World of warcraft

Really, WoW? What give me the right to put WoW to the review page? What gives me a reason to? Why would you even take on this giant in the MMORPG? This is World of Warcraft Zimes! This is made from years of the RTS story line of Warcraft. How is this even going to FIT in the review criteria that you have made in past reviews?

Ok, ok, I get the point this is a huge thing to review, even for a lowly reviewer such as me but, let me give you my credentials. I have owned and played every single Warcraft game, Diablo game, and Starcraft (minus 2) game since Blizzards inception. I was in the Beta for WoW and was an addict to the game for 5 years before I called it quits so I can put a review to it but, as far as the newer parts of WoW goes I will be unable to tell you personal experience. So lets get to it.

This is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) so the normal score to a review do not apply. Lets take a look at the normal scores and see what I will basing this review off of:

Old review categories:
GRAPHICS
SOUND
GAMEPLAY
STORY
REPLAY VALUE
MULTIPLAYER
OVERALL

Well, I can see a few that I am going to keep since there is no use trying to replace them:

GRAPHICS
SOUND
STORY
OVERALL

So that leaves :

GAMEPLAY
REPLAY VALUE
MULTIPLAYER

Since the game requires you to be online and for the most part interact with others these topics just seem redundant so lets go with

Experience
Presentation
Time

Each one will be explained later. Onto the review

Story:
Just to rehash this story will take way too long so I will paraphrase it: The world of Azeroth has been in a war between Orcs and Humans for years now (Warcraft I & II). At times these races had to work together to defeat a greater threat (Warcraft III). During those days different races were introduced into the world: Elves, Dwarfs, Trolls, Orcs, Humans, Goblins, Taurens (Minotaurs), Gnomes, Night Elves, Ogres, Naga (Mermaids), Draenei, and Undead.

Because of the story line the Elves no longer remained the same and become Blood Elves (due to racism from the humans and their homes getting destroyed by the undead) and are befriended by the Naga. Then once they escape the Human/Undead fight they are again befriended by another race on a different world, the Draenei (dray – neigh). It turns out that the Orcs use to be here and they were once a peaceful race. This race then became corrupted by Archimonde into a blood thirsty and war happy race and then transported to Azeroth after they were done beating the Draenei and ruining their world. The Orcs team up with other races on Azeroth that do not like the Humans like the Goblins, Trolls, and Ogres.

At one time the Elves (now Blood and High Elves), Naga, and Night Elves were one race. After some were magically mutated during the sundering they split into two factions one being seekers of power through the Arcane magics calling themselves elves (now Blood and High Elves) and other following the more natural magic calling themselves Night elves.

After dropping the corruption that the Orcs were under, they seek to free themselves from the prison camps of the Humans and leave their continent, take the Trolls with them and find themselves befriending the Taurens.

The undead also break into factions (I don’t see how this is possible, since if you are undead, you don’t have your own train of though and require a hive type structure) but, the ass clowns over at Blizzard thought this would be a good idea to break them up and they are now under three different factions. Those that remain under the Lich Kings grasp, those that are still under the influence of the Scourge, and those “free thinkers” that of their own free will follow “The Forsaken” queen: Sylvanas Windrunner, the former Ranger General of the Elves.

*pic of quenn Sylvanas Windrunner here*

Goblins and Ogres distance themselves from any faction and now are more “Merc and Engineers for hire” being able to be used by any faction. All these things were explained in Warcraft 3: The Frozen throne. If you have not played that game, I suggest you spend the $50 and pick up the battle chest and crawl out of whatever rock you have been hiding under.


*pic of hiding under a rock here*

So as I have understood it, I take it there should be three or more factions that are supposed to be in the MMORPG.

The Alliance: Consisting of Humans, Dwarfs, High Elves, Night Elves, and Gnomes

The Horde: Consisting of Orcs, Trolls, and Taurens.

The Forsaken: Consisting of The Forsaken (seriously, these guys have pissed on EVERY race in Azeroth)

The Outcast (just giving them a name, don’t get your panties in a wad): Consisting of Blood Elves, Naga, and the Draenei.

The Mercs: Consisting of the Goblins and Ogres, and possible Pandorans.

This would have at least made sense given the story line that was presented to us at the end of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. But instead Blizzard got lazy and gave us this set up:

The Alliance: Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Night Elves, and f**k you
The Horde: Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, The Forsaken, and f**k you
Other playable factions:
F**k all.

*pic of whats your major malfunction here*

Then due to further expansions and upcoming expansions WoW will end up with this:

The Alliance: Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Night Elves, Draenei, and the Worgen
The Horde: Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, The Forsaken, Blood Elves, and Goblins.

