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World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Review
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com writer Joe Iuliani writes this review of Blizzard's most recent release, the second World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.
Let me be honest with the MMORPG readers upfront. Wrath of the Lich King has been released for close to two months and unless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are you’ve heard a few things about it. Let’s face it there’s no way one review can cover all the elements of this expansion. Good thing there is ample coverage, guides, and additional reviews covered right here at MMORPG.com. Well without any further covering of my own short comings or promotion of the website you are already reading, on with the review.
)
Read the Wrath of the Lich King Review
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I disagree with 2 points of this review. Customer service and lag. Customer service is something personal, and its hard to ascertain any of it from one persons experience. I've had to call customer service twice in my life and in both cases i was immediatly connected and immediatly helped. I'm in Europe though, perhaps the situation in the U.S. is worste.
I really disagree with lag though. In my experience most lag is the result of lack of RAM. I've got 4 GB ram and while many of my guildies who own "lesser systems" complain about lag, I have a minimal amount of it, even during big wintergrasp battles or in Dalaran. However, even the lag that some people experience there is nothing, NOTHING compared to the absurd amount of lag that people have experienced in games like Vanguard and AoC.
Finally, I think Wintergrasp could be given some more mention. In my opinion wintergrasp is the single best addition to the expansion, It's warcraft as its meant to be, and frankly puts sieging in other games like AoC and Warhammer to shame. If theres one complaint about it it is that there should be far more of it.
I do agree that gnome death knights are retarded, but thats mainly because it doesn't fit into our expectations model of what a death knight should be. Lore wise, and logically, there isn't any reason why a gnome shouldn't be raised as a deathknight by the lich king.
Ive been really happy so far. More than the previous 2 releases. I still find the pvp lacking , but since Ive given up on it .... it really doesn't matter anymore. On the pve side of things I found dungeons , I found them to be retardedly easy. Extremely easy , If people said a monkey could play wow before .....they definately can now. I don't think I have gone into an instance up to lvl 80 that actually used crowd control. Those are probably the only 2 complaints i have had. Other than that , the quests , DK , and storyline have been fantastic.
I generally got bored with the end-game of WoW and just made new characters. Is it still almost exactly the same run up that it was pre-expansions? It seemed like everything that was added was for the 60-game, the 61-70, and now the 71-80 games.
I disagree also on 2 of your con's.
Customer Service is fine. Yeah of course dont expect them to answer your petition in 15 minutes, it aint going to happen. But you can be sure that if you have a problem they will solve it. I had a few problems and they were all adressed in a professional manner.
gnome DK ?!?! That's not a con
Lag i give you this one, but what can you do really ? When a game is popular and peoples gahter in the same area, computers can only handle "that" many peoples in one area.
Easy to Play......
Thats one of the good points? The reason MMO's today are sucking so hard? Wow.... pretty low mmorpg.com..pretty low...
I think you may be confusing the term "easy to play" with "easy to master". There's a massive difference between these two terms. A game being easy to play means that in ordeer to pick the game up and enjoy myself with it, I really don't need to doa whole lot. The barrier to entry is low. That's a near universal positive in the world of games. The bottom line is that if I pick up a game and don't nearly instantly understand the fundamentals, it's not a very well designed game.
Now, easy to master... that's a different story entirely. Games shouldn't be easy to master. There should always be ways to improve from the base. As in any good game, skill should develop over time, with practice.
Let's look at an example from the real world: pool.
Pool is one of my favorite real life games . It's something that I thoroughly enjoy. It's an easy game to play. You pick up a cue, you smack the white ball into another ball and hope it goes intoa pocket. There is almost no barrier to entry in pool. You can pick it up and play the game. It's an easy game to play.
That being said, I rarely win at pool. You see, as much as I like it, I just don't have the opportunity to play it very often and so my skill level is rather rudimentary. I often get my butt handed to me by friends and colleagues. Pool is a difficult game to master.
While this argument isn't talking at all about the merits of WoW (I personally don't play it), it does point out a problem with the original interpretation of what the reviewer said.
