The defining online fantasy game (World of Warcraft (PC))

Member Name: Dinah93

Product:	World of Warcraft (PC)
Date:	24/01/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Never ending content, good social elements, varied quests,

Disadvantages: Very addictive, monthly fee

World of Warcraft, or WoW as it is commonly abbreviated is the most successful online multiplayer game ever. Several celebrities gone as far as helping to advertise the game by revealing their own characters, including William Shatner, Jean Claude Vandamme, Mr T, Willy Toledo, Verne Troyer and more recently Ozzy Osborne, which personally would put me off the game more than anything! Over 11.5 million people play World of Warcraft, and the game is divided into locational servers. The EU servers are mainly in English; however there are also servers in Spanish, German, Italian and Russian.

Fees and Costs

World of Warcraft costs £8.99 a month, although this can be slightly reduced by purchasing a 3 or 6 month subscription. Monthly subscription can be paid by credit or debit card, or by purchasing pre-paid game vouchers, similar to a mobile phone top-up. In addition to the subscription there is the initial outlay for the game. This is currently £8.50 on Amazon at the moment. As well as the original World of Warcraft, there have been two expansions, WoW: The Burning Crusade, and Wow: Wrath of the Lich King. All games can now be downloaded, and if you ever loose a disk you will be able to re-download free of charge. I did this recently on my new computer and it was a speedy and hassle free process. These are both a further £9.96 and £17.99 at present respectively, and enable characters to be levelled to 80. It is not necessary to have the expansions to play World of Warcraft, however it is necessary to have the original game in order to play to 60, WoW: The Burning Crusade to level to 70, and WoW: Wrath of the Lich King to level to 80. As with so many games I find the original content to be the best thought out and thoughtful, however the vast majority of players play to the level cap, and without the expansion much of the social element of the game may be lost.

Horde or Alliance?

This is the first decision one has to make when it comes to World of Warcraft after deciding to play the game, do I want to play as the "Noble Alliance" or the "Mighty Horde". At first glance it looks like a choice between good and evil, and if you ask about half the Alliance they will tell you that this is indeed the decision you have to make and perhaps they are right but not necessarily in the way one would think. Both factions originally had 4 races in them, but since the release of the Burning Crusade each has gained a 5th which is not featured on this original game version.

The Alliance was originally made up of the Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and Night Elves. These four races united to protect their world from the encroachment of the demonic forces of the universe that came and waged war on the world of Azeroth. It was these same forces that brought the 5th Alliance race to Azeroth, the Draenei.

The Horde is composed of the Orcs, Trolls, Undead, Tauren and Blood Elves. The Blood Elves being the Burning Crusade addition. I have always played as an Alliance character, so my review may be skewed from this perspective.

Each and every race and faction is steeped in lore far too vast to even attempt to summarise here as each has at least a 3 volume encyclopaedia of lore behind them and I would ramble. Often younger players pick Alliance, while more mature players choose the Horde. That said there are good and bad both sides of the divide so my advice is go with what you think will be fun, personally I chose based on the voice of my character, they can get pretty whiney at times and the last thing I wanted was an irritating voice like the American woman stuck in my cars sat nav! You can always change your mind later on and make a character on the other side.

Races

World of Warcraft original ediction has 8 playable races in both genders and 9 playable classes. Two more races were introduced with WoW: The Burning Crusade, and a new class with WoW: Wrath of the Lich King. However not every race can play as every class. Only a Tauren or Night Elf can be a Druid but the only race that does not have access to the warrior class is the Blood Elves who are so dependent on and addicted to mana that their warriors are all paladins. The exception to this rule is the recently introduced Death Knight which is the class that must be unlocked. It should also be noted that each race has certain racial abilities and bonuses that lend themselves to being better at being certain classes.

Humans are a diverse and adaptable people (Just like in every other game you will play). They have the widest range of classes available to them with 7 out of the 10. The only race to have as many was the trolls however the burning crusade races also have the maximum 7 out of 10 classes to choose from. The archetypical human is often seen as the paladin. And when one considers the racial abilities of humans it is easy enough to see why. They are also the most commonly selected race for people who wish to role play in World of Warcraft. Their home city of Stormwind is a popular Alliance city for many reasons, it is well laid out, compact, bright, clean and well designed. It is also the gateway to the new continent of Northrend.