*pic of Wargen 1 here*

So from the story line that we were given from WC3 we end up with this f**k stick of a faction set up. Basically the people at Blizzard could not even out the factions they set up from the story line and we stuck with this mess. Here is why its messed up:

The Alliance:
Its hard to mess this up but the introduction of the Draenei and Worgen into the alliance just leaves me with me scratching my head. I understand that the Draenei having issues with joining the Horde due to the fact that the Orcs hunted them almost to extinction and ruining their home world. BUT, they befriended the Blood Elves and fought side by side with them and the Naga to try and prevent Arthas from becoming the next Lich King. They formed bonds with the Blood Elves since they were outcast too along with the Naga. It makes sense for them to have their own faction but I see where it would be hard to put gear on the Naga race but that does not make them obsolete. They should have put some extra work in it and made a third faction with them.

*pic of bear face palm here*

The Worgen (Warewolves): Now I don’t mind Blizzard making shit up for Azeroth they have been doing a good job up until World of Warcraft and these guys just seem to fit the lore and story line. There is speculation that these were once a druidic part of the Night Elves but more recently they were a mutation of humans used by an Arch Mage Arugal. These mutations soon became feral and more of a curse and since the third war (WC3) they have walled themselves up to prevent further infection. Now how exactly these guys are NOT supposed to infect others is beyond me nor how they came out of their feral state to support free thinking. I just chalk this up to “The Alliance needs beast characters so lets make shit up” and leave it at that. They could have done more but come on, Blizzard is becoming lazy.

*pic of angle facepalm*

The Horde:
This is where I have most of my issues with the story line and faction set up. They should not even call themselves the Horde in the first place. That creates ties to their former selves as unthinking, war machine type beast. They have left that past and are trying to rebuild their race. Another name is needed for them and “The Horde” is a better fit name for the undead. You could however try and have them part of the alliance since they are trying for the same thing but what would be the point of having a different faction then. Besides the eternal hatred of the Trolls and Elves I think that for the time being that Human/Orc relations are just too fresh in the minds of all since they just finished a war not too long ago.

*pic of three stooges face palm here*

No matter your argument, there is no reason to have the Undead (the Forsaken) part of the Horde. Although they claim themselves to be free from influence of the Scourge their entire race depends upon death and decay. Both of these things are against the teachings of the Shamans. This is also a base of what the Taurens believe too (although how the Taurens became druids is beyond me). We also see in recent events that the queen even looses her own free will by being too close to the Lich King. Not only that but Blizzard itself can not come up with any solid reason WHY the Forsaken has gotten its free will back:[quote=”http://www.wowwiki.com/Forsaken”] “Their spirits and memories were somehow returned to their undead bodies.” [/quote]. You really want to team up with some ass clowns that might not have enough of a brain to tie their shoe. If you are wanting to seem less evil and more back to nature and roots, having skeletons walking around is the last thing you would want.

*pic of baby face palm here*

Blood Elves: Really? I mean The Forsaken was a f**ked up reason already but are you trying to f**k up more of the story line? Let’s just forget that for the past 3 major wars the Blood elves (simply known as Elves) fought on the main lines not ONLY against Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins BUT, they just had their homeland invaded and infested with the undead! Whatever f**ktard thought it would be alright to put these guys in with the Horde was under the excuse of “the Horde need pretty races too”. I got an idea. How about the f**k stick that let this idea pass go jump himself off a cliff cause we need people that will stick to the story line instead of sucking the horde cock. I realize that you (Blizzard) has a favorite faction but let’s not make it that obvious.

*pic of peek a boo face palm here*

Goblins: I don’t see why these guys were not in before. The Alliance have those annoying f**ktard Gnomes running around and the Goblins were with the Orcs during several wars so it only makes sense to split up into factions and join the Horde. Despite the bitching that will be done by the alliance players it does make sense and should wipe the sand out of their clit.

*pic of goblins 1 here*

The story continues in WoW. After Arthas retreats north to gather his strength, the Horde/Alliance relations break down and they start to war again. They introduce other story lines of how the Dwarfs and Troggs came about. How the Arch-Druid Malfurion Stormrage is fighting in the dream world (probably another expansion to come out), How the Old gods were trying to come back (C’thun), the attack of Onixia and Nefarian, Troll factions and old gods to keep from coming back, going across worlds to Outland and defeating Illidan (yeah, he lived), and now going to Northrend to take care of Arthas. Besides the factions being screwed up beyond belief, they keep the story very interesting. I would hope that they would make a WC4 that would include heroes that were made by players and give more direction to the story rather than just leaving it an open world but, why would Blizzard want to straighten shit out when they can keep coming up with shit off the cuff.

*pic of r lee emy get back to work*

Graphics:
For what it is and being an online game the graphics are outstanding. I have had bigger games (size wise not player wise) that felt like they were on an island where this is a world to go out and discover. From lush forest of Dark Shore to the haunted forest of the Silverpine Forest. From the tropic Desert of Tanaris Desert to the Harsh mountains of Dun Morogh, From the Jungle in Stranglethorn Vale to the nothingness of Desolace. Each area is unique to its part of the world and the scenery meshes well from one area to another.

