This was my main complaint with the review, did they even play a new character? Because it's easy to realize that Bloodmyst and Ghostlands are 10-20 areas roughly.
Otherwise the review is a little lame, and seemed to be expected more from the expansion than expansion generally give. I mean, it doesn't happen to often that an expansion would ramp up the graphics or put in a new graphics engine.
Of course some of the people getting up in arms about the review need to take a step back and realize that this wasn't the best expansion ever either. There are still somethings that need to be worked on.
I have played The Burning Crusade since it's release and i must say that i am bitterly disappointed. To me blizzard have destroyed the fantasy of the game and just seemed to lack invention for new content. Yes it is challenging and that is what we all wanted, but the zones whilst different in appearance still offer the same repetitive quest chains, only drop rates have been considerably lowered so that you gain XP not by questing but by actually grinding.
The only new and exciting quest comes in the first few hours of entering outland. The bombing missions are awesome and they should be congratulated on those. However, with a now huge amount of play space available with Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outland, Blizzard had the insane idea to put all the new content apart from 3 instances (Caverns of time, Kharazan and Zul'Aman - all high level) in outland meaning that every man and his dog were fighting over the same mobs in the same zone). The neutral city of Shattah defies beliefn as does the aldor and scryers. Seeing the opposition in your bank really does go against the grain a lot.
It is a shame, but a lot of the instances have the old raid bosses in, Tempest Keep has The prophet skeram, he even splits as well, Auchindoun has ragnaros and the list goes on. Two years in development yet it feels rushed to me and lacks invention. Oh and what is nagrand? It has to be the most cartoonish place ever i keep waiting to see bugs bunny appear.
No i for one will not continue to play Warcraft, in the old game i ran a huge guild raiding many of the end game instances, but the new soulless burning crusade has spolit the world of warcraft for me. So now i am off to look for a new fantasy game with role playing. And let's hope Blizzard make the next expansion more soulful as i loved warcraft and would return given the right atmosphere.
I spent well over a hundred pounds to get the original and expansion to get online with members of my computer and video game course. There is simply nothing good to say about this game. It is the culinery equivilant of macdonalds. The one good thing about this game is you can solo. However what is the point of playing it online then? So many better games I could play on my own. A waste of my time, money and I feel sorry for the intellectual capacitiy of any one who enjoys this game. I avoided it when it came out in 2004 for the above reasons and having been convinced to play it now, have seen all my beliefs confirmed first hand. One positive...now found a use for my apple mac lap top...ho hum!
I spent well over a hundred pounds to get the original and expansion to get online with members of my computer and video game course. There is simply nothing good to say about this game. It is the culinery equivilant of macdonalds. The one good thing about this game is you can solo. However what is the point of playing it online then? So many better games I could play on my own. A waste of my time, money and I feel sorry for the intellectual capacitiy of any one who enjoys this game. I avoided it when it came out in 2004 for the above reasons and having been convinced to play it now, have seen all my beliefs confirmed first hand. One positive...now found a use for my apple mac lap top...ho hum!
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.
I spent well over a hundred pounds to get the original and expansion to get online with members of my computer and video game course. There is simply nothing good to say about this game. It is the culinery equivilant of macdonalds. The one good thing about this game is you can solo. However what is the point of playing it online then? So many better games I could play on my own. A waste of my time, money and I feel sorry for the intellectual capacitiy of any one who enjoys this game. I avoided it when it came out in 2004 for the above reasons and having been convinced to play it now, have seen all my beliefs confirmed first hand. One positive...now found a use for my apple mac lap top...ho hum!
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.collector's edition, 2 months subscription, and the original a month ago...can't be arsed with finding the reciepts. Macdonalds. Ever seen a film called Super Size Me? A lot of people love the popular music of Britney Spears and she has got a lovely voice for a bald alcoholic. But she really could learn a lot from listening to the creativity of say Bethoven, Jiimi Hendrix, Lee " Scratch" Perry, etc. Just because a lot of people like something does not give it artistic merit. However, much like the sheep follow each other I too was lulled into the comfort zone of "well it is so popular it must be good". So I was a sheep for a bit following your simplistic anal-ogy of the world. Baaa!
I spent well over a hundred pounds to get the original and expansion to get online with members of my computer and video game course. There is simply nothing good to say about this game. It is the culinery equivilant of macdonalds. The one good thing about this game is you can solo. However what is the point of playing it online then? So many better games I could play on my own. A waste of my time, money and I feel sorry for the intellectual capacitiy of any one who enjoys this game. I avoided it when it came out in 2004 for the above reasons and having been convinced to play it now, have seen all my beliefs confirmed first hand. One positive...now found a use for my apple mac lap top...ho hum!
