The final lap! The WoW review from WoW beta testers!Follow

I kept falling in Thunderbluff....

Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 9 few things could improve
Sound: 6 could use more music, theres some sound bugs in some areas and more sound is always a plus.
Interface and control: 10 great interface and controls, very customizable
Fun Factor: 9 always room to improve

Final comments:
While there are some bugs overall its a really solid game

i played ffxi for a year, i played open beta WoW for about a week.
i had more fun in four hours than i ever had in weeks of time playing FFXI.
I miss my linkshell in FF, and i don't look forward to the 1337 /1 talk... but i'll deal.

The graphics are everything i expect from blizzard and more. The fact that there aren't ANY ZONE LINES makes me smile whenever i think about it. Every quest i've done so far was fun, and the rewards on the multiple "Bring me X drop from X mob in this area" quests make them worthwhile too.

Crafting is so fun and easy it's almost not fair. PvP is fun AND easy, and the only problem is with people 3+ lvls higher than you are. I don't get the feeling that i waste 3 hrs of my life every time i die like i did with FFXI, i'm not afraid to go exploring, i'm absolutely not worried about IGE farming moneys.

My buddy puts it great when he says "This game does everything right"

Want my advice? Play WoW. I don't care about your background, if you've ever played an rpg, play this. The only people i think might not like this game are the aimbot CS players, and i guess maybe them people and their foosball games. :D

-Vert

I pretty much agree with everything everyone has said about the game...

This is the first time I've been so bored, let alone waited for a game to be released.

The game is designed both for the casual gamer, and the hardcore one. I don't usually tell people to buy something, but if you love MMO's this is definatly the one to ask for and buy.

Graphics: 8.5; i hear a lot of guff about the graphics, but mostly what these people are complaining about isn't that the graphics are poor, but that the art design is a little cartoonish. i acually like the art design, and the graphics are really nice. this isn't a fps, and you shouldn't expect graphics comporable to an fps. i still think the graphics are probably the best for any mmorpg out there, right now.

Interface: 10; i've not played a game that was so intuitively designed and laid out in a long, long time. it was fun just to spend the first fifteen minutes figuring out how to do everything, and what i could do (coming from ffxi i was all like "jump?... i think i will... everywhere i go.). seriously easy learning curve here, but surprisingly rich, and interesting.

Sound: 5.5; i feel like it's not totally fair to rate the sound, as a lot of it, music included, was unfinished as of the end of ob... but that said, what there was was ok, but not really inspired. i wasn't all "ooh, turn that subwoofer up" or whatever.

Gameplay: 9.5 or 10; it's hard to judge gameplay without haveing played more, but i'd say that the game is a blast with most race/class combos up to about 15... i only took to toons past 20. making lvling quest based cuts down on grinding, and even grinding is fun as the chance of scoring a pretty cool item is not half bad. the instances i've played were beautifully laid out and loads of fun.

Fun: whatever you say * infinity; i could see this game pulling a lot of mmorpg newbies in from outher kinds of games and turning them into mature gamers. i see about 10% of the problems in eq and ffxi, and none of the major ones, in WoW.

its sweeeeet.

Graphics: 7
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 9
Interface and control: 7
Fun Factor: 10

Final comments:
The graphics were not the best, but they best suited the game in my opinion. It's a fun game, and the game has fun cartoony graphics. Although the graphics may have looked horrible in screen caps, there were a lot of places in the game that were breathtaking. The graphics were just fine!

Gameplay, I gave a 9 because it's not perfect, but pretty close. Most of the quests were very interesting to me, but some were tedious. The grouping could use some work, and a little more balance between the classes could use a second look. The game could also use access to the central AH throughout the world. Or at least in major cities. Other than that, the game is very fun.

The music is awesome. It does get a little quiet sometimes, especially when you are used to battle music like in FFXI. I really have no complaint here.

