Personally I agree with the review BC isn't about to get me to come back to the game WoW is a dead dino to me for as much as BC added it's mostly more of the same with little in the way of innovation. I'll save my money play Dungeon Runners instead it's graphically on par with WoW anyways and is free or a cheap $5's or so a month for membership status.
Played WoW since Beta I like the graphics, but always thought they could have done better. I think the graphics are more pleasing to my eye than EQ2. As far as the Art I don’t think that blizzard has really done anything that impressive games workshop has been doing that style of art for years. I thought the review was pretty good.
Gameloading what you are missing is that there are plenty of games out there with similar minimum requirements that have better graphics then WoW does.
WoW has fun, ease of use, soloability, and all of the battle net players who get bombarded with ads for WoW going for it. Do you realize that Battle Net has some 40 million people on it. Every single one of those 40 million people was heavily advertised about WoW. So WoW retained approximately 20 percent of the people they already had playing their online games to play WoW. No other MMO has that type of ready built fan base that can be so easily advertised too. The best comparison would be if every Playstation 2 advertised SOE MMOs for the PC. Or maybe if the Lord of the rings movies were coming out now and they had advertisements at the beginning before the movie for LOTRO. That is the key to Blizzard's success. The largest key to their success. They won't release turnover numbers because they have a high rate of customer turnover (atleast in the west). People get burnt out pretty quickly on the game.
But back to graphics:
Here is TBC minimum requirements:
Operating System:
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP Or MAC OS 10.3.5 or Higher / Original World of Warcraft must be installed and up to date with all patches.
Processor:
800 MHz
Video Card:
32 MB 3D Graphics Card
Disk Space:
4GB Free Hard Drive Space
RAM:
256MB RAM
DirectX:
9.0c or Above
Here are Lineage 2 minimum requirements:
Required
Operating System:
Window XP
Processor:
Pentium 3 800MHz or better
Video Card:
GeForce2 or better
RAM:
256MB or higher
Dark Age of Camelot's Labyrinth of the minotaur:
MINIMUM SPECS:
Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
512 MB RAM
Requires compatible 3D acceleration card with 64 MB Video RAM (with Pixel Shader 1.1 or higher)
Let me get this right. You are bragging about DAoC's outdated and minimal graphics? That is pretty gutsy considering they are probably the worst in the industry right now.
I am not a big fan of BC, it is must more of the same, very little innovation.
The worst part of BC, which many of the people who have gotten to level 70 have found out, the high end is still the high end raid game period.
There were huge problems last fall with many people getting bored with the game, there is not enough content in BC to keep people interested beyond this summer. And we all know that less than 10% of the population really does raid.
With lots of new games coming out in the fall, I expect Blizzard's numbers will drop significantly. They will again have no expansion out this fall.
Let me get this right. You are bragging about DAoC's outdated and minimal graphics? That is pretty gutsy considering they are probably the worst in the industry right now. I am not a big fan of BC, it is must more of the same, very little innovation. The worst part of BC, which many of the people who have gotten to level 70 have found out, the high end is still the high end raid game period. There were huge problems last fall with many people getting bored with the game, there is not enough content in BC to keep people interested beyond this summer. And we all know that less than 10% of the population really does raid. With lots of new games coming out in the fall, I expect Blizzard's numbers will drop significantly. They will again have no expansion out this fall.
NO you don't have this right. I was stating how the engine that Blizzard uses was pretty crappy and didn't have enough range to handle low end graphics like they have currently and high end graphics. If you read my message right you would see I was saying that the gamebryo engine could handle low end graphics like what DAoC has but could also handle high end graphics like Oblivion has. (most people i know consider Oblivion's graphics to be pretty high end).
Nowhere in there was I bragging about DAoC's graphics. I guess it could of come off that i was bragging about the engine's capabilities.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I think the review was fair, one major beef I had with the expansion is NO NEW MID LEVEL CONTENT !!! I think this is so key...1-20 may be new but 20-60 is still the same game, they shouldve added at least a new area for every 10 levels.
"Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG in the industry and has made the jump into pop-culture. The total score is a seven if you are looking at it as a model of total package compared to what other games are doing."
I think there's a bit of a discrepancy between what other games say their going to do and what is actually happening...case and point Vanguard, at the very least Blizzard has always delivered what it has promised in its updates and that should be commended. Having said that I agree with all the other points made...community is a joke, no roleplay even on roleplay servers (I don't do it). I still think its a crime that you have to wait till 40 to get a mount...