The problem with MMOs right now, or I should say that the percieved problem with MMOs now as I haven't decided which side of the fence I am personally on on the subject, is not that games are easy. games should be, NEED to be easy to play in order to turn a profit on their multi-million dollar price tags. The barrier to entry MUST BE LOW. The trick is that easy to enter games should also be difficult to master which, granted, is not always the case.
Anyway, I hope that clears things up for you.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
How the hell easy to play is pros? So what is point to play? I think many people need challenge, or maybe at least old school players... Just this comment abou easy to play make me to keep away from game. Give me some challenge, because WoW can be played even by most idiotic people...
WoW is easy to get into but has challenges at all levels. You know, I've tried many MMO's and in every MMO people say WoW is so easy, yet none of these MMO's (perhaps with exception of everquest) actually have the challenging bosses that require complex strategies like WoW. Far and a way, most MMO's are still stuck in the "tank and spank" mindset when it comes to challenge. Implementing extra penalties for death or a slow levelling curve, does not make a more challenging or complex game, it only makes for a more frustrating one.
Naxxnamaras is a good example of an instance filled with real challenges. Real challenges, because it doesnt matter how good your gear is, if you aren't awake and don't use your brain you'll whipe the raid, period.
Wow is easy to step into, but if you like a challenge, you'll also find it in WoW. Wether its heroic dungeons, raid dungeons or becoming the top Arena player, the game gives players the opportunity to challenge their gameplaying abilities.
And to the guy who says heroics are easy, I met a guy like you in heroics once, bragging about how pisseasy everything is and how the PVE is nerfed, and only idiots would find it hard. Then at the end of the ride that same person that complained about it being so easy made us whipe on Loken, 4 times. Ran to far away, didn't ran far enough, lost aggro, etc, etc. Heroics may be easier now then they where at the beginning of The Burning Crusade, but they are still difficult enough that most are hard to actually pug succesfully.
Furthermore, it is true that in Heroics the use of CC seems to be down. This is because tanking in general was buffed, something which was truly needed, because of the fact that the challenge and complexity of tanking resulted in few people actually willing to play one. And its better to have a slightly easier game and be able to play then to have a challening experience but not being able to play because theres no tank available.
Let me tell you a secret though, healing in general is nerfed (mana regen is nerfed, no downranking, potions nerfed). So while the DPS is ignoring their ability to CC, the healer is blowing all his cooldowns to keep the tank up, and you'll find such groups whipe very often because of it. While you can certainly ignore CC on many trash, a group that does take advantage of their CC, will put a lot less stress on their healer and as a result have a much bigger chance to finish the dungeon without a whipe.
I have to agree with the review of this expanion
, it's been a pleasure to play it and enjoy some much needed new content.
However as per usual I've now completed all of the content, the end game holds nothing new for me until Blizzard opens up some more of the high end raiding dungeons.
I'm not a fan of PvP so Wintergrasp doesn't do it for me.
So thumbs up for a great expansion I just wish there was more in it for me to do other than repeat and rinse on alt characters.
Hurry up with the next batch of dungeons, or better yet implement a lost dungeons of norrath system to bring some replayability into the game.
I just hit lvl 80 on my DK almost a week ago. I completed Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, Dragon Blight, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, and many quests in Scholazar Basin including the instances and group quests to level to 80. I still had the rest of Scholazar Basin, Crystal Forest, Icecrown, and Stormpeaks to complete, if I wanted to see all of the content, which I do, which is why I'm still questing.
I want to reemphasize how great this expansion is. The whole story surrounding Northrend is massive. The contenent itself has an overall story that you're working through. Each zone contributes to that overall story along with providing a zone wide story. Several mini-stories are apart of the zone wide story. So in essense, you have stories, within a story, within a larger story.
Controlling vehicles is fun. There are a "ton" of different vehicles you can take control of, even as low as lvl 68. The instances are a lot of fun. They look great, and they all have their challenges to overcome and learn before the instance becomes gravy. At this moment I have 3 Epics, have done 2 raids, in both their Heroic and non-Heroic form and have done Heroic 5 mans to death. Practice makes perfect and if you're a new grouup to an instance or raid, it will be a challenge.
