WoW: Warcraft on Steroids

World of Warcraft (November 2004) is the fourth video game of the Warcraft franchise by Blizzard Entertainment.  It is a major departure from the original Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game genre that was pioneered by the first three games.  WoW, as popularly called, evolved from the RTS/Local PC arena and entered the realm of MMORPG – Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Game.  Massively multi-player online means you can play with hundreds of thousands to millions of other players in the WoW universe that persists even if players log-off or are off-line.  As a Role-playing game, you assume control of the a single character that you created.  This means leaving the classic “construct base, build army and invade enemy” formula that mainly define the RTS mindset.  The game is also hosted in server “realms” but media data is installed your local computer.

In WoW, You are the Hero

The game is set in the high fantasy world of Azeroth in a period that is similar to Medieval Europe.  WoW as an MMORPG is set in the established universe of the Warcraft franchise.  Instead of macromanaging and directing units and base operations, you assume the character of the Warcraft hero you earlier designed and choose to play.  With this avatar, you experience the adventure, interact among other players and explore the common world of Azeroth.  In this realm, you may team up or fight against other players by forming coalitions and compete for control and honor.

Experience Warcraft from Eye-Level

WoW turns Azeroth and what’s behind the Dark Portal into a stunning virtual 3D environment.  Both new and old gamers are able to experience the Warcraft chronicles from an individual’s perspective and explore the game universe at eye-level.  Familiar characters, places, units and abilities from the original game come to life interactively.

A Continuing Saga

Set four years after the events of Warcraft III: Frozen Throne a great unrest spreads across the ruins of Azeroth.  New ancient and ominous plagues emerge that threaten the different Races as they rebuild their individual Kingdoms.

Personalized and Flexible Adventure

In WoW, you can play at your own pace.  This may range from a few hours or a marathon weekend.  A Quest system introduces multiple variations of intriguing pursuits combined with narratives, lively events and adaptable reward schemes.  Faster chronology of events means lesser downtime and more focus on conflicts and techniques against various enemies.  The WoW Universe contain 10 playable Races of 10 playable Classes having 14 different Professions with exclusive advantages.  There also exists thousands of Quests to pursue and accomplish, several methods of Transportation and Personal Mounts for quick travel, a far-reaching and intricate Storyline for realism and 4 Realm Types that determine your gameplay.

An Immersive Reality

You will experience an immersive world with acres of different landscapes like forests, deserts, snow-covered mountains, and other exotic regions.  You will encounter both the familiar and new characters and enemies in the Warcraft saga.  You can better understand the epic story behind the territories of Azeroth and the other kingdoms by participating in various quests.  You can then explore the far reaching and uniquely styled Dungeons scattered throughout the map.  You should visit the 6 colossal Capital Cities mostly populated by the races who built them.  Your character can practice a selection of primary and secondary Professions from different trades and perform related responsibilities to amass wealth by transacting deals with other players or Non-Playable Characters (NPCs).

An Exotic World

After designing your character, you will enter the Warcraft Universe through the starting area of you race, except for the Trolls who start with the Orcs and Gnomes with the Dwarves.  After viewing a cutscene introduction of your race, you free to explore the World of Warcraft.  Encountering monsters won’t take long because WoW is the habitat of these creatures which come in various forms, sizes and threat.  You will also be facing smarter and more dangerous beasts or entities of different shapes.  The vast regions in WoW contain unique sceneries for that landscape.  The destruction brought by previous conflicts and curse are reflected in the diseased flora and fauna of the that land. 

Continuous Exploits

The absence of the RTS element in WoW is replaced by Quests which are integral in RPGs.  Aside from eradicating monsters and voyaging far lands, accomplishing Quests will increase experience points and play an important contribution in level advancement.  Quests are abundant throughout the game and vary greatly in terms of objectives, difficulty, length, rewards and outcomes.  These tasks also help familiarize the player about the interesting legends of Warcraft.  Best of all, completed Quests provide rewards like cash, potions, food, magical items, weapons, armors or other gifts that make your WoW experience more enjoyable.  Quests can sometimes trigger another related one forming Quest Chains.