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.collector's edition, 2 months subscription, and the original a month ago...can't be arsed with finding the reciepts. Macdonalds. Ever seen a film called Super Size Me? A lot of people love the popular music of Britney Spears and she has got a lovely voice for a bald alcoholic. But she really could learn a lot from listening to the creativity of say Bethoven, Jiimi Hendrix, Lee " Scratch" Perry, etc. Just because a lot of people like something does not give it artistic merit. However, much like the sheep follow each other I too was lulled into the comfort zone of "well it is so popular it must be good". So I was a sheep for a bit following your simplistic anal-ogy of the world. Baaa!
Yo said you didint like it 2004, yet bought the CE of TBC?
You can say WoW'ers are sheep but even you know we grase in the greenest pastures around, enjoy your weeds and nettles, us wow'er will chomp on this tastey green green grass.
i keep hearing the exact same arguements from the exact same people
the questing is suppose to be solo, hence there are more then enough quests for 60-70 to solo, but also group quests for the slightly more social player, and of course all the new 5-man instances w/ quests. i leveled up to 70 doing a combination of questing and tons of instance runs. i completely finished the quests in two zones, just two, Hellfire and Zangarmarsh, and completed most of the quests in Terrokar forest. The rest of my XP was from running 5-man instances.
Now, I run 5 mans, trying to get Heroic keys for additonal challenge and better loot. I also am going back and doing all the quests in the other 5 news zones. Why? Good money, good reputation gains, and I'm the kind of person that doesn't want to miss anything. I want to see allll of the content.
So I've got myself keyed up for the first big raid, Karazahn, which is no walk in the park. Hopefully my guild will be starting the first 25-man raid soon. In the mean time, we've been going back and running Naxxaramas with 15-20 people. It's a lot of fun, and still challenging. I hope to be able to convince some people in my guild to go back and run BWL and AQ40 with me They've already done it pre-TBC, and we should be able to 10-15 man it lol. I never did anything but MC, ZG, and AQ20 pre-TBC, so I really want to go back and see what I missed now that we are all so uber.
Also, been trying to get more involved with the world PVP objectives, but on my server the Horde is outnumbered 2-1so it's sometimes difficult to find peope to roll with, that and I'm a protection spec warrior lol. I almost killed all the guards in Halaa (the capturable PVP town) by myself with the bombing runs, but 3-4 allance started waiting for me at the wyvern stands. Ouch.
the point of all this?
the game is great, there is SOOO much to do. All of the zones are unique in look and feel, and they've really added more variety to the quest types. A lot more escort quests, and just the increased difficulty of the mobs has made things more interesting. There is a lot of variety in the 5 man instances too, with the different wings for each. Some are fairly easy and straight forward, like Hellfire Ramparts and the Mana Tombs, some are quite complex and challenging, like Shattred Halls and Shadow Labs. With Heroic mode, the Caverns of Time, all the new raid content... This game is going to have the hardcore player hooked for quite a while.
Yeah, it may need a little improvement in certain areas, all MMO's do. Hence the love of the genre, always changing and adapting, and hopefully, always getting better. WoW is getting better and better, they'll keep releasing expansion and updates. The grind is only there for those who want to grind. The fun is there for all.
Just tells you a lot about the editorial staff here when they give Vanguard:SoH a 8 point something and TBC a 7.
Oh, and about LOTR, I did the beta stress test event for all of 2 hours before deinstalling and launching up WoW again. Why? I had the graphics pumped up to absolute 100% maximum, the environments were beautiful yes, I had to turn the bloom down so it didn't look so frick'n silly like Guild Wars, then I noticed it. The player models and NPC's and mobs etc just stand out SO much from the rest of the environment. It's like you paint this amazing backdrop on a magnetic board, then buy a 1$ package of sticky magnet characters to throw on it. It was like the mobs/npcs/character didn't even look like they were in the same world. I was SO dissapointed by this lack of visual cohesion, I couldn't even stand it. The characters should never look out of place against the world like that. Really, really shameful.
The only "expansion" to offer more then TBC gave to WoW is/was probably City of Villians to City of Heroes.
Yet again the categories "roleplaying" and "customer service" are useless for review purposes.
Customer Service: Let's face it, this really shouldn't effect the game. I have little to no contact with Blizzard Customer Service, but you can often see people using exploits with no real noticeable action taken at the moment it happens. With a customer base of eight million, the service certainly has its ups and downs.
How is it possible to grade something you have only heard/read and have little experience of? Same with roleplaying, how is it a 6 and not a 1 or 10 in grade?
As the mods over at the Vanguard forums would say, I have to call shinanagins. This sites review is obviously biased bigtime. I dont play WoW anymore nor have I played the burning crusade but I would like to point out this link.
Out of 40+ reviews that average a rating of 9.2 this is the only site that gave the game a below average review. Either the reviewer is a WoW hater or was asked by this site to give such a bad review due this sites leading minds asking him to. The reviewer should have been someone who never played the game before or was at least an ubiased person. Anyway MMORPG good luck ruining WoW for the masses. Dont see you succeding anytime soon.
It's time to move on, but like many have realized, there isn't a place to settle down in the MMO world in the current market.
I think this is the problem, WoW just do not have competitors. I like(d) to play Guild Wars, but it is heavily instanced and not a true MMORPG where you can meet people outside - again due to the instanced nature.
