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World of Warcraft Is Spyware!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 72 / 110
Date: October 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I recently performed a rather long reversing session on a piece of software written by Blizzard Entertainment, yes - the ones who made Warcraft, and World of Warcraft (which has 4.5 million+ players now, apparently). This software is known as the 'warden client' - its written like shellcode in that it's position independant. It is downloaded on the fly from Blizzard's servers, and it runs about every 15 seconds. It is one of the most interesting pieces of spyware to date, because it is designed only to verify compliance with a EULA/TOS. Here is what it does, about every 15 seconds, to about 4.5 million people (500,000 of which are logged on at any given time):

The warden dumps all the DLL's using a ToolHelp API call. It reads information from every DLL loaded in the 'world of warcraft' executable process space. No big deal.

The warden then uses the GetWindowTextA function to read the window text in the titlebar of every window. These are windows that are not in the WoW process, but any program running on your computer. Now a Big Deal.

I watched the warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs, including those that were minimized or in the toolbar. These strings can easily contain social security numbers or credit card numbers, for example, if I have Microsoft Excel or Quickbooks open w/ my personal finances at the time.

Once these strings are obtained, they are passed through a hashing function and compared against a list of 'banning hashes' - if you match something in their list, I suspect you will get banned. For example, if you have a window titled 'WoW!Inmate' - regardless of what that window really does, it could result in a ban. If you can't believe it, make a dummy window that does nothing at all and name it this, then start WoW. It certainly will result in warden reporting you as a cheater. I really believe that reading these window titles violates privacy, considering window titles contain alot of personal data. But, we already know Blizzard Entertainment is fierce from a legal perspective. Look at what they have done to people who tried to make BNetD, freecraft, or third party WoW servers.

Next, warden opens every process running on your computer. When each program is opened, warden then calls ReadProcessMemory and reads a series of addresses - usually in the 0x0040xxxx or 0x0041xxxx range - this is the range that most executable programs on windows will place their code. Warden reads about 10-20 bytes for each test, and again hashes this and compares against a list of banning hashes. These tests are clearly designed to detect known 3rd party programs, such as wowglider and friends. Every process is read from in this way. I watched warden open my email program, and even my PGP key manager. Again, I feel this is a fairly severe violation of privacy, but what can you do? It would be very easy to devise a test where the warden clearly reads confidential or personal information without regard.

This behavior places the warden client squarely in the category of spyware. What is interesting about this is that it might be the first use of spyware to verify compliance with a EULA. I cannot imagine that such practices will be legal in the future, but right now in terms of law, this is the wild wild west. You can't blame Blizz for trying, as well as any other company, but this practice will have to stop if we have any hope of privacy. Agree w/ botting or game cheaters or not, this is a much larger issue called 'privacy' and Blizz has no right to be opening my excel or PGP programs, for whatever reason.

Beta Tester (Phase 2)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 38 / 48
Date: June 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Okay, just a quick breakdown here. I have been playing WoW Beta since Blizzard released Phase 2 and I must say that I am incredibly impressed. This is my first MMORPG and it took no time to figure things out and get going in game. So far the updates have been slow but steadily making the game a lot better each phase. I really enjoy doing the quests that are in game, they give fat chunks of exp and usually, great items. The graphics are sharp and nice to look at, while presenting an overall dream-like fantasy world feel that works perfectly. None of us in game know much about special "world events" because i think that Blizzard is saving these for final development and release, but needless to say we are excited to experience them.

All in all, if you like to play games that are challenging yet open ended, this is for you! You can make your own way through the game and still have tons of fun in the process because it's really not about killing mass monsters, the quests do it better. I am definitely buying World of Warcraft upon it's release because Blizzard is doing an awesome job in all aspects.

Limitless fun, even for the beginner!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 26
Date: December 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I admit that I was skeptical about jumping into this game. For years now I have watched other people play titles such as EverQuest and Star Wars: Galaxies; spending endless hours engaged in what I perceived to be esoteric and disconnected storylines offset by redundant battle.

However, I'm not one to criticize, especially vicariously. For those reading the review keep one thing in mind: I've never played these other titles. The simple fact that the above mentioned games have such a following seems to contradict my perception that they really aren't that fun. But I always seek to challenge the mob mentality.

World of Warcraft has defied my expectations. My fear of a steep learning curve had for years prohibited me from enjoying games like Diablo, Diablo II and the associated expansion titles. For me, anything with a sense of "level" was out of my field of vision. For a long while it was either the FPS (first person shooter) or RTS (real-time strategy) genre that could hold my attention. Something as epic as leveling a solitary character for months on end was horribly intimidating.