Interface and control: Here's the thing. It gets very annoying when I have to use the mouse to pitch the view up or down. I tried to use key bindings to do this, but it doesn't seem to work. I like to not be reliant on the mouse, because it makes chatting in the game easier. Example: Use the number pad to move, while using the arrows to pitch the screen so you can see above you, behind you, and below. Also in areas where the camera follows you extremely close, like going up a hill, the camera gets stuck in that position. It's nice to be able to move it with the keyboard instead of the mouse. I honestly hate using the mouse in games. I end up sitting in a weird positions when I'm playing WoW. My right hand is on the mouse, while my left hand is on the arrows (because I'm really not warmed up to using a w s d to move my character. I like using my right hand to move my character, pitch and select, while my left hand is free to hold a cigarette, use macros, hold a drink or what have you.)

I haven't figured out how to edit the UI. I would love to have a double spell bar instead of a single one. Mainly because I probably won't get warmed up to the macros until later, mainly because of having to use the mouse. I'd like to be able to have my most used spells on a double spell bar so I don't have to keep clicking down or up in my spell book.

Just a minor inconvenience, nothing big.

The fun factor is self-explanatory, considering I've already preordered the game, and I'm about to cancel my FFXI subscription.

Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 9
Interface and control: 8
Fun Factor: 10

Graphics =>
A resounding 9. Definatly not cutting edge, nothing that would put strain on my middle-of-the-spectrum system, but don't let the lack of sparkle let you down. With landscapes as rich as they are varied, there is much to feast your eye on. The cities are appropriately regionally designed and the world is rich with warcraft Flavor. Don't be looking for reality here, but also trust that the screenshots don't do it justice. If you don't mind a cartoony feel, then you will love it. My biggest complaints regarding video were 1) Character models -> they seemed a bit thin; Much like DAoC & others. EQ did a really nice job of making some wicked looking weapoins and armor, and althogh there is a variety here, when you end up with mixed and matched gear, you more often than not look like a bum then a hero.

Gameplay =>
Again, a solid 9 here. First, lemme describe my notions of 'gameplay.' Class design, class balance, Combat, downtime, Tradeskills and diversity. With some classes that have been driven into the ground (Healer, Tank, Caster and Thief) blizzard has added a bit of a new aspect to them There are new class takes altogether (Shaman, Druid) and everything is solidly designed. With no one class becoming overwhelmingly powerful, even in beta stages (yes they all go through small valleys and crests, but that is to be expected unless everyone were to play the same class - and even then, classes don't become obsolete), the classes are quite well balanced. Combat, even for historically boring classes, is fast-paced and occupying, downtime is short, tradeskills are useful, and diversity is present in the effects of talent trees. Although my biggest complaint has to be the lack of viability for 'creative' class builds, occassionally (hunters anyone?) there is still some diversity.

Sound => 9
Honestly, I think this, although one of the best parts of the game, is the one I care least about. Why? More often then not, I am listening to my own tunes. I am glad there is no combat music; I turned off music in EQ for that reason. With going in and out of combat so frequently, it would be more irritating then inspiring. What sound there is is creative (voice-overs), mood-setting (theme music). and appropriate (environmental sounds)

Interface/Control => 8
When moving to a system with many skills for nearly every chracter, sometimes the hotbar got cramped and hotbar switching, even in normal PvE combay became a necessity. Other then that, and pet control, which was sometimes annoying with the ctrl+number, the controls are easy to use and quick to pick up. Pretty standard in mmo's these days though.