So what to do? EVE is often recommended, and I played it some time ago, just got a 7 day free trial offer to return, but it is really not what I am looking forward to.
I hope for Age of Conan and Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn - but tbh, I do not have much hope for them.
It is no wonder that WoW is king - in the realm of the blind, the one-eyed man rules.
Vanguard, EverQuest 2, Lineage 2 - no wonder that WoW rules supreme, despite its shortcomings.
A new subheading within reviews should be End Game. Id like to know if the reviewer thought about Gruul's Lair, Karazhan, Serpentshrine etc, or even better what it takes to take one of them down (consumables). Without covering topics like these, I feel its only half of a review.
oh, what a shame. MMORPG.com could have shown some integrity here and give The Burning Crusade a 5 or 6. 7? way to high. i agree with graphics and sound scores, but roleplaying should be a great 0, and fun shouldn't be higher than 3 or 4. in fact, this expansion, along with the main game, are the most boring and uninspiring games that have come out on the last years. i give wow a 6 and TBC a 4. thanks for reading
well 7.5 million find it fun. compared to what the 100k that find eq2 fun or maybe the 100k that find vg fun?
and the excuse "well its all kids" even if 90% of wow was kids that would leave more adults that find it fun in all soe games combined.
Oh, and about LOTR, I did the beta stress test event for all of 2 hours before deinstalling and launching up WoW again. Why? I had the graphics pumped up to absolute 100% maximum, the environments were beautiful yes, I had to turn the bloom down so it didn't look so frick'n silly like Guild Wars, then I noticed it. The player models and NPC's and mobs etc just stand out SO much from the rest of the environment. It's like you paint this amazing backdrop on a magnetic board, then buy a 1$ package of sticky magnet characters to throw on it. It was like the mobs/npcs/character didn't even look like they were in the same world. I was SO dissapointed by this lack of visual cohesion, I couldn't even stand it. The characters should never look out of place against the world like that. Really, really shameful. The only "expansion" to offer more then TBC gave to WoW is/was probably City of Villians to City of Heroes.
You know i instaled WOW and played for 1 hour before remove it from my comp. Very silly game the graphics are just HORRIBLE very outdated. no textures at all, evrything looks like plain paper painted with hot colores, many thing don't even are 3D if the review is giving 5 on graphics they being very nice.
Oh, and about LOTR, I did the beta stress test event for all of 2 hours before deinstalling and launching up WoW again. Why? I had the graphics pumped up to absolute 100% maximum, the environments were beautiful yes, I had to turn the bloom down so it didn't look so frick'n silly like Guild Wars, then I noticed it. The player models and NPC's and mobs etc just stand out SO much from the rest of the environment. It's like you paint this amazing backdrop on a magnetic board, then buy a 1$ package of sticky magnet characters to throw on it. It was like the mobs/npcs/character didn't even look like they were in the same world. I was SO dissapointed by this lack of visual cohesion, I couldn't even stand it. The characters should never look out of place against the world like that. Really, really shameful. The only "expansion" to offer more then TBC gave to WoW is/was probably City of Villians to City of Heroes.
You know i instaled WOW and played for 1 hour before remove it from my comp. Very silly game the graphics are just HORRIBLE very outdated. no textures at all, evrything looks like plain paper painted with hot colores, many thing don't even are 3D if the review is giving 5 on graphics they being very nice.
look at that char graphics that's millions of years haed of WOW graphics. Ah someone with no imagination who only cares about poly counts and super hi-res textures. takes all types.
I think WoW still stands up well, you just need some imagination.
It's SUPPOSE to look cartoony, it's how warcraft has always looked. People aren't saying the same cartoony crap about Warhammer, which is EXACTLY the same but lacks the same creative direction and style of the WoW engine.
Well, to be fair, Warhammer has had its look for much, much longer than WoW. If anything, one could almost say Blizzard borrowed from Warhammer's look... If it mattered. And it doesn't.
Still, I'm with you on the rest of your comments, heerobya. People seem to confuse "style" with "graphics technology". The two are not one in the same. They could have taken the Everquest II engine and made it look the same. They could have taken the Unreal 2 engine, and made it look the same as it does... same poly counts and all.
Blizzard could have made yet another MMO that looks just like every other generic, vanilla Tolkien-esque MMORPG out there. They went instead with a unique look and style that is consistent with the Warcraft world. Personally, I think ti's great.
But then again, I don't feel threatened by something that looks "cartoony" and am not afraid that my friends will laugh and make fun of me if I play it. Cause they won't. All my friends, and myself, have grown out of that phase.
By the by, I am not a fan-boy of WoW or Blizzard. At the moment I'm not playing, since before BC came out, and have no plans to play in the near future. Frankly, the game bores me after a while. But, I'm discussing graphics and art style here, not gameplay.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Ah someone with no imagination who only cares about poly counts and super hi-res textures. takes all types.
