Why they call it WarCrack (World of Warcraft (PC))

Member Name: xonica

Product:	World of Warcraft (PC)
Date:	11/04/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Never ending game for the price of one 360 or ps3 game

Disadvantages: Addictiveness!

World Of Warcraft

Having been introduced to this game by my partner I can say this has
been one of the most enjoyable entertainment experiences I have the
pleasure to indulge in. Now its taken over my entire household and we love it.

World of warcraft is a Massively multilayer on-line role playing game,
or MMORPG, where the player is able to completely emerge themselves in
a fantasy world of dungeons, epic quests and social interaction never before delivered so hugely to the masses.

Unlike other mmorpgs before it World of Warcraft, or WoW, has been
able to transverse the line into the public realm, the current player
base now reaches over twelve million players world wide, with smooth 3d graphics and easy learning curve leading to challenging experiences the game appeals to all walks of life from the nerdiest die hard gamer to
the casual office worker. It seems WoW has something for everyone.

But what is it all about?

At it's core the game is about choosing an Avatar or Character from
one of two sides, The Horde or The Alliance.

The Horde is a collection of Outcast Races, comprising of the Orks a
race of brutal green skin humanoids, the Tauren a futuristic race of
Bull-like people, much like a centaur from Greek mythology. The Race of Trolls a tribal race who base their society around Aztec like behaviour. The Undead who recently regained their free will over the necromancer who raised them from the grave and the newly added. Blood Elf's who are addicted to Magic and will do anything to stave off their hunger.

In contrast to The Horde is The Alliance a band of races who loathe
all things demonic. The Night elves who once where not unlike the
Blood elves but ten thousand years previous their mighty empire based on the abuse of magic was brought to its knees, they now live in seclusion among the forests of the world. The race of dwarves who crave knowledge and ancient artefacts from through the world, the dwarves are joined their
cousins the race of Gnomes an odd race in love with technology and tinkering.

The humans the worlds youngest race are out to craft a mighty and
powerful empire and lastly the newest race to join the alliance The
Dranei, a peace loving but powerful race who arrive as refugees fleeing extermination at the hands of the burning legion.

Not only is the player given the hard choice of choosing a side to
fight for, but after this they are presented with the more difficult
choice of Class. A class is the type of person you will be in the game, whether a mighty Sword wielding solider or a revered peaceful monk and everything in-between, there is a class for everyone.

Currently there are 10 classes a player can choose, what makes this decision even harder is the fact that not every race can play every
class. Confusing? It can be. The classes of Warcaft can be grouped into the armour they wear, Plate mail, chain mail, leather and cloth, while it might appear that plate mail is the strongest they are all pretty much even and what some loss in protection they usually gain in the amount of
damage they can dish out!


Warrior, nearly every race can choose this class (The exception is
Blood Elfs). This is your basic Heavily armoured Barbarian, Thick of
skin and skull! They can fight with a massive two handed weapon or favour for more protection by equipping a shorter weapon and shield turning a blood thirsty 'Melee' expert into an armoured tank.

The Paladin, they can sometimes be confused initially with warriors,
and while they do share a lot of the same qualities a paladin
sacrifices some of the warriors brute strength and toughness for a more spiritual approach, the coined phrase is Warrior Monks, holy soldiers who can dish out damage and receive it in equal measure. But as well as this the
Paladin can train his skills towards helping his friends as a healer, recovering wounds and sending them back into battle stronger than ever.

The newest class, the Death knight is the last of the three heavy
armoured Soilders, once a soulless servant of the undead (think
zombies!) these Death knights have been freed and their souls returned to them shrugging off blows with unholy magic and retaliating with sword and deadly diseases is the name of the game. They seek to return vengeance against the one who made them this way, they are equally able to wade into battle at the front of their friends and fight vigilantly to protect
the weaker. This character has often been called the opposite of a paladin, where as they are Holy warriors these are the unholy warriors.


Where as the above classes are the heavies, the next level down in
armament (but no less powerful) are the Chain Mail wearers
The shamans (much like the similar paladin) rely on their wisdom and
resilience in combat, they have studded the elements and as such are in
direct commune with the spiritual aspects, Fire, Water, Earth, wind and air. They boost their allies with the aid of powerful Totems spurring them on to great feats of heroism as well as refreshing their bodies with healing energies, but equally at home fighting at the front with large weapons or fighting behind the line with powerful spells. Always sought after by their friends as solid support to groups.

The Hunters are expert's with ranged weapons, Bows, guns and crossbows
and are able to dish out massive amounts of damage to their foes. As
well as this, Hunters are in tune with the animals of the world and are uniquely able to "be-friend" them to aid in their journeys, from mighty bears and big cats to crocodiles, giant spiders and birds of prey, the hunter and his pet are respected members of any group.


Down one more level we come to the leather wearers, these classes
shrug metal as protection in favour of being more agile and cunning in
the way they fight.