Fun-factor => 10
Fun-factor consists of plot, quest relavence, method of leveling and dungeons (pvp falls here too, but that isn't a deciding factor for me, so I am not letting it affect my score here either). The fact that I evenmention plot is a good thing, so often in mmo's there is a distinct lack of one, or in the event there is one, I tend to want to skip past it to get my reward. Although that is true with some quests in WoW, many others have me wanting to complete them just as much for the exp and 45 sp at the end as for the conclusion to the story at the end. Obviously, this tells well of the quest relavence. Leveling is nicely set-up progression-wise, it becomes harder at a steady, acceptable pace and the effects of hell levels are more from lack of appropriate quests atr that level then from mathematics. I have yet to go grind stuff just for xp. The only time I am killing things is for tradeskill supplies, a quest, or an instanced dungeon. VERY GOOD HERE. Dungeons, along with previously mentioned leveling, are phenominal. Remember in EQ when you got to go to sebilis for the first time, it was quite an experience; a hard dungeon with good drops and a methodology behind it. LDoN was similarly fun at first, until you realized each instance was the same thing, over and over. No matter if you were 30 or 65 the only difference was the diificulty of the mobs. Not so in WoW. In fact, when you get to do shadowfang keep for the first time, or Wailing caverns, you are having a BLAST doing a hard dungeon with good bosses, etc. And, you are only in your high teens. Not to mention some of the events in the higher dungeons. good work blizzard!

Final Verdict:
I just spent 25 minutes typing out a review that I will prolly never even look at the responses to; I am hooked for sure!

Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 10
Sound: 10
Interface and control: 10
Fun Factor: immeasurable


Since I count the "fun factor" as the over-all score of the game as a whole, I'd say that anything that is lacking in the game makes no difference, because the game is so much fun that I don't notice what's wrong with it, and frankly I don't care. =)

There are run speed spells. Just gotta be the right class, or buy a mount at level 40. ;)

Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 10
Sound: 6
Interface and control: 9
Fun Factor: 9.5

The music is always the first thing to get old in an MMO like someone else said. I think the music does alot for the mood in some areas, and I think if there was some kind of battle music for every mob you fight it would get old VERY quick. That being said here are my scores:

Graphics: 10

Unique style graphics and you dont need a supercomputer to run the game decently.

Gameplay: 10

You can exp solo. Coming from FFXI where "Decent Challenge" past level 15 means that you dont stand a chance, this is great.

Sound: 8

I like the music alot, but some battle sound effects and character voices could have been better.

Control: 9

The looting system was kind of a pain to click through after every kill but other than that the control was great.

Fun-factor: 10

Very fun game, cool character animations, tons of quests to keep you busy, seemless gameplay... World of Warcraft is the new king of MMORPGS, no doubt about it.

Edited, Sun Nov 21 10:54:28 2004 by Uof

Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 9
Sound: 8
Interface and control: 5
Fun Factor: 10

I loved the graphics despite people saying they were too cartoony or looked like faerietale books. I loved the look and how different it was from other games. Facial expressions, terrain, social emotes. They all added to the graphics being the best of any game I've seen yet, gave it a 9 though because there were still flaws in some graphics interaction, but that's only to be expected in a beta.

The gameplay was so amazing, I didn't mind at all doing things over again, reading the fading quest text, or running around the areas to find quest mobs. Even when I was getting beaten down over and over and over, I still had fun going back and trying or finding a group to do it with. The gameplay is very cool.

The sound is beautiful hands down. The music is awesome, but... it kept looping and playing and after a while I turned it off. The voices became aggravating after a while and I turned those off as well, especially when they talk that they are too far or they can't see something. Argh.

The Interface could be tons better. I'm not a ******, but I like to see my own name and guild over my head and it really really annoyed me that I couldn't. I also -hate- my hotbars at the bottom of the screen and tried desperatly every day to move it in hopes there was a mini patch. This needs work on and I -really- hope they make the windows moveable.

Over all... I cancelled the two other MMORPG's I was playing less than 2 hours into playing the Beta for the first time. This game blew me over and shot me down, it was and is the best game out there.

Blizzard doesnt beat you over the head with sound in the game, because to be honest, even if they had some good battle music, it would become as bland and annoying as EQs battle music.

I loved the music in game, it adds a lot of atmosphere, but music in MMOs will never be "good". when your in a zone for hours and hours your going to hear the same thing over and over, but if that same thing happens to be atmospheric and just a light overlay, there is less chance that most people will be forced to turn down their sound settings. Its not perfect though, because even with all the atmospheric music going on outside of battles, there needs to be something that is not too anoying, but gets your blood pumping for fights.