When I first entered into the World of Warcraft I slipped into the familiar settings from the namesake RTS series. Blizzard's excellent interface design coupled with the environmental ambience helped comfort my baby steps into this epic world. What the graphics of WoW lack in polygon detail they make up for in a cohesive art presentation that really brings the whole game together.

The tool tip system made getting started a cinch. No tutorial or drawn out cinematic, just a few helpful hints to get you on your way. The initial quests were simple enough and geared towards helping you understand the protocol of being assigned a mission, executing it, and returning it for character experience. Skip ahead to professions and talent trees and that same, painless process describes what it was like for me to determine what I was supposed to do and how to do it.

What Blizzard has accomplished here should never be understated. They have managed to bring together the finer points of almost every genre and morph it into the perfectly seasoned MMORPG. Though no one review can explain all of the finer details of this game, rest assured that should you purchase it you will come to appreciate things like rested experience (for those of us who don't stay logged in 24/7), relatively painless deaths (all you really lose is item durability), and a new standard in in-game help systems.

In closing, I'd like to point out the part where Blizzard really shines. Other game developers often like to neglect the minority; "let's first ship the game for Win32, then we'll perhaps consider porting this to the Mac...but it probably won't work so well and they won't be able to play with their friends on PCs." This has stopped me from ever considering a game like Neverwinter Nights or Everquest. What, truly, is the point of joining an MMORPG if the world is a) not so massive, and b) you're months behind?

This game, as with most of the rest of Blizzard's games, has shipped as a hybrid disc for both platforms since Day 1. I've looked at the Mac version and the PC version side by side and as one has come to expect from Blizzard the performance and presentation on both platforms is superb. While it is true that on many occasions the Mac may under perform graphically, it doesn't make the game any less exciting.

Congratulations, Blizzard. You've got one customer who is 100% happy, and 100% pleased to shell out a subscription month after month for limitless fun!

Glory days are over.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 29 / 34
Date: June 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game had tons of hype, and for its' first year or so of existance was tremendously fun to play. There were genuinely great ideas that also happened to have been actualized in a fashion that set it apart from the rest of the entire video game industry. But the company became awash in funds, and devoted less and less time to fixing known issues and the class and race and faction balances, to the point were no known issues were at all being worked on; all available resources were being used to create the content that only 1-3% of WoW players will ever see, much less conquer in the anteceding 12 months.

Now that the last major add-on has gone live, the company is not responding to any complaints or issues at all but instead is concerned only with the next item for sale, called Burning Crusade, which again will have content only 10-15% of players will care about or get involved with.

The game had so much promise, but it squandered it when most of the core design and development team left to pursue artistic endeavors during the final stages of this game, and the only persons available to help complete the tone and tenor of the game, especially at the end-game level, were gamers themselves, who were not beholden to anything but thier own egos and whims. They made the game a huge raid-fest, which 95% of the games subscribers don't care about/ are oblivious to/can'or won't devote the time to/ see as impossible to embrace as fun.

Yet even tho we now have a solid 17 months of nothing but non-stop 40 man-it-or-you-must-be-some-sort-of-loser mentality oozing from the developers, there has been no, I repeat no, none, nothing at all even resembling a non-40 man raid that provides items comparable to 40-man items, that 95% maybe even 100% of the community has been asking for.

So, in laymans' terms, unless you can devote 8 hours 4-7 nights a week, and also unless you are really good at distinguishing yourself at this late stage in the game, you cannot and will not get a chance to experience 99% of the content relesed into the game in the last 12 or so months. So, by the time you have grasped enough of WoW playing ONLY 20 hrs a week, (gasp) what you should potentially have had fun encountering will be passe, and um, that's what a game is supposed to do for you. Sigh.

This games' price has come down low enough that even with the exorbitant monthly fee (er well 26 day fee, for a months price, as you aren't allowed to play the game on Tuesdays til about 3-5 in the afternoon) it should still be fun enough to play and see what the game was like during it's first 5 months of existance. Once, however, you reach 60, be prepared for a lot of envy and indignation directed towards the game for it's inability to parse out rewards based on skill, but rather only as honorarium for having been part of a raid.

Oh, btw, PvP, the part of the game where you battle other real-life humans for prizes, is completely borked, i.e., is useless. The rewards garnered from incessantly playing 16 hour-a-day sessions, 6-7 days-a-week, for 6-8 months are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than rewards you can achieve in one 3 hour session of Molten Core, or from either wing of AQ, which is harder, but if you get into an AQ guild, you'll get those weapons straight away, no delay! Why PvP for thousands of hours when your AQ weapons far out-class Faction Honor (that means PvP) weapons? You wouldn't.