Wintergrasp, the PvP zone where you fight for a keep with siege vehicles and cannons etc, which if you win provides access to a 1 boss raid zone, can be a lot of fun. I'm not really into PvP in this game, because the class balance just sucks. A Rogue who can stun lock you the entire fight, even after you pop a crowd control release, is just overpowered. Anyways, they added a new BG as well and it involves siege vehicles as well.
The performance is touchy in the game, and I run a super computer created to run next generation games. I don't think Northrend was optimized as well as the rest of the game and I wonder where all that money went that they earned. Perhaps the servers cannot handle so many people with the upgrade in graphics....who knows.
Anyways, the expansion is a lot of fun and has me hooked on this game for at least a few more months. I started playing seriously a month before WoTLK released, but before that I never could get into the game. I'd say WoW is the best MMORPG on the market pound for pound.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I was running my super computer with only 2GB of 400ghz RAM while using Vista 32bit. My FPS dropped to single digit sometimes while flying. Now that I put in 4 gigs of 800ghz OCZ high performance RAM for $19.99, I haven't experienced any lag, so I agree that the new expansion is RAM intensive.
MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC, SWG, & WoW
Currently Playing: WAR
Preferred Playstyle: Roleplay/adventurous, in a sandbox game.
I also have to agree - the new area is really amazingly done, graphics and sound wise. Just sad that these touches can't be found outside of Northrend, i.e. if you have a low level alt, it just feels like grind to get to lv 68. As it is nowadays, you only need ca 2/3 of outland, which gives you a bit of a choice of where to level.
Furthermore, I also want to agree to easy to play - the quests are much "smoother" somehow, and diverse, as e.g. flying as a bird, or a a mechanic "bot", or e.g. bombing things.
Even if it feels like more of the same, it is done pretty well! Now the only thing missing perhaps is housing.....
What I believe Blizzard never managed well are the hubs for all levels. IF is still well populated, but cities like Exodar or Darnassus, which are so nice, are way too huge considering there is basically noone there; I almost want to go so far to say they wasted design on those cities.... And alternatives? E.g. Shatt, but that is in Outland.
Oh, and what is wrong with a gnome DK? I love my gnome DK - seeing that tiny bugger kicking some huge dragon butt is pretty cool imho.
Theres a problem with the game using my 4870X2 where in places with lots of tree's my FPS drops to like 8. My PC is fine and isn't my end and other people with my card on the forums reported the same thing. I tried to contact their customer service and never got a reply and tried to make a post on the forums and never got a reply.
All I wanted was a Blizzard guy reply and say "we'll look into it" but nothing......
If this was SOE or CCP I'd have a reply straight away and they'd always help me out.
If that was CCP you wouldn't have to deal with trees. Alliances moving stuff around does the trick probably
. Then again they fixed that.
How do you define challenging. Much of the time games that are defined as challenging simply translates into lots grinding for gear. I don't have a demographic to back up this statement but most people are not looking to replace real life with online life. IMO Blizzard has to some degree found a place for all types of players. You can be casual and still enjoy the game, or you can take the path of the hardcore to extremely epic levels. This is why World of Warcraft has maintained its subscriber base since launch, there is something for everyone. BTW in my year of playing WoW I found customer service to be top notch. Any issues I had were immediately handled in a timely manner. Sadly it was the death Knights that drove me from the game.
Lastly I think you should reconsider your comment about idiotic players. What is more idiotic than spending hundreds or thousands of life hours acquiring endless amounts of game gear.
I agree with the reviewer's views. I also agree with some of the comments above about ease of end game content. And yes, I definitely get the point about Ease of Entry vs. Ease of Mastery.
So far, the endgame is too easy. Yes, there are hard parts like Sartharion with three drakes up, but you can only do that once per week for an hour. Yes, PVP is challenging at the top ranks of arena but that is only applicable for a select number of classes and specs with access to gear and partners.
