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| 2002, EverQuest teams with Sword&Sorcery for a paper RPG version of game. |
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Previews: World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft, the MMO Game being developed by Blizzard Entertainment and published by Vivendi, building upon the past experiences of the Warcraft games, mixing RTS and RPG for what will no doubt be a game that stands alone.
Olaf tells us why, in the first part of his hands on preview from deep within the closed beta!
World of Warcraft - Eric "Olaf" Hasselfeld (04-05-04)
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Back of a Gryphon approaching
Ironforge, the Dwarven Capital.
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World of Warcraft Beta Impressions
I have been following MMORPGs since UO in 96. I have played EQ and DAoC seriously, and dabbled in AC2 and most recently, Horizons. Right off the bat I can tell you that World of Warcraft is shaping up to be the most polished MMORPG release ever. Maybe that statement doesn't mean much to you, given the sorry state almost all of these kinds of games are released in. But read on for a rundown of the WoW beta, and why I think WoW is going to be the first MMORPG given the time, effort and resources it needs to be the best game it can be. What follows is a two piece presentation focusing on the technical aspects of the game in the first piece, and the gameplay aspects in the second.
Graphics
I am playing on an XP 2700+ with a gig of RAM, along with an ATI 9800 Pro and XP Professional. The first thing you notice when entering the game are the colors. Blizzard did a great job using the entire color palette and the world looks extra lively because of it. The three starting areas for the Alliance races are very distinct, and very well done. I especially liked the Dwarf/Gnome starter town, a hilly snow covered place with trees everywhere.
The liberal use of color complements the games' hand-drawn graphical style very well. There are little touches throughout that add to the outstanding atmosphere. Rabbits scamper about, leaving tracks in the snow, becoming a meal for the Wolves you might be stalking. The frost from other player's breath is visible if you are standing nearby. Smoke curls off into the distance from a campfire or a busy forge.
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Entering Cathedral
Square in Stormwind! |
The more you play the game, the more you appreciate the graphics. Each region I traveled to had a consistent and believable feel. The scenery and landscaping is far from just eye candy. Not simply dressed up polygons existing solely to tax your rig or stroke an artist's ego. These things *belong* where they are in the gameworld. In the ravaged agricultural region of Westfall, something is amiss. Tension fills the air, even before you come across the first abandoned field. Getting lost on the streets of the massive human capital of Stormwind, and stumbling upon the Cathedral of the Light, I felt small. Humbled almost, as if it were a real holy place and I the uninvited heathen.
I have always appreciated the animation in past Blizzard games, and WoW does not disappoint. Animals travel about realistically. The various monsters exhibit behavior that makes them seem more alive and real. Player character combat animations change based on the race and class and what weapons and abilities they are using.
The spell effects are a mixed bag. I believe, in part, because they are incomplete. At this point they are more impressive than a first generation game like EQ, but they don't hold up to some of the newer games that are being released.
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The Gates to Stormwind,
The Human Capitol! |
The engine is also efficient, and able to scale well. I am running the game at 1280x960x32, with full details in game and 2x AA and 8x Aniso quality settings at the driver level. In most areas I get 20 fps. Indoors, the framerate is much higher, often more than double.
Sound/Music
My rig has a first generation Audigy inside of it, mostly because my digs are not well suited for a good 5.1 or 7.1 system. The speakers I am using are a 2.1 setup from Monsoon, the Planarmedia 9s. So, I can't really speak to the game's use of 3D positional audio, but I can tell you that they put a lot of the same attention to detail into the sound as they did the graphics. Walk by a fire and you will hear the crackle of flames. Traveling the hills in a well trafficked area and you hear the sounds of combat as you look to see what battles other players are undertaking. Most aggressive monsters will inform you of their desire to end your life with some kind of a growl or war cry. Steel clashes upon wood and metal effectively and happily meets with flesh and bone as well.
I am not big on in-game music. I usually prefer to listen to some of my own mp3s in the background, or just run with sound effects only. That being said, the WoW stuff isn't bad at all. There is a separate theme for most regions and, like the distinctive graphical styles I mentioned earlier, this goes a long way towards adding to the games excellent style and atmosphere.
