A review of World of Warcraft without the mention of add-on interfaces is simply incomplete. There are several of these interfaces that are now available for free, the most prevalent and feature-rich being Cosmos. The amount of stuff this thing adds - extra toolbars, damage per second calculation, simple quest sharing, and literally dozens of other features - is astounding. I commend both Blizzard and the Cosmos guys for working together to make a great game even better. Seriously, if you're currently playing WoW without Cosmos or any other interface add-ons, go and do that now. Right now.
Some games make grouping a sort of burden that must be endured rather than enjoyed, but Blizzard has carefully worked on this system to make it fun - as long as your group isn't composed of complete morons, that is, and that's a risk you always take with online games. It turns out that grouping in WoW is almost always more good than bad, and partying up generally serves as an opportunity to better your character at a faster pace than soloing. Classes complement each other nicely, and the interface and gameplay options for grouping are excellent. The game automatically sets up a dice-rolling system for the really nice loot out there, and the group leader can set up several types of loot systems for his group; for example, free-for-all lets anyone pick up anything anytime, and round-robin has people taking turns picking up loot. The system is also pretty intelligent, making sure that one guy doesn't get stuck with the fish scales while another gets the Rugged Banhammer of Fate every time just by luck of the round-robin draw.
It doesn't end there, though; group members can mark spots on their map for others to see and go to, and the location of your group members is always marked on the map wherever you are. It's not all roses, though; Blizzard, for some reason, limits groups only to five members. This is the smallest number I've ever seen in a MMORPG where grouping is useful, and it really limited my experience with the guild I'm in. I have no clue why they did this, and while I'm sure there's some good reason buried in there somewhere, I'm just so used to seeing larger groups that it was a real disappointment.
Any MMORPG nowadays needs powerful guild and private-messaging-oriented features, and Blizzard has delivered some of the best stuff I've seen yet. The guild interface allows you to browse all members both online and offline, and you can check up on their levels, various public notices for each player, and even invite them to groups directly from the guild window. The raid interface also works well, and it isn't just for use during epic encounters; it's very handy in PvP as well. More on that later.
All of this is fine, but if the game world's no fun to be in, then all the kickass interface features and gameplay rules you can think of aren't worth a damn. Blizzard seems to understand this, and has made a world with many unique "zones" (even though Azeroth is almost completely a seamless world) that look very different from the last one you were in. This is most evident if you take a ride on one of the various types of travel in the game; soar from one area into a major city, and you can see the game busily loading up graphics dynamically as you go.
There's another point I'd like to make - World of Warcraft runs like a dream. It runs great on my home computer, listed above, but it also played flawlessly on my Centrino 1.6GHz laptop with a Radeon Mobility 9000 and 640MB of lowly PC2100 memory. Sure, there was some swapping and loading during gameplay on the laptop - that's expected with a rather sluggish 4200 RPM hard drive - but it was mostly a smooth, exciting experience. Basically, the game is at a point technically where I don't even think about the game engine or the frame rate; all I care about is the game, my guild buddies and my next quest. They say technology is at its best when you don't even know it's there, and WoW is a shining example of that.
That's the game client and its engine, though; on the server side it's a different story. During the launch of World of Warcraft, way too many players logged in. Blizzard seems to have underestimated, like almost all MMORPG developers do, the amount of demand for their game, and the players are currently paying the price. A few servers were down for upwards of two days starting only a day into the game's launch, and other servers currently have "queues" where you have to wait in order to log onto your server. This is only really evident on specific servers, namely the high-profile PvP servers. I'm on one of these, and it's frustrating, but I know that it'll go away soon. Until then, there are plenty of servers with low populations (88 of them, at last count), and I suspect that most players will have zero problems.
There aren't a whole lot of MMORPGs boasting any sort of Player vs. Player support these days. Basically, it's difficult to implement and balance alongside a PvE (or Player vs. Environment) game as well, and the benefit of a relative few subscribers isn't worth it from a money perspective. Despite that, Blizzard has gone ahead and included a fairly extensive PvP system into their game, and it comes in two flavors. Non-PvP servers allow players to choose whether or not to partake in the PK action by flagging you as such for up to five minutes. You can flag yourself with a console command, or you can attack another player or heal a PvP-flagged ally to open yourself up to PvP as well.
The PvP servers remove all this flagging stuff and simply make it open PvP. And even a week after release, there has been plenty of action in this regard, as each side heads into enemy territory to take on whoever they can find. So far, the fighting has been largely unbalanced and lopsided, but the defenders always manage to fend off the attackers eventually. As more guilds get together and organize more, we'll see PvP raids happening more often and with better coordination.
What's the reward for bothering with PvP? Well, players can rack up honorable and dishonorable points. Honorable ones will be able to be spent on unique gear, while dishonorable points can get you in trouble with NPCs of your own factions. It remains to be seen if this is truly a worthy motivator for PvP, as the lack of territorial control or player-built cities is a constant reminder that other MMORPGs have implemented PvP in a more robust way.
On top of all this, you can also duel people on your own side if you want. The end of a duel results in the loser sitting down rather than dying, so there isn't even any actual death involved in this. Overall, I like the PvP system, but Blizzard will likely need to continue working on it in order to keep the hardcore players logging on.
Even on the PvP servers, players aren't the only things you'll be killing once you hit level 60. Blizzard has included raid encounters that are reminiscent of Everquest's endgame, and this kind of gear will be needed for those guilds who want to have only the best. Again, this is something that was only briefly tested during beta, and even then it was shortcutted by the developers; whether or not this content is worth bothering with, few people really know.
The art of World of Warcraft is very unique; it's done in an almost cartoon fashion. The characters are well-animated, with plenty of emotes and some great combat animations, and the wilderness is sufficiently believable. Cities are massive and full of life, and the builds are put together in that strange, Warcraft-style angular way. If you love the art style of Warcraft 3, the graphics will please you in many ways here. Personally, I don't much care for the art in this game, and much prefer the darker, more realistic approach seen in most other MMORPGs. Still, I chalk that up more as pure preference than anything else, and Blizzard has undoubtedly packed in so much great gameplay here that I have no issues with ponying up my fifteen bucks a month to play this. Plus, any game with goofy-looking gnomes is a winner.
World of Warcraft may not be the great savior of MMORPGs, but it's certainly the most solid one to come out in a long time. The interface is top-notch, usability features abound, the world itself is unique and charming, the death penalty doesn't make you want to destroy your keyboard, and the combat is genuinely fun. It's not without its minor faults, but Blizzard knows what they're doing, and they've put together an excellent experience with World of Warcraft.
