World of Warcraft

Thursday, June 14, 2007

World of Warcraft is a game which has been out for a while, so why review it now? Because it's worth it! World of Warcraft is, frankly, every gamer's dream. I even maintain a page about the game mechanics (World of Warcraft: Raiding the Metagame). The game features that hooked me include:

• Excellent single-player play from level 1 to 70 including quests all the way through the levels that are really worth doing
• Instanced dungeons that you and 4 others can explore for every level of player from 1 to 70
• A rich set of player-to-player sale tools for in-game goods
• A player-made goods system that's powerful and easy to use
• Player-vs-player options as rich as any game, MMO or otherwise
  • 1-on-1 duels
  • 2-on-2, 3-on-3, and 5-on-5 arena matches against all comers in ladder
  • 4 battlegrounds, each with their own objectives, where one faction fights against the other
  • Several "world pvp" objectives that provide wide-open possibilities
  • But most importantly, PVP is entirely optional (except on PVP servers, which you can choose to start on if you want)

For the programmers out there, World of Warcraft is leaps ahead of the pack. It offers a fully programmable user interface and modding system that allows you to write complex programs to control the layout and behavior of the user interface in a language called Lua.

The other thing worth mentioning is that the developers and their representatives are deeply involved with the community, and can be communicated with via the official WoW forums.

The expansion, The Burning Crusade, was released in early 2007, and continues to deliver new content to players 6 months later, including a rise of level cap (from 60 to 70), new PVP options, deep and rich raiding progression, two new races, and a host of new tools.