World of Warcraft
Binding : DVD-ROM
ProductGroup : Video Games
Manufacturer : Blizzard Entertainment
Brand : Blizzard Entertainment
Label : Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher : Blizzard Entertainment
Platform : Windows
Studio : Blizzard Entertainment
ReleaseDate : 2004-11-23
Lowest Used Price: USD $5.41
Lowest New Price: USD $14.99
- This game requires a monthly fee, and an internet connection to play
- Create and customize your own hero from the unique races and classes of the Warcraft universe
- Explore an expansive world with miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and other exotic lands
- Visit huge cities and delve through dozens of vast dungeons
- Adventure together with thousands of other players in an enormous, persistent game world
World Of Warcraft lets players experience the lands of Azeroth from a newer, in-depth perspective. They'll discover new lands and take on epic quests and challenges in massive online multiplayer action. Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously A monthly subsription fee is required to play online
From Amazon.com
World of Warcraft didn't invent the online role-playing genre, but it certainly benefits from the missteps of other titles that have come before. A mind-boggling array of improvements in graphics, gameplay, networking, and interface--really every category--makes this game the crown prince of the genre, a great starting place for newbies, and a challenge to any other MMORPG currently in the works.
 |
| The game's beautifully rendered locations are filled with small details, such as flying birds and flowing water. |
WoW takes place just four years after the real-time strategy Warcraft series, which chronicles a 25 year struggle between the Alliance (humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves) and the Horde (orcs, tauren, trolls, and undead). Even though there's tons of accumulated story to the series, new players should not be daunted. The background is there for you to explore, but you don't have to tread a lot of Azeroth history to get into the action.
| The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature. |
The game looks magnificent. There's plenty of detail and variety to the landscapes and interiors, and the artwork has a refreshingly playful style. There's not a lot of variety in the character creation process, but with all the skills and proficiencies to combine in the game, WoW focuses its customization not on the appearance of your character but rather on the character of your character. The game lets you adopt any two trade skills, regardless of character race or class, and combine those skills in useful ways. If you choose skinning and leatherworking, for example, you can fashion bags from the carcasses of monsters you defeat, which will allow you to carry even more inventory items.
Expanded Commerce
You can sell the items you make, find, and loot through a variety of outlets. Like any role-playing game, WoW has merchants who will buy your cast-off items for fixed prices, but you can also sell to other players at your own price through in-game chat or by leaving it with one of the auction houses located across the map. This virtual free market is a game within the game, like Monopoly somehow inserted into the middle of Chess. Heck, you can even send items C.O.D. to other players via the game's mail system.
 |
| The game's Quest Log keeps track of up to 20 quests at a time. |
A Level Playing Field
There's also a built-in handicap for casual players where your character enters a rest state when you log off from the game. The longer you're logged off (up to a week), the bigger the experience bonus you'll get when you return to battle. An enemy tagging feature--the player who lands the first attack on an enemy claims the loot for himself or his party--prevents onlookers from swooping in and pilfering items from a monster that you brought down. That resolves a common complaint of other titles.
 |
| Icons and pop-ups help put complex controls easily within reach. |
All of this makes for a very complicated game, but the well-designed interface puts all the game's elements into icons either visible framing the action or within a simple keystroke. The enemy's artificial intelligence is quite strong too: Monsters will join nearby fights to aid their comrades, switch targets strategically midbattle, and ambush players. The map system fills in details on places you've visited, so you always know where you are and where you've been.
Overall, World of Warcraft is a game that's easy to learn, challenging to master, beautiful to watch, and tons of fun to play. --Porter B. Hall
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| Operating System | PC: Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista (with latest Service Packs) Mac: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer | |
| CPU | PC: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlong XP 1500+ Mac: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor | PC: Dual-core processor, such as Intel Pentium D or AmD Athlong 64 X2 Mac: Intel 1.8 GHz processor or better |
| Graphics Hardware | PC: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transfor and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce2 class card or better Mac: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better | PC: 3D Graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capabilities with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better Mac: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better. |
| Memory | PC: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista) Mac: 1 GB | PC: 1 GB (2 GB for Vista) Mac: 2 GB |
| Hard Drive Space | 15 GB of free space | |
| All Platform Requirements | Keyboard and mouse, required for controls. Other input devices not supported. Active broadband Internet connection required to play. | |
Amazon.com Product Description
For the first time, players can experience the lands of WarCraft's Azeroth from a new, in-depth perspective. As heroes, they explore familiar battlefields, discover new lands, and take on epic quests and challenges in Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Blizzard has taken care to make the game accessible and fun both for hard-core 60-hour-a-week players and for more casual adventurers.
