World of Warcraft is a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, it is a break from the monotony of their day job. To others, its a way of life.
Scott Kurtz sums it up very well.
In lieu of any meaningful content to present, I’ve finally decided to break my posting trend with something completely pointless: Commentary on video games!
Hellgate: London
First off, it’s not 3D Diablo. Honest. Even if it’s made by the same guys who developed Diablo 2, and you’re using exotic weapons to kill all manner of hell-spawned demons and undead, it’s not D2. Why? Well…we’re really not sure, but it’s not. Truth be told, while it may be unfair to compare the two games, the comparison is inevitable as the Patriots winning the Super Bowl this year. And unfortunately for Bill Roper and the gang, the game doesn’t come close to the polish of the original. It could, and at times you think it does, but you never get the feeling of belonging to the world you’re playing in.
I got hooked into (not onto) the game after listening to an interview of Bill Roper by the guys over at the 1Up Yours podcast; I came away really excited about the game, and started watching trailers and reading previews like a Flagship fanboy. Thing is, After dropping fifty bucks and spending twenty-thirty hours playing it, I’m not really feeling the quality of “this is awesome” that I expected to. I came into the experience really really wanting to like it, and that managed to carry me through the first week or so of playing it, but now I’m not feeling the urge to pick it back up at all.
Let’s get down to specifics.
The graphics? Pretty, but the dark and dank does get a little old after a while. I guess I can’t expect anything else from a game set in post-apocalyptic London though.
Gameplay? Fun, especially the evoker and marksman classes. My main is a guardian, mostly because it’s the easiest to play and hardest to die when lag strikes. Which brings me to the first of my big concerns. I don’t know if it’s the servers or if it’s because I’m playing the game over a DSL connection, but the lag is ALWAYS horrendous. Usually anywhere from a 1-15 second delay between my mouse-click in real-time and the response in the game. This might have gotten fixed in the past week that I haven’t been playing, but I doubt it. I honestly haven’t even tried to play a different class any farther then the first five levels online because I know I’ll do nothing but die in the later levels if there’s any lag in the game. Guardians do better when surrounded, evokers? Not so much.
Second big concern: no skill reset. In a game where skills make up EVERYTHING about your character, the lack of a reset button is nothing short of freakin’ ridiculous. If I have to pay 10,000 pallidum to do it, sure. Whatever. Just get that feature in the game and live as soon as possible. Especially in a new game when you really have no idea how all the skills work together in actual gameplay, its just stupid to expect players to put 50-70 hours leveling a character to fifty just to try out ONE set of skills. Please Flagship, please Bill Roper, do the smart thing.
The other thing people are complaining about is the lack of subscriber content. Since I’m not a subscriber and don’t plan to be, that really doesn’t concern me. My only hope is that the game will be patched to it’s full potential before too long. Because dang it, I need something to keep me occupied until Starcraft 2 comes out.
As if they arn’t making enough money, Blizzard Entertainment has hired the collective coolness of Mr. T and–wait for it–William “Shatnerology” Shatner, to pitch new commercials for the game. I want to meet the marketing guys who thought this one up and shake their hands.
Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to the ad campaign: Chuck Norris and Jason Alexander!
A couple days ago Neils Clark over at Gamasutra asked the question: is there life after Warcraft? It wasn’t so much the question that was interesting, but the people he posed the question to. He asked five bone fide academics to give their qualified opinion on the phenomenon that is World of Warcraft. If you are into intelligent commentary on virtual social trends, or if you just have some time to burn, it’s worth a read.
I’m crossing into Fred’s territory with this post. After all he is the resident World of Warcraft fanboy, but according to Macenstein, Apple’s latest press conference is going to announce WoW for both the iPhone and iPod touch.
How did he come to this conclusion you might ask? Well, you can read the full story here. But the short and sweet version is that the little slogan Apple sent out as part of the invitation “Mum is no longer the word” is actually an anagram for “Lord, now the Grum is on me”.
World of Warcraft: Game of the Year, mmorpg phenomenon, and all-around cash cow.
One might ask themselves, “How could someone who spends fifteen bucks a month to play a game (guilty) spend even MORE money on said game?” Say…five hundred bucks more? The answer lies in a 2×3 piece of painted cardboard.
