Imperium

Hi,

I’ve written a combined review of WoW and The Burning Crusade, here it is:

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I’ve just now reached the end of what might be called my second WoW binge. My first began with my creating a night elf hunter, Thanadar. I left him at level 38 and played a few other characters before I got bored with WoW and unsubscribed. My return to WoW was marked by the birth of a night elf warrior, Eldilor. At level 68, Eldilor is my ‘main’ by quite a large margin. I’ve had some good times playing WoW, but now, as the final milestone of level 70 looms, I’ve simply lost the will to play.

Before I lay out WoW’s faults (of which there are many), it’s only right that I recognise its triumphs. Probably the most fun that I’ve had playing WoW has come from exploration. The world of warcraft that was hinted at in the campaigns of the Warcraft strategy games of the past is superbly expanded in WoW; given the cohesiveness and richness that it deserved.

The faction cities are especially well done. Ironforge is the classic underground dwarven bunker; Darnassus, an ancient-looking grove with some impressive elven architecture. There’s The Undercity, (like Ironforge, also subterranean) a ring-shaped hangout for the Undead, and Thunder Bluff, a settlement built on the top of three tall rises in the middle of an open plain for the Tauren (cows). The Undercity is especially distinctive with odd and no doubt illegitimate proceedings taking place involving experimental diseases and captive humans. It reminds me of Dungeon Keeper.

Other highlights include Un’Goro Crater, a massive land that time forgot with dinosaurs of all terrifying shapes and sizes; the Plaguelands, a lifeless and foreboding wasteland left behind by Arthas (WoW’s as yet unseen villain extrordinaire); and Azshara, a glorious forest of verdant green that meets the sunken remains of Zin-Azshari (an ancient Night Elf city).

Burning Crusade regions are, on the whole, even more amazing. There’s Zangarmarsh, a long, thin stretch of bluish swamp land with gargantuan mushrooms reaching into the sky like redwood trees; and back in Azeroth the High Elf starting area outside Quel’Thalas features lush, green forest split in half by a miles-long path devoid of life(except for the obligatory un-life) called The Dead Scar. Just travelling and coming upon some of this amazing stuff is a hugely enjoyable experience.

All of the visual splendour of WoW is matched by solid sound and music. There are themes for each race which play whenever one enters a region dominated by that race. The Night Elf theme plays in a lot in forested areas like Ashenvale and Teldrassil. It’s beautifully ethereal and fits perfectly with the Night Elves’ affinity with nature. Contrast that with the awesome Human theme that plays when you enter through the gates of Stormwind, or the Orc theme with its war drums and orcish shouts. All very good work.

The Burning Crusade soundtrack raises the bar in just the same way that the expansion regions raised the bar visually over the regions in Azeroth. I was particularly struck by the piece that plays when you enter Telaar – the alliance stronghold in Nagrand. The Burning Crusade overture and the music that plays in the opening cinematic are also stunning.

There’s quite a lot of choice available for creating and developing a character in WoW. Including the new races introduced in The Burning Crusade, there is a total of ten to choose from. For the Alliance there are the humans, the dwarves, the night elves, the gnomes, and the draenei; for the horde, the orcs, the tauren, the undead, the trolls and the blood elves. Alongside the wide choice of races are nine distinct classes. There’s warrior, paladin, mage, druid, rogue, priest, hunter, warlock and shaman. Up until The Burning Crusade the paladin class was exclusive to the alliance, and the shaman exclusive to the horde. Now the draenei can be shamans for the alliance, and the blood elves can be paladins for the horde. There are a great many possible race/class combos here, not to mention the significant alterations you can make to you character through WoW’s talent-point system.

WoW’s gameplay brings the classes to life, especially in instances (dungeons exclusive to a particular group). In an instance, it helps a lot to have a balance of classes in the party. In fact, some classes – the priest for instance – are really must-haves for a successful group later on. It can be very hard getting through boss fights without a healer, or without a tank (who’s sole task is to incur the anger of the enemy and absorb damage). This is one of WoW’s major strengths: clearly defined group roles that can be occupied by a diverse range of classes, and instances that mandate cooperation.

As an aside, WoW is what I would call ‘lightweight’. It isn’t a system hog – probably on account of its simple but elegant graphical style – so it’s quick and hassle-free to hop back and forth from WoW to your desktop if you need to. It’s also never locked-up on me, and the only problems I’ve had with WoW have been recent (after the release of The Burning Crusade), with graphical ‘tearing’. WoW is, on the whole, extremely stable, which is what I’ve come to expect from Blizzard games.

Alright, those are the triumphs; now I have to talk about the many faults which I spoke of earlier.

