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| 1999, Carnage becomes name of past as Wolfpack announces development of Shadowbane. |
| 2003, Mutable Realms and Themis Group announce partnership for "Wish" beta, where Dave "Mahrin Skel" Rickey formerly of Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot is spotted as the Lead Designer. |
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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 second part of his hands on preview from deep within the closed beta! If you missed his first part, be sure to give it a read!
World of Warcraft pt2 - Eric "Olaf" Hasselfeld (04-07-04)
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| Come to Daddy!
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Gameplay
Eye and ear candy aside, this is why you are here. Its why I'm here, still here after sinking almost 5000 hours of my time over the past four and half years into EQ and DAoC. To get a good feel for the game, I went through and played each available class up to at least level 5. This is right about the point where the game directs you to leave your relatively safe 'newbie' area and seek your fortunes in the larger game world. The classes currently available are Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Paladin, Mage and Warlock. I also made sure to include all four of the currently playable Alliance races among my choices. What I ended up with was a Night Elf Warrior and Priest, a Human Rogue and Warlock, a Dwarven Paladin and a…*shudder*…Gnome Mage. I despise Halflings and Gnomes in any RPG but in the interest of being thorough I forced myself to experience life through the eyes of an ankle biter.
Character Creation
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| Eyagh!!!
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This is relatively straightforward. On the left of your screen you see 3 boxes with descriptions of your currently chosen Faction (Alliance/Horde), Race and Class. In the center you see your character, how he/she will look in the game world. Below this you enter a name, and flanking the name box are arrows that allow you to rotate your avatar in order to get a look from different angles. The right side is where you actually select your race and class. You put a check next to the race and class you want, and the relevant details change on the rest of the screen. Below these boxes is where you customize your character.
The game allows you to cycle through things like face, hairstyle, facial hair, skin color, etc. There is also a randomize button, which randomly selects all of the customization options for you. I found this to be helpful in getting a look at the diversity possible among a given race, and also with giving me a starting point to work towards the look I wanted. One thing that is missing are the starting stats and skills, you can't see any of this kind of information until you get in the game world and have already created your character. I would have also liked the option to alter height and weight and to choose eye color independently of other customizations. Right now it's tied to face. These are minor quibbles of course; overall the game does a good job of allowing you to customize the look of your hero.
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| Vil's first quest!
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First Steps in a New World
Finally! We are in the game and ready to play! There are a number of racially dependent starting areas in the game, three for the Alliance races. The Humans start in Northshire Abbey, which is a forested farmland type of place that looks to be stuck in a permanent spring time. The Night Elves start in a surreal forest glade called Shadowglen. It's dimly lit, but the colors are wild. Purples abound. The Dwarves and Gnomes start in a snowy, forested hilly region called Anvilmar. This one is my favorite. It feels very isolated and peaceful even as it teems with 'life'.
Traveling through the snow you hear it crunch softly beneath your boots. The wind howls and you can almost feel its bite as you stand on top of a mountain, squinting from the sun's glare off the ice. The relative quiet is broken by the growl of a wolf and the resulting wet sound as it finishes off a hapless rabbit. Then; the sharp crack of gunfire as a roaming Ironforge Mountaineer puts an end to the wolf and goes back to his thankless patrol.
All in all, these starting locations do a wonderful job of translating the look and feel of Warcraft III into a game world for the player to explore. Each area just feels right. Blizzard's artists and sound people have really created a world worthy of housing the fiction the company has built up with this franchise.
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The Dwarves are
rich in quests.
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Regardless of where you start, a quest NPC is sure to be close by, within eyeshot in fact. A yellow exclamation mark floating above an NPC is what you want to see. This means they have something that requires your intervention. Proceeding to the NPC and issuing a right click will throw up the Quest Log on the left middle of your screen. The game writes out the quest dialogue for you with the satisfying sound of quill on parchment. The NPC will tell you what you need to do and what the rewards are going to be and then it's up to you to accept or cancel it. Should you foolishly do the latter, you can come back and get the quest at a later time. Next, the quest creates an entry in your Quest log, essentially the text you just saw and a line or two tracking your progress, where applicable.
Now you are off! For the most part, the quest text does an excellent job directing you where to go, especially in the newbie areas. I have probably done 40-50 different quests across all of my characters, and only one of them was I confused as to where, exactly, I was supposed to be headed. Quests are almost always variations on one of four basic types: Collect X amount of some random geegaw, Kill Y amount of some critter, the traditional FedEx quest, or slay some uber-baddie and bring me a token of the deed. The collect quests are the worst, as they punish groups (since everyone doesn't get credit for a drop, only the person who loots it does) and the drop rate can be sporadic depending on the particular quest. Again, this is what betas are for and I expect a lot of these issues to be cleared up in the retail release.
