World of Warcraft Comments by Oli Welsh

Great review and a deserved score for one of the greatest video games ever created.

It's easy to get pissy and whinge about this being a ten, every score and every opinion is wholly subjective, but either way, can anybody think of a more ambitious project in gaming to have captivated so many loyal followers?

Best part of 10m people aren't playing it because they like paying £9 a month, they're playing it because it offers an experience that isn't replicated anywhere else.

Fair play to Blizzard, the boys done good with this one...

"Absurd review, for an increasingly absurd website. We're at IGN levels of crap now... I used to think this website was reliable. >_>"

Fuck off then.

Nah, not my thing, I prefer the strategy game. Yes, my liege, even the elder races get tired of waiting, and all that.
So yes, Starcraft II, let it come please...

Crofto, nearly every single games media outlet in the western world thinks that WOW is a 10/10 or near as damn it. Apart from you apparently.

However I believe you. You're absurd Eurogamer. ABSURD!

You must kill 10 Eurogamer reviewers and then return to me. 10XP!

Seriously? 10?

WoW will fuck you up the ass and run away with your soul.

Long live WoW!

Im really happy to see a review of WoW that for once has been made by an actual player,rather than it being done as a "job".

Its been just over 3 years since i began playing and i can only echo the comments made by the OP.

WoW has single handedly revised the way millions of players spend their free time,these players arent idiots,they pay top whack for the best experience currently available.

Rather than getting embroiled in pointless subjective arguements id just like to say thank you for representing the community.

2.4 indeed brought an influx of much needed changes and regardless of the ongoing PvE v PvP debate,Blizzard indeed deserve recognition for satisfying the needs of players,rather than lining their own pockets by having players level so slow in old content.

Im all for constructive criticism as well as unbiased reporting,i shall look forward to future re-visits from Eurogamer.

@crestedzulu

Representing the community? Surely that would be moaning about something being OP and posting random rickrolls? (yes, there is irony inherent here)

Talking of which, whatever happened to decent internet fads? Been a while now since rickrolling and chuck norris, 4chan are being boring. Honestly the internet's nearly dead.

Haha Mighty,i see your aware of the WoW forums (and) trolls too.

Like i said though,id rather sidestep the subjective stuff and focus on what i feel was a nicely written piece by someone who clearly understands the game.

As outlandish (pun intended) as it may seem,there actually is a player base out there whom appreciate what Blizzard does,plays the game as it was intended and loves the stuff they put out.

The very English ethic of build `em up and then knock `em down style of reporting is something that WoW has suffered more than most,so i can only applaud the review as it echoes the majority of players viewpoints.

Preaching to the converted?Maybe...but all the same,i found it refreshing.

To all the people saying 'OMG it has loads of children in it!' - You will find idiots and little kids in everything, especially very popular, accessible things like World of Warcraft. It is, however, not difficult to go 'ah well,' add the idiots to your ignore list, then find a more mature guild that only recruits people who are 18 or over, or something.

To all the people saying 'It has loads of grinding in it! How can you give it a 10?!' - As you will see, he compares it to other MMOs and says it's the best of its kind, which it is. Grinding is essentially what an MMO is, practically all MMOs have loads of grinding. WoW actually has a lot less grinding than most MMOs to reach the max level etc. If this style of play isn't appealing to you, then you should leave the MMO section really, as MMOs in general aren't for you.

Personally, I quit a long time ago as I didn't feel like putting the time required in, was having issues finding a good guild at the time, and was utterly, utterly fed up of being forced onto the EU servers and having to put up with 'SWE?!' every 2 seconds, and practically all guilds and parties etc on my server (and other ones I played on) only allowing people of X nationality in. So it was a choice of continuing to play like that, or buying a US copy of the game and the expansion, having to put up with all the lag and time difference (making raids almost impossible). I chose neither. I still plan to go back to it, some day.

The score is completely deserved, and would have been deserved if it scored 10 a year ago as well.

Am I a fanboy? Am I pro-WoW in all circumstances? No, I'm not. I quit playing WoW somewhere during 2006, I think it was august or september, and I utterly hate and despise it now. I've had enough, and that's all there is to it.

Other people make valid points about somewhat everything the game has to offer, both positive and negative.
The truth is: If one game can inspire so many people to play it for years in a row AND incite them to pay for it every month... Then it's definitly worth the 10.