Interface
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Looking back to Anvilmar,
home for Dwarves and Gnomes! |
The interface is slightly different from the average modern MMORPG, because, like some other aspects in WoW, it more closely resembles something out of a single player game. Along the left side of the screen is where you find your character, target and group information. The bottom of the display is the standard action/tool bar where you can hotkey almost anything. If you have a pet, his command bar with the same functionality appears above yours, although it's smaller. Moving right is where your bags and inventory are displayed. The game defaults to two text windows, a main one along the lower left, and a combat window along the lower right. The top down mini map is in the upper right, and to the left of that is where your buffs, or debuffs are displayed. Much to my delight, mousing over an effect icon will show you what its doing to do you, and how long it's going to last. Mouseover text and info is well done throughout in fact, just as you'd expect from a Blizzard offering. Your character sheet, abilities/spells page and the trade interface appear starting in the left center of the screen, working right, depending on how many of the three you have open.
The interface is all done in customizable XML, according to what I have read, but right now it doesn't offer the flexibility that EQ's superb interface does. I don't like a lot of the default locations for the various interface windows, and haven't found a way to drag them to different locations or resize them. I also wanted to change some of the chat box properties, and haven't found a way to do that.
Interacting within the game world is very well done. Left clicks select things, and right clicks interact with them. For example, right clicking a targeted player presents a drop down box with options like invite, inspect, duel, etc. NPC's that have something to offer you can be right clicked on to spill the beans. Holding down the right mouse button allows you to move the camera around, while holding down both mouse buttons starts your character running. The wheel zooms your view in, all the way to first person if you like and far enough out to capture some nice pictures that show off the game and it's far away clip plane.
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Lakeside at night, in the Nightelf
region of Shadowglen! |
NPC's who have a quest for you will have a yellow exclamation mark over their heads. NPC's who have information or a reward for you will have a yellow question mark over them. Finally, a silver exclamation floating over an NPC means come back in 1-5 levels and I will have a quest for you.
One of the features I have really enjoyed is that the default general and trade chat channels are region specific, and you transition to them as you move into a new region. So, if you ask a question about where to find a certain NPC, or location, you are going to be in a channel with a lot of people in the same area as you. The effect this has on the trade channel is that there are very often running auctions going on, and it's very easy to match buyer to seller as they are never going to be more than a few minutes of running apart.
What I missed most about EQ's interface was the ability to notate the maps. Hopefully this will be added before the game goes retail.
Performance
I touched on this a little earlier when discussing the graphics, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the game's overall feel and responsiveness. I am connecting to the game via DSL, shared off of a 4 port router. In general, there is no lag at all in WoW. A latency meter is integrated into the interface that shows at a glance with color how your connection to the server is holding up. Mousing over this bar provides latency in milliseconds. Occasionally the server will exhibit what seem to be severe database contention problems. This happens when the game is crowded and manifests itself with 30 second delays in certain transactions.
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Passing a waterfall on the
way to Ironforge from Stormwind |
Looting a corpse for example, the corpse interface box will open; showing you what is on the monster, but then when you have clicked to loot it takes up to 30 seconds, sometimes more, to appear in your pack. In between this time you can move around, and you still see chat and combat info but otherwise cannot interact within the game at all. As you might imagine, this is very bad if you happen to get attacked. It renders the game practically unplayable. Fortunately it's a rare occurrence that usually resolves itself within minutes. Blizzard will almost certainly have it fixed by the time the retail version rolls around.
I haven't participated in any 'raid' level encounters, so I can't speak to that aspect of gameplay, which in the past has been a deal breaker for me in games like DAoC and Horizons. You can hit CTRL-R to bring up an FPS counter. The game plays and feels smooth even when the frames are dipping below 20, as they do for me in the large medieval looking town of Stormwind.
Part Two: GamePlay Aspects!
Discuss: WoW! Olaf is in the Beta!?
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