I understand that Naxxramas was designed to be "the new Karazhan" and should be entry-level raiding. I understand that when additional raids arrive (such as Ulduar), they will be harder and we will not be able to blow through them in a night as we did here. It took us ten days to get enough guild members to 80 and clear every dungeon and every raid in today's WOTLK. If it weren't for the achievement system giving us additional challenges if we gimp ourselves, we would probably have reduced attendance now.
The content is high quality. I'm a satisfied customer. I'm looking forward to more challenge as well.
Thanks,
Carneros
I agree with the review
best visuals in the industry? someone needs to get their eyes checked
they did improve WoW's visuals in the expansion and (for those who dont mind the slightly cartoony looks) it looks quite good. However there are far better games out there (visually) than WoW.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I have to agree with most of what objective things the review said, but I take great exception with the tone of the review, especially the first sentence of the review proper.
That is just poor reviewing. It sets an incredibly biased tone for the rest of the review.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
Very true, WoW is definitely not my game of liking but I did not mind the review besides parts of it where it definitely started to scream fanboy, not saying that is the case, it just felt like it especially that first sentence.
Other parts of the review were nice except for the "Community" section, you talked only about the website rather than anything to do with the actual game's community.
~Greatness~
Currently Playing:
Nothing
Let go through this entire thread because its funny to me.
I guess i best establish some credit.
Starting i played consul rpgs on Nintendo dragon quest and the such until ps2 rpgs became boring and unplayable
I also played bbs such as legend of the red dragon (personal favorite, wasn't it everyones?), falcons eye, tradewars, etc. Dam old lady in the woods hated me i swear.
Moved onto 10six , UO, EQ1, SWG, daoc (personal favorite of the 3d mmos), wow, ps, well its pretty much safe to say i have played most of them (minus many Asian grinders because they sucks). The ones I listed i played quite a bit, there were a few other is devoted some time to but many many more i spend maybe 1 day to a week playing. I like mmos still do and i know games so lets look into this thread and review.
One more thing, this post is not me being mad or angry i am playing wow while i type it. What this post is, is REALISTIC and not some fanboy's or clueless player's look into the latest expansion pack for WOW.
First point Wotlk = one of the worst x-packs ever.
OK the reviewer says otherwise. For about half of the review i thought it was a master piece after all all his sarcastic comments hit the raw spots nice and good... oh wait hes not joking... what ? And that was my basic thought process 2/3s through this review.
"The Death Knight" yes this is one new class to a game that is under classed, which makes use of not a single engaging or innovative mechanic. Oh OP in pvp too obviously. However, this is not a bad thing all around.
"ten more levels raising the maximum level to eighty" Zomg new levels. Seriously, i mean so what? so like if blizzard sold a new x-pack tomorrow that had like 20 more levels would it be twice as good as this one? More levels = a way to make old equipment not useful anymore and start up the grind for equipment, which is good but somehow missed in this "review". It also allows new players to "fit in".
"new PVP zones" Trash
"brand new continent Northrend" I will give you this good sir as there was a lot of new content, yes nothing really "new" but still worth while.
"the most heavily populated areas, such as Dalaran" True in fact if on a high pop server with a far far better computer than yours it has well server lag not just client its so bad. But never mind the waiting 10-20 sec to sell and buy items in dalaran at 7:30pm server time. This plus the comments about Winters grasp in the thread who must have been made by people on low pop servers or they must be taking some form of "medication" that alters their perception of time (and thus altering their perception of lag). The reason i say this is there is pretty much no game that lags as bad as wow during a WG attack once everyone is in it, as their SERVER lags so hard i push attack button 50 times and get 3 attacks 20-40 seconds later. This is true for everyone on high med/high pop servers. So ignoring the "stories" WG is simply awful do to awful coding and blizzard not updating there servers.
The sound ... what sound i turn mine off, i have winamp ya know. After i am playing to play not sleep silly.
"The achievement points added to WoW pre WotLK personally enhanced the leveling grind for me" Because you get one what every like 2 days? ok maybe 2 a day if your hardcore. Lets address why achievements are good for the correct reason. They give you something to do ONCE YOU HIT 80. In other words AFTER the level grind and seeing as how most of them can not be completed until your 80, well blizzard knows what they are for and so do all the level 80s that PLAY THE GAME. Still its fun to do while for others it may not be a motivating feature.