A Virtual Society

As an MMORPG, WoW is designed with in-game Socials in mind.  Searching for other players are as easy as entering the name or other keyword search details.  The Friends List can also be useful to quickly access other players.  You can join or establish your own Group, Guild or Party with players of similar interests to undertake common pursuits.  Packages and Mail containing messages, gold or items can be sent to other Characters. Items can be Bought and Sold using Gold in Auction Houses.  Players are able to communicate with others using chat channels, friend lists, animated and audible character expressions.

An Intuitive Visual Interface

WoW has a user-friendly visual interface that’s intuitive and consistent throughout the game.  The context sensitive philosophy involving the mouse and keyboard make the game control easier to learn and master therefore freeing the player from the complex learning involved with navigation to have more time for gameplay.  Hovering the mouse will reveal pop-up clues that will further aid learning and information for the player.  Using XML, the game interface can be customized to suit your preference.

A Fulfilling Experience

Aside from just leveling or grinding through battle after battle, a huge variety of things can be done.  Characters can craft items, fight against other players and explore distant lands. Even when players do fight monsters, it will often be as part of a quest, or in search of special materials for their crafts.  Aside from fighting, there are other ways of gaining experience.  Substantial experience points can be earned from doing quests.  Exploration can also be a source of experience by simply traveling to areas where your character has never been.

Responsive Developers

Blizzard employees are mostly MMORPG gamers, have considerable gaming experience, are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the genre and strive to improve on the positive qualities while eliminating the downsides.  Several problems in the past like “Kill Stealing” and “Camping” have been resolved by “Tapping” and “Instancing” policies.  Experience points are fairly distributed among group members relative to their levels.  Quest participants will receive a copy of the item from the killed monster or place where it was found.  As a commitment from the developers, subscribers can enjoy regular monthly updates of quests, items and adventures.

An Ongoing Quest

WoW, as you will find it, is easy to learn but difficult to master.  The game cannot truly end because of the thousands of game play hours in WoW plus nearly infinite goals for the players and the regular addition of new quests, creatures and items by the WoW Development team.  This constant flow of fresh content guarantees that the game will introduce new attractions and innovations which makes it more and more exciting every coming month.  Currently, WoW has 2 Expansion Sets: Burning Crusades (January 2007), Wrath of the Lich King (November 2008) and the upcoming Cataclysm (~2010).

Warcraft Across the Years

In the first Warcraft game, the warring Human and Orc races annihilate each other in campaigns directed by players or the in-game AI.  Introduced in the second release were additional races of Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes who allied with Humans while Ogres, Trolls and Goblins fought with the Orcs.  Two more playable races of Night Elves and the Undead were introduced in the third version.

A Pioneer of Real-Time Strategy Games

In the original three games,  contenders play simultaneously and continuously against each others’ forces in virtual battlegrounds.  Players manage the over-all operations which include resource gathering, structure building, base management, unit training, technology upgrades and combat direction.  New options during the game become available after requirements are met.  Each succeeding game version introduced major enhancements in gameplay over the previous ones.  The first three editions were entirely based on a local computer that also allow network gaming modes.

WoW Requirements

An on-line account in Battle.net must be made in order to register.  Regular subscription via pre-paid game cards, credit or debit cards is required to continue playing.  A 10-day free trial can be obtained on-line by creating an account and downloading the installer which in turn downloads and installs the entire game.  Recommended hardware specifications include: 1.8 GigaHertz CPU,  15+ GigaBytes of Hard Drive Space, 1 Gigabyte of RAM, a 3D Capable Video Card with 128 Megabytes of VRAM, XGA (1,024 x 768) Screen Display, 256 Kbps Broadband Internet Connection, Windows XP SP3 or Mac OS 10.4.11, Keyboard and Mouse with Scroll Wheel.

Game Maintenance

The WoW Development Team regularly updates the game with exciting new content, as well as performance enhancements and bug fixes. The game will be updated using any of the 4 Update Methods: content patches, hotfixes, emergency patches and localization patches.  Content Patches include major additions or modifications in the game that include functions, content, economy, interaction or fights which are mostly enhancement related.  These require several hours of maintenance and consist of a download and the patch notes usually on Tuesdays.  Hotfixes are critical updates that too urgent to wait for the next regular scheduled patch.  They are server-side changes that do not require subscriber intervention.  Emergency Patches are similar to Hotfixes but require a download that is accompanied by a patch note.  Localization Patches are about the language implementation in WoW and occurs to all versions which comprises of a download and its notes.

