World of Warcraft reviews

For mmorpg enthusiasts and novices alike, World of Warcraft takes you on epic journeys through expansive ever-changing virtual landscapes totally immersing you in the lore and legends that is Warcraft.

• Seemingly endless quests can overwhelm you AND envelope you into the world, helping you learn about the game storylines as well as leading you to explore further and further out into the world.
• Your character can be totally customized to your own gameplay or personality. Whether you are ‘in you face’ or ‘support only’ or mixed there is a Server, Race and Class for you with additional options for even more customising.
• The world itself is huge. You could play the game for months without ever fully exploring every beautiful bit of computer generated pixel.
• Social interaction and teamwork is the ideal as you get higher up the ranks. This can be a bad thing when these servers are US based and their game times are different to ours. You could find you don’t have a lot of choice in getting into groups on less-populated servers.
• AI are predictable enough in lower levels, but things can get hairy if underestimated as they get higher. ‘Mobs’ have physical, magic attacks and debuffs like any normal player but occasionally even I am surprised on what they are capable of.
• The best (and some of the time worst) thing I find about Wow is there is one challenge that always keeps you on your toes. The player vs player aspect of the game is always extremely competitive as human foe (or prey) make for more intense and emotional battles.

On the downside, Wow totally blew the expectations of the world at large and the developers. This does occasionally show in lag, server downtime and patch update time.

Coming from Guild Wars this feels fresh and new. If you are a PvE player the lush environments, sweeping music and hours of entertainment will quickly see you hooked. The gear advantage does unbalance PvP a bit when compared to more skill based PvP games like Guild Wars, but the non instanced world PvP option certainly adds to the general dread you feel when wandering into contested or enemy territory.

Criticism is often levelled at the grinding nature of quests, the time consuming walks between zones and so forth and if you are not looking for an immersive experience this game will probably not appeal as much to you. But allowing yourself to be swept along by the World of Warcraft creates a wonderful game that will soon have you longing for more hours behind the keyboard.

The subscription model is one of it's hindrances, but becomes a cost/benefit comparison. Spending $49.95 (See Game Card here) every two months for what amounts to at least a hundred hours of entertainment seems more than reasonable, but this is a value judgement that every consumer will need to make for themselves.

Overall, if you have the time, patience and funds to play the game I would definately recommend it.

This is an amazing game from Blizzard; it combines the already established legendary status of WarCraft and puts it into the MMO scene. It uses low-polygon models so that load on the graphic card is reduced when viewing massive amounts of people, which only works to some extent, I had to upgrade my 128mb vcard to a 256mb vcard just to enjoy the game without low frame rates, although its still not enough! The most amazing thing and that separates this from many other Asian MMORPGs is that you don’t have to GRIND all the time! You can do quests with teams of small size to a really huge team, which is really nice. Although the level cap is at 60 and at 70 in burning crusade, it is still easy to reach those levels which are a big advantage because some other MMORPGS have levels that seem just about impossible to reach. The gameplay is of a high standard as that is expected from Blizzard in most games. When the game got released, I was disappointed to hear that game features that were advertised were not implemented, which is usual of a game that had an early release, but that did not stop the hordes of people coming to World of WarCraft.

I remember playing in Beta, it was hella fun, but when it got released, the flocks of people started to pile in, now the game is filled with kids, adults, and a variety of people from all different kinds of age groups, its fun and all, but it has totally ruined the game. Heh, who would of though that you'd be killing someone’s mom or dad or little sister? This is an amazing game, for kids and MMO beginners, but not for veterans.

WoW, Is a highly addictive and enjoyable MMO. But with several flaws:

Without getting into too much detail, the game unforunately dies at level 60. The endgame content is very repetitive, and no Solo content. Early Level 60 dungeons require 5–15 players depending on which one your running. The very high end content, (Molten Core, Black wing Lair), can only be played by a very small percentage due to:

• Requires a group of 40 players
• The difficulty level means you will have no chance if its a Pickup group, It needs to run with an experienced Guild.
• Very time consuming. (People can spend up to 10 hours in MC)
• Being on a US timezone server makes it even harder to get into an endgame guild, and there are no Auz/NZ servers

Im in a NZ/Auzzie guild for MC. We run it once a week. And I have lost intrest, Its very slow and thus rather boring.