The stalwart Dwarves of Ironforge are a proud race, famed for their works of metal and stone. They are often portrayed as hunters, out in the snowy wilderness with nothing but their gun and trusty pet bear at their side or as a proud warrior standing at the front lines of any battlefield ready to stand and fight against any who would oppose him. I like playing dwarfs as they think like I do. The "I'll go get drunk and start a fight with someone" approach to life they have is a code to live by. There are about 4 female dwarf characters per server, as they are squat, ugly little women with the most irritating voices in creation. While they traditionally made the best healers, no one could ever face making one and settled for someone who used their mana a bit less efficiently, but didn't look like their uncle Albert in a frock.

The Night Elves are often stereotyped as hippies who love all creatures and all of mother earth's creations and so on but it's just that, a stereotype. These people are indeed a peace loving and peaceful people until provoked to defend themselves or their land or people. A tall people who are very much in tune with nature and their surroundings they are the only Alliance race with access to the druid class which is really a be whatever you want to be class and as they have the honour of being the Alliance druids they are most often portrayed as such, or failing that they are hunters and priests. They are a very popular race, with graceful movement and soothing voices. Elven females are often played by the younger gamers, who like the, shall we say aesthetic appeal the designer have bestowed upon them.

The Gnomes are a race of inventors with high levels of intellect. They are however too willing to try out their experiments before they should really be out of the Research and Development stage. This trait has left them homeless as they flooded their entire city with noxious radiation which made the city uninhabitable. With their city effectively destroyed they have been granted asylum in the Dwarven city of Ironforge where they work to find a solution to the radiation currently flooding their precious city of Gnomeregan. Due to their high intellect gnomes are often warlocks or mages but are most commonly portrayed as insane inventors with goggles on. While a lot of fun, I have trouble playing gnomes for the most practical reason that they are very small, and I tend to get them stuck places, leading to an infuriated log out and delete.

The Draenei were added with WoW: The Burning Crusade, and have perhaps the saddest story in all of the Alliance. They were a peaceful religious race living on Draenor (Their home planet which they shared with the Orcs) in harmony with the other inhabitants of the planet until the demonic Horde of the burning legion came and gained support from the majority of the Draenei race which were then called the Eredar. The few remaining uncorrupted priests and paladins of the Eredar fled their brethren and their home planet before it was shattered to become Outland. Now in exile they call themselves Draenei which is Eredar for Exile. They are most often seen as priests and paladins. Using the power of the Light to heal and protect the weak. However as they are the only Alliance race to have access to the shaman class they are also often portrayed as shamans. They have joined the Alliance in order to do battle with the Legion and protect Azeroth from the fate suffered by their home world at the hands of the demons. I find the Draenei to be too unwieldy and cumbersome in their movement, and too alien in appearance, and for this reason have not played much in this class.

Now for the races of the Horde and the race which, typifies the Horde best is the Orcs. The Orcs are a proud race who came to Azeroth under the control of the demonic burning legion. They were freed of the taint that was on their race and began to think for themselves once more. They formed the Horde and lead it from their mighty city of Orgrimmar. They are portrayed most commonly as warriors seeking glory and honour on the battlefield. Viewed as evil it is more accurate to call them misunderstood. They are mostly content with what they have and will fight to the death to defend it. They are a fun race to play and have the advantage of being Horde which tends to have far less immature players, but has the disadvantage of being where more of the elitists hang out. Orcs are generally the most common Horde class to be played, and are seen as the central race of the Horde lore.

The Trolls are probably on Azeroth longer than any other race, their empires rose and fell time and again while humans still lived in caves and were scared of fire. They all speak like Jamaicans and talk a lot about voodoo and mojo and the like. They are most often portrayed as Voodoo priests, hunters or shamans. There are many toll factions in World of Warcraft with wide reaching levels of power. Choose these if you don't take yourself too seriously or just like being seen as a hippie/Bob Marley wannabe, personally the voice would be enough to drive me demented in just a few hours.

The Tauren are 9 foot tall cow people who are modelled on the Native Americans, they are the only Horde faction who can be druids and are usually portrayed as druids or Shamans. A good choice for someone who wants to be able to see and be seen in a crowd, not for someone who wants to explore small spaces or role play as a sexual being.