Another thing is that if you compare WoW to other single-player RPGs out there, it blows all of them away, apart from the fact that you can't "beat" the game or be the world-changing protagonist. But in all other aspects, WoW is just better at all the core mechanics of a RPG: Race and class balance, skill progression, environment, questing, quest hubs, quest rewards, exploration, location vectoring, difficulty. It is all very, very well crafted. Compare it to Morrowind and Gothic 3 where I often found myself asking "Where the fuck should I go now?" something that never happens in WoW while you're levelling up.

I played since EU beta for a bit more than two years, and when I look back, I had a lot of fun. It eventually got boring and repetitive for me, so I simply quit. But I can't think of any game that has given me more enjoyment than WoW. It really deserves 10/10.

Xiphos

Could you do an honest, balls to bone, quick recap on why LOTR is different? Why you play it in the mmorpg realm?
Haven't tried it. And I love Tolkien.

Erk. Where to start? Ok, real quick, bullet-point recap.

* Overarching storyline that permeates the whole game. Gives a sense of plot progression as elements are introduced in the introduction which don't get resolved until much later on in the game, and that doesn't interfere with the storyline of LOTR.
* Instanced areas (not just dungeons) for solo and group players, which offer unique challenges but are much shorter than their WoW counterparts
* Diverse classes that fit the world nicely and offer a somewhat unique blend of skills- warriors, for instance, are split into two categories, Guardian (for tanking) and Champion (for damage dealing and area of effect attacks).
* Fellowship Conjunctions, similar to EQ2 Heroic Opportunities, which reward you for playing as a group and communicating with each other
* Player housing system which gives a sense of community and pride, showing off your house (including its garden and decorations) to friends.
* Familiar, easy-to-play mechanics that are every bit as easy to play and as long-lasting as WoW's combat system, but individual battles tend to be over much quicker.
* Emphasis on exploration of the huge world- with Traits to reward you for exploring
* Trait and Title system which offers rewards for doing otherwise monotonous tasks like killing creatures
* Plenty of non-combat quests, like the Shire post deliveries and pie deliveries
* Beautiful visuals that convey a sense that the world is actually alive and things are going on around you
* Great community that are actually very helpful, at least in my experience
* GM's who (for the most part) respond to problems promptly and fairly well. In one instance a boss bugged out on us, and we could not kill him. A GM came within 10 minutes after posting a ticket, reset the boss, and defeated it, giving us all quest credit as normal.
* high-end items aren't drops from enemies, they are rewards from quests and reputation, so you don't need to grind the same instances over and over again to get the item you want
* Ability to play musical instruments! Sounds silly, but when you walk into Bree-Town and someone is playing the Fellowship theme from the movies on their lute, its pretty magical.
* Great sense of community- on my server a band of player characters were holding a concert in the Prancing Pony, playing music from various movies.

Eck, thats all I can think of for now. And granted, you get a lot of those in whatever MMO you play. But for me, LOTRO just has that special 'spark'.

"I'm an on off player of WoW, i have a few level 70's [...]
The game is very good at hooking you in for short periods of time, but it simply does nothing to sustain your interest."

This kind of comment drives me crazy.

My first and only 70 took me 15 days of /played. That's 360 hours spent on this single game. Let's assume you went faster cause you played the game in a more efficient way than me (and you didn't have a paladin :D), and your first 70 took you, like, 12 days? Then we add a few more lvl 70 to the equation. Let's say two more. 10 days of played each in average. That's a grand total of 32 days of played just to reach lvl 70. That's, emh, 768 hours spent on this single game. And then you say you're not a raid player but you've been to Kara, which means on top of that you've spent some good time instancing on top lvl dungeons and heroics.

Now, explain me, how can WoW "do nothing to sustain your interest" when you managed to spend around 1000 hours of your time on it, while the average game often struggles to keep a gamers attention for 10-15 hours?

I'm always in a love-hate relationship with WoW, but I've spent 400+ hours on it, which is more than I spent with any other game in my gaming life (a total rivaled only by the hours spent playing NBA 2K series during the years) and this can mean only one thing: it is THAT good.

The biggest element I've found about WoW is meeting people from all walks of life who, by tradition, were never a 'hardcore' gamesplayer prior to WoW, you can sum up WoW in a nutshell and that’s people, people can make or break the experience, this in turn could also reflect any MMO's out there but its such a versatile product one doesn’t need to invest their time if it isn’t ya cuppa tea.

