10/30/2005

WOW Rantings & Ravings Vol. 1

The header is sort of joke. As I have stated, I will not make this a column mainly devoted to WOW, but I will occasionally talk about it. And with Blizzcon, where they are showcasing the upcoming expansion pack for WOW going on this weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about my thoughts on the expansion as it's now known and my experiences with the game.

First thought-the methods of travel need to be vastly improved. Currently there are three realistic options to get to anywhere-foot/ mount, griffin or begging some mage to teleport you there. While there's nothing theoretically wrong with traveling on foot it just takes awhile. The real problem is with the griffins. I admit, the first few times I flew on a griffin, it was pretty cool. You get to see new places as you are flying over, and it has a very majestic feeling. The problem is that it is much like your modern day bargain bin flights, only without the fun strip searches. There is no direct flight path to many cities, and you have to make many stops if you are trying to get to a particularly far place. And it's not like you can get transfers, so it can get costly & time consuming jetting around from city to city. Now, I can ask a player to teleport me, but that can also take a whole lot of time, be costly, and pointless if there's no one available. The simple solution-Have NPC teleporters that can teleport you to any city/refuge you've already traveled to. It should cost a bit more since it's a more convient way of traveling, but I think most would gladly pay extra in order to get there fast. It would also stop greedy mages from ripping people off (or least have them offer bargain bin discounts).

Second thought-New Class: Ambassador. Now I know that Blizzard has repeatedly stated that it is (understandbly) incredibly hard to to balance the current classes, which is why we probably won't be seeing a new one anytime real soon. But I think an Ambassador class would benot only an ideal and original addition, but a fairly easy fit. The idea is this-although some players really keep to heart the whole Aliiance vs. Horde thing, many (including myself) get along fine with suppossed enemies and even occasionally help out if possible. The downside is that we can't really communicate with each other or team up. The Ambassador would be a solution to that. Your basic tool would be the use of language. You can team up with members of an opposite faction and if you are on a party they can invite members of another faction. As far as attack, your powers would focus and crowd control-lowering agression of nearby enemies, charming (which most magic clases dcan do to some extent, but this would be much more focused), and be able to talk to enemies in their language and listen so they reveal key locations of items, bosses, etc. I think it would truly add a unique dimension of gameplay.

Now, onto the expansion itself. Not everything has been revealed as of yet, but honestly the tidbits that have been aren't that exciting. Don't get me wrong, being able to explore the orc homeworld sounds very cool-

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But the new level cap doesn't really solve the end game issue, just prolongs it a little. And then there's the new races. While the Alliance race hasn't been revealed yet, the Horde race, the Blood Elves, Seem like a fairly poor choice.




Blizzard has pretty much admitted to the Blood Elves being there to offer a "sexy" race for the Horde side. The Horde isn't supposssed to be sexy. They are suppossed to be a mostly vicious, ugly and cruel group built on an uneasy alliance that seems about to break at any moment (which might be something WOW can touch upon in the next expansion, whenever that is). These Blood Elves just look like Night Elves with a different hue. Hopefully the gameplay difference will make up for the lack of creativity there, but if that's the biggest selling point of this expansion, I may skip it for awhile.

Moving on from WOW, I've sort of decided to scale back on my focus on game releases. Not in the sense that I'll really stop talking about them, more that I'll talk about them when I get to play with them so I can give a better opinion on them. It may mean I'm giving an opinion about a game months after it's out, but it's not like I'm really under any pressure or get paid to do this. That's it for today.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You will see when you hit 60 the game just begins. Their are huge raids to go on and soooo many items to acquire. Not to mention pvp where you can get some killer gear for just simply whupping other people's asses.