Wow the game play section has no mention of end-game why is this? I cannot say but i can tell you about it. Its the same as before, which is good after all raiding works for the players of wow. Lets also address 25 man raid and how 5 nights a week for ahh 2-4 hours its basically unraidable because of the lag. Don't believe me look at the 47 page sticky and then look up how that is the 3rd one posted so far.
Lets also look at the end game content, the first week of wraths release its was finished. My guild also completed all the end game pve content in 2 weeks of raiding (this is while pugging a few people because some of our people had not hit 80 yet). So basically the x-pack game with little additional raiding. So little that it was finished the first week and also by a no name scrub guild finished in 2 weeks after this scrub guild started raiding (this also through the lag that would cause us to cancel a raid for a night or wipe all night to literally unbeatable bosses as we would hit them every 20 secs but the enrage timer stays the same).
That being said i still like wow and wrath. Wrath was just a piss-poor expansion, that added no addition depth, provided almost no end game ( far far less than before they expansion), and really has nothing additional to note other than the fact that all wow players had to now go out and buy a $40 x-pack for no reason what so ever.
So for a one sentence summation; Wrath of the lich king is an expansion pack that is less of the same as before.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I think you may be confusing the term "easy to play" with "easy to master". There's a massive difference between these two terms. A game being easy to play means that in ordeer to pick the game up and enjoy myself with it, I really don't need to doa whole lot. The barrier to entry is low. That's a near universal positive in the world of games. The bottom line is that if I pick up a game and don't nearly instantly understand the fundamentals, it's not a very well designed game.
Now, easy to master... that's a different story entirely. Games shouldn't be easy to master. There should always be ways to improve from the base. As in any good game, skill should develop over time, with practice.
Let's look at an example from the real world: pool.
Pool is one of my favorite real life games . It's something that I thoroughly enjoy. It's an easy game to play. You pick up a cue, you smack the white ball into another ball and hope it goes intoa pocket. There is almost no barrier to entry in pool. You can pick it up and play the game. It's an easy game to play.
That being said, I rarely win at pool. You see, as much as I like it, I just don't have the opportunity to play it very often and so my skill level is rather rudimentary. I often get my butt handed to me by friends and colleagues. Pool is a difficult game to master.
While this argument isn't talking at all about the merits of WoW (I personally don't play it), it does point out a problem with the original interpretation of what the reviewer said.
The problem with MMOs right now, or I should say that the percieved problem with MMOs now as I haven't decided which side of the fence I am personally on on the subject, is not that games are easy. games should be, NEED to be easy to play in order to turn a profit on their multi-million dollar price tags. The barrier to entry MUST BE LOW. The trick is that easy to enter games should also be difficult to master which, granted, is not always the case.
Anyway, I hope that clears things up for you.
Stradden you almost basically said the same thing. Games are to easy these days, and World of Warcraft is by far, hands down, one of the easiest MMO's to play. For christ sakes, they have bots that could do almost everything you can think of in World of Warcraft.( if you cheated that is) Now that being said, the reason why games fail is because of what WoW is, an easy game. There would be no way in hell Blizzard could reach 11 miilion subscribers with a challenging game. People are just to lazy in this day and age. They don't want to suffer through 10 hr raids just to only kill one boss because its so freaking hard. They don't want to have to search for a quest, ala EQ. They want things given to them, like items. Look at Warhammer for instance. The one main thing that Mark Jacobs spits out of his mouth is items. He thinks thats what will attract more players. RvR screwed up? Oh well, lemme add more items and easier ways to get them. Theres your instant 1000 subs. The truth is, hes right.
Think about it, you make a game and try to balance it out for a wider subscription number. You put all these idea's into the game and what do you come up with? An easy game. Now this isn't to say easiness is the only thing that ruins MMO's. But it definitly is one of the main reasons. This review was a bad review btw. Once the reviewer wrote this game is fucking awesome, he lost the review. I don't understand why you think its neccesary for your reviewers to put there own opinions into reviews. I mean seriously, how credible can you take a review that starts off with, "This game is fucking awesome". Does anyone proof read this shit? You don't see newsreporters running around ssaying "OMFG, Obama is here bitches!!!", do you? I know your free workers are not newsreporters, but if they want to be good writiers and move on to other writing careers, you need to correct that, or not care. I'll stop here, because I really enjoy this site sometimes. Good day!