I think WoW still stands up well, you just need some imagination.
WoW has the one thing most other games lack. Life. While not having the highest poly count or the most advanced engine it's all the attention to detail that makes WoW look and, more importantly, feel so amazing.
I might be burned out on it and am now having a blast with the LOTRO beta but you can't dispute the greatness that is the Blizzard art department, even if you don't like the style.
Edit: Vanguard just looks plain dead on those shots btw. Might be superior in engine department but they completely forgot to put any kind of life in the characters. They'll do great if they ever add undead tho, they've got zombies down to perfection
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.
Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good (see: American Idol, Paris Hilton, McDonalds). Don't confuse the two.
Out of 40+ reviews that average a rating of 9.2 this is the only site that gave the game a below average review. Either the reviewer is a WoW hater or was asked by this site to give such a bad review due this sites leading minds asking him to. The reviewer should have been someone who never played the game before or was at least an ubiased person. Anyway MMORPG good luck ruining WoW for the masses. Dont see you succeding anytime soon.
Or maybe, he was being an honest reviewer and not a whore-critic? Surely, it's not possible that some of those reviews were "influenced" by Blizzard, considering many of those sites make money advertising Blizzard products? In fact, many of those reviews were written by reviewers who rarely, if ever, give a bad rating to a release from a major publisher. They save those for the small publishers, who don't have the cash to pony up. Funny how that works, eh?
I seriously doubt that the reviewer's intention is to "ruin WoW for the masses". He could probably care less whether or not anyone plays it. He's doing his job as an impartial reviewer and comparing it to the multitide of offerings out there, not just jumping on the "OMG BC IS OUT IS ROXXORS!" bandwagon.
I think WoW still stands up well, you just need some imagination.
Wait, what? I didn't realize it was an "imagination" rating, it was a GRAPHICS rating! That's the point of good graphics -- to lessen the need to use my imagination! Jesus Christ, he didn't say the graphics were BAD, he said they were average to above average, which is pretty accurate. If you want a 8, 9, or 10 rating, I better be riveted to the screen and drooling all over myself as I walk around the world oggling at the scenery. Sorry, WoW does NOT do that. I appreciate the artwork and I agree, the graphics have stood up well, but they are not GREAT.
MMO history: EQ1 - 65 DE Wizard DAoC - 50 Dwarf Thane, 50 Dwarf Healer EvE - Amarr, Caldari BShip Pilot CoH - 40 Ice/Ice Blaster, 40 Dark/Regen Scrapper WoW - 60 Undead Priest, 60 Tauren Warrior LoTRO - 30 Hobbit Burglar Currently Playing - Tabula Rasa
That read like a fair review that gave props to BC where due.
Seriously folks, defending WOW's graphics sounds just a silly as those making excuses for Vanguards bugs ..
Sooner or later you're going to pay the piper that's how this buisness works. Blizz gambled on releasing WOW with dated graphics that run on 3-4 year old systems.
Guess what the gamble paid off with subscriptions...but the sacrifice was in the graphics department.
There are plenty other areas where WOW shines, however graphics aren't one of them...
let it go.
World of Warcraft's graphic were excellent, and to be honnest, they still are, because the ART makes up for the lesser powerful engine. World of Warcraft was the evidence that slapping a fancy engine on a game does not make it have great grapics, and Everquest 2 backs that up as well. You have to take in consideration the system requirements when you judge a game's graphics, as well as its age. Should reviewers give all Nintendo Wii games a bad rating in graphic deparment because it runs on a less powerful system? ofcourse not.
WOW's graphics were never great they were serviceable and that's exactly what Blizz intended for them to be. Blizz decided it was more important to have as many as possible play the game in lou of graphics. Hence the trade off plain and simple.
I don't buy that art excuse either as Lineage II which came before and Guild Wars soon after are examples of great Artistic style.
So again... WOW is a great game in other areas such as fun factor and ease of gameplay but graphics is not one of them.. When it comes to the art of the world, then WoW defenity beats the other 2 games you mentioned. and as I said, graphics should be rated compared to the system requirements, simple as that.
and as I said, graphics should be rated compared to the system requirements, simple as that.
I completely disagree. Do you grade students based on what they are capable of, or what they actually accomplish? Should we give both Jimmy and Billy A's, even though Jimmy did more work than Billy, because the teacher thinks Jimmy's just naturally smarter? Of course not! You grade based on the final product, not on any relative circumstances.
I would've given WoW an 8 in 2004, and it hasn't improved markedly since then. So compared to what other games in the genre are producing, I don't think a 6-7 is unfair at all (a 5 is a bit too harsh IMHO).
FWIW, I wouldn't give VG higher than an 8 anyway. And the massive lag and bugs involved would bring down other ratings for sure, but not the graphics.