The Price of War

At the end of the trial period or the free month bundled with the retail package, additional subscription is needed to continue playing WoW.  Three subscription options are available: a 1-month package for $14.99, a 3-month plan for $41.97, and a 6-month plan for $77.94.  These fees are used to cover the maintenance costs required for the high-levels of quality service, support and ongoing content development which make WoW an exciting game to play.

The WoW Market Share

WoW holds approximately 62 percent of the Massively Multiplayer Online Game subscription market in April 2008.  As of December 2008, WoW had more than 11.5 million subscribers thus earning it a Guinness World Record of being the most popular MMORPG in terms of subscribers.  WoW is currently the world’s most popular MMORPG considering these figures.

The Good:

System Investment: minimal hardware & software (system) requirements, can be played on 2004-era computers and small Netbooks, widely supported because of minimal requirements

Graphics Quality: adequate 3D representation of a virtual world using 2D mapping

Graphics Performance: easily rendered corner details on simple polygon surfaces

Aesthetics: Essential and Non-essential entities and places are included for authenticity

Music and Sound Effects: music, sounds effects and voices of characters/NPCs provide credibility

Environment: real-world representation and unrestricted movement

Storyline: consistent with previous chronicles of the franchise, some humor & reality references

Playable Characters: customizable, increasing variations, interesting backgrounds

Non-Playable Characters: credible roles, adds realism, interesting behaviors

User Interface: high-resolution, intuitive, simple, context-sensitive

Level Advancement: attainable and challenging, multiple venues for leveling-up, very replayable

Content: regularly updated and improved, keeps game interesting, anticipated expansion sets

Challenge: players can choose the challenges they want, flexible participation and pacing

Bug/Patch Response: highly responsive development team, immediately resolves most issues

Technical Support: high-availability, multiple support options

Datacenter Performance: high uptime hours, scheduled downtimes for maintenance & repairs

Subscription Rates: 1, 3 or 6-month packages with 6-7% discount on longer subscriptions

The Bad:

System Investment: moderate performance gain even on higher-end quad core systems

Graphics Quality: plain projection of shaded 2D graphics on simple 3D surfaces to simulate 3D depth and detail

Graphics Performance: real-time performance on more powerful video cards

Aesthetics: Lower quality of details under higher resolution displays, use of shadows to cheat

Music and Sound Effects: extremely high level of activity during mass combat can be noisy

Environment: Simulated depth of field to create the illusion of distance, low detail on plants

Storyline: some inconsistent external phenomena in WoW universe were added for relief

Playable Characters: races, classes and characters are implausibly added at some expansions

Non-Playable Characters: some have incredible backgrounds, appearances and roles

User Interface: default setting needs to be customized, floating names can be distracting at times

Level Advancement: leveling-up is necessary to enjoy the game further and every aspect of it

Content: less frequent expansions, decrease of player interest between expansions

Challenge: more advanced players may find themselves bored prior to the release of updates

Bug/Patch Response: mostly adequate, responsive deployment, players are immediately notified

Technical Support: may be saturated during peak times of widespread need for tech support

Datacenter Performance: peak time performance bottlenecks

Subscription Rates: relatively expensive compared to other MMO Games with similar realism

The Verdict: World of Warcraft – in Cataclysm?

While WoW is perceived as a King in its class of MMORPG, it still has a lot of areas to improve on.  Aside from making it too friendly for new subscribers, it needs to add more depth and gravity in its content to be seen as a mature and serious offering for its mature and serious gamers.  No doubt, the polished content released every expansion set will revive its dormant subscribers and invite new players, but what it needs is a genuine reason to keep most, if not all, of its members always active in the first place.  WoW is a good place to start for those who are still window shopping for an established on-line game and is an excellent training ground for the next generation of hardcore gamers for years to come.  As with every updates, the pending release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will hold the key to the latest judgment of the franchise.  Only then can we know if WoW is really destined to prevail or bound to cataclysm.

Tags: Blizzard Entertainment, Burning Crusades, CPU, games, laptop, MMORPG, mod, Ram, Warcraft, world of warcraft, WoW, Wrath of the Lich King