Join the masses, pwn nubs, and hope you have 40 friends.
I was at first a little turned off by the cartoony look, but it quickly grew on me. The models moved well in game-spell effects, environments, lighting was all pretty nice. The designers did a good job filling out there themes.
The Music too was pretty good. Ambience, theme songs, sound effects, voice overs-all passed the test if not more.
The game play on the other hand was what grabbed me. While still heavily playing FFXI (a very group oriented that was in complete turmoil economically with the limited itemization and ridiculous farming), WoW provided escapes from many of the things I’d grown to hate about FFXI.
-Solo-ability. I could (and did) play many characters completely (2 characters hit 60 in 4 or 5 weeks).
-PVP, something FFXI was very reluctant to venture into while I played. The pvp servers and later battlegrounds were soo much more fun then the horridly organized ‘conflict’ battles in ffxi. Fast paced, somewhat meaningful, and much more rewarding and fulfilling then ffxi’s was.
-Play styles. WoW’s classes although still falling mostly into “tank damage or healbot” categories-provided more unique play styles from class to class. My favorite ended up being the hunter with their player controlled pets and long range preference. My second favorites-each having a very tactical fight system-were stance switching warriors and shape shifting druids. All the others (which I did play at least one of) also had their own styles.
-Instanced dungeons. This blew me away (maybe I just hadn’t played enough mmo’s?) but the ability to have an entire dungeon completely to yourself and/or your party was soo nice compared to what I was used to in my previous games. No more spawn camping, claiming, bot wars. They also allowed for more immersive game play with triggered and unique events within the dungeons.
-Soulbinded equipment. Much like instanced dungeons-this aspect seemed to counter economic problems from overpopulated servers. Items in game had different categories from non-binding, bind on equip, or bind on pickup. Once an item was bound to you, you could not trade it among the community-it was yours or vender trash. This helped keep farmers from monopolizing everything then selling it to any idiot who could buy it. Made things feel a lot more special once you had them.
After a year of playing though I was tired of playing new characters and servers every month. The Community was a big letdown despite trying multiple pvp, pve, and rp servers. I was only actively in one raid guild (for about 5 months). I enjoyed the endgame content and a lot of the people in it-but it could have been a lot better. It allowed me to experience all the endgame at the time-clearing MC, ZG, BWL, and opening AQ before I called it quits. Aside from that every server I played on and any guild I joined was filled with egomaniacs, complete morons, and the rest of the usual online stereotypes. The few good and friendly players I enjoyed playing with often would end up leaving, taking breaks, or getting involved in their own guilds that I couldn’t or didn’t want to be part of.
That’s probably what I’d call WoW’s major defect. It’s community
Everything else was good if not great. Had a lot of fun, a lot of content, and a lot of possibilities in store.
Anyone who MMO’s could find enjoyment in this game. It’s also a good place to start if you’ve never MMO’d before.
The sales charts don’t lie-it’s a good game