MMO history: EQ1 - 65 DE Wizard DAoC - 50 Dwarf Thane, 50 Dwarf Healer EvE - Amarr, Caldari BShip Pilot CoH - 40 Ice/Ice Blaster, 40 Dark/Regen Scrapper WoW - 60 Undead Priest, 60 Tauren Warrior LoTRO - 30 Hobbit Burglar Currently Playing - Tabula Rasa
WoW has it's own graphics style, and I'm fine with it. I'm just not "wow"d by it or anything. It fits in with the Warcraft theme and I hand it to Blizzard for staying true to the Warcraft feel with the graphics.
As for Burning Crusade, I was horribly let down. I can honestly say I'm a hardcore gamer and I've spent most of my time on WoW leveling new characters over and over. I burned up a new Draenei Shaman in 8 days played, like 2 weeks total. Yeah, I have no job. That's not the point. The point is, Burning Crusade brings very little new to the table. They followed the SOE-esque model of x-packs with "Same old crap with bigger numbers slapped on em". The bosses were the same things with more health. The gear is the same crap with bigger stats. I could run from one end of BC to the other at a relatively low level without dying too much. There was no thrill or adventure. And I had fairly casual friends who made it from 60-70 in a few weeks. That's just sad. They burned up the majority of the content the x-pack had to offer in just a few weeks.
Basically, WoW and BC is cheeky, lighthearted, and fun.
It is NOT challenging or thrilling. There is no sense of wonder. There is no sense of trepidation when going someplace new. There is no real exploration, and the world itself is really not all that big when compared to a lot of games coming out these days.
BC rates a 5.0 imo. It wasn't terrible, but it was far from fulfilling its potential.
and as I said, graphics should be rated compared to the system requirements, simple as that.
I completely disagree. Do you grade students based on what they are capable of, or what they actually accomplish? Should we give both Jimmy and Billy A's, even though Jimmy did more work than Billy, because the teacher thinks Jimmy's just naturally smarter? Of course not! You grade based on the final product, not on any relative circumstances.
I would've given WoW an 8 in 2004, and it hasn't improved markedly since then. So compared to what other games in the genre are producing, I don't think a 6-7 is unfair at all (a 5 is a bit too harsh IMHO).
FWIW, I wouldn't give VG higher than an 8 anyway. And the massive lag and bugs involved would bring down other ratings for sure, but not the graphics.
That is a really poorly thought out anology. You grade based on what they accomplish, if they are following the same education. But if Jimmy is following an education that is higher then billy, then obviously Jimmy has to come up with something much better then Billy to even get an equal score as Billy. Square enix has spend a damn load of time on Final Fantasy XII's graphics, its what the series is known for and they are some of the best graphics found on a playstation 2, but look and behold, FFXII only deserves a 5 in graphics because Gears of War on the Xbox360 has much and much better graphics, because it can make use of the Xbox360 higher system specs, which Square enix can not. this would be absolutely rediculous. by your standards, every reviewer should rate Wii games a 5 in graphics or less because it does not match up to the Xbox360 games's graphics.
As I said, it is unfair to judge the game's graphics compared to high end demanding games such as Vanguard or Everquest 2.
I playued the new expansion and I have nothing good to say about it , nothing new , same bloody thing we did before . One of the first things u face is a hell boar....how freakin lazy can you get Blizzard ....Only thing new was more of the same bs we got sick of before. The review fella is obvioulsy a WOW fan judging by his writing and he has a write to like it, but there is nothing new and groundbreaking about BC squat diddly nada zippo zilch just more of the same that we did from 1-60. I canceled my acct at 65th lvl pally bored senceless and no feeling of anything exciting to explore. All in all a complete waste of money in buying the expansion, if you lvled 1-60 not much of anything is different so if your bored already at 60 and thinking of the expansion do not waste your money. IT IS NOT SCOTTISH SO IT IS CRRRRAAAAAAPPPPPPP
Comments
Otherwise the review is a little lame, and seemed to be expected more from the expansion than expansion generally give. I mean, it doesn't happen to often that an expansion would ramp up the graphics or put in a new graphics engine.
Of course some of the people getting up in arms about the review need to take a step back and realize that this wasn't the best expansion ever either. There are still somethings that need to be worked on.
I have played The Burning Crusade since it's release and i must say that i am bitterly disappointed. To me blizzard have destroyed the fantasy of the game and just seemed to lack invention for new content. Yes it is challenging and that is what we all wanted, but the zones whilst different in appearance still offer the same repetitive quest chains, only drop rates have been considerably lowered so that you gain XP not by questing but by actually grinding.
The only new and exciting quest comes in the first few hours of entering outland. The bombing missions are awesome and they should be congratulated on those. However, with a now huge amount of play space available with Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outland, Blizzard had the insane idea to put all the new content apart from 3 instances (Caverns of time, Kharazan and Zul'Aman - all high level) in outland meaning that every man and his dog were fighting over the same mobs in the same zone). The neutral city of Shattah defies beliefn as does the aldor and scryers. Seeing the opposition in your bank really does go against the grain a lot.