The first action I would take if I was given a commanding position at Blizzard’s WoW offices would be to remove rogues from the game entirely. First of all, unlike all the other classes, rogues play little to no role in warcraft lore. The only mention of rogue-like individuals in the lore that I can find is the shadow council, but there’s no rogue character that I can think of. This is not the case with the other classes. For instance, Uther Lightbringer from Warcraft III was a paladin, and Khadgar (who’s still alive in WoW) is a mage. The point is there’s a place already established for these classes because they’re part of the Warcraft canon; the rogue is not. It seems to me that rather than sticking with what constitutes the Warcraft spirit, Blizzard just defaulted to the standard RPG class-package, and that meant including the rogue.

But this would be fine if the class wasn’t as ridiculous and damned irritating as it is! In amongst the rogue’s repertoire is the ability to (given that some minor conditions are met) turn completely invisible. Now, stealth is one thing – I’m a big fan of the stealth mechanic in the Thief series, for instance – but cloaking is quite another. And it really is that: cloaking, not stealth. Stealth only works when it’s limited – by the availability of shadows and cover for instance – and when the player has to exercise some skill to stay unnoticed.

In WoW, the rogue can quite easily ’stealth’ in broad daylight in the middle of a desert: something that just shouldn’t be possible. They’re also among the major damage-dealers in the game, and they have a lot of abilities which paralyse or otherwise render you powerless to fight back. A horrible combination. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been attacked by a rogue out of nowhere and not been able to fight back. And if you’re unlucky enough to come across one with a bad attitude your questing session can quickly go down the toilet.

I’ve spoken of some well-implemented quests in WoW, but the fact of the matter is that they’re in the minority. Most of the quests range from fairly dull to mind-numbingly boring. They range from “You there! Fetch me some basilisk brains!” to “Collect 30 raptor claws!”. And this isn’t just true for low-level players, it carries on all the way up to level 70. It can feel a bit insulting when, with the power you have at higher levels, you’re still asked to gather up ingredients, essentially doing exactly the same thing you were doing when you were level 10.

Another bummer is that, although the options for race and class are good, there’s a shameful lack of aesthetic customisation when you create your character. I’m a fan of the kind of customisation that you find in EVE Online or Oblivion, where you can mould the appearance of your character with a plethora of options and sliders to make him, or her (or it?) truly unique. On the WoW character creation screen you choose race, sex and class and then there are just five aspects of the appearance of your character that you can customise, and for each aspect a choice of about ten or fifteen options. Sure, you can choose what kind of horns you have if you’re a tauren, or how far you jaw hangs off your face if you’re undead, but you will inevitably come across a lot of players on your server who look mysteriously identical to you.

Another thing you’ll inevitably come across is that no matter what you do in the world, no matter what quests and how many quests you complete, the world remains largely the same. Every monster you kill will respawn within minutes (less than a minute in some cases). Every instance you complete resets when you exit. For instance, no matter how many times you thwart the Defias Brotherhood in the Deadmines, they miraculously reform with exactly the same ringleaders pursuing exactly the same evil ends. In fact, with only a few notable exceptions like world events (most recently the opening of the dark portal) nothing ever changes. There’s no progress; the world is what might be called ’static’.

I feel like this criticism will seem foolish to WoW fans, because essentially I’m complaining about an incurable affliction of the whole MMO genre. I can already hear them yelling at me “but that’s just what a MMORPG is!”. Certainly I agree that a changing world of the kind that you find in a single player game is basically impossible for any team of game designers to create and maintain. But let’s not pretend that just because the non-changing world problem isn’t solvable, therefore it’s not a problem.

On balance, WoW is a decent game. It does a lot of things right, but it also does a lot of things badly. It’s clear that WoW is the big daddy in the MMO world at the moment (not taking into account any of the MMOs played in the Far East, some of which reportedly have a larger subscriber base than WoW) and I think it has had the success it has had simply because it’s strides ahead of any other MMO in terms of getting the basics of the genre spot on. The fact that WoW is on top whilst still being as flawed as it is says a lot about the current status of the MMO scene. I look forward to a next generation MMO with a world that truly reacts to its players, and a constant flow of fresh quests that are both immersive and entertaining.

✓ Exciting environments
✓ Decent soundtrack and visuals
✓ Solid role-based gameplay
✗ Rogues!
✗ Dull quests
✗ Not enough appearance customisation
✗ Static world

79%

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I’m working on a review of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic which I’ve just finished. I’ve decided not to do a review of Jade Empire, I don’t know why but I don’t remember much about it. Not a very memorable game! I’ll probably also do a review of Oblivion, Quake 4 and Medieval II: Total War when I’ve finished them, and I will of course post them here.

As an aside I have, as I predicted I would, stopped playing WoW again!

Thanks for reading.

- Chris