The rogues are the Assassins of World of Warcraft able to slip into
the shadows and pass undetected by all around them until the moment
they choose to strike with deadly poison dipped weapons. They are often compared with thieves able to pick locks and pickpocket from their enemies. Like their ranged counterpart, the hunter, the rogue is the melee damage expert able to turn out huge amounts of damage.

The Druid, this is Warcrafts most versatile class due to their ability
to shape shift. While a plate mail wearer relies on his armour, mighty
weapons and shields to protect them the druid is able to assume the form of a veracious bear to protect himself and his allies! Where as a rogue uses his skill to slip into the shadows the druid can take the form of a panther to stealthy transverse group and stack his prey. The druid is able to tab into long frowned upon Arcane Magic to devastate her enemies from range. Lastly the druid has tremendous abilities in bringing about the restoration of their allies, they are the keepers of Nature and with the right skill they
are one of the worlds greatest healers.

Finally we come to the Cloth wearers, these classes shrug all sense of
armour and instead allow their intellect and awesome (using the
original meaning of the word!) abilities to protect themselves and deal out unrivalled destructive powers.

The Mage (Think Wizard!) This class is good for one thing and one
thing only. Damage dealing, Period. They can tab into the magic realms
of all aspects, The Arcane, Fire and Frost to decimate their enemies. Where as Arcane and Fire are 100% dedicated to killing a foe with mighty balls of flame or powerful magic blasts Frost allows a mage some measure of protection raining down blizzards to halt the advance of enemies or encasing her enemies in blocks of ice, rooting them to the ground.


Choosing one of the above classes shouldn't be taken lightly, because
once chosen you cannot change, save starting from the beginning
again! But once you have chosen your character, your race and your side, and of course given a name to your avatar, it's time to actually enter the World of Warcaft!

At it's core Warcraft is about perseverance over time, for a computer
game many studies have been done and it's been revealed that Warcraft
works upon our brain much the same way as gambling is to a gambler, in that there is excitement, enjoyment and reward just enough to keep a player playing! There are entire websites devoted to the addictive
qualities of "World of WarCrack", but why?

There are essentially two games in one, the first part is called
levelling, where the player kills enemies or completes quests for
"experience points" or "XP", after enough xp has been gained the character gains a higher level, gaining more powerful abilities and allowing the use of better weapons and items e.g Ride a horse into battle or wield a more
damaging weapon. The trick at this part of the game is that although
the early levels can be gained in a matter of minutes the time it
takes to gain a level through the gaining of more xp increases with each level so that although going from level1 to level 2 takes mere second, going from level 79-80 can take a whole days worth of playing. Much like a
gambler seeking the thrill of the win, the wow gamer seeks the higher
level. However it doesn't last forever! Currently there are eighty
levels in the game and once you've reached the final level a whole new ballgame is opened up.

At the final level players embark on a new purpose, it can be one of
many things but in the end it's still furthering their characters
power. Be it with better gear to do battle with the opposing faction (called PvP or player verses player) on the fields of battle or through completing dungeons with friends (called raiding).

For many it is the social aspect of the endgame that keeps them
playing, making friends much the way people do through Myspace or
other networking sites, is a major cornerstone, groups of up to 25 people can embark in similar goals sometimes spending whole evenings together working through a raid or in a pvp battleground.

Although this is at the core there have been new developments over the
years the game has been released that keeps players interested, an
achievement system not unlike Playstation and xbox where players get a score depending on how much of the game they have completed, from exploring the world to defeating the most players in pvp or completing
all the dungeons, players can flaunt their score and use it to gain
status symbol items and titles.

Many more aspects are open to keep people entertained, a player could
become a blacksmith of great swords or a tailor making fancy cloth.
You can cook, creating food for other characters to eat increasing their power for a limited time or an alchemist conjuring up magic potions that grant abilities of all kinds.

World of warcraft has something for everyone, even for the person who
gets bored with the main point to the game! There is always something
to do and achieve.

With eleven million players each paying 8.99 a month to play, the
company that creates the game, Blizzard entertainment has a very good
reason to keep fresh and exciting content coming and there are always "content patches" in the works, as such a player can never fully complete the game. These patches have so far ranged been small additions changing
skills or adding new weapons and smaller dungeons to large expansions
where whole new area's have been added with brand new dungeons and
even new classes, races, the highest attainable level has been increased several times, keeping the players who otherwise might have given up and quit happy and giving a new fresh feel to the game when it's needed.

All in all World of Warcraft really is just what it says, a whole
world to explore and one could quite easily live in it (a quick google
can prove that many people do!) completely immersed. I've said it a few times through out this review, but I really truly believe there is something for anyone in this game and given enough time to get hooked anyone will find something they enjoy doing.

If ever there was such a thing as a perfect game in terms of Value for
money( this take will cost you around £50.00 for the disks to get started including all the expansion packs - and £8.99 per month there after to play on line ), re playability, social interacting, excitement and over all
entertainment. World of Warcraft gets my vote.

Summary: Remains the best MMORPG around today.