It is a shame, but a lot of the instances have the old raid bosses in, Tempest Keep has The prophet skeram, he even splits as well, Auchindoun has ragnaros and the list goes on. Two years in development yet it feels rushed to me and lacks invention. Oh and what is nagrand? It has to be the most cartoonish place ever i keep waiting to see bugs bunny appear.
No i for one will not continue to play Warcraft, in the old game i ran a huge guild raiding many of the end game instances, but the new soulless burning crusade has spolit the world of warcraft for me. So now i am off to look for a new fantasy game with role playing. And let's hope Blizzard make the next expansion more soulful as i loved warcraft and would return given the right atmosphere.
Original WoW = £9.99
Expansion = £17.99
Total = £27.98
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.
Original WoW = £9.99
Expansion = £17.99
Total = £27.98
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.collector's edition, 2 months subscription, and the original a month ago...can't be arsed with finding the reciepts. Macdonalds. Ever seen a film called Super Size Me? A lot of people love the popular music of Britney Spears and she has got a lovely voice for a bald alcoholic. But she really could learn a lot from listening to the creativity of say Bethoven, Jiimi Hendrix, Lee " Scratch" Perry, etc. Just because a lot of people like something does not give it artistic merit. However, much like the sheep follow each other I too was lulled into the comfort zone of "well it is so popular it must be good". So I was a sheep for a bit following your simplistic anal-ogy of the world. Baaa!
Most of them know that it's not "Macdonalds."
Original WoW = £9.99
Expansion = £17.99
Total = £27.98
Sure your not confusing WoW with VG? you know having to buy more ram or a new gfx card as well as the game?
And macdonalds is damn tastey my friend, me and 8.5 Million think so ( source: www.blizzard.co.uk/press/070306.shtml ) Yes 8.5 milllion, the lastest figures released from blizzard, subs up by 500,000 from January 2007.collector's edition, 2 months subscription, and the original a month ago...can't be arsed with finding the reciepts. Macdonalds. Ever seen a film called Super Size Me? A lot of people love the popular music of Britney Spears and she has got a lovely voice for a bald alcoholic. But she really could learn a lot from listening to the creativity of say Bethoven, Jiimi Hendrix, Lee " Scratch" Perry, etc. Just because a lot of people like something does not give it artistic merit. However, much like the sheep follow each other I too was lulled into the comfort zone of "well it is so popular it must be good". So I was a sheep for a bit following your simplistic anal-ogy of the world. Baaa!
Yo said you didint like it 2004, yet bought the CE of TBC?
You can say WoW'ers are sheep but even you know we grase in the greenest pastures around, enjoy your weeds and nettles, us wow'er will chomp on this tastey green green grass.
i keep hearing the exact same arguements from the exact same people
the questing is suppose to be solo, hence there are more then enough quests for 60-70 to solo, but also group quests for the slightly more social player, and of course all the new 5-man instances w/ quests. i leveled up to 70 doing a combination of questing and tons of instance runs. i completely finished the quests in two zones, just two, Hellfire and Zangarmarsh, and completed most of the quests in Terrokar forest. The rest of my XP was from running 5-man instances.
Now, I run 5 mans, trying to get Heroic keys for additonal challenge and better loot. I also am going back and doing all the quests in the other 5 news zones. Why? Good money, good reputation gains, and I'm the kind of person that doesn't want to miss anything. I want to see allll of the content.
So I've got myself keyed up for the first big raid, Karazahn, which is no walk in the park. Hopefully my guild will be starting the first 25-man raid soon. In the mean time, we've been going back and running Naxxaramas with 15-20 people. It's a lot of fun, and still challenging. I hope to be able to convince some people in my guild to go back and run BWL and AQ40 with me
They've already done it pre-TBC, and we should be able to 10-15 man it lol. I never did anything but MC, ZG, and AQ20 pre-TBC, so I really want to go back and see what I missed now that we are all so uber.
Also, been trying to get more involved with the world PVP objectives, but on my server the Horde is outnumbered 2-1so it's sometimes difficult to find peope to roll with, that and I'm a protection spec warrior lol. I almost killed all the guards in Halaa (the capturable PVP town) by myself with the bombing runs, but 3-4 allance started waiting for me at the wyvern stands. Ouch.
the point of all this?
the game is great, there is SOOO much to do. All of the zones are unique in look and feel, and they've really added more variety to the quest types. A lot more escort quests, and just the increased difficulty of the mobs has made things more interesting. There is a lot of variety in the 5 man instances too, with the different wings for each. Some are fairly easy and straight forward, like Hellfire Ramparts and the Mana Tombs, some are quite complex and challenging, like Shattred Halls and Shadow Labs. With Heroic mode, the Caverns of Time, all the new raid content... This game is going to have the hardcore player hooked for quite a while.
Yeah, it may need a little improvement in certain areas, all MMO's do. Hence the love of the genre, always changing and adapting, and hopefully, always getting better. WoW is getting better and better, they'll keep releasing expansion and updates. The grind is only there for those who want to grind. The fun is there for all.
Just tells you a lot about the editorial staff here when they give Vanguard:SoH a 8 point something and TBC a 7.