The Forsaken are the walking dead also known as the undead. They were originally part of the undead Scourge created by the Lich King before his original defeat. When this happened the Lady Sylvanas Windrunner was able to break free of the Lich King's control as were some others. They took up residence under the fallen city of Lordaeron where they now seek to redeem the rest of the scourge from the control of the Lich King. They are an interesting race in that they can gain health from the bodies of the fallen and can spend much longer under the water as true undead should be able to. Often seen as alchemists and warlocks they are worth a look, however are often played by emo teens who can relate to their pain. Lordaeron is an absolute maze of a home city, where a new player may never again find their way out.

The final race which joined the Horde is the somewhat tragic mana addicted blood elves, who were also introduced with WoW: The Burning Crusade. They are cousins to the night elves in that they both, along with the naga (and possibly) the trolls are descended from the highbourne. The story of the blood elves is linked to the story of the undead. They were originally called the high elves and were proud, but silent members of the Alliance. They were consummate mages and their lowest could perform feats of magic that none but the highest of human mages could. However when the Lich King sent his armies to Azeroth he destroyed the Sunwell which was the source of the high elves power, with its destruction their dependence on mana was discovered and many devolved into little more than animals. However their king Kael'thas Sunstrider found new energy for them. Fel Energy taken from demons and the power of the light extracted from the Naaru Mu'ru. Thus they joined the Horde and now fight against those who were once their allies. Most often a blood elf is portrayed as a mage and they make very good mages due to their racial abilities. The Blood Elves are the most attractive horde race by far, and have sprung up as temptresses amongst role playing gamers.

Classes

Choosing your class is one of the most important decisions you will make in the game, as it fundamentally alters how you experience play. Roughly speaking there are four types of character, a tank, a healer, dps and a hybrid. I will discuss these groupings a bit later on. You can 'spec' your character to have various abilities, so no two characters will be the same depending on if you want to focus on player vs. player combat, raiding, questing and so on. You are given 10 slots on your realm, so you can choose to have 10 characters, so it's a good idea to try a few out before committing to which one you want to level. In total you can have up to 50 characters, although if you have that many I think you possibly have developed a WoW problem, see addiction below.

Warriors are the main tanking class. Resilient plate wearers, the warrior exists to defend others. The warrior is not a high damage dealing class, however they are very durable and perform well in groups. I have found the warrior quite a slow class to level, as while it takes a lot to kill it, it takes quite a lot for it to kill anything else too! Warriors are hand to hand combatants, with only very limited abilities to conduct ranged pulls.

Paladins have earned the nickname 'the porn class'. This is because you can set them on killing something, go off and do something else, come back and they'll still merrily be killing it. Great for when you need a cuppa! Also plate wearers, paladins are a hybrid class. Paladins are capable of dealing huge amounts of damage, healing, or of tanking. Paladins make good tanks where they need to hold aggro from multiple targets, however are very reliant on mana. Once a paladin is out of this precious fuel all bets are off, and they loose most of their functionality, so the class needs to be quite carefully managed and understood in order to keep yourself, and your party alive. Paladins have no ranged damage whatsoever, so you really need to love to be in the thick of things.

Another hybrid class is the Druids, however unlike paladins they are quite underpowered. Druids are able to assume many forms, including big cat, sea lion, bear, tree and Moonkin, a sort of feathered Mr Blobby. Druids can deal damage either as a big cat or as a spell casting Moonkin, can tank as a bear, or heal as a tree. They are very attuned to nature, and do not use weapons to do damage, but rely on changing form to a more aggressive animal. Unfortunately druids have been consistently underpowered through tweaks to the character builds, and are now very difficult characters to play solo.

Arguably the Shamans are another hybrid class, however they are almost exclusively played as dps. This can be caster or melee. Shamans rely on using totems to gain additional power, and on a practical ground are a rubbish class to play if your pc is a bit senile. They are reputed to be the hardest class in the game to play well, and they do require good knowledge and timing to effectively play.

On the healer front the main class is the Priest. Priests are calm, restorative characters who seek to support the more aggressive classes. Making friends with a priest will make your gaming experience go a whole lot smoother. They are often played by more mature players, and receive little thanks for their role. Priest is a harder class to level, as they do not deal high damage, and while they can heal damage taken, they are cloth wearers so very squishy and if something with a big sword comes at them they'll be dead in a few hits. I have found the Priest class quite rewarding to play, although it is a lot more satisfying to level one with a friend, preferably a big plate wearing meat shield one who can protect your squishy bits from the bad guys!

