they are alright but no amount of good writing (the writing for the quests is much better here than in most MMORPGs and the stories they have behind them are pretty good, considering) and cloaking (occasional other kinds of missions and how varied the things you collect from the corpses are) can hide the nature of them: "get X number of Y's and return them to me for prize Z". Tedious in many cases. This also leads to a lack of player satisfaction... in most games when you do things things change. You feel like your actions are having an impact. But in this... speaking of Northshire Abbey, where Human players start... you get a quest to kill bandits and get their red bandannas and return them for gold. So you go over there and kill some. They respawn constantly. You kill them and then get the other quest and kill their leader (that's a quite annoying thing about WoW: you must have a quest to get the related materials, and often "dungeon" areas have multiple quests -- 'Explore' and then succeed that quest and return and you get 'Kill Boss'. This is very frusterating as you have to redo areas you've already done all the time for these new quests, often to kill monsters you've killed before (but because you didn't have the quest you didn't get the quest reward item(s)). Stupid.). So you do. And what happens? Nothing. They are there forever. It leaves a feeling that you are just doing make-work and not having any impact on the world... it's still fun to kill the goblins infesting the mine, but it's not nearly as satisfying as it is in, say, Icewind Dale II where I can go back there and look at the now clear area and have the feeling that I have had an impact on the world and my character's progress goes beyond just the statistics and items I have accumulated on my person.
This is not to say that the game is bad. It is not. It's actually quite good. I understand that in a MMORPG you cannot have any kind of feeling of your own impact because future players must be able to do that quest as well. And once you get used to the combat and the interface system it works well and is fun so the battles are entertaining enough to make you want to keep playing. It also rewards you well for quests. Between the items you can buy, the ones you get as quest rewards, and what you get from drops you will be fine for the early game. Later on of course the player professions (you can choose two, and they involve either collecting raw materials (hides from dead things, minerals from specific mining points, etc), making things (clothing, armor, etc), fishing, healing, and a few more) and trading will deal with that. For that there's an Auction House system in the towns so that it's really easy to buy and sell items with other players. Also, of course, the artwork is absolutely stunning. Yes, it doesn't have the best engine technically, but you quickly get used to that fact and recognize what a fantastic job they have done with the artwork. Such a huge world and still every area of it I saw (which admittedly wasn't too many of them) was both beautiful and at least in some way unique...