*pic of straglethornvale here*
And its not just the fact that you can walk around and see this but you can mount up or get on a flight path and see the area from different angles. The amount of detail and artwork that went into each of these areas are just phenomenal. Now Im not saying that they are the best graphics I have ever seen but the simple fact that this type of graphic is available for an online game is still pretty dang good.

Even when WoW first came out the customization of the characters were pretty good. They just get more advanced as time goes on. Hopefully they will get to the point where you can do whatever you want to the look of your character but for right now, the set conditions to pick from are good too.

The animations of battle are pretty good, the sounds flow well with your actions. There are not a lot of actions that your character can do and since most the time you are button mashing anyways I don’t see Blizzard getting too broad with the actions your character shows you.

Do I even have to mention cut scenes? All except for the recent cut scenes, Blizzard is known for the excellent quality and anytime you do see a cut scene for the first time you can sit there with your mouth open, drooling of course saying in the words of Keano Reeves: “whoa!”

Sound

Sound is good and damn near great. I did have to turn off the music because most of the time that I was in a party or raid and I needed to listen to my guild mates to make sure I wasn’t screwing up or that the party members knew what to do. They did put out soundtracks to them but, I never really got into it. Maybe I should go take a listen. But games aren’t just about the music although some can be. Blizzard made sure to include everything that might be relevant to your environment. If you should hear the crunch of leaves or snow when you walk/run, you hear it. If you should hear birds chirp or the rustle of leaves, you hear it. They made sure to envelope the user not only with your character but, also where your character is in this world

Their cut scenes sound is fantastic! Of course it would not be much of a cut scene if it wasn’t but there is just something epic about the music they put into them. The Wrath of the Lich King has some outstanding tracks on them and I would suggest picking them out and taking a listen to them.

Time
If you have made a character and got him to level 60, you know the time and effort you have put into it. Now, what if it go so addictive that you leveled more characters up to level 60, then 70, now 80 and soon to be 85! The time to get one character up to the level cap THEN properly gear him is simply a second job. I was so addicted to this game that my game time was from when I got home to when I went to bed sacrificing sleep along the way. Some days I would plan a raid for late nighters and not go to bed until 3am getting up at 6 working a full 8 hours then doing it again the next day. At one time I would only get 20 hours of sleep for the week just because I knew that the next week; I had a day off to where I could sleep in.

This was during the time of the original game came out and the level cap was level 60. I was in a guild that was 4th on the server for new content so while my main character was in Tier 3 gear I was gearing the other 3 characters in Tier 1 and 2 gear. At the time, to get that type of gear you would have to go into a 4 hour raid with experienced players. At one time I would play 3 characters at a time just to level them up so I could ask favors from people that were playing while I was working. It was time consuming and often my social life took a big hit if I didn’t know them in game.

If you are in it for the best gear, with the newest raids, and wanting to be the first to kill something that just came out, be prepared to have no life . . . and possibly job . . . and possibly girlfriend/wife. This can affect more than you think.

*pic of world of Warcraft lifesucker here*

Presentation:

They made this game so easily addictive that people would get 2 or more accounts just so that you could swap to different characters when the party/raid/guild needed something else.

I am a huge opponent of paying to play. I really don’t see the reason for paying for the game, then paying for on line play. The money that is made from the monthly charges more than makes up for any charges that they have and the $50 price tag for the latest and greatest is just a kick in the nuts.

*pic of the reacharound*

There are a lot of things to keep you busy while you wait to raid. For the most part this is a PVE (player vs environment) game but it does have some aspects of PVP (player vs player) when you want. Now I would not go as far out to say that this PVP is the best thing since sliced bread but, at least the people in the PVP WoW world aren’t as f**ked up as the ones in EVE Online. You can choose the type of server you want which means if you are out for someone else blood you get on a PVP server and you can go to town on the guys that wait outside the raid instances. There are the normal PVE servers, and there are even RP (role playing) but, I think just enjoying the game is good enough for me.

They made travel in the game real easy for anyone, super easy if you decide to roll a mage. They give you items such as a hearth stone which you can set to any desired inn in any major city or small town and you can instant travel to this spot once every hour. For the longest time the horde was making fun of the paladin for having an indestructible shield then hearthing home to prevent death from the horde players. Since the start of the game they have even made it easier to get around so lower level characters can now get mounts sooner, travel to their destination faster, and complete quest quicker.

Blizzard has also put in flight paths to help travel. Although not as fast as hearth stones, they are faster than your mounts but usually cost a small amount in comparison. Usually when using a flight path, it’s a great time to go get a drink or stretch because your character will be tied up for a while depending on how far he needs to go.

*pic of Tanaris here*

Blizzard has done a remarkable job of keeping the weapon system reasonably easy to understand and can become really complicated to perfect. Blizzard created multiple weapon types and then matched them to certain classes. Most of the weapon style match the class type so then it becomes easy to create weapons that are specifically for one class or another depending on your class type. Staves can be used by warriors, mages, druids, priest, and warlocks so its east to see that a low damage staff that is high on intellect and spirit is for a magic class than the warrior where as a high damage staff that has strength and stamina. Of course there are middle of the line type weapons which can cause drama between the players and I think Blizzard does it for fun to see who will bitch about it the most.