This game has tremendous issues, however if you are new to these types of games, you won't notice. At least not til it matters, and by that time you can move on, or go back to Halo3 or Call of Juarez. This game is losing American-based subscribers to the free-to-play Guild Wars, and it's losing them fast.
--
Let me summarize. This game is fun until your character has progressed to level 60. Then, I'm not sure how much fun a casual player will be having. The only things to do at level 60 that are fun and provide enjoyment require you to be a part of a 40-man team. And those only occur if you belong to a guild, which will require you to spend hours and hours each week getting ready and gearing up to go out ALL friday and saturday night.

Also, 16$ a month is a lot of money to spend.

Finally, the game is completely biased in favor of the Alliance. If yo have friends who are Horde, and you wish to play with them, be prepared for a much longer and more grueling time than if you went Alliance. This game has a lot of problems, such as Warlocks never getting any of their 100+ known Beta issues dealt with. I don't see this game retaining much of its population base, especially with EVE online, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars much more player-friendly and cheaper to play.

Beware of this game.

WoW: Wow!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 31
Date: August 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

For those not educated in the way of Blizzard Games, World of Warcraft is their first MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). Based on the world emulated in Blizzard's popular best-selling game, Warcraft, this game is gigantic. In previous games by Blizzard, there have been about four to five servers, or realms, with hundreds of games made by players, each holding anywhere from two to eight players. However, World of Warcraft turns the tide and allows a few servers, each estimated to hold anywhere from 2000-2500 players at any given time. With this many players in a server, there has to be a lot of space to hold them. The world comprises of two huge continents, which are made up of the lands of Kalimdor, Lordaeron, Azeroth, and Khaz Modan. Each region also holds major and minor cities. For example, the human city, Stormwind, is huge. However, as Blizzard recently added the auction function to Stormwind, it has been getting a lot more traffic and has been known to be laggy when entering the city. There are also now eight playable races. You may start out as the Humans, Orcs, Undead, Night elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Trolls and Tauren. Each character you make is very customizable. You, of course, choose your name, and are then able to choose your gender, hair style, hair color, skin color, facial characteristics, and facial hair. On top of the amount of races, there are nine playable classes, each with unique skills and spells. However, some races will not be able to play certain classes. The nine classes are the holy and noble Paladin, the stealthy Rogue, the healing Priest, the taming Hunter, the dark magi Warlocks, the naturalist Druids, the Warrior, Mage, and Shaman (like the Paladin, but for the Horde.) Each race is either on the side of the Alliance, or the Horde. Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, and Night Elves comprise of the Alliance, while the Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Undead make up the Horde. In the PvP (Player versus Player) server, these two teams can clash in skirmishes in different areas to sieze control over the area. However, where there are enemies, there are allies, and World of Warcraft is all about allying. Players can band together to defeat enemies, complete quests, gain experience, or just spend some quality time together.

Depending on what race you choose to be, you will start out in different areas. For example, Humans start out in Azeroth, Night Elves start out in a small island north of Kalimdor, and Tauren start out in central Kalimdor. Certain races will also be able to buy mounts at a higher level, further customized by what class they are. For example, Paladins get an armored stallion, and Orcs get a dire wolf.

This game also brings trade skills into play. Players can mine for minerals, skin animals for skins, etc., and use these skills to create equipment, making anybody who uses these skills a valued team member.

What makes this game fun for me is the amount of quests and the fact that new ones are being added with each patch. There are literally thousands. This is why the game can be fun even after you reach the maximum level. There are quests ranging from the easiest of tasks, such as locating the inn, to defeating enemies that take a group to beat and can take hours to complete. There are also many equipment items you can wear, much more than in previous games such as Diablo 2. There are also more slots to choose from. For example, you can wear a robe, cloak, shirt, boots, belt, gloves, bracers, head gear, and much more.

The game also features a familiar way of chatting. Hitting the enter button will bring up the box where you type in messages, which after entered will appear in the above chat log. By typing prefixes in your messages such as "/1" (eg: /1 hi) will send your message into a public channel. Channel 1 is usually the general chat for your region, 2 is the trade channel when you are in a major city, 3 and 4 are defense channels, and 5 is the raid channel to discuss attacks on the opposite faction. You can also /yell messages so that everybody in your region can hear them (/say will send a message to people within a small radius of you) or /whisper (/w for short) somebody for a private message. Channel messages come up in tan, says come up in white, yells are red, and whispers are purple. You can also use the /ignore feature to squelch certain players so that you do not have to hear their messages. Blizzard will also include their friends list so that you may keep track of your friends in the game. They show character names, their levels, location, and class.