The Rogue is a class like no other, exclusively a damage dealing class, they specialise in close quarters combat. Rogues have the ability to stealth, and are masters of deception with skills like 'pickpocket' in their arsenal. Rogues can uses bows and guns to pull from afar, however have no damage dealing abilities other than close combat. I would recommend anyone try a rogue, as it really is a whole different style of game play. Rogues can sneak in to grab a quest object from under someone's nose, where any other class would have to slay their way through ranks of angry enemies to get it. Rogues are very common for PvP players, as they always have the element of surprise.

Mages are a pure casting class. High damage dealers they deal in elements, and are most commonly dealing frost or fire damage. Their damage is instant, and they have a variety of tricks to make sure the enemy never gets within arms length of them, which is fantastic, unless you're fighting something else ranged too, but even then Mages can silence spell casters, leaving their only real threat as a hunter. Mages are a simple class to play, but quick to level and rewarding, and for this reason make a good first character before moving onto something more challenging.

Hunters are by far my least favourite class in the game. This is not so much to do with their play style, but more the type of people who tend to play them. Hunters have an easy play style and are high dps. They can also tame animals as pets, which will fight alongside them. They are almost exclusively ranged damage dealers, sending in their pet to hold agro on the mob, and killing from afar. This makes them very attractive to many people. Unfortunately hunters tend to be played by young teens, who are a bit high on hormones, or students high on something else. Invite one of these to your group when on an instance run and you will be subjected to a 3 hour stream of verbal chatter, largely consisting of 4 letter words and body parts, before they loose control of their pet on the way to the final boss while the healer has nipped to the loo, promptly wiping the whole group. They'll laugh and swear some more, and then do it again because they now think it's funny. If they are allowed to stay till the final boss they'll take all the loot, even that which they don't need, and hearthstone to the nearest city where they will start bad mouthing your guild on trade channel, thereby annoying everyone there too. There are some good hunters, who tend to be quiet, quite apologetic for their class, and currently levelling a priest on the side so people will like them again.

I have left the best until last, the Warlock. The Warlock is a high damage dealing caster class, similar to the mage. However the Warlock is much more tactical, as their spells deal damage to a target over time, as opposed to a Mage's burst damage. The Warlock is quite a tricky class to play well, but an easy class to play well enough to stay alive. They have summonable pets, a voidwalker, felhunter, imp as well as a variety of demons. These can seek to hold agro, to devour beneficial spells on enemies, or to deal damage. Warlocks are shady characters whose magic stems from dark forces, much of the power comes from gathering souls of slain enemies, however there are quite few compared to the more easily picked up mage.

In WoW: Wraith of the Lich King the Death Knight class was introduced. As this is a review on the original edition I will not go into similar detail on these, however you need to have an existing level 55+ character to make one, and they are extraordinarily powerful damage dealers or tanks, who have previously served under the all powerful Lich King.

Guilds

Your guild will heavily influence how you play the game. Not all players choose to align themselves with a guild, however I would highly recommend it. A guild is a group of players who have chosen to band together on a long term basis to ahieve common goals. Guilds usually focus on one aspect of game play, such as PvP or raiding. It is important to find a guild that suits you, some guilds may expect you to play as a group at least 5 nights a week, which is no good if you have a family, social life, or work shifts. The most in demand guilds may have a waiting list to join, or a trial period to see if you fit with their existing members. You can also choose to start your own guild. There are hundreds of these per server, and it's nice to form one if you have a group of real life friends who all want a way to communicate when online. A guild has a structure, starting with a Guild Master, who has a core of chosen officers to help run the guild, down to the members and initiates. The Guild Master chooses the structure of their particular guild. If you choose to start your own guild do not underestimate the time it takes to do daily admin. This will detract from your play time. You will need to organise excursions, sort out disagreements, hold hands, wipe tears, answer questions, and fend off requests for money. Guild Master is therefore a role very similar to that of parent. Being Guild Master of a large raiding guild is almost a full time job, and you will find many people in the intensive 'pro' raiding guilds do not have a real life job. I have known people who have quit their job once it started to get in the way of World of Warcraft.