Weapons have several modifies to them that consist of:
damage range
Weapon speed
Stat modifier
Sometimes a special ability (auto heal per hit)
And sometimes a special modifier (instead of + agility it gives you + to crit)

Although most the weapons don’t look the same Blizzard is starting to use the same type of weapons and armor graphics but then just changing the color scheme of them. So while the old warrior T 0.5 valor set was silver and gold they would come out with a set of armor that looked like it but was for a higher level. This helped those people that were either too damn lazy to get off their ass and get it themselves or the people that just didn’t have the time to farm that many instances. Either way it was a diminishing return for those that took the time to complete the sets.

The same would go for the weapons that people collect from the instances. There would be carbon copies of these weapons later on in game that were easier to get. Fortunately they have not done this to the legendary weapons. Unfortunately they have not created any way to upgrade these legendary weapons so that they are still viable in higher levels. So of course after an expansion pack comes out, these weapons are replaced by higher level gear. To get a legendary weapon require more than just a lucky drop from a boss. Most times it involves special side quest to help form the weapon which requires the help from not only a small party but sometimes an entire guild. For blizzard not to have some upgrade for these items makes the legendary status seem more temporary and a lot of peoples hard work to get these types of items go down the drain.

With 147 thousand years of history to the game I can go on for quite a while of how magic came to be in game. But to break it down shotgun style for you, here you go: most of what lore and information of what I’m getting comes from wowwiki.com. There are two types of magic in the world with a little cross-fading between the two. These types are Arcane and Divine.

You can further break down the types of magic into 9 different categories:

Arcane: this magic is the most common magic used by the races of Azeroth. This magic use draws its power from the well of eternity which comes from the Twisting Nether. If this magic is not used carefully this will corrupt those that use it and cause great destruction.

Druidism (Divine): Forming a bond with nature, Druids pull their energy from the strength of that bond. Druids derive the power needed from the earth itself.

Fel (Arcane): A form of Necromancy and the binding of daemons to do the casters will. This magic is mostly used by the creatures of the burning legion. It is said that if Arcane magic is an addiction then fel magic is the purest form of that addiction.

Geomancer (Divine): Think of these as Shamans without the totems. Instead of speaking with the elemental spirits to gain their trust, these guys use sacrifice, rituals, and songs to get what they need.

Holy/Light (Divine): This magic comes from the Naaru through its various forms and is used to heal and protect. Paladins then developed a melee based form of this magic, they did not STEAL it.

Necromancy (Arcane): Similar to the magics used by warlocks this magic focuses on the study of death and decay rather than Demonology. This is capable of creating living creatures from the dead and forces them to do their bidding. How the f**k this isn’t a Forsaken race only class is beyond me!?

Runic (Arcane): Created by the Titans and used by their creation the dwarves. Forgotten over time and just recently revived by the Taurens. Think of runic magic as casting without voice or voicing the thoughts in your head but rather inscribing a rune on your target. Not as corruptive as pure arcane magic but still potent.

Shamanism (Divine): The speaking with the elemental spirits of the earth to use its power to aid you.

Voodoo (Arcane): Although the article says it is a mix between arcane and divine, the use of reagents to bring desired effect would make it more Arcane. Again not as addictive as the pure use of arcane magic.

So what does this mean for the game? It means that most combat casters are arcane users and more than likely addicted to the twisting nether’s energy. With the way that this is used and abused it is more than likely that history will repeat itself and Azeroth will see another invasion of the undead. With races that no longer care of what they use as long as they can use magic (Blood Elves, The Forsaken) I can see this happening sooner than later.

Most these magic types described above are being used in game by the players. The only ones that are not being used are Runic, Voodoo, and Geomancer. All others are being used by the classes in game or at least a mixture of them are being used. I would not be surprised if I see classes introduced later on that include these though. Witch doctors would have made an excellent troll only class or specialized hero class.

*pic of agrocontrol here*

Expansion packs would be the bane of the games existence. New content is good, in fact it is great but, when all the hard work you do for the game goes out the window when the next expansion comes out all that time you put into the game to get the gear turns out wasted. Guilds have fallen apart, drama has started up, and players have left because now the game is wasted for them. The hard work is replaced by farming levels. Their homework of instances is replaced by getting owned in a new area, and their gear is laughable from the new guy that started last week and got lucky in a rare weapon drop. Especially for those that have those hard to get legendary weapons.

Experience:

The start of the game was rough! There would be days on end where the servers would be down. Going through a programming school I could understand how you could have glitches and down time but I also got to thinking: “that is what the damn beta testing is for!” Blizzard was not prepared for the reception it received when coming out and its servers were bogged down with too many people trying to log on among other outstanding items.

