This week is AFK Gamer’s annual look back at Ye Olde Year, 2006 –The Week of Fives.
Today, Five Things that World of Warcraft Does Really Well.
I spend most of the blog space discussing the stupid and absurd of World of Warcraft, both the game and the players. That’s not the entire story, of course. There’s alot about World of Warcraft, and its players, that’s wonderful. Here’s our top five — three from me, and two from Raster.
1. The music and the sounds. I mentioned a while ago that I haven’t played with music or sound in World of Warcraft since December 2004. Since I wrote that, I’ve made an effort to turn on the music and sounds when I’m solo’ing and not in the guild’s Ventrilo. I have to say, it’s as immersive and rich as I remembered. The swoosh of the stealthed rogues in the PVP battlegrounds, the “To Arms!” music when riding into Ironforge or Orgrimmar, the heightened suspense in Duskwood, the booming NPC taunts in Blackwing Lair … all superbly done. And until I was driven to madness by the mournful cello music of the Burning Crusade’s Blood Elf noob area, I thought it was beautiful. (Foton)
2. The noob levels. WoW does an excellent job introducing newer players to the game. Plentiful spawn areas full of beasts which are not aggro and extremely fast repop help get the initial levels down in no time. Mobs also drop starter gear for all classes and the quests in the area give you just enough money to buy all of your newly trained abilities as well as some slightly higher quality equipment. The quests are relatively easy and teach you the basics of your characters abilities, preparing you for the major area of the game. It’s not difficult to get to level 10 in an hour or two, removing some of the tedium especially if it’s not the first character you’re leveling. Alliance are also treated to their first “epic” dungeon, the Deadmines, around level 20, giving you a nice taste of things to come. (Raster)
3. The sly humor. This, more than any other aspect of WoW, proves that once upon a time, designers, writers, artists loved this game. Well, I’m sure they still do, but some day, the cash cow may become just a cow and there won’t be much time (or budget) to lovingly craft anything. Back to the now, I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed Warcraft’s sly humor … no one has ever done it better. The pop culture references, the play on words, Madonna on the loading screen (goddamit, I know that’s her!), even the corny, all of it so cleverly done — Warcraft is without peer on this. (Foton)
4. The quest system. Rather than follow in EverQuest’s footsteps, WoW made the quests in game an essential part of the game and leveling process. In EQ, quests were usually tedious and the only reward was some item you would receive. There was very little in the way of experience or money rewards, and most of the rewards made you want to throw a brick through your monitor. WoW made quests integral to leveling to 60 and to obtain decent gear along the way. Quests are plentiful and give large experience rewards upon completion, making it much quicker to get to 60 than previous games. Each zone is populated with any number of quests based upon the in-game lore, and after exhausting them, you were sent off to the next one. Most newer players appreciate the streamlined and relatively easy curve to 60 and I’m sure it’s a large part of WoW’s success. Well done Blizzard. (Raster)
5. The fluff. I haven’t written, directly, about Warcraft’s fluff in almost two years, but I’ve been enjoying it all along. (Fluff) There’s a lot of fluff and nonsense (the fun nonsense, not the nerf nonsense) in Warcraft and in many ways, we as players work harder for the fluff than the daily gaming basics — because we want to, not because we have to. We’re talking non-combat pets, enchant glows (the enchants could just add stats, but oh so much better that they have a glow), the additional game events, the quest rewards with an illusion effect, and hundreds of others. I don’t know if there’s one guy at Blizzard in charge of game fluff or an entire team. Either way, he/they have the best job in the whole organization. (Foton)
Wednesday, Five Things We Wish for Future Games.
See Also
2005’s Week of Fives: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, The Finale
A very good list. In the rush to complain about things (ranting is so much more fun!) it’s easy to forget to mention why we still enjoy and play the game. The fluff, sly humor, and system of teaching low-level chars to use the game through questing are some of my favorite parts of the game.
I am really happy to see someone acknowledge some of the great parts of World of Warcraft. Typically all you hear day-in and day-out is people complaining to the high heavens about things that really shouldn’t be complained about. Rarely you’ll get the well formed writing about what really is wrong and should be fixed/updated with the game, but it is so incredibly uncommon to see people praising the things that really deserve it about the game. Well done Foton!