WoW is a game of firsts. It’s the first time Blizzard has ever tackled an online game, and it’s the first game from Blizzard in which players focus on a single character.
The Warcraft series began in 1994 with the classic Warcraft: Humans and Orcs. The title revolutionized strategy gameplay and showed gamers that Blizzard knew what they were doing. They followed it with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, which brought more revolutionary elements and much more story. This story continued through Warcraft II’s expansion Beyond the Dark Portal, and eventually lead up to the current best-seller Warcraft III. This epic battle between Human and Orc has progressed into Alliance versus Horde. Warcraft III’s expansion The Frozen Throne brought this epic battle to its crescendo, and left all the kingdoms in shambles. WoW has been named “canon,” or an official sequel in the Warcraft series. This means the story will continue, though most is expected to be of the kingdoms rebuilding their lands and establishing new boundaries.
The Alliance consists of Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, and Night Elves, while the Horde poses Orcs, Undead, Tauren, and Trolls against them. These races are all playable and all have different features. Dwarves are stoic, dedicated beings who recently discovered their heritage and have come down from the mountains to investigate. Tauren are similar to Minotaurs, with giant brutish bodies and bull-like heads. The Tauren are tribal and surprisingly peaceful, but have been dragged into conflict and have allied with the Horde to stand up to the Alliance. All of the races have deep pasts and different futures, bringing exciting historiesand interesting possibilities to the game.
The Horde-Alliance war will allow for Player-Versus-Player battles, and will be made more interesting by the unique abilities that each side has access to. Paladins, for example, are Alliance only due to the holy nature. Shamans, on the other hand, are only playable by Horde races. These classes add more depth to the ages-old conflict between the world powers. Another interesting twist to the conflict is the homeland of each race. Both the Horde and Alliance have a race that allows them to begin their quest from behind enemy lines. Night Elves, an Allied force, begin on an island far south of the other Allies. The Undead race is separated from its Horde allies as well, beginning in a forest North of the Horde with Alliance forces cutting them off. Little twists like these add to the over-all effect of an ongoing world.
We all know how MMORPGs work. Thousands of players each log onto a server far away and play together as fantasy characters. The genre is currently a little overdone, but who can blame developers for wanting to get in on what’s being referred to as the “keep paying us after you buy our game” field? The only way for a developer to survive is to bring something new and fascinating to the table and keep it there. WoW brings many new and exciting features to dinner, like an entirely customizable display. WoW will also be set at a higher pace than most MMOs, allowing for more combat and quests with shorter downtimes and waiting.
A big issue with almost any game is control. In MMORPGs, past games have shown that bad control can cause an otherwise good game to be punishment rather than fun. Blizzard is proving to one-up the competition by having an in-depth and extremely broad amount of abilities in an easily customizable screen. The controls are easy and completely customizable, and you can reassign every key. The all-too-familiar cursor from previous games is back, now with a smaller icon next to it showing the current action. Perspectives are changeable, from first-person to several different third-person views, and the camera can be controlled easily to swivel around your character.
Combat is a large part of every RPG, especially online games. Many MMOs suffer from repetitive, continuous combat that is only done to achieve the next level. Blizzard is making sure this doesn’t happen by making combat active and creating a quest system previously unheard of. A simple click on an enemy will get your character attacking, but enemies will take much more than default attacks to go down, and they will be using much more as well. Familiar abilities such as Bloodlust and Divine Shield will be returning, and many more are being added. Each class will have its own unique abilities, and many of them. The classes already have about twenty announced abilities each, and more are expected to be revealed as the beta continues through more segments of testing.
Blizzard is currently very reluctant to state a release date for this gem. Beta testing is currently in progress, with the first set of testers currently exploring the world of Azeroth. Blizzard has stated that the beta will continue for a long time, possibly up to 6 months, with more players entering at each new “push” or phase of the beta. The only word on release besides “When it’s done” has been “late 2004.” Let’s all cross our fingers for that Winter release.