World of Warcraft now also makes clans official (first seen in Warcraft 3). You are allowed to join a guild with hundreds of other players. You also can customize your guild's sigil by visiting an NPC labeled as the Clan Tabard (guild leaders only).

Also, what people must know is that there ARE bugs in the game. However, the game IS only in the beta phase. The bugs, of course, will be fixed by the final retail version. Blizzard will also patch over any new bugs frequently so that our gaming experience can be all the better.

In all honesty, I can only think of one bad thing to say about the game, which is hearing something about not adding mounted combat, which seems silly, as units in previous games that were mounted on horses could attack from them. Even the music is pretty good. Many people argue that they will not get the game because of the monthly fee. I also thought this way until I played the beta, and then I realized that twelve or thirteen dollars for this amount of fun per month is, in my opinion, a pretty good deal.

However, don't just take my word for it. Blizzard announced that they will soon be releasing an open beta to the public, allowing everybody who wishes to download it the opportunity to join the vast World of Warcraft.

A review from a first time MMORPG player

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 19
Date: November 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I casually stumbled upon the open beta while surfing the web at work one day. I signed up for an account and waited for the 2.7 gigabyte download to complete (yikes!). I had an expectation about MMORPGs that they were addictive (and thus "wrong"), but I wanted to try one anyway.

I customized the look of my character and decided to be a Tauren Hunter (as far as I could tell later on, all the races/classes are meticulously balanced, and ALL can solo!). I then entered the world. The first thing I noticed were little "!" icons on the bottom of my screen giving me help and telling me what to do. Later on they appear less and less and you can turn them off if you want. They (in conjunction with looking at the manual occasionally) were extremely helpful in getting me started. The user interface was very intuitive considering how much it was capable of.

My first few quests were easy, fun, and short. As I quested I noticed the game was absolutely beautiful. It had such atmosphere and detail. Blizzard has raised the bar for "big" games. I am used to "big" games meaning "vast tracts of empty land".

I leveled up very quickly. I was at level 10 in just a few hours! I noticed this game rewards beginners very well. You start to level slower as you get higher up, but this game continually rewards you. You can be a casual, 2 hours at a time gamer who likes to play by yourself and you will do *just fine* in this game. I never played for an hour stretch during which I did not gain or experience something cool. I introduced my wife to it (she being a very casual gamer) and she likes it so much we're getting a new computer just so we can duo together.

The world is very big but travel is rarely a problem. There are dragons and zepellins that are willing to fly you to major locations, as well as a "hearthstone" that transports you to the innkeeper you spoke with last. Later on in the game I hear you can get mounts of your own to ride.

The gameplay is very diverse. I never felt bored because there was always an opportunity to go do something I hadn't done before. There are many tradeskills and these tradeskills are also easy to level up. For instance, to max out the fishing tradeskill, it requires about 275 skill points. After 30 minutes of fishing, I had about 30-40 skill points, had caught a bunch of nice fish to eat, and a few nice items too! Perfect for the casual gamer who does not want to spend their whole life playing a single game to master it!

Death in this game is handled superbly. You are transported as a ghost to the *nearest* graveyard. In ghost form, everything has a white glow to it (check out the sky!), you can run very fast, and to resurrect all you have to do is find your corpse (helpfully marked on your map). If you died in an extremely bad area that you don't want to revive in, there is a "spirit healer" at the graveyard who can revive you for a slight experience penalty (you will not lose any levels) and 25% item durability penalty (a mere token of money to repair). Your corpse cannot be looted or exploited in any way. The game makes sure you don't actually want to die, because it can take 2-3 minutes to get to your corpse, but otherwise prevents you from being frustrated.

All enemies are helpfully marked with a name and the level they are next to them, so you don't accidently try and take on a level 21 Kodo Barrens Beast when you're only level 11. Also, if an enemy is enormously strong for its level, it will be marked as "elite", as in a "Level 21 Elite" Kodo Barrens Beast. Watch out for elites! :-)

The game is in "real-time" depending on your time zone so if you only play the game at night, it will always be night in the game. This can be good or bad. I personally loved it. I would get up early in the morning to play the game so I could watch the sunrise. And then in the evenings I might play to watch the sunset.