If you started out from the beginning you were excited to do all that you could do. Eventually it led to raiding but learning about the story line through quest or going into an instance with a few of your friends was a fun thing to do. It is a little easier to do this now since Blizzard is letting people double spec so your warrior friend that you need to tank can tank for your instance instead of blowing a bunch of gold to go respec just to run your sorry ass through an instance.

Holy crap did Blizzard have loose lips. We all knew that Blizzard was going to change things up and add onto the game but a lot of these were just rumors or Blizzard just flat out lying to us to get us to shut up. Their outlook to us was that they were not going to nerf any one class but bring other classes up so that there was an even balance between classes. Now any time that Blizzard says that they are going to do changes to classes to even it out we know that they have the nerf bat in hand and are swinging wildly. They do this to mainly please the onslaught of whiners on the forums that have been owned by X class that have found an excellent combo of skills or X class is out tanking/healing/dpsing. What gets me is instead of telling the little bitches “tough shit, learn to play your class.” They bring out the nerf bat and swing for the hills. This has lead to many unpleasant changes such as the undead bitching about being undead.

*pic of anything but the nerf bat here*

Now when the alliance had the Paladin class and the Horde had the shaman class only, the Pallies would OWN any undead player (for obvious reasons). The undead players BITCHED, and WHINED, and COMPLAINED. Instead of Blizzard to tell them to politely f**k off since they are playing UNDEAD, they bent over and started sucking the cock of the undead players.

*pic of I care so little*

I get why they wanted to make the Undead race. Some people think its really cool to play undead. I get it, something different but again if they are playing undead then don’t you think if you have an undead status, they would be “undead” and not “humanoid”. Just because Paladins would own the F**K out of them doesn’t mean that Pallies are overpowered. Just means that you are playing UNDEAD!

Needless to say this gave way for Blizzards thinking afterward. Instead of doing the work to make the classes even or make the sides even they thought it best to give both sides every class. Thus their laziness expands to every faction now and continues with not setting up hero classes for the current classes. With the coming out of Wrath of the Lich King they introduced another f**ked up reason for a class that should have been a hero class. The Death Knight.

This time they didn’t even bother trying to make it geared toward certain races or factions. They just gave the Death Knight class to EVERYONE. I understand that the death hits everyone and that these horrible creatures were once loyal servants to the Lich King but a simple battle between the Lights Hope chapel and Arthas and now these people have their own free will back. Once again the “how” and “why” escape from the reason of having these warriors join the fray.