Love/Hate Relationship (2009-06-02)
WOW (world of warcraft) deserves 3 stars. The short and sweet run-down:
PROS:
1)Beautiful scenery with lots of little details
2)Easy to learn, but complicated enough (as in many different approaches to playing it) to give you plenty to do while playing
3)Lots of playability--can basically play it forever
4)No bugs (at least not for me)
CONS:
1)Takes forever to load (I mean hours)
2)Monthly fee
3)Tuesday is the day Blizzard updates/fixes the game, and they aren't quick about it.
4)Constantly downloading patches, which you need to play. Sometimes I have a hard time downloading these patches. My computer often tells me I am unable to for various reasons, which can get pretty frustrating.
4 PROS + 4 CONS= 3 stars
Excellent game, but use caution, read this post. (2009-05-12)
This is a very long post, but well worth it if you're seriously considering this game.
Pros:
First and foremost this game is a milestone in the both the MMORPG and online gaming industry. With over 11 million subscribers, it's the largest online game to date, and for good reason.
The graphics, while cartoonish, indulge you in a moving work of art with flowing waterfalls, freezing tundras, and shadow-ridden caves. The world itself is simply huge (though surprisingly easy to navigate), spanning across four continents (one in outer space), and leaves the gamer with an unparalleled sense of citizenship. Once you log into World of Warcraft, you truly plug into a hidden universe.
The music is truly worthy of mention. When you first launch the game, you are met with a symphony of heart-pounding drums, violins, bassoons, or what-have-you. The music/ambience then changes frequently throughout the game depending upon your current location and really adds an element of class to the experiences of stepping into a haunted mine, or riding up to the gates of a citadel.
The gameplay ranges from simple to slightly complicated depending upon your class selection, but always maintains the smooth controls that are oh-so-user-friendly. You can select from 9 different classes at the start (another is available further on in the game), each of which have their own roles to fulfill by either Healing, Tanking (taking the hits for other less-hardy classes), or DPSing (DPS: Damage per second, a term used to explain classes adept at dealing damage). Also with the introduction of "dual-spec," a character is able to switch between two customizable talent builds (determines your main role: healing/tanking/dps, through the selection certain talents) at the drop of a hat.
The most basic gameplay consists of leveling your character from 1 to 80 via the completion of quests, invading of dungeons, and slaying of monsters, all of which grant "experience," and move you closer to the next level. If you grow wary leveling, it is possible to "que" into a battleground from anywhere in the world. There are four different types of battle: capture the flag, protect the resources, defend/attack the keep, and control the territory. You compete against real players controlling real characters on different computers, which is typically referred to as "PVP," or player versus player.
Once you have reached the maximum level, the fun has just begun. You will continue advancing your character by upgrading his or her equipment (or "gear"). Raids, dungeons and "heroics" offer thousands of powerful monsters that, when killed, give weapons and armor that strengthen your character. Dungeons and heroics are typically conquered by five players effectively working together to defeat the obstacles and creatures within. Raids follow a different suit, requiring 10 to 25 skilled players able to communicate and coordinate themselves in order to (hopefully) kill the most difficult monsters in the game.
Another option to the post-leveling stage (or "end game content") is coordinated PVP. Beside the four available battlegrounds, the game contains four "arena" maps offering extremely competitive play in the form of 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. If you are successful, the rewards are some of the most powerful upgrades in the game.
Guilds, world events, seasonal events, mounts, professions, mini-games, parties, transportation and real-time economies are just a few more of the many other unnamed aspects to this game. Some things are simply best if discovered.
Cons:
In recent times, the game has found difficulties in PVP in terms of equality. Some classes seem to always be more powerful than others, however, the developers of the game promise that they're addressing this situation.
It is fairly expensive if thought of as simply a video game. The game runs at (I believe) $15 a month, or $12.99 if you pay for 6 months at once. By the time you've purchased the original game and the two expansion packs, you're out $100+, which doesn't include subscription fees. The cheapest route to take is to purchase the Battle-chest (the first two games), the second expansion pack (soon to be added to the Battle-chest) and a large chunk of game time.
A key thing to consider in terms of price is that you're buying much more than a game. You're paying for the new content which is released almost every two months, the server maintenance, and in-game customer support. Also, keep in mind, that this game will (probably) entertain you for much longer than a TV or DVD or Console game. Sure, an XBox game is only $59.99, very cheap compared to World of Warcraft, but within a few weeks/months the XBox game will become dull, whereas this game will have already released new content to be conquered.
*This is why I only gave it 4 stars*
The game is addicting. Extremely. Dangerously. No, seriously, if you have any history of alcohol/drug/gambling abuse, you should reconsider, or at least be informed prior to purchasing.