My system is an Athlon XP 2200+, 768 megs of ram, and an ATi Radeon 9200 videocard. The game ran very smooth at medium detail and only slightly stuttery on the highest detail settings. If you have an ATI 9000+ videocard (or 5200+, for those with nVidia Geforce cards), your main bottleneck will be your RAM. The official requirement is 256 megs. I played with this much before I bought a 512 stick. If you have 256 megs you have to turn down all your detail settings and avoid crowds of people because otherwise your computer will constantly be loading textures from the hard drive. With 768 megs of ram the game runs seamlessly and there is no great noticeable loading of anything anywhere! It's all one big world (except for major dungeons, which load separately).

The game mentioned it had "dynamic weather" but I did not notice any in the areas I played. I did not notice the absence until someone else mentioned it. Perhaps it was turned off for beta purposes. The game was sunny everywhere I went, although sometimes with fog or partial clouds.

Overall, one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. It looks like Blizzard has another game of the year on their hands. See you there!

WoW isn't an Orwellian utopia, but neither is America.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 24 / 27
Date: January 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The first day I stepped into the world of Azeroth, I was quite pumped to play WoW. A few weeks prior to its release, an old friend mentioned this "World of Warcraft" game coming out. I looked at a few websites, and was actually interested. Many other MMO's simply fell short of entertainment, in my opinion. It felt like paying money to a comapany to literally "work". The terms "Treadmilling" and "Grinding" make me want to shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails. At least that is less painful, and hell, it costs a whole lot less.

So I install, and patch my game. All the normal expectations. It took quite sometime to install, given the game occupies four CD's worth of data. There is also a DVD version to purchase, but I'm unsure wether that would have installed any faster or not. I don't have a DVD-Rom :/ The patching system was a nightmare. Blizzard employs a Peer to Peer file sharing system. On my cable modem, the patch downloaded at about the same speed at 56K modem would on a direct FTP connection. Thank God patches are not an everyday occurance.

The game loads up, and I'm sucked right into it's introduction movie. These movies always make every game seem like they are the best thing since sliced bread, don't they? I log into my newly formed account, and begin playing WoW. Luckily I'm more or less experienced in MMO's. The learning curve was not very steep for me.

I created a Tauren Shaman (There are 8 races and 9 classes to choose from). In the beginning, the User Interface (UI) was a very pleasant thing to manipulate. It was not bulky, and did not feel like it dominated my playing space. There was a bar of Hot-Keys I could place my spells and simple actions into. I could also create macros and assign them to my hotbar as well. Experience gain was clearly shown as a bar along the bottom of my screen, and target information was compact and unintrusive. The fact that windows I opened were locked down are, and continue to be, and irritation. As I progressed, I realized that the UI, athough functional at first, becomes severely limiting in later levels. Blizzard wisely allowed for ambitious home-brew programmers out there to create custom UI's. There are many to choose from, and there is a UI out there for everyone. Smart move letting me customize my game!

I talk to the nearest NPC who gives me a quest to go kill a certain creature, and loot a certain amount of items off of it. Good enough, I was going to go kill those creatures for experience anyway. I begin to notice the sounds and music, and I'm pleasently pleased. The music is unintrusive, yet adds perfectly to the atsmosphere of the game. It fits into the theme of each area I go to, and smoothly transfers from one song to the next. The game sounds are not spectacular, but they aren't horrible either. At times, it is repetetive, such as combat. It doesn't bother me much, because just how many sounds can a mace make bashing into MoB skull anyway?

I get a good look at the general area, and the graphics are quite pleasing to the eye. There is neither too little, nor too much to look at. The lighting is well done, as it's bright enough to see without thinking the Rays of God were penetrating your skull. Likewise, even in the murkiest swamps, at night, the light is still bright enough to see functionally. I want to feel like there is a day and night (Which runs on an accurate, real time 24 hour cycle), but night time need not replicate the darkest corners of hell. I also remark at how well Blizzard has replicated the look of Warcraft. Warcraft never went for realism as did Command and Conquer. There was always a fantasy, cartoonish look to it. WoW Certainly has a fantasy look to it as well. While it does not look like a "Looney Toons" cartoon, it also doesn't look like the "Final Fantasy" movie. Good balance all around.

With my somewhat old system (1.3ghz/512DDR 2700/GeForce FX5200 128DDR), I also notice the game runs well. I check the video settings, and it seems the game had chosen the optimum settings for my computer. I'm not sure if that is what it truly did, but it's nice that I never had to fiddle with the settings. It seems that I'm at about 1/3 of the engine's capability, and I think the world looks quite good. I set it to its highest just to see how smooth it was, and I was very pleased, visually. Crisp graphics. The 2D textures on 3D skins was a bit off, but only if you pay attention. At full capability it was too choppy, so I went back to default. I have never felt like I was "missing out" on anything.