Oh, and about LOTR, I did the beta stress test event for all of 2 hours before deinstalling and launching up WoW again. Why? I had the graphics pumped up to absolute 100% maximum, the environments were beautiful yes, I had to turn the bloom down so it didn't look so frick'n silly like Guild Wars, then I noticed it. The player models and NPC's and mobs etc just stand out SO much from the rest of the environment. It's like you paint this amazing backdrop on a magnetic board, then buy a 1$ package of sticky magnet characters to throw on it. It was like the mobs/npcs/character didn't even look like they were in the same world. I was SO dissapointed by this lack of visual cohesion, I couldn't even stand it. The characters should never look out of place against the world like that. Really, really shameful.
The only "expansion" to offer more then TBC gave to WoW is/was probably City of Villians to City of Heroes.
Yet again the categories "roleplaying" and "customer service" are useless for review purposes.
How is it possible to grade something you have only heard/read and have little experience of?Same with roleplaying, how is it a 6 and not a 1 or 10 in grade?
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraftexp1/review.html?mode=web&om_act=convert&om_clk=stats
Out of 40+ reviews that average a rating of 9.2 this is the only site that gave the game a below average review. Either the reviewer is a WoW hater or was asked by this site to give such a bad review due this sites leading minds asking him to. The reviewer should have been someone who never played the game before or was at least an ubiased person. Anyway MMORPG good luck ruining WoW for the masses. Dont see you succeding anytime soon.
Cal
It's time to move on, but like many have realized, there isn't a place to settle down in the MMO world in the current market.
I think this is the problem, WoW just do not have competitors. I like(d) to play Guild Wars, but it is heavily instanced and not a true MMORPG where you can meet people outside - again due to the instanced nature.
So what to do? EVE is often recommended, and I played it some time ago, just got a 7 day free trial offer to return, but it is really not what I am looking forward to.
I hope for Age of Conan and Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn - but tbh, I do not have much hope for them.
It is no wonder that WoW is king - in the realm of the blind, the one-eyed man rules.
Vanguard, EverQuest 2, Lineage 2 - no wonder that WoW rules supreme, despite its shortcomings.
and the excuse "well its all kids" even if 90% of wow was kids that would leave more adults that find it fun in all soe games combined.
Did you ever looked at lotro on high resolution? here the link. www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/thread/118824
look at that char graphics that's millions of years haed of WOW graphics.
Did you ever looked at lotro on high resolution? here the link. www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/thread/118824
look at that char graphics that's millions of years haed of WOW graphics. Ah someone with no imagination who only cares about poly counts and super hi-res textures. takes all types.
I think WoW still stands up well, you just need some imagination.
Well, to be fair, Warhammer has had its look for much, much longer than WoW. If anything, one could almost say Blizzard borrowed from Warhammer's look... If it mattered. And it doesn't.
Still, I'm with you on the rest of your comments, heerobya. People seem to confuse "style" with "graphics technology". The two are not one in the same. They could have taken the Everquest II engine and made it look the same. They could have taken the Unreal 2 engine, and made it look the same as it does... same poly counts and all.
Blizzard could have made yet another MMO that looks just like every other generic, vanilla Tolkien-esque MMORPG out there. They went instead with a unique look and style that is consistent with the Warcraft world. Personally, I think ti's great.
But then again, I don't feel threatened by something that looks "cartoony" and am not afraid that my friends will laugh and make fun of me if I play it. Cause they won't. All my friends, and myself, have grown out of that phase.
By the by, I am not a fan-boy of WoW or Blizzard. At the moment I'm not playing, since before BC came out, and have no plans to play in the near future. Frankly, the game bores me after a while. But, I'm discussing graphics and art style here, not gameplay.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I might be burned out on it and am now having a blast with the LOTRO beta but you can't dispute the greatness that is the Blizzard art department, even if you don't like the style.
Edit: Vanguard just looks plain dead on those shots btw. Might be superior in engine department but they completely forgot to put any kind of life in the characters. They'll do great if they ever add undead tho, they've got zombies down to perfection
Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good (see: American Idol, Paris Hilton, McDonalds). Don't confuse the two.
Or maybe, he was being an honest reviewer and not a whore-critic? Surely, it's not possible that some of those reviews were "influenced" by Blizzard, considering many of those sites make money advertising Blizzard products? In fact, many of those reviews were written by reviewers who rarely, if ever, give a bad rating to a release from a major publisher. They save those for the small publishers, who don't have the cash to pony up. Funny how that works, eh?
I seriously doubt that the reviewer's intention is to "ruin WoW for the masses". He could probably care less whether or not anyone plays it. He's doing his job as an impartial reviewer and comparing it to the multitide of offerings out there, not just jumping on the "OMG BC IS OUT IS ROXXORS!" bandwagon.