Another point I'd like to make, for those of you not privy to playing any MMO's prior to WoW, Blizzard looked at the core elements that constructed this genre of a product and effectively produced something that took away ALOT of the pain in the market place and presented something allot more mainstream, if you like. Blizzard have always plagiarized and bastardized many sources to craft something within their own franchise but with human nature nobody likes someone to become too successful.

At the end of the day it’s only a game.

@Xiphos: LOTRO is so much similar to WoW, and at the same time is different. It's easier to play, less "technical" (forget about the talent tree / itemization / enchantment perfectionism of WoW) and more about the atmosphere and the story. It is still a grinder, but somehow it manages to convey more sense to what you're dong. You end up caring more for the quest descriptions, and the overarching game story is something central to the game. In WoW you have some overarching stories, but these are so diluited in the game (usually each story progress at the next instance), that you end up not caring that much. The mini instances are nice, but in many cases they could have been left to the open world without damage... they are just there to avoid that you could skip monsters in one area because somebody else passed there before you, and they are here so that you have to follow some part of the stories. They remind me of the kind of approach that D&D online had, which is kinda good. Combat tend to be better than in WoW, but I still have to get into an endgame boss fight so I can't really compare the level of skill needed for high level encounters (where WoW stops being foolproof and starts being challenging).
The real problem with LOTRO for me is that it loses some of the aspects that made WoW great: the tons of different items, the high level of customization you can have on your character, the great differentiation between zones (the world of warcraft is a two (three) isle patchwork of all kind of terrain you can think of, while the world of LOTR is a much more coherent, but repetitive, vision of a "real" fantasy world).
It is good though, and I'm now getting more and more into it after getting tired of WoW. See you there if you decide to start adventuring in Middle Earth.

WOW is one of the most boring, repetitive, dull games I have ever played.
Yet it’s one of the most visually appeasing, exciting, and additive games I have ever played.
Yes that statement sounds strange welcome to WOW.
A deserved 10.

10lol

"WOW is one of the most boring, repetitive, dull games I have ever played.
Yet it’s one of the most visually appeasing, exciting, and additive games I have ever played.
A deserved 10."

Sums it up PERFECTLY.

After a long break playing wow I'm back playing it again and as far as the population in concerned it seems exactly the same as before.

There always have been kids calling each other names and begging for money. Since day one, as I remember thinking begging was actually part of the game when I first played it (on day one of release, not beta).

There always have been unhelpful and unfriendly people, as much as there has been helpful, friendly people.

The levelling speed change does make the game more fun in my opinion, it's certainly refreshing not to have to tackle every quest.

It's definitely a 10, read the scoring policy if you need explanation as to why. It's pretty clear.

I have to point out the problem with this review - it only covers half the game as it now stands. Getting to 70 is only the start. Sure, raiding takes a huge amount of time and effort, but those who enjoy it feel the rewards and sense of achievement and guild collaboration match the time and effort. The journey to Black Temple tells a fantastic story which is half the point of WoW.

To instead skim over that huge element by claiming the best bit is simply the journey to 70 really doesn't constitute a fair and complete review. Will the rest of EuroGamer MMO be from that casual perspective or will we be seeing writing from more dedicated players here? I don't mean to sound like an elitist moaner, consider this a constructive opinion from part of your target audience. :)

I've been playing WoW since day 1 and still love it. My main is a lvl70 night elf warrior with over 2500 hours played on that character.

I tried LOTRO for a couple of months but just couldn't get into it, however I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.

Really looking forward to Warhammer and Conan.

"over 2500 hours played on that character"

bloody hell... i thought my 335 hours on my main was bad!

The title refers to the addition of a new dungeon in which ten max-level players can take on the barbaric jungle trolls and their animal gods.

Forest trolls, not jungle trolls.

Nitpick aside, it's a good review - if you keep in mind (and lots of people here haven't) that MMO reviews are obviously going to be much more subjective than single-player reviews. Your experience in WoW will vary greatly according to a lot of factors you don't control (especially if you're new to it) - which server you end up in, which guild you join, etc. I have been fortunate enough to roll on a good server and join a great guild, so I log in the game every night to spend some very nice hours with friends I really care about. Your mileage may vary because of these random conditions, and because you're the one that sets your goals in the game (pvp, pve, rp, socializing, etc.) - so depending on this, it may be a horrible experience or an extremely rewarding one.

10 for addicts.
8 for the rest of us.