I continue on, and keep doing quests. Some quests have me talk to certain people, others to kill certain things, and lastly, some to merely collect things. During my questing, I don't see any real point to them. Then it dawns on me. Besides the fact that most quest have me killing things I was going to kill anway, the quests also ensure I kill some of every creature. Not only do I experience all the MoBs there are to kill, I'm also exploring every part of the map. By the time I leave the level 1 to 10 newbie zone, my map has every portion of that area explored. I suppose I could have just killed the same creatures in one spot over and over, but the experience would have been dull. Besides, the rewards for the quests were very appropriate. All give extra experience. Some give some cash. Others give armor, weapons, or some other wrothwhile item. By the time I leave the newbie area, the armor and weapon I had were all from quests, and all were very appropriate, if not pretty nice for my level. Further on in the game, some randomly dropped items were better, but quests have never ceased to usually have something I can use if its reward is a tangible item.

As I continue to experience the game over time, I eventually meet some interesting people. Many people in the general chat channels are ingnorant people, but not any more so than other MMO's in my experience. I have a few RL friends who are playing, my wife is playing, and some good people online that I like to adventure with. I joined a large guild, which has provided more support grouping wise. I love to solo in games, but sometimes I need a little extra support. Guild members are a great way to meet up with the same people regularly. This helps greatly, becuase you learn how they play, and can adjust accordingly. Some pick-up groups with strangers can be rewarding. Its those times when some group members are reckless, greedy, or otherwise irritating that make you appreciate making some reliable friends.

I also have chosed to play on a PvP server, as this is the ultimate MoB for me. Always has, always will. Blizzard has created three types of servers. First is the PvP Server. The races are diveded into two factions. Alliance or Horde. In PvP servers, Horde and Alliance are enemies. Thusly, the opposing faction are the one to kill (If you choose or dare to!). Members of the same faction cannot attack each other without consent, by dueling. If you don't like having players be able to randomly attack you, Blizzard has created two other types. The Normal server, and the Roleplaying server. Both these server types require consent to PvP before a fight can be initiated. Normal server are for your average non-PvP player to play in. RP servers are for those who take roleplaying very seriously, and wish not to be bothered by talk about the last football game, or wether the Wopper is better than the Big Mac.

I find leveling to be challenging enough to keep me interested, but not so fast that I have nothing to look forward to. Now this statement has to be put into perpective. I play three chracters, so that I never feel like I'm getting "too much" of one character. This is a personal thing, I just feel that I can only play a character so long before I need a break. I'm more of the hard-core casual. I go days without playing much, or none at all, then I get a few 12 hour days in. Some people play 12 hours a day, every day. They are all at the max of level 60. Its actually humurous to hear that they are bored. If you play the game simply to level, and level alone, expect to be bored. The game wasn't intended to be a race to the finish. If I chose to, I could level once per 12 hours of hard playing. I just don't.

The game does have some up and coming things that I am very much looking forward to. At the time of this writing, there is no reward/penalty system for PvP. Blizzard has plans to make items for high ranked PvP'ers, ranks, and other bennies for those who like to bash each other's skulls in. They also are developing battlegrounds. These grounds are reported to have territory that can be gained, or lost. This also will help those who do enjoy alot of PvP, as the PvP will be consolidated into one easy to find area.

I also want to talk about the issue of the monthly fee. Would I prefer to pay $50 once, and let it be free from then on? Yes and no. Yes, if I like the status quo. I don't. Many complain about paying $15 a month for a game they paid $50 for. This is simple economics. You are paying $50 for the effort in creating the product. This game was years in the making. Did Blizzard NOT pay its employees to make this game? Does Blizzard have servers and bandwidth for free to beta test this game? Is Blizzard's electricity, rent, payroll, travel expenses, etc free? You get my point. As for the ongoing costs, it again is simple. Servers cost money. Maintaining them cost money. Pipes to the internet cost money. Developement, and employees cost money. I'd bet that for every 15 dollars Blizzard gets, 14 of it goes to costs, not profit.