*pic Im lazy button*

I really do believe Blizzard dropped the ball when it came down to Faction / classes and instead of doing it right, they have been stuck with trying to fix the initial f**k up from day one. Classes make sense in certain places but others they just don’t belong or its hard to find reasoning behind it.
• Warriors: lets face it, every race should have them and it really is pointless not giving certain races the warrior. But since its blizzard and they want to f**k shit up. Congrats Blood Elves (yes, I know the new expansion will take care of this but it is something I can bash on).
*pic of warrior 3 (orc)*
• Warlocks: While I really don’t mind every faction having them, they should have made this more restrictive and in a multi faction (not dual) set up this would have been better served as a faction class instead (like Undead and Blood Elf only). The classes that should not are: Orcs (because they are trying to move away from demon power), Gnomes (because they are usually too intense in their studies to know what will happen with this use of magic) Dwarf, Human (cause they JUST got over 3 wars of fighting them to know what they can do, and Worgen (Im lost to why they have it). This would have been great to see and it would have defiantly given the Alliance something solid to bitch about instead of “Blizzard favors the horde.”
*pic of warlock 5 (undead)*
• Shaman: Should be a Horde only class since the two (possibly three) races make sense to have it. For the Draenei and Goblins to have it just chalk that up to the “Blizzard is making shit up to make it easy” tab and call it good.
o Note: since they are making it to where more races are getting more classes it almost follows lore to let the Dwarves be Shamans but, if it were a faction only race then I can understand them not being shamans.
*pic of shaman 1 (Tauren)*
• Rogue: A very fun class to play that is broken. This class is supposed to be the end all of DPS and they make it very gear oriented. So if you don’t have the proper gear, you are not going to get to go on cool raids since you can be out DPSed by the nearest (name DPS build class here). Since you give no buffs to your raid or party group you can be easily replaced in any fight that doesn’t require a rogue to incapacitate enemies. Most races have access to the rogue class as they should and having one to farm stuff for you makes it very easy to get the enchants you need.
*pic of rogue 3 (human)*
• Priest (no not the kid touchers): Although undead priest seem like a non-sequitur the Blizzard staff actually came up with a good reason why they should be Priest. [quote=wowwiki.com] Forsaken who once followed the tenets of the Holy Light altered their philosophy upon their transformation. Forsaken have abandoned religion, just as they believe it abandoned them. Lost and hurt, these priests founded a new religion based on a self-centered version of their former faith. Dubbed the Forgotten Shadow, this philosophy centers around self-empowerment and a desire to balance life with death. While they can no longer use the Holy Light, and have since learned how to use the shadow; the priests teach that there must be a balance between light and shadow, and members must learn the Light as well, but never forget they were born from the shadow.[/quote] while the holy light should burn undead flesh the whole undead < holy magic goes out the window in Blizzards failure for them to stick to their lore. While I would have preferred Blizzard coming out with something cool to heal the Forsaken (warlocks would have made excellent undead priest in my opinion), we are stuck with the Blizzards lazy “easy button” fix.
*pic of priest 6 (Dwarf)*
• Paladins: this totally made sense for the alliance races but when it comes to stealing something “holy” it’s like stealing back your virginity. You can’t do it. I am very surprised with Blizzards decision to keep with that story instead of making the Blood Elves break off with their own practice of Paladinism (I guess). Human, Draenei, Dwarf, and I can see how you could incorporate Night Elf and Gnome into being a Paladin but the other races all have laughable excuses on WHY they are Paladins. Paladins had a rough start since right off the bat they not only got hit off their Paladin tree and hit every nerf stick on the way down, but at the bottom there was a trampoline to send them back up to get hit again. Any spec but a healing spec was laughable for the Paladin, now they are a force to be reckoned with, even without their ownage of the Forsaken race.
*pic of Pally 3 (Draenei) & pic of nerf bat with balls*
• Mages: this would have made a great counter to the warlocks for certain races to have this but I can see where in a multi faction (again not dual) it would be hard to balance. Yes Human and Blood Elves should have this ability but really giving it to the Taurens and Night Elves just seem like a slap in the face to their races and lore. The Night Elves gave up using the arcane magics because they saw the corruption of being dependent on their sunwell and went to more natural magics, thereby finding druidism. To have them become mages now just turns their back on thousands of years of self control and tradition. ITS WHAT MADE THEM NIGHT ELVES. The Tauren although not as devout or have such a bold history with the sunwell would seem like they too would turn their back on their tradition if allowed to practice magic.
*pic of mage 3 (Gnome)*
• Hunter: The ranged melee class. This is another blanket class that can easily be adopted into every faction but should be easier for the elf races to adopt. The pet is kind of a “what the f**k” moment because I really don’t see any elves or other races adopting pets just so they can shoot a bow/gun. I don’t understand why more races don’t have the ability to have the hunter as a class to use but I have no clue to why The Forsaken are being allowed to be hunters. Some reason the Blizzards lazy “that was easy” button comes to mind.
*pic of hunter 2 (Troll)*
• Druid: rather than having the shaman/pally class balance they should have done the druid/shaman. It took the Night Elves thousands of years to develop the shape shifting practice but the Taurens (and now Worgen and Trolls) seem to get it within a few short years. I don’t mind the Taurens having the ability it just seems half asses when you toss classes certain ways just to keep the balance.
*pic of Druid 6 (Night elf)*
• Death Knights: This really should have been a hero class to the Warriors. While they force feed us the lore that they came up with, it would have fit better and thereby still giving the races a Death Knight. OR since Blizzard loves the horde cock anyways, they really should have made this a Forsaken class only since they are in the same f**ked up race.
*pic of death knight 2 (Blood elf)*

Missing Classes. I really shouldn’t have to make this section but as we can see from the f**ked up factions that things were going to be dumbed down. I just didn’t know that Blizzard would f**k the fans this hard.

• Witch Doctors: Troll only race AND THEIR HERITAGE! So basically Thrall (Leader of the Horde and Orc Warchief) said: Come lets all go be shamans and the trolls said OK? This would have made a great unique class to the Horde and would have worked well with the Shaman way of life that the Horde was going with. Hopefully they can incorporate this back into the game somehow since these guys were on the front lines on WC3
• Blade Master: You could have made this ANOTHER horde only class but I can see where this could apply to rogues as well. These guys were another bad ass of the melee group that were left out and you can see from the fan art that blade masters are a fan favorite and should be in game. Once again, heroes of the Horde are left out to rot to make room for a f**ked up faction build.
• Mountain King: One of the bad asses from the Alliance side that would totally rock. Now, a lot of the aspects of what the mountain king can do has been added to the warrior class but that still does not make them unique in any way. I can see this class being added to the game as a heroic class for the dwarven warriors but, not until they make up something for the rest of the alliance or the horde.
• Lich: There are so many awesome classes that they could have done for the Forsaken only race/faction and this is just one of them. I really don’t understand why more Forsaken players are not pissed off at the type of crap they can play vs the type of awesomeness they SHOULD be playing. These powerful spell casters use frost along with necromantic skills are a formidable opponent.
• Necromancer: Another Forsaken only class that could have been their healer instead of the f**ked up shit that they have now. GIVE THE PLAYERS A CHOICE! Don’t just copy and paste shit to take the easy way out. Blizzard, you could and should have done better.
• Beast Master: What other way to pay respects to a hero of the horde than to have people strive to be like him. While you can claim that the hunter class has all the aspects of the beast master, I would disagree. While hunters are more of a ranged melee class, Rexxar never did ranged combat. This could have applied to the Wild Hammer clan of the Dwarves if they wanted to include other factions but this is another missed class by Blizzard.
• Warden: Nothing like going bat-shit crazy in the middle of a fight and destroying everyone around you. Maiev just makes it look easy. This could be applied to the rogue class again but if Blizzard was going to make a multi faction game this could have gone alliance only to counter the blade master.
• Brew Master: along with the Blade master this is another fan favorite. Although unique to the Pandoran race, Blizzard could have made this for the factions that do like to drink their ale. I can see how the horde would bitch about this but if they had all the other classes that they could have had, They could have a nice warm glass of shut the f**k up and sit their happy asses down.