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Corky's long road
to hero begins.
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There are two other symbols you might see above an NPC's head. A yellow question mark means they have a reward for you, or they can do something to otherwise advance one of your current quests. Just like yellow exclamation marks, when you see an NPC with one of these you make a beeline for him. Silver exclamation marks can also be seen, although they are rarer. These indicate that the NPC will have a quest for you in one of the next five levels. Make a note of these guys yourself, because unfortunately right now you can not notate the game's maps at all. Blizzard is on record as saying this will change eventually, though.
Killing Stuff
Like nearly all MMORPGs, combat is a concept central to gameplay. You will find yourself mowing through the almost harmless newbie mobs within minutes of starting the game. Combat can be initiated by a generic attack command, which will launch a vanilla melee attack at the mob in question. But more often, combat opens with a spell or some kind of ability. Each class starts with at least one combat spell or ability, and they are helpfully pre-installed on your hotkey bar to get players new to the genre used to the concept. If you are a caster you likely will want to launch a ranged spell attack from as far away as possible. As soon as you start casting your spell a progress bar begins moving across the bottom center of the screen, indicating the spell's casting time. When it has moved all the way to the right the spell is launched and you can immediately fire off another spell, provided you have the mana. Playing the nukers (Priests, Mages and Warlocks start with direct damage spells), I was usually able to get off 2-3 ranged spells before my target closed to melee range, if I tried to maximize the distance between myself and my foe before beginning my attack. Many times, 3 nukes was enough to end the fight. When it wasn't, I switched to a melee attack and finished them off. You can keep casting from melee, but your spell casting bar loses some progress each time you are hit and certain types of attacks can interrupt or temporarily prevent you from casting. This isn't a problem at lower levels however as your prey doesn't have any exotic attacks to bring to bear against you.
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Leaving Stormwind
on Gryphon back.
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Combat for the melee classes plays out a little differently. Most of them have the ability to learn to use a ranged weapon like a throwing knife, a bow or a gun. This kind of attack can be used to start combat, but it's mostly helpful for pulling a target towards you, to minimize the risk of fighting more creatures than you bargained for. Melee abilities are the best way to start combat though, wherever possible. These are special attacks that do extra damage, or bestow negative effects on the target, or positive effects on the user. They are powered differently depending on the specific ability, but the classes power their abilities from one source. For the Paladin its Mana, just like Casters. For Rogues it's Energy, a sort of mana bar on crack that replenishes very quickly. For Warriors its Rage, a bar that usually starts empty and fills up as the Warrior takes or deals damage. In addition to having to have enough fuel to launch a given attack, most attacks also have some kind of refresh timer. So, as a Rogue you can't backstab twice in a row, for example, regardless of how much energy you have. Rogues can also acquire combo points on their foes. These are dots that appear in the targets portrait with the successful use of certain attacks. These dots can then be 'spent' with finishing moves that either convert them to damage or do something else, like boost the attack speed of the Rogue.
Combat in WoW is a more involved affair than in EQ, and is more along the lines of DAoC than any of the other games I've played. The fights are short, in general lasting only 5-10secs unless you happen to be fighting a boss or an elite mob, which usually have about 3x the hit points of a typical mob of that same level, and are denoted by a + next to their level in your target window.
So far, one of the strengths of WoW is its combat. Its fast paced and involving, especially for classes like Warlocks and Rogues, who have a variety of either/or combat options to choose from in each fight.
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'A Goblin Foundry in
an Instanced Dungeon!'
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On top of the combat, looking at the broader game, I am happy to report that Blizzard has done a fine job of making each class play differently, at least at the lower levels. Mages are primarily nukers, but they have some buffs and they have some choice in what nuke to use on a given mob. Some of them can slow a mob, some do more damage, fire vs. frost based, etc. Warlocks can do a little of everything. Weak nukes, Damage Over Time spells, Curses (think debuffs), and of course their pets which are very effective. Similar to the EQ Necromancer in more ways than one, these guys are effective soloers. Priests are not quite EQ Clerics here, they are a cloth class so they are fragile, but they have more arcane offense potential, getting some weak nukes and even DoTs. They also get great crowd control spells, some buffs, and the best heals. Paladins have great party buffs, limited heals and decent, if a little plain, melee damage output. Warriors are beasts, with the ability to shell out a lot of damage and take the most out of any of the classes. Rogues are the masters of damage, able to dish out sheer pain if they get an accurate combo going.
Part three of this piece is going to deal with how the game progresses as you level up, and other parts of the game not involving combat.
Part Three: Advanced Gameplay, Grouping and Questing!
Discuss: Yes, there is another part! Questions?
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