Gameloading what you are missing is that there are plenty of games out there with similar minimum requirements that have better graphics then WoW does.
I'd love to see those graphics.
WoW has fun, ease of use, soloability, and all of the battle net players who get bombarded with ads for WoW going for it. Do you realize that Battle Net has some 40 million people on it. Every single one of those 40 million people was heavily advertised about WoW. So WoW retained approximately 20 percent of the people they already had playing their online games to play WoW. No other MMO has that type of ready built fan base that can be so easily advertised too. The best comparison would be if every Playstation 2 advertised SOE MMOs for the PC. Or maybe if the Lord of the rings movies were coming out now and they had advertisements at the beginning before the movie for LOTRO. That is the key to Blizzard's success. The largest key to their success. They won't release turnover numbers because they have a high rate of customer turnover (atleast in the west). People get burnt out pretty quickly on the game.
So do you have any factual numbers and evidence for this, or is it pointless speculation? I seriously doubt WoW has such a high number of turnovers, mainly because of its high numbers of level 70 characters, and the enormous sale of Burning Crusade copies.
But back to graphics:
Here is TBC minimum requirements:
Operating System: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP Or MAC OS 10.3.5 or Higher / Original World of Warcraft must be installed and up to date with all patches.
Processor: 800 MHz
Video Card: 32 MB 3D Graphics Card
Disk Space: 4GB Free Hard Drive Space
RAM: 256MB RAM
DirectX: 9.0c or Above
Here are Lineage 2 minimum requirements:
Required
Operating System: Window XP
Processor: Pentium 3 800MHz or better
Video Card: GeForce2 or better
RAM: 256MB or higher
There are certain things you have to take in consideration when comparing these two games,
Lets start with the minimum requirements here.
Fortunatly, I had the chance to run both of those games on a similar system as the minimum specs (a bit better videocard though). To run the game like that, you have to turn L2 all the way to the minimum, WoW can SLIGHTLY stay above the minimum. And let me tell you, at the minimum settings, Lineage 2 doesn't look at all that great, but WoW still looks very decent. And even if you compare Lineage 2 and WoW on a medium setting, then WoW's graphics still look better imo. True, the character art and Animation/effects are for Lineage 2, but the world art, the landscape,world build up and detail is clearly for WoW, despite that Lineage 2 also has some very strong world art. Both of those games deserve high ratings because both of them do 1 thing very well, and thats having low system specs, and good art.
Comparing WoW to DAOC is a bit silly, WoW has clearly better graphics. bringing Oblivion is even more silly, because I'm sure I don't have to bring the minimum system specs for Oblivion to this topic.
Dark Age of Camelot's Labyrinth of the minotaur:
MINIMUM SPECS:
Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
512 MB RAM
Requires compatible 3D acceleration card with 64 MB Video RAM (with Pixel Shader 1.1 or higher)
Ultima Online 98~04 Dark Age of Camelot 03~07 Final Fantasy XI 04~06 Guild Wars 05~08 World of Warcraft 04~05 Unsuccessful Tries: DFO/EQ2/DRaja/Rag/Req/RYL/9D/Cabal/KO/PSU/RF/GE/TO/TR/DDO/EVE/LoTRO/L2/RZ/SWG/VG
Great review. It's hard to go against the grain and give WoW a medium score considering everyone swears that it's the best thing to ever happen to the world because of the current subscription numbers. I for one really pity the game and think a 7.0 is well deserved for this expansion. Keep up the reviews.
One thing i would like to add is that the community score really depends on the player. If you have read the forums for any of the servers, from the first day to current, you will realize the player interaction is extremely high, thus granting a strong community. Sure some servers that are deemed "dying" or "dead" will have less fun moments then servers with higher populations, but even they still hold dedicated forum trolls who inform the community on rivalries, friendships, and your usual game antics.
On one of my old servers, theres is a level 51 gnome who has been playing his toon for close to a year. Not yet 70, this particular toon has become a distinguished player due simple to his forum posts and loyalty to the server. There are many other people like this on every server who really make the server unique just because of their input and social networking.
Comments
Played WoW since Beta I like the graphics, but always thought they could have done better. I think the graphics are more pleasing to my eye than EQ2. As far as the Art I don’t think that blizzard has really done anything that impressive games workshop has been doing that style of art for years. I thought the review was pretty good.