*pic of dumbledoor how about a nice glass of stfu*
Despite what people tell you this is a button masher for a game. They have dumbed down the combat so much of the game that any broke dick monkey can slam his hands on the keyboard, its just amazing how many retards in game don’t get it. Even though this is a button masher it still requires some degree of skill to play your class well. And those that have exceptional skill usually write pages of what people need to do to help with their build or what skills or spells to use in what order.

They have merged classes to the point that you no longer have to have a warrior to tank. A druid, death knight, or paladin will work just as well. The same goes for healing and DPS. Pretty soon it there will be no need for so many different classes, you just fill a raid full of Druids, Pallies, and Shamans and you are good to go.

Hind sight is always 20/20, should of, could of, and would of. Despite all the griping I did and can do the true game play and experience of this game is with your friends and making new ones. I have made several friends online and since I have quite from the game, I still keep in contact with them weather it be over Facebook or X-Box live. I still visit the forums to harass them and to see what is going on. As occasion has allowed I have actually met some of them face to face and would love to see them more often.

Having friends in game and playing with them made the game worth while. I suppose you can say that for any MMORPG but this has been the only one to stick with me with good memories and experiences.

With each part of the game comes some major fights. Now to start off the game there were two dungeons (called instances) that required raids of 40 people. These instances were massive! Often these instances would have a super boss at the end where all the nice loot was getting dropped. Along with the super boss there would be other homework intensive fights along the way. Each instance had its own set of gear (Called tiers) that fell from it not to mention any other specialized gear that people would want. These fights would try and fit into lore as much as possible and Blizzard made sure to do their work with it. The first raid instance was Molten core. Ragnaros the Fire lord is the super boss in this instance. It was a big deal if you were going around in T1 armor because it means that your gear would be a bit greater than those that were just running around in smaller instances or PVP.



Onyxia’s Lair and Blackwing Lair were released later on and the quest to get into these raids were RETARDED. Although it gave Blizzard some time to iron out the instances and restrict the content to those that had no life these instances became very coveted for the gear that they could put out.

In the year of the end of the life of the original game before it took on the Burning Crusade, 2 more instances came out for the 40 man run. The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj and Naxxramas. Although one of these instances was barely out before the start of the burning crusade and a lot of gamers were not able to go through the entire instance.

Burning Crusade marked the end of the 40 man raid. Blizzard (as well as many guild leaders) found that many raid leaders wanted to either punch babies or shoot their own raid member from STANDING IN THE F**KING FIRE. With the guild tank or healer being reformed retards caused stress on so many levels they figured that with a 25 man raid that it would be a whole lot easier to weed out the retards. Unfortunately this cause a lot of drama and guilds ended up splitting up rather than working together.

*pic of blood elf and Draenei fight here*

This also gave way to how Blizzard was going to do expansions from here on out though. This introduced the “Heroic” fights to the normal instances increasing the level of gear you get from them. It also introduced how they were going to release new tiered instances from now on. The inception of the Burning Crusade gave everyone access to the quick one boss instances like Grull’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair but it also had Serpentshrines Lair (Lady Vashj (Naga) T4 gear) and The Eye ( Kael’thas (Blood Elf Leader) T5 gear). It also gave way to 3 other raids later on between The Eye and the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King.

By the time the 3 new raids came out if your guild wasn’t up to par and was not strong it was going to fall apart. Coupled with the fact that now you could grind daily quest and get better gear than being in a raid this also ended many peoples will to go on now that anybody that didn’t have the time to raid still had better gear than your guild that failed to take on the T5 boss. Tier 6 gear was then split up between the Battle for Mount Hyjal and The Black Temple (Illidan). With the Sunwell plateau coming out for those really hard core raiders to try and beat it before WotLK came out.

*pic Black temple here*

The Sunwell super boss consisted of Illidan’s master: Kil’jaden. Upon his defeat you learn that he is not dead but banished from this part of the world that you fought in. Again this was something that most raiders were not able to see due to drama, fight issues, or guilds just plain sucking ass and not leaning the instances as they should.

The time came for them to introduce the Wrath of the Lich king but knowing what I went through in the last expansion I just felt like I could not go on although I wanted to beat down Arthas like the traitorous bitch he is!