Social

The social element of World of Warcraft is very important. You can converse with other players in game both through typing, and verbal interaction if you choose. People often become good friends with players they meet online, and these friendships can continue into the real world. It is therefore quite important to be aware if your child is playing World of Warcraft, as they could be speaking to anyone, similar to the risks in a chat room. However the vast majority of people are friendly, and just there to have fun. I personally have met up with several people I got to know through the game, and every player knows of a fair few relationships formed (and unfortunately affairs had) as a result of encounters online. The worrying examples are the people who don't realise where WoW stops and real life begins, such as the woman in America who murdered her husband for selling her in game weapon on Ebay (yes people pay real money and lots of it) to get money to pay the mortgage, after they both lost their jobs due to WoW!

World of Warcraft is a online role playing game, I play on a role-playing server, however the vast majority of people, myself included, play their characters IRL or in real life, meaning they do not pretend to be their character. Those that do choose to role-play (or rp) often choose a dedicated guild, and certain areas of the continent will gain a reputation as a role-playing hangout. These are most commonly in human lands on the Alliance side.

Environment

World of Warcraft is made up of two islands, together known as Azeroth. These are the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Eastern Kingdoms is the starting area for the Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, and Undead, whilst Kalimdor is home to the Night Elves, Tauren, Orcs and Troll. The environment of Kalimdor is much more natural, untamed and unexplored compared to the more developed lands of the Eastern Kingdoms. Both these lands are divided into several zones. Each of these zones has a different climate, environment and has mobs and quests suitable for a specific level range.

As the environment is online, it changes and reacts due to the interactions of other players. You can see them gaming, and talk to them, group with them or interact with them. The environment also varies depending on the whether conditions of a location, and the time of day.

Quests

Questing is the lifeblood of any character built in wow. It is one of the two most common ways in which all characters gain experience and level up. The very first thing any character will see when they are created and have watched the racial introduction movie is an NPC with a yellow exclamation point above its head thus introducing each character to questing. Quest objectives vary from having to gather things to having to explore an area to having to kill a certain number of enemies to any combination of these for the most part. Sometimes the quests can seem a bit inane, 'Please go talk to my brother for me, who is stood right beside me, oh you did that, hmmm okay, go kill 20 boars then'. However there are various alterations of these combinations and novel ways of doing them. All that said questing is more than just a way to level your character, it is also the way in which you are thought how to play your character for end game PVP and Raiding. The best thing about questing is that you don't even realise that you are being thought how to play and even if you do, i.e. if you are one of those people who have levelled several characters, you can still enjoy levelling and practicing and learning to play with the new characters.

Raids and Instances
An instance is an area within a server where the player can seem to bring some real change to the game. You fight your way through elite mobs to reach bosses who you must also defeat. The loot from an instance is of a higher quality than that gained from quests and as such the difficulty of an instance is significantly higher than that of a quest involving similar level mobs and as such one will enter an instance in a group. Instances and raids are also a social occasion, where you meet with other players in order to achieve the goal. Often this is done with the aid of in game voice chat,
Normally an instance is run with a group of 5 people as that is the maximum number of people who can enter an instance at once with one or two notable exceptions and while there is no combination of characters that is superior to any other combination as regards ability there are certain basic requirements for the 5 person, colloquially 5 man, group. Every group will require people to do certain things. The tasks each character must perform in an instance are broadly divided into 4 types of task. Tanking, DPSing, Ccing and healing each of which I will explain in more detail.
1:- Tanking is the job of taking the damage dealt out by the various mobs in the instance and keeping those mobs from hitting other members of the party. Traditionally there were 3 main tanking classes which were Warriors, Paladins and Druids. However, in certain specialised circumstances Shamans, Warlocks and even Mages have been used as tanks. In addition Hunters and Warlocks have pets which are capable of acting as tanks when necessary.
2:- DPSing is the only task that every class in the game is capable of performing. DPS is an acronym for Damage per Second which is exactly what it says on the tin. How much damage are you doing per second? Some classes are naturally better at this than others. Classes which are generally seen as pure DPS are Mages, Warlocks, Hunters and Rogues; however other classes can be damage dealers in certain circumstances. It simply takes more work from them.
3:- Ccing is the only role that could possibly be performed by every member of the group at once. CC is an acronym for Crowd Control and just about every class has some form of CC ability but the most commonly used and widely known ones are the Mages polymorph spell, Rogue's sap, and the Hunters freezing trap. CC is used where there is a large group of mobs to be dealt with at once. Its purpose is to lessen the number of mobs that the Tank has to keep focused on him and to allow the DPSers to focus their damage. It does this by taking a mob or multiple mobs out of commission for a short time so that they can be dealt with after the other mobs are out of the way.
4:- It is arguable that I have saved the most important role for last. That of the healer, A healer is someone who heals the other members of the party as they go through the instance. A tank will need a lot of healing during an instance as there is an incredible amount of damage being done to him and he simply will not be able to take all the damage being done to him without it. If the healer dies it's likely everyone in the group will die shortly after, so it's always good to be friends with your healers! The classes which are capable of healing are Druids, Paladins, Priests and Shamans.
As I stated above instances are performed as the quality of the rewards are higher than the equivalent level quest rewards. But there is another reason that instances are gone through. They generally have a story behind them and in clearing the instance you get a chance to see that story play out in front of your eyes and to be the hero that stops the Alliance of thieves and villains from their master plan of assaulting your capital city with a warship or preventing the demonic overlord from finally gaining dominion over the land.
PvP