I think i did see this quite a few times acctually
Off topic? sure. Worth it? definitely.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
I think you may be confusing the term "easy to play" with "easy to master". There's a massive difference between these two terms. A game being easy to play means that in ordeer to pick the game up and enjoy myself with it, I really don't need to doa whole lot. The barrier to entry is low. That's a near universal positive in the world of games. The bottom line is that if I pick up a game and don't nearly instantly understand the fundamentals, it's not a very well designed game.
Now, easy to master... that's a different story entirely. Games shouldn't be easy to master. There should always be ways to improve from the base. As in any good game, skill should develop over time, with practice.
Let's look at an example from the real world: pool.
Pool is one of my favorite real life games . It's something that I thoroughly enjoy. It's an easy game to play. You pick up a cue, you smack the white ball into another ball and hope it goes intoa pocket. There is almost no barrier to entry in pool. You can pick it up and play the game. It's an easy game to play.
That being said, I rarely win at pool. You see, as much as I like it, I just don't have the opportunity to play it very often and so my skill level is rather rudimentary. I often get my butt handed to me by friends and colleagues. Pool is a difficult game to master.
While this argument isn't talking at all about the merits of WoW (I personally don't play it), it does point out a problem with the original interpretation of what the reviewer said.
The problem with MMOs right now, or I should say that the percieved problem with MMOs now as I haven't decided which side of the fence I am personally on on the subject, is not that games are easy. games should be, NEED to be easy to play in order to turn a profit on their multi-million dollar price tags. The barrier to entry MUST BE LOW. The trick is that easy to enter games should also be difficult to master which, granted, is not always the case.
Anyway, I hope that clears things up for you.
Stradden you almost basically said the same thing. Games are to easy these days, and World of Warcraft is by far, hands down, one of the easiest MMO's to play. For christ sakes, they have bots that could do almost everything you can think of in World of Warcraft.( if you cheated that is) Now that being said, the reason why games fail is because of what WoW is, an easy game. There would be no way in hell Blizzard could reach 11 miilion subscribers with a challenging game. People are just to lazy in this day and age. They don't want to suffer through 10 hr raids just to only kill one boss because its so freaking hard. They don't want to have to search for a quest, ala EQ. They want things given to them, like items. Look at Warhammer for instance. The one main thing that Mark Jacobs spits out of his mouth is items. He thinks thats what will attract more players. RvR screwed up? Oh well, lemme add more items and easier ways to get them. Theres your instant 1000 subs. The truth is, hes right.
Think about it, you make a game and try to balance it out for a wider subscription number. You put all these idea's into the game and what do you come up with? An easy game. Now this isn't to say easiness is the only thing that ruins MMO's. But it definitly is one of the main reasons. This review was a bad review btw. Once the reviewer wrote this game is fucking awesome, he lost the review. I don't understand why you think its neccesary for your reviewers to put there own opinions into reviews. I mean seriously, how credible can you take a review that starts off with, "This game is fucking awesome". Does anyone proof read this shit? You don't see newsreporters running around ssaying "OMFG, Obama is here bitches!!!", do you? I know your free workers are not newsreporters, but if they want to be good writiers and move on to other writing careers, you need to correct that, or not care. I'll stop here, because I really enjoy this site sometimes. Good day!
WoW is a good game. Yea for the most part it is easy to learn and play at least for the most part, so yes I would agree on that. However, it is geared more to the high end/hard core player. Without being in a guild or finding good pug groups you are not going to have the best of equipment. Once you could at least PvP and gain armor by doing battlegrounds and gaining honor to obtain better equipment. Now that is out unless you also do arena.