Lastly, is server performance. Luckily I play on a low population server. Such is the nature of most PvP servers. This is one reason why so many people are finding that the game is sold out. Blizzard has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of this game. Even with close to 50 servers, the demand is too great. Here's where all the $50, and $15 are going. There will be more powerful servers. The bandwidth will be better. There will be more servers to choose from. Even with days of spotty server performance, queue's to login, and extended downtimes, those that complain still can't get enough of this game. That in itself speak volumes. Buy the game and stick to a low population server, and you'll be asking yourself "What problems". Losing connection is not as common as many would lead you to believe.

I can go on and on about other virtues of this game, but I don't want people to scream "How long winded is this guy??". If you have some time and little extra cash, give this game a try. Heck, if after the first 30 days, you don't like it, sell it. There is a HUGE line of people waiting to get thier hands on this game, so finding a buyer will not be hard.

-Gameplay: ****/***** Somedays there might not be anything to do, but that's not a common occurance
-Sound: ****/***** Beautifully done score, some repetitive sounds. Not distracting at all.
-Graphics ****1/2/***** Not a new engine, but not one with tons of problems either. Can run on a Porsche or a Yugo. Visually pleasing, and not straining to the eye. Creative and appropriate artwork.
-Cost ***/***** More expensive than some of it's predecessors, but not breaking the bank, either.
-Engineering ****/***** Not alot of "new" ideas, but smart enough to take the best of its competition, and do it well. Although safely played, it's paid off in that it hasn't taken a patch a week to fix all the "new" stuff.
-Support ***/***** Some complaints regarding lack of communication. GM calls not always swiftly handled. Some "fixes" snuck in during patches that nerfs certain players.

Overall: ****/*****

Beta tester's first impression...more to come

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 26
Date: November 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've played EQ...it was nice. I've played Dark Age of Camelot...it was better. Now comes World of Warcraft...it is the best (of the 3, anyway).

What a graphically COOL game. Groovy spell animations, fairly easy leveling, meaningful quests to get you accaimated to the game, etc. But, the biggest benefit that I saw was EASE OF USER INTERFACE! I'm in my mid 30s now and I've been intimated by other game interfaces, but this one trumps them. There is a "?" that pops up whenever you do a new action and gives you an explanation of what you can do and how to do it - very cool. The map is also very easy to use. You get experience for discovering new territories and the fighting interface is excellent.

So far, the only drawback that I see is many people are soloing...and soloing without any trouble. I know everyone wants to have the BEST GEAR and be the highest level the quickest, but this is a MMORPG, not a SPORPG (single-player online role playing game). Maybe it's just a phase, which I hope it is.

Otherwise, this game has the potential to blow the socks of the MMORPG gaming world. In reading the historicals, I see that this game has been pushed back almost a year. I think that was wise because this game is the most complete and bug-free I've ever played...and it's in Beta yet.

Bravo Blizzard. I think you've got a winner here!

Insanely fun and addictive

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 30
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing this for almost a year now (in the closed alpha and beta testing), and I can't stop!

Now, I do NOT LIKE EverQuest (the most famous game in this MMORPG genre) because: it takes way to much time to play, if people are jerks in the game it ruins it for everyone around them, the graphics are bad, the interface is clunky, when you die in EQ it's incredibly annoying to get started again, etc. This is why EQ is played mostly by people with no jobs who live in their parents' basement. (I'm teasing, of course, but seriously - EQ is a lifestyle commitment to a mountain of annoyances.)

But I LOVE World of Warcraft. It overcomes all the bad things about EQ. The interface is great, you can solo the entire game or group up with other players (and either way, it's fun). But you don't have to join a massive guild or make an appointment with a whole group just to get anything done. You certainly CAN do that in WoW if you want - I have plenty of times - but it's not mandatory.

The infamous Blizzard sense of humor and whimsy permeates the game side by side with spooky, macabre, and even dramatic touches.

It truly is an entire world.

You can read all the details at worldofwarcraft.com, but my feeling about this game after playing it for months in various stages of development is that I would pay for it even in its current unfinished state. I'm always running into WoW players who've played EQ for years and they rave about how much better WoW is. (I only played EQ briefly, so I'm no expert on that game - I just played it enough to hate it.)

People who have always like the concept of MMORPGs but never found one that was good or elegant enough to play will enjoy this game immensely. And people who already play EQ or other MMORPGs will think they've died and gone to heaven when they get online with WoW.

The website will give you a lot of info about the game, but until you experience the solid gameplay and incredible richness of details - well, you'll just have to see for yourself.

Blizzard has done it again.