UO-EQ1-SWG-DAOC-WOW-EQ2-WAR-GW2-RIFT
WoW has fun, ease of use, soloability, and all of the battle net players who get bombarded with ads for WoW going for it. Do you realize that Battle Net has some 40 million people on it. Every single one of those 40 million people was heavily advertised about WoW. So WoW retained approximately 20 percent of the people they already had playing their online games to play WoW. No other MMO has that type of ready built fan base that can be so easily advertised too. The best comparison would be if every Playstation 2 advertised SOE MMOs for the PC. Or maybe if the Lord of the rings movies were coming out now and they had advertisements at the beginning before the movie for LOTRO. That is the key to Blizzard's success. The largest key to their success. They won't release turnover numbers because they have a high rate of customer turnover (atleast in the west). People get burnt out pretty quickly on the game.
But back to graphics:
Here is TBC minimum requirements:
Here are Lineage 2 minimum requirements:
Dark Age of Camelot's Labyrinth of the minotaur:
MINIMUM SPECS:
Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
512 MB RAM
Requires compatible 3D acceleration card with 64 MB Video RAM (with Pixel Shader 1.1 or higher)
DirectX 9.0c or later
A good example is DAoC the same engine used for DAoC is the same engine used for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 2006
See how there is range in the engine? There is no Range in World Of Warcraft's engine.
And DAoC has used that same Gamebryo engine since 2002 and shrouded isles expansion.
Some Screen shots:
DAoC:
Oblivion:
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Let me get this right. You are bragging about DAoC's outdated and minimal graphics? That is pretty gutsy considering they are probably the worst in the industry right now.
I am not a big fan of BC, it is must more of the same, very little innovation.
The worst part of BC, which many of the people who have gotten to level 70 have found out, the high end is still the high end raid game period.
There were huge problems last fall with many people getting bored with the game, there is not enough content in BC to keep people interested beyond this summer. And we all know that less than 10% of the population really does raid.
With lots of new games coming out in the fall, I expect Blizzard's numbers will drop significantly. They will again have no expansion out this fall.
Nowhere in there was I bragging about DAoC's graphics. I guess it could of come off that i was bragging about the engine's capabilities.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I think the review was fair, one major beef I had with the expansion is NO NEW MID LEVEL CONTENT !!! I think this is so key...1-20 may be new but 20-60 is still the same game, they shouldve added at least a new area for every 10 levels.
"Warcraft is the most popular MMORPG in the industry and has made the jump into pop-culture. The total score is a seven if you are looking at it as a model of total package compared to what other games are doing."
I think there's a bit of a discrepancy between what other games say their going to do and what is actually happening...case and point Vanguard, at the very least Blizzard has always delivered what it has promised in its updates and that should be commended. Having said that I agree with all the other points made...community is a joke, no roleplay even on roleplay servers (I don't do it). I still think its a crime that you have to wait till 40 to get a mount...
Community - 6
Not really unfair, really depends on what server you play, but after playing on 4 servers, I wouldn't EVER give WoW more than 4-5 for community.
Role-Playing - 6
Pure nosense
Performance/Lag - 8
http://www.endlagnow.org/ELN/ (just check the chart)
Service - 6
Way too high for Blizzard's crappy service.
Ultima Online 98~04
Dark Age of Camelot 03~07
Final Fantasy XI 04~06
Guild Wars 05~08
World of Warcraft 04~05
Unsuccessful Tries: DFO/EQ2/DRaja/Rag/Req/RYL/9D/Cabal/KO/PSU/RF/GE/TO/TR/DDO/EVE/LoTRO/L2/RZ/SWG/VG
Great review. It's hard to go against the grain and give WoW a medium score considering everyone swears that it's the best thing to ever happen to the world because of the current subscription numbers. I for one really pity the game and think a 7.0 is well deserved for this expansion. Keep up the reviews.
One thing i would like to add is that the community score really depends on the player. If you have read the forums for any of the servers, from the first day to current, you will realize the player interaction is extremely high, thus granting a strong community. Sure some servers that are deemed "dying" or "dead" will have less fun moments then servers with higher populations, but even they still hold dedicated forum trolls who inform the community on rivalries, friendships, and your usual game antics.
On one of my old servers, theres is a level 51 gnome who has been playing his toon for close to a year. Not yet 70, this particular toon has become a distinguished player due simple to his forum posts and loyalty to the server. There are many other people like this on every server who really make the server unique just because of their input and social networking.
To me, thats what makes the community a 10.