*pic WoW patch 3.2*

This time around instead of making different raids for 10 man or 25 man like they did in the past, they made it to where you could do either 10 mans or 25 mans. This helped the smaller guilds that could only do small man raids have the opportunity to go into the higher end raids and experience the story line for themselves. Blizzard still kept the lazy attitude about themselves with re-releasing Onyxia’s Lair and Naxxramas from the original WoW 5 years prior which bought them some time to get out 7 other instances for raiding.

When it comes down to taking down Arthas the Lich King Blizzard f**ks up the story line. Both Horde and Alliance are sick of Arthas’s continual harassment and have come to take the fight to his door. Leading the fight is Bolvar Fordragon of the Alliance and Dranosh Saurfang of the Horde. These great leaders come knocking on the Lich kings door and end up getting betrayed BY THE FORSAKEN. Now apparently the horde has gone soft since it will only kill people that look pretty (minus the Blood elves). I guess its alright if the people I ally with kill off one of its own entire attack force against the Lich king.

*pic of bull shit*

If that were all that Blizzard f**ked up in the expansion I would be ok with it (ok, I wouldn’t cause they f**ked up the death knight too). BUT they continue to bull shit the WoW masses with the end of Arthas saying that there was ALWAYS a Lich king and there must always BE a Lich King or the undead plague would get worse.

Blizzard, you set up the story to be the broad side of a barn so that you could now split the Forsaken from the horde and properly set them up. The delivery system is that of a M1 Abram Tank. Why the f**k would you shoot the house behind it? If there was a first Lich king (Ner'zhul) then there has NOT always been a Lich king. Why not have Queen Sylvanas take the role as Lich king thereby keeping a reason of having the undead in the world?



Now the time has come for Cataclysm to come out. Even though it is 2 months away I can assure you that people are looking forward to finding out the new areas of the Azeroth although fearing the drama that will come along with the people not leveling up fast enough to get into the new instances. Deathwing has emerged from his defeat and is going to take his wrath out upon the dwellers of Azeroth. This once proud dragon leader being placed in charge over all the earth from the time of the Titans has fallen from grace and its time for the heros of Azeroth to put him down!

*pic Cataclysm*

Recap: If any of you were wondering to pick this game up I encourage it but, only if you have a friend or two that plan on playing with you for a while. Go through the quest lines and find out more about the game. Have fun while doing it. Enjoy this world.

GRAPHICS: 7 lets face it. Its an MMO so the in game graphics aren’t that great but, for what it is and the cut scenes, its outstanding.

SOUND: on the spot and epic cut scene music. Different music for every dungeon / instance earns this a 9

STORY: Pre WoW would be close to a 10, after WotLK, it brings it down to a 6. Blizzard keeps f**king up the story line, that’s why.

EXPERIENCE: You would think that the over use of Blizzards lazy “easy button” would bring this score down but, when you have good friends playing the game it equals a good time which means you have a good experience. 9

PRESENTATION: STOP SUCKING THE HORDE COCK!!! That is all. 7

TIME: depends if you like loosing your time to the game. If it was worth it call it good, if it wasn’t, you have probably stopped playing it. I still call it a 7.

OVERALL: 7.5 You should at least play up to the max level with some friends to find out the fun of this game. And when you do, send me a tell, I can hook you and me up with a free month of game time

I think I will get plenty of backlash with me hating on the undead. I dont think I can go off on too much of a rant against the game though just because of how well it was put together.

Well this certainly sounds like a heck of an undertaking. Has anyone ever actually reviewed the entire World of Warcraft series including the expansions?

And about the expansions, is the latest expansion going to be included in your review?

probably. just writing about this had made me miss it so I will be picking it back up when I get my man cave built

you know, the one game i couldnt get into was this, maybe because I played Camelot for so long and I fell in love with that PvP or Realm Vs Realm aspect that WoW just couldnt appease me. was fun, but i just cant stick with it. T

hough right now I've bounched just about every MMO out there, Warhammer, WoW, Aion (a beautiful game), conan (nothing like slaughtering monsters in the nude).

But good luck Zimes, games this massive are hard to review, and no matter what you say or do you are going to get the nerd backlash. you are gonna get it from WoW haters (like me) y ou are going to get it from horde haters, alliance haters, blood elve haters, human haters....i think you get the point lol.

Click here for more episodes of Mockbuster Mockery!
The series is dedicated to analyzing and eviscerating tasteless low-budged B-grade knock-offs of more popular and expensive Hollywood flicks - Mockbusters. CineMax is an amateur, yet aspiring movie critic, who makes comedic video reviews, writes insightful and analytical articles, and, occasionally just blabbers about stuff he deems important.

ok, I would consider the above my rough draft. 11 pages of hate and awe.

thanks. I hope to appease all but there is no hope in that. I hope that the homework that I have put into this will help though.

By homework you mean hours of playing lol.

although I do have months of play time under the belt I havent played since spring last year. but the homework I did do on it was making sure I dont f**k up the lore or story line.