Finally a MMO for hard core and casual players

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: April 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As far as my background to this game type, I am relatively new to the MMORPG genre. I've played Shadowbane, Lineage II (briefly), spent a good deal of time with Final Fantasy XI, and beta tested Matrix Online. As far as this game goes, I've been playing since Beta and am currently a lvl 58 Priest (among other characters). So, onto the review:

MMORPGs are a funny beast. On one level all they are is a hack and slash game where the point is to kill monsters to get xp to get levels to get better equipment/skills to kill more monsters to get more xp to...you get the picture. And yet, for some magical reason there is this addiction that pushes people forward when the truth of the matter is that there really is "no point." Some MMORPGs are better than others. World of Warcraft is one of these.

WoW appeals to a very broad group of people, both hard core and casual players. It's a game where I can pick it up and spend maybe 30 mins to an hour and actually feel like I've accomplished something. Or, I can spend 5 hours crawling through one of the many instanced dungeons without so much as a bathroom break. Part of the reason I've stayed with WoW (and will continue to stay) is the quest system. Most of the quests have good rewards and good xp and really give you a purpose for your action. Instead of "I'm going to kill creature X for the first 10 levels, then move to creature Y" it becomes, I'm going to quest in Duskwood and help clean out their undead problems. You see Morbent Fel has been a pest for sometime now and someone needs to put him out of his misery. It's things like that, that keep me wanting to play.

Not to say that quests don't give a load of problems in themselves. The most general quests you have to deal with are "kill 10 of these, 5 of those and their leader" or "collect 20 pig intestines" or "I'm lazy, deliver this for me, will you?" And after killing your 100th pig for their intestines, you start wondering why you can't just cut it out of them when they are dead because surely every pig has an intestine. So, there are small problems like these with quests and there are some quest drops that could stand a more frequent drop. But, if there weren't any quests, you would still be killing the 100 pigs for xp.

One of the big reasons WoW is a killer of my time is that Blizzard seemed to take almost everything that wasn't fun with an MMORPG and do away with it. Because the dungeons are instanced, you aren't usually competing with a ton of campers over that rare Sword of Ogre slaying +9. Each race has a specific mount that makes traveling quicker. Most of the main areas you will be adventuring in have flight paths that help cut down travel time. Unlike some games (FFXI I'm looking at you!) you don't NEED to have a group. Most of the time, I have been able to solo my way through most quests (as a Priest no less). Now, for dungeons or bigger quests a group is still a necessity. But there's usually something to do if you can't find a group.

Graphic wise, the game is not exactly packing the polygons. the trees's leaves are flat and look like a pop up book in some ways. But, the art direction is absolutely amazing. I don't even think about the trees etc (unless I'm flying above them, that's when it's most noticeable) because it is just so well done. And each area looks different from others. It's just really well done.

There are some problem areas right now. Most people who play the game will complain about the lag and about how many stability issues have been cropping up since release date. I'm not supporting Blizzard, but I can understand some of these problems. WoW is the biggest selling MMORPG in a short time. Blizzard wasn't expecting that big of a number in such a short time. Retail stores couldn't keep the game on the shelf. Because of this, the realms weren't made to support so many so soon. However, Blizzard has done, in my opinion, an admirable job in keeping in touch with the problems through their website and have given out many free days because of lag/log on issues.

Also, it's very easy to progress to the current level cap of 60. Normally when games do this, it is to facilitate the true focus of PvP. Right now, PvP is basically a high level character or groups of characters murdering characters 20+ levels below them. Not exactly a fair system right now for some. But, there are some improvements in the close future such as Battlegrounds, a PvP arena that has bonuses and quests and PvP. Hopefully, Blizzard continues to innovate with these trends.

Finally, the biggest problem with having a game that caters to a wide audience is the fact that a lot of ignorant, bigotted and basically disreputable people plague the general chat with inane and downright mean things. I can't count how many times someone asks a question and gets beat down for asking it. Or how many times the word f*g was used or other demeaning words. It's almost an epidemic. There's free speech then there's what goes on in the general chat. If it weren't for the fact that I use general chat to find groups or help others out, I would get rid of the channel. As it is, my ignore list is growing steadily. I never had to deal with that in FFXI or Shadowbane and it's a shame that these people are hurting people's WoW experience.

I've said alot about this game and I think it's a testament to the quality of this game when I have a queue of about 5 console games that I haven't played or finished because I've spent most of my gaming time with WoW. Problems aside, it is a really good MMORPG that caters to a wide range of players. It's a game that, if Blizzard continues to roll out great content, I could see myself playing for a long time into the future. They have already added enough new content to the game to take up an expansion pack. If they are giving this much free content, one eagerly wonders what an expansion pack would do. Keep an eye on this one, it's touching greatness.

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