I offer to you this solution: first, download the 10 day free trial. Next, keep a log of the amount of time you spend on the game during these 10 days. It's expected that you will 1-3 hours a day initially, but will quickly fall into the 4+ hours as your trial nears its end. After the 10 day trial, take a look at how much time you've spent on this game. Some might find themselves in "good shape," with only a couple hours of play time. Most will find that they've spent an upwards of 30 hours (or much more) on the game in only 10 days.
Determine for yourself if you truly have that much free time to spend on a video game. If you do, wonderful, then this is the game for you, and I hope you enjoy your experience. If you believe this is too much time to spend on a game, don't fret! Within the account creation process, you will be able to set up "parental controls" for the availability of play. It is in this device that you can limit your playtime to a healthy and sustainable amount.
I hope this was helpful.
From game to phenomenon (2009-05-08)
Having a below-average PC, I haven't even bothered checking out any computer games whatsoever and had to rely on console ports on the Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360. Back in the day I had Diablo II but other than that, I've mainly been on consoles but after getting a pretty sweet laptop, I figured "eh, what the hell, see what the craze is about."
Now I've never played an MMO before, mainly because I hate subscription fees but also because of the lackluster PC I had so I can't compare this to Warhammer Online, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online...or really any of the "Online" ones. But other than that, I'll say that this is quite a worthwhile game to play...just watch your relationships deteriorate at the same rate your character's level raises...just kidding, or am I?
So after buying the game plus a game card for 2 months of play, in comes the incredibly lengthy install which literally took me from 6 in the afternoon to 4 in the morning and that's with a 100 MB/S connection speed. Then turns out that most of the names I was picking were not available and I'd rather have a "real" sounding name, not something like "XxXkilla" or something like that so after finally finding one, it was off to the races. Based on the kind of character you pick, you'll end up in a different area of the world than others. My first character was a night elf warrior so I was put in the tree of Teldrassil, a massive tree with purple foliage and visually I have to say it really looks impressive. Sure graphically the art style is "cartoony" but it's very pleasant to the eye, especially those with high-end PC's/Laptops with minimal framerate hitches or lag. It's also a nicely varied world with snow valleys, countryside having an almost pastoral feel to tranquil forests to ominous bogs.
As far as gameplay is concerned, at first you're a little "now...how do you sell stuff?", but eventually you will get the hang of it and it's incredibly accessible and the more you play the more things get added for you to use in the game such as additional skill slots, abilities for other weapons and skills that you can use from cooking, enchanting and the like. And with the ability to have multiple characters as "alts" or alternates, it'll be fresh and new from visually to gameplay since different classes get different skills and specialties. As far as PvP and PvE, I generally avoided PvP playing since I prefer co-op type games like Left 4 Dead and whatnot and I'd rather help out fellow players during tough spots than trying to kick someone's face in (which I have Street Fighter for, or at the very least, shoot their face with Call of Duty).
Now since this is an MMO, you have to get used to one thing, and this was the surprising part since it didn't bother me but this is heavily geared towards grinding. You know, "kill 20 x to get 5 y for person Z" and thankfully the drops are not that rare unlike some RPG's where it's like "oh come on, should've had one by now". Grinding is a big thing and too often you'll run into quest givers with many leading to other quests that'll yield bigger rewards once you reach the end. My one complaint about this is that some quests make you give a certain item or talk to an NPC you haven't met yet however your map/mini-map sometimes doesn't tell you till they're actually near and when you're told "they're in the city" my first thought was "um...where?"
This isn't one of those kind of end paragraphs where I say this is the best MMO on the market and all the others don't have anything of World of Warcraft since, as I said, I haven't played them...plus one subscription based game's enough but I will say that Warcraft is quite a fun experience and certainly different than the console games I normally play but your addiction level may vary but there's enough content here to satisfy new players and plenty of depth and quests for the frequent players.
Don't be a stupid loser nerd that never gets laid (2009-05-03)
Here's some real good advice for you.
Don't be some stupid loser that sits at your computer playing World of Warcraft for hours on end. Read books instead, or learn music, or exercise, or do homework, or go somewhere and meet people... Meet girls. Don't be some stupid loser nerd that never has sex and sits around playing WoW, thinking about your character as you fall asleep every night. Don't be that stupid loser. Do yourself a huge favor and leave that fate for someone else. Don't be a stupid loser.
Don't buy this game unless you have a motherlod of time in your hands (2009-04-06)
Simply the most awesome MMO I ever played, WoW is a great way for you to get a bucket full of friends and lose hours and hours without noticing. Don't buy it if you are in college, you'll never deliver a paper in time or remember studying for a test again.
tags :
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.