Wait, what? I didn't realize it was an "imagination" rating, it was a GRAPHICS rating! That's the point of good graphics -- to lessen the need to use my imagination! Jesus Christ, he didn't say the graphics were BAD, he said they were average to above average, which is pretty accurate. If you want a 8, 9, or 10 rating, I better be riveted to the screen and drooling all over myself as I walk around the world oggling at the scenery. Sorry, WoW does NOT do that. I appreciate the artwork and I agree, the graphics have stood up well, but they are not GREAT.
MMO history:
EQ1 - 65 DE Wizard
DAoC - 50 Dwarf Thane, 50 Dwarf Healer
EvE - Amarr, Caldari BShip Pilot
CoH - 40 Ice/Ice Blaster, 40 Dark/Regen Scrapper
WoW - 60 Undead Priest, 60 Tauren Warrior
LoTRO - 30 Hobbit Burglar
Currently Playing - Tabula Rasa
Ouch. That VG pic is kinda rough. Looks like a dude with wooden arms.
Edit: More I look at it, looks like on of those RealDolls! Not that I'd know anything about those!11
WOW's graphics were never great they were serviceable and that's exactly what Blizz intended for them to be. Blizz decided it was more important to have as many as possible play the game in lou of graphics. Hence the trade off plain and simple.
I don't buy that art excuse either as Lineage II which came before and Guild Wars soon after are examples of great Artistic style.
So again... WOW is a great game in other areas such as fun factor and ease of gameplay but graphics is not one of them.. When it comes to the art of the world, then WoW defenity beats the other 2 games you mentioned. and as I said, graphics should be rated compared to the system requirements, simple as that.
I completely disagree. Do you grade students based on what they are capable of, or what they actually accomplish? Should we give both Jimmy and Billy A's, even though Jimmy did more work than Billy, because the teacher thinks Jimmy's just naturally smarter? Of course not! You grade based on the final product, not on any relative circumstances.
I would've given WoW an 8 in 2004, and it hasn't improved markedly since then. So compared to what other games in the genre are producing, I don't think a 6-7 is unfair at all (a 5 is a bit too harsh IMHO).
FWIW, I wouldn't give VG higher than an 8 anyway. And the massive lag and bugs involved would bring down other ratings for sure, but not the graphics.
MMO history:
EQ1 - 65 DE Wizard
DAoC - 50 Dwarf Thane, 50 Dwarf Healer
EvE - Amarr, Caldari BShip Pilot
CoH - 40 Ice/Ice Blaster, 40 Dark/Regen Scrapper
WoW - 60 Undead Priest, 60 Tauren Warrior
LoTRO - 30 Hobbit Burglar
Currently Playing - Tabula Rasa
As for Burning Crusade, I was horribly let down. I can honestly say I'm a hardcore gamer and I've spent most of my time on WoW leveling new characters over and over. I burned up a new Draenei Shaman in 8 days played, like 2 weeks total. Yeah, I have no job. That's not the point. The point is, Burning Crusade brings very little new to the table. They followed the SOE-esque model of x-packs with "Same old crap with bigger numbers slapped on em". The bosses were the same things with more health. The gear is the same crap with bigger stats. I could run from one end of BC to the other at a relatively low level without dying too much. There was no thrill or adventure. And I had fairly casual friends who made it from 60-70 in a few weeks. That's just sad. They burned up the majority of the content the x-pack had to offer in just a few weeks.
Basically, WoW and BC is cheeky, lighthearted, and fun.
It is NOT challenging or thrilling. There is no sense of wonder. There is no sense of trepidation when going someplace new. There is no real exploration, and the world itself is really not all that big when compared to a lot of games coming out these days.
BC rates a 5.0 imo. It wasn't terrible, but it was far from fulfilling its potential.
I completely disagree. Do you grade students based on what they are capable of, or what they actually accomplish? Should we give both Jimmy and Billy A's, even though Jimmy did more work than Billy, because the teacher thinks Jimmy's just naturally smarter? Of course not! You grade based on the final product, not on any relative circumstances.
I would've given WoW an 8 in 2004, and it hasn't improved markedly since then. So compared to what other games in the genre are producing, I don't think a 6-7 is unfair at all (a 5 is a bit too harsh IMHO).
FWIW, I wouldn't give VG higher than an 8 anyway. And the massive lag and bugs involved would bring down other ratings for sure, but not the graphics.
That is a really poorly thought out anology. You grade based on what they accomplish, if they are following the same education. But if Jimmy is following an education that is higher then billy, then obviously Jimmy has to come up with something much better then Billy to even get an equal score as Billy. Square enix has spend a damn load of time on Final Fantasy XII's graphics, its what the series is known for and they are some of the best graphics found on a playstation 2, but look and behold, FFXII only deserves a 5 in graphics because Gears of War on the Xbox360 has much and much better graphics, because it can make use of the Xbox360 higher system specs, which Square enix can not. this would be absolutely rediculous. by your standards, every reviewer should rate Wii games a 5 in graphics or less because it does not match up to the Xbox360 games's graphics.As I said, it is unfair to judge the game's graphics compared to high end demanding games such as Vanguard or Everquest 2.