If your into PVP, there are also far too few servers for the PvP Battlegrounds, and thus you cant simply log-on and join. You could spend 2 hours in a waiting cue.

The gameplay and solo experiance is great up to 60, but to if you want to keep playing post 60 prepare to waste your weekends, as there's not much for a level 60 from NZ to do at night after work.

Also, Blizzards support is horrible! The game has many bugs and server crashes which need to be addresed, but Blizzard seems to think introducing new content like fishing competitions is more important. Having the Server crash during a boss fight in MC after being in there for 4 hours is beyond a joke. The amount of server issues and lack of support makes this game not worth the montly fee.

World of Warcraft has been the only online RPG that has kept me amused for more than a month. Taking the elements that made games like EverQuest great, Blizzard has successfully removed much of the tedium and frustration associated with other MMORPGs.

Naturally, the replayability is huge as the game features several races and classes to choose from, each combination offering a distinctly different gaming experience (especially for the first 20 levels or so). Characters can be levelled to a maximum of 60, which will take most players several months at least. The recently released Battlegrounds expansion promises to add more content for players at a high level.

The World of Warcraft itself is vast and features many locations – the forests of the elves, barren wastelands of the orcs and glorious cities of humans and dwarves. The graphics, whilst not realistic in style, are still glorious to behold and the art direction is outstanding. The game's musical score helps even more to create a feeling of immersion.

Highly recommended.

Awesome game, it is just perfect. The gameplay is great, you get the great single player like RPG plus multiplayer action all in one. Work on your character by gaining experience and levels or just work on professions like fishing and leather working etc. Or you can just explore the world because it's HUGE!

The biggest problem with the game is the way it really destroys time. If you are the type of person who like to play games just for a quick blast sometimes, then DON'T!! buy this game.

It will kill 2 hours of real time and feel like 5 minutes. It's so addictive it will stop you doing other, more important things and will destroy your social life…

Great game IF you have the time and lifestyle. Be aware of what it might do to your real life.

Iv played many MMORPGs and this is the best one yet if you have enough money to pay for the monthly fee and if u have enough time to play. It is great that there is horde vs alliance (2 big teams) fighting over the world which makes it trickey questing on their areas.So far i have been in a few battles with the opposing fraction and they were great. And yes this is the best game in the world!!!

Thrilling, yet tedious. Exciting yet boring at times. This game has so many goals that you can create for yourself that there's always something to do! Sometimes it doesn't feel like fun, but still you strive on to get done what you've started.

Or, if that doesn't work out, you can always create another character and start over :)

Other MMORPGs just don't cut it – WoW is where it's at.

I know this sounds stupid, but this game is incredibly boring if you are the only one who plays this, out of everyone you know. That is why I enjoy it. About 100 people from my school of about 1000 play it, and it is incredibly fun to all join up and complete quests and generally stuff around together. In this circumstance, WoW doubles as an internet chat-room.

But I can understand why some people may not enjoy this game, as they simply don't know anyone else who plays it. I would find this game alot less fun if I were the only person who played, and the whole game was simply walking around killing things.

Repeating myself, I believe this game is excellent, so long as you know other friends who play it as well.

I'm sure you've all heard the warnings etc about WoW's addictive style of play. I have to assure you that this couldn't be closer to the truth. Sure, the game's not for everyone; no game ever has been. But the numbers really do speak for themselves. Over 10 million subscribers.

There's just so much to do, and it all takes so much of your time, and it feels so worthwhile when you've done it. It's almost impossible to get an ‘absolutely complete’ character, trust me. Professions to max out, Reputations to earn, gear to get, honor to earn, countless instances to beat, bosses to conquer etc. I've been playing since Open Beta, over 300 days /played, and I still haven't come aross a game to match it.

Try playing LotRO after WoW, for example. You'll see exactly what I mean. The animations and movement in WoW make LotRO's look like absolute rubbish. It's almost painful to watch. WoW really has set the standard, and I only hope Warhammer: Age of Reckoning can surpass this standard. Pure PvP games ftw!

