World of Warcraft Preview

FiringSquad has put together a fairly lengthy preview of World of Warcraft, based upon their recent impressions of the game’s ongoing beta. A snippet to follow:

Blizzard is really better than most at being able to mask the fact that this is a game about randomized ‘dice’ rolls done by the server. Few competitors other than EverQuest, and to a more limited extent Dark Age of Camelot, can boast such fleshed-out zones (though the world is seamless) and consistent and good art. World of WarCraft might never garner accolades for breaking technological boundaries like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 will, but the somewhat cartoony look of the world promises longevity.

This all translates into a more believable experience, it’s easier to forget that everyone will be the same level sooner or later and that most people will have similar equipment. Here too, however, Blizzard does a number on the traditional thinking that all the best equipment means that all players will be clones of each other. The talent system has been revamped and radicalized. Talents are divided into three categories – Arms, Defend and Fury. Presumably the player is encouraged to spend points as much as possible in one of these categories because the requirements for certain abilities often mean X amount of talent points being dumped into a previous ability in the same category.