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jwp79's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
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| [January 29, 2008 11:12:56 AM]
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There are recurring characters in the story line that are kept throughout the game. Non-player-characters have a tendency to keep coming back in the story line as the character progresses. With the release of The Burning Crusade expansion pack, this did not change. Main characters for each factions, friendly faces if you will, were main parts of the opening of the dark portal.
The game implements a tier system in rewarding players for leveling. For example: once the character his level 40, he is able to buy a 60% run speed mount. When the character hits level 60, he is able to buy a 100% run speed mount. When the character hits level 70, he is able to buy a 60% run speed flying mount. When the character reaches a financial standing point in the game, he is able to spend 5000 gold to buy a 280% run speed flying mount. And finally, when the character reaches glory in the PvP system, top PvP teams on each battlegroup are given special trophies for winning each PvP season (arena seasons) that include a 310% run speed flying mount.
Early on leveling in the game, players are kept interested by the frequency in which the player completes a questing area. Early on and at least for the first 30 levels, the character might not spend more than 2-3 hours in a given area before reaching a level to be able to move on to a harder area. This quick change of scene offers new environments, new mob-types (beasts, humanoids, etc) that allow for different abilities and strengths to be used, and new cities and dungeons for the player to experience.
There is an obvious advantage to the tenured players of World of Warcraft. Gear scales drastically as the player moves up in the tiers of raiding in the end-game. Those that are past other players generally have little to no desire to move back in content as it is non-rewarding for them. However, this is where social interactions play a part. Friends made through the course of questing, leveling, grouping, and guilding play a vital part in the progression of new characters--especially to the point of catching up with today's progression.
With the release of The Burning Crusade, quests took on a new direction. The same old-world type quests still exists, but non-killing related quests came into the picture. Quests took on memory skills and hand-eye-coordination skills. This was a nice break from the endless slaughtering that it takes to level to 70.
Overall, the game is sound and verging addicting, but I suppose that is why over the holidays at Christmas 2007, it passed its 10 million player base milestone.
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| [January 29, 2008 12:43:28 AM]
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The game begins by signing into the character for the first time after character creation. A short narrative is shown explaining background knowledge and relevant information about the race you chose. The characterization in the game provides for the ability to fill multiple roles within the same class. The talent structure of the game lends way to full specialization of the character. In the same context, it provides multiple choices to attain the same goal (4 classes of heal-able classes).
The game's story and narrative progression stem from where Warcraft III ended. It continues to unwind providing more in depth feuds and rivalry as the game progresses. The narrative may be overlooked as it is not vitally important to understand the lore of your area to pick out the quest objectives and where to find them.
The gameplay remains smooth through vast numbers of people populating the servers. There is some server lag in major population areas with the use of certain abilities. Compared to EverQuest, the gameplay is much faster paced with quicker spells and abilities. This calls for quicker reactions times.
The player versus player aspects of World of Warcraft is what draws me into the game. PvP is an integral part of the leveling and gearing process giving access to both gear and experience. The PvP system seems to have been renovated a number of times in order to balance classes. There are still flukes in the system, but a good faith effort at a balanced PvP goal.
The game seems to be more geared towards the masses with shorter, simpler objectives that are easily obtained. This yields quick progression, but unfortunately harbors downtime in game play in between content expansions for those who stick with the game long-term.
The level of game design in World of Warcraft is remarkable. The buildings, characters, items and enchants, etc. have intricate details. This aspect can be seen by players identifying other player's gear by the look that the gear gives. In the end-game, it seems players use this knowledge to focus damage on players with visibly-less gear.
The game creates conflict inherently by its PvP system. The game is broken into 2 factions that fight each other in PvP combat. The game provides four "battlegrounds" in which these sides can meet (capture the flag, king of the hill, a combination of the first two, and a race to the finish).
There is an immense amount of possibilities to spend your time from character creation and even past max level. Proportionately, there is an equal amount of content involved after reaching max level as it took to level to max. The content is constantly changing about once per year, and the PvP combat system and rewards are updated according to content upgrades. Also involved in holding interest is the fine tuning one can do to his characters talents. At max level, a character has 61 talents that can be spent in any of 3 trees of talents (each corresponding to a different character direction). For example, a druid's three talent trees are balance (casts damage spells), feral (does melee attacks), or restoration (casts healing spells). The 61 points can be spent in any combination between the three talent trees to optimize your character into what you want it to be.
The game is very easy to level. Coming into contact with a max-level character does not mean that the player of that character has any knowledge of group activities. A player can reach max level without small grouping at all. This poses frustrations after reaching max level when trying to find others to help with quests and other objectives. The game is flooded with max-level characters not all of which are proficient in their class.
My own project's game needs to be challenging to the point of holding interest without verging on impossible and have customizable aspects that would entice a player to play again or more in order to further specialize their character. It challenges me to find that central area that sways in not enough content to overwhelmingly amount of content.
The game starts with a simple character with a minimal number of simple abilities. As the character levels, he is granted access to more abilities and more talents to spend amongst the three talent trees. Upon reaching max-level, the game complexity explodes with the addition of max-level only areas and objectives.
I found it very rewarding in small increments. The game has a lot of small upgrades and additions to your character that allow for a constant small reward environment. It almost verges on too easily rewarded, but for a new player, it gives high incentive to get good at your class in order to get the next upgrade.
Yes. The game completely overwhelms through its quick paced actions, constant battles, and human-to-human interactions. Where there is downtime in content, human relationships fill in the gaps. I found that even in times where I was trying to multi-task play the game, that it was nearly impossible at times to communicate outside of the world with any proficiency. The play of the game is quick enough to hold your attention in the game without notice of actual reality.
The game does not incorporate very many cutscenes. The gameplay is generally uninterrupted. There is a cutscene at the beginning of each character creation, but beyond that, the story line is told through quest and related texts. There is, however, scripted events in the graphics engines with certain encounters in the game which yields MMO version cutscenes.
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jwp79's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 29 January, 2008
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