Well here's what WOW should have and still doesnt. The ability to customize the colors of my gear as one can in City of Heroes. The crafting systems are still strangely 90% useless. Most of the stuff is worthless in every sense and every new patch doesnt really improve crafting. A way to _quickly_ create a viable party rather than having to wait around for 20 minutes for a group to form, then have someone immediately go away from keyboard. Argh.

WoW is a 10. No question.

After you see the depth and interaction an MMO offers, it's hard to go back.

I should say, the first time I played WoW, I didn't get it.

The learning curve is STEEP. There is so, so much going on in the game now, it must be horrible for a newbie to learn everything.

I played as a gnome for a bit, decided it was a shit and gave in.

Then I went back with a friend and I've ended up with a lv 70 Priest.

You get out what you put in. Once I hit the top level and was in a guild doing raids on Vent, I can honestly say, in over 20 years of playing games, i have never enjoyed myself more. I fucking loved those guys.

"WOW is still one of the best-looking games on PC"

That's a good one.

And a 10? WoW got an 8 when first released, Guild Wars was a 9 and deservedly. Ok, Guild Wars has gotten worse by the dumb campaign-expansion thing, bloating the game and alienated any freaks who just bought the first game ( me ). But sorry, WoW did NOT get 10/10 better.

Eurogamer, please, go back to the serious, and more importantly, skeptic, (mostly) hype-free reviewing that made me scoff at Gamespot.

Correct: Blizzard has an excellent art team. They know how to make something distinctive, and they know how to exploit an environment so a 2D video display doesn't seem to misrepresent how large things are.

Incorrect: the leveling changes are an objective increase in the quality of the game.

Incorrect: Blizzard is good at 'hybrids' in WoW.


If changed leveling XP requirements yet again so it took only 1/4 as long as it does now, so you'd get someone who'd powerlevel to 60 in 8 hours /played instead of just over a day /played, would that make it a better game? The article hints at this problem. From page 3:

"...social side can these days seem a little businesslike, a touch mechanical. Almost everyone is polite and capable, almost everyone knows the game inside out, and almost everyone seems engaged in a ruthlessly efficient race to the finish line."

A faster leveling curve does not make the game more enjoyable for the new player, because for many casual players the game ENDS once you reach the level cap and making it easier (both in time and in complexity, see glowy sparkles on already easy-to-find quest items) does nothing to improve the experience. The faster curve appeals mainly to those for whom the game BEGINS once you reach the level cap, and the crucial flaw is that instead of improving the game so that players did not feel they had to reach the level cap before they could start having fun, Blizzard just made it easier to endure.

The problem was not with the leveling curve; what made leveling feel too long for some players, and what is still the problem today and in the future, is what is what happens once you get there... and unlike the leveling curve, this is not something Blizzard knows how to fix, because their efforts to offer "more to do" (aka different ways to grind items) in fact only increase the pressure on players to acquire items, leaving less and less time for players to socialize and have fun taking their time in the game.


Hybrids are a similar example of Blizzard's efforts to 'improve' the game only making it worse. The forced specialization in endgame raiding causes so many problems I don't even want to list them all. Yes, shadow priests and maybe even other, non-mana-battery 'dps hybrids' may be viable in endgame raiding now... but when was the last time you saw a raiding druid with a half-resto, half-feral spec? Or a ret pally in an endgame raiding guild (and there are ret pallies at the highest level) who found it an efficient use of their time and mana to toss out a single heal?

There are no real dps/healing hybrids in endgame raiding; in a top guild, even an elemental shaman with +1300 dps/healing will not find it efficient to use a single heal. There are no dps/tanking hybrids (not fluid hybrids at least, which is a necessary requirement for them to affect encounter design and break the specialization feedback loop). There are no PvE/PvP hybrids either... except maybe rogues who can exploit their defensive cooldowns enough to make PvE gear viable in PvP, but even they require a respec. The article presents hybrids as having more options than ever as the game goes on, but the truth is that the number of cookie-cutter specs and playstyles becomes narrower and narrower as time goes, and this punishment for originality will only continue to increase in the future.

…

I don't believe this was a player. I think it was written by blizzard.

WOW has a lot of bugs that don't get fixed. Every time there is a patch, major things get broken.

Periodically WOW will change its mind about the rules and things that players have worked for (over weeks or months) will just go away. Too bad for the player.

I suggest finding a different game. One where the developers haven't lost the formula of what made the game great.