PvP stands for player versus player; this is where players engage in combat with other players in various different settings. There are battle grounds where a group of Alliance players and a group of Horde players from various servers unite against each other in order to gain supremacy over the battleground. There are 5 battlegrounds and each one has a different theme, layout and victory conditions. There is a capture the flag scenario and a take and hold scenario to name but 2 of the 5 scenarios. Admittedly the other 3 are variations on the capture the flag and take and hold scenarios but all are unique in landscape, theme and victory conditions.

There are other ways PvP combat can be engaged in. One can be PvP active which is to say that anywhere one goes they are capable of being engaged by a member of the opposing faction. There are servers where this is the case for all players at all times. These are known as PvP servers.

There are also arenas in which PvP can be engaged in. These arenas pit 2 teams of 2, 3 or 5 "Gladiators" against each other in combat in order to see who is the greatest/. The rewards for arena combat are significantly greater than the rewards for battleground PVP but arena combat is of a higher difficulty than battleground PVP as the arena combatants are required to invest much more time and money in order to be successful at it.

Whilst PVP is not for everyone, it is not compulsory, and a player needs to actively choose to go to a place to PvP unless they are on a PvP server.

Time and addiction

While I think WoW is a fantastic game, it can not be denied that there is a very addictive element to it. Ultimately the game cannot be completed; a plethora of new content becomes available when you reach the level cap, including raids, further quest lines and PVP rewards. In addition Blizzard also releases fairly frequent patches as well as world events to participate in. It is this aspect of the game that has got so many gamers addicted. There are the scare stories on the news of gamers in China who play for 4 days straight and have died because of it. However there are also the very real numbers of dads who come home and park themselves in front of the computer until 2am, and forget to say hi to their family, or the teenagers who have quit their jobs or dropped out of university to have more time to play World of Warcraft. One of the loading screens on the game even advises 'Take all things in moderation, even World of Warcraft'. World of Warcraft is extremely time intensive, and for those who want to raid then it is likely several evenings a week will be devoted to this, for 5 or 6 hours at a time, where you can not leave the computer to go pick up the kids or come down for dinner, as there are 19 other real people on the game relying on you to be there. Even when solo playing there is always the urge to just do one more quest, and most gamers feel little tiredness when playing as they become so absorbed in the online world.

Conclusion

World of Warcraft is a ground breaking game, I personally didn't want to play it based on the name, being a Sims2 fan, I considered anything with so much killing and guts distasteful. However there is a lot of plot to the game, and there is always something else to achieve and conquer. Best of all for me though, I met my other half through World of Warcraft, who turned out to be a real life knight in shining armour, saving me from an abusive relationship. Just goes to show, it's not just geeks that play online games! My only recommendation would be to steer clear if you have an addictive personality, or exams coming up, as it is very easy to get enthralled, and loose yourself in this online world.

Summary: Amazing online game that will suit even the cynical gamer, but explore your real life too