I for one love to do trade skills but even that is obsurd in many ways with days for a cooldown and poor drop rates for needed materials. Then most of the trade skills are really pointless because dropped gear is much better than anything that can be made so you are not going to get your money back by doing them or gain enough money to buy your mount or whatever in a real timely fashion. There may be a few things with this expasion that are useful but the balance and use overall in trade skills is more for fun than making any kind of real money.
All the classes have their good and bad points but I really like the Deathknight. There is many nice things to the new class but I am sure there are some drawbacks as well. So far overal I am enjoying the DK. Are they OP not sure I have always thought the Druid was OP and the any of the Horde have a much better advantage in PvP because their racial traits are actually very useful in PvP where Alliance is not. I for one believe that is because most Bliz employees play a Horde. Thus the advantage.
As for the lag I for one can say it is awful since WotLK. It had began to be a bit of a problem before but yea it is a pain now. I have a cable connection and plenty of memory and a nice graphic card and processor. So you figure it out. I live in US so maybe that has something to do with it but I have Aussie friends that have the lag too. /shrug
Summoning it up yea the new expansion is nice(very nice) but some of the new things suck. WoW is more and more gearing to those hard core players and forgetting that they also have many that can't invest that much time into a game like it or not, RL does come first for some. Job means you got money to pay bills one of which is your lovely WoW account. If you can spend plenty of time in the game and be able to raid/do battlegrounds and arenas you should be doing flips. If not you are probably like me and not overjoyed at many of the new things that are going to make it less fun to play.
Note:
I for one have not been in many of the instances (raid or otherwise) from the start; many quest are not complete and won't be due to RL and time. So I am sure there will be much of this expansion I will never see, as I have not with BC or the original either. I am not the only one that hasn't and I realize for this game that will not change.
Gikku
Many good posts in this thread.
I just wanted to comment on WoW considering I recently quit EVE and tried Archlord and Vanguard and was thinking of coming back to WoW (I played in 2005 and hit level 60 and quit almost immediately after as end-game wasn't appealing to me).
But my experience with WoW is still burned in my head, it was my first true MMO and I liked it for two months until i hit max level. But what really struck with me WoW was its popularity and reasons for it. I find it very clever and interesting to think why does WoW have 11 million subscribers and other games can't even get 5% of that.
Archlord for instance looked nice but it was still kind of grindy. Vanguard looked decent but with the server problems and the visual problems, no wonder it failed. I find it funny how these companies actually think their game will be decent when it is not even finished and has serious issues and is just a poor man's version of WoW.
I think Blizzard designs the best games out there, and by best games, i'm defining it as most popular. Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo 2 (my most addicted game ever by far), WoW have been immensely popular games and it is clear that no one does it better than Blizzard. So why does blizzard usually always succeed?
Because they now their population base and they know what makes people tick. WoW is easy to use which is perfect, it is where EVE fails, WoW has many things to offer and not much of a grind, so all types of people can play it. Once you have this design, make some decent graphics, and seriously, Vanguard is retarded in that i couldn't even play it on my computer. Complete utter failure on Vanguard's part, i just don't get the point of making a game where everyone can't play it on their computer. I thought it was proven that graphics are good but usually not the deciding factor, gameplay trumps graphics.
I personally, would probably not play WoW again as i dont' like raiding and after being a diablo 2 hardcore player, unless getting great gear keeps you alive, there's no point in really getting it. Which comes back to my next point in that, it is of my opinion, why get epic gear in WoW when it doesn't really matter? That's my opinion and i ultimately realize that i'm the minority. I don't like raiding or the end-game in WoW or all the other clone games out there, but i'm the minority, and Blizzard realizes that, and they pander to the majority.
So variety, more raiding, more high level content, easy stuff, slim facile and rudimentary economy, I LOVED EVE's economy, made 20+ Billion in liquid isk when i figured it out
, 1 bil per week. But my main point is that, regardless of what anyone says about WoW, i guarantee you, the majority of people surveyed will be properly and positively piqued by the expansion and that's because blizzard is a master at knowing what people want and giving them.
The reviewer happened to be one of those people. Personally, based on what others say, would have been immensely impressed by a more robust market but that's how my brain works and i'm a minority.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.