Allright...so I've been playing the final (European) beta for 2 weeks now, it's ending tonight. In a way it's not even really a beta anymore, with it being out in the US and all, more of free taste of the game for us here...thanx to that big group of beta-testers on the other side of the pond, in any case. hehe

So, for a quick evalutation: it's awesome. I was-unsurprisingly-a dwarven warrior. Wielding a two-handed axe and a gun. With mining and blackmsmithing as my professions. I had good fun.

The world is really well-done...I made a hike through a large part of a continent once, and the diversity of areas I was in (and that didn't look anything alike, either) was great...from snowy mountains tops to forests, swamps, grazelands, a big lake, ruins, anything really. And the capitals of each race are pretty neat...I've seen the Dark Elf, Undead, Human, Tauren and Dwarven capitals and they were invariably awesome. (especially the dwarven one, of course )

Like it was mentioned before here; the graphics aren't ground-breaking, but the atmosphere completely makes up for it. Which is what matters, because there's not a single (usable) engine around that can make truly realistic game images anyway, yet.

The party-system is very practical and fair, too. In terms of sharing loot, XP etc. There's a ton more I could talk about but suffice to say that it'll suck you in. The only thing that I didn't like so much about it was the unavoidable running...playing games is fine, but wasting a good part of my playtime by simply running around SUCKS. I know that this is a common MMORPG problem (well, depending on class and skills I suppose, I think mages can teleport in WoW too, dunno) and there are quite a few means of transportation in WoW (zepellins, boats, birds, bats, trams and of course mounts) but I still don't like it. But, on the bright side: grinding skills is nerfed, and ppl who're online ALL the time get less XP for kills thatn occasional gamers, nice to keep the balance. It's somewhat frustrating that there are ppl around that can-apparently-be online even more than I am, and I basically don't do shit. They must do nothing else but play WOW.


I'm probably not going to buy it, because of the cost and simply because I don't know if I can afford becoming addicted to a MMORPG. (at least a SP game STOPS you know ...even BG2 does) But, who knows, maybe money falls out of the sky or I will use Satis' beer budget instead. Hehehe, jk.


Attaching some pics. Prolly dark cos I mostly play at night, but bleh. These are from Ironforge, the Dwarven capital...located on a mountaintop, carved into the rocks. Very majestic.

more

These pics are some aerial shots of me riding a grypphion, which is more or less the Alliance way of travelling long distance. (the Horde has giant bats, for example) And result in some nice views.

Some pics from Stormwind, the Human capital

some area pics to top it off.

last

hows the music, most mmo games fail miserably in it. AO music is so bad that if it was any worse it would make ones ears bleed.

The music is great. Also, the cinematic intro is incredible, as we've grown to expect from Blizzard.

You have to be a war craft fan.... I though the game sucked donkey nuts personally.

my 2 cents

Mm, k..but why?


Kepe in mind that I'm not a seasoned MMORPG player, but I thought that WoW was very easy to get into and appreciate, unlike some other MMORPG's where you can choose between being exploited by others in the first few months or having a friend on there who knows the drill.

Which pretty much kills all the fun in say 3 weeks or so. Been there, done that. Damn shame Shadowbane EU version got a boot in the butt.

my evaluation:

graphics suck
nerfing xp grinding SUCKS...means that someone that spends alot of time and effort developing their character is penalized? So everyone is encouraged to only play a bit, which means noone really gets into the community-building stuff, which is what really makes the game fun.

I may be mildly prejudiced

They wont be penalized. Its like the base xp for killing monster x is 450xp at lvl say 20. Now lets say you play 5h a day, you will still get that 450 not below it. But say someone who playes 5h a week will get like 650xp. The numbers arent accurate and i might be mistaken but this is how i think it should work. Note the uncertanty. The bonus is only added so that ppl who play lil dont feel like they cant get anywhere and while others are kickass tuffguys they are silly noobs

Yeah, don't overestimate the grinding penalties man...it's rather limited. It's really not like you can keep up with ppl who are online all the time. When you're logged out or in the cities you 'rest', and depending how long you'll receive an XP bonus for a while on monsters killed....but that's VERY relative as you get most XP from quests (like, 70% really) which aren't affected by the XP bonus. Someone who spends a lot of time online will still be infinitely superior, don't worry. So it's more of an XP bonus for ppl that aren't killing every rabbit they see to grind XP than an penalty for grinders.


The graphics really are ok, and well-designed...bleh, I'd say; try it if you have a chance. It's fun.

First of all, the cartoon graphics hurt my eye.
I agree with Satis on the, power gamers get screwed.
Combat was very boring.
Im not a Warcraft fan. I personally only like 1 Blizzard game, diablo and I borrowed that from a friend. Hence, you have to be a warcraft/blizzard fan to like WOW.