The best online game ever, especially with expansion. Fun game and easy to get started on. I don't know why people say that this game is addictive and make your grades go down etc. In fact, mine have just gotten better while i've played this. (I'm still at school) =)

Pointless. That's all I can say about this game. Graphics are cartoony and kiddish, okay animation, LOTRO certainly has better graphics if you're after an excellent looking game. The world isn't very detailed, no small things that make you go ‘wow this game is so fun.’ Gameplay is like a click this, kill the boss get the high level item, kill, kill, get items, go after super rare items. Boring. This game just has no point to it for me, no interesting quests, no character background and depth. Community. The 10 million or so subscribers are mostly kids. You can play for a few minutes and get the ‘noob’ and ‘pwnd’ words from kids that have nothing better to do than play this game. Online games are fun when the community is fun and helpful and kind. You won't get that here. Mostly all the players care about killing enemies and getting all the rare items. I didn't meet anyone friendly on my one day play. (One day because I stopped playing and sold it as it was boring compared to Lord of the Rings Online). Okay, so to finish this off, this game is pointless to me. Players act like little kids that just want rare items and to kill and argue. Gameplay is boring, quests don't seem to have any interest, any life. I have now got Lord of the Rings Online and thoroughly enjoy it. If you are looking for a game that has thought and detail, great quests and mature players, go for Lord of the Rings Online.

Im almost certain that most of the nice comments here are from beginners…this game gets so repetitive and boring as you progress it makes you want to scream. Its fun with quests and all, and of course if you have some friends on, it will be fun…but i find that at lvl 46, this game is just farming and grinding. i dont bother with quests as i need money so it seems grinding is the only way, and my friends arent on as much as i would like so its not very fun…once again, horrible as you get on. Also, it is horrible for RL just google the view from the top and you will see…

in short if you value your social life then do not get this game as it is HIGHLY addictive and you'll most likely spend all day everyday in front of the pc playing WoW (no joke)

This was the worst game that I have EVER purchased from Blizzard, because the game gets extreemly repeadative and boring as well as the monthly costs.

I honestly have no idea how so many people get addicted to this, yet people still get addicted to Runescape.

OVERALL: If I had a choice to recieve a free copy of WoW or Doom 1 I'd choose doom 1, or I'd choose WoW only to sell it.

Hugly dissapointed in this game, especially its pathetic graphics engine..... e.g. the TREE's ARE BLOCKS!

Played the trail, an already so boring, usless game, i would go for guild wars then this junk. Waste of money an again, LONG AND BORING.

My title says it all

This game is great, but be prepared to spend hours playing it. 1–60 is the best time to learn your class for when you hit 60 (and are in a good guild) thats when the real fun starts. Running end game instances is what its all about (PvP is fun too), but still be prepared to invest time in learning to play these instances as they require alot of skill and team work to complete. As people have said in some reviews “MC takes 10 hours blah blah..” all I can say is L2play. Sure at first they take time to get sussed but once your geared and up to speed you'll be farming it in 5 hours. This is not a game you can walk straight into and expect to be good at it, you have to work and learn. If you have alot of spare time (and money for subscription) this is the game for you. My only hate of this game is the lame idea Blizz had of PAID charactor transfers, this meaning all the noobs from other servers have now transfered into the oceania servers and clocked up the game ques (which were under control about a month ago) and sit in major cities spaming “LF high-end guild”, I mean…go back to your old server. Other than that, the lag can be a bitch at times and being d/c in mC or BwL can be a pain.

This game is nowhere near perfect, but its got some really good ideas.

I think this is the most boring game ever in my life. You can't do MC. You can't do anything when u get to 60. You just sit there for few hours get a group. Server crashs every 3 days. Weekly maintenance take ages.

World of Warcraft is a great and sensational game it is well made and it has a long line of quests and that you will never finish and it keeps to the old story line of Warcraft and also bring new story lines to it and the world always changes.

Awesome game, size of it is just awe inspiring graphics are good and attention to detail is near perfect but be warned you will need a powerful computer and fairly quick broadband to play this game, the game itself is not that big only about 4gb but the updates and patches take up a lot of space and even more space will be taken up if you plan to install the extensions also blizzard has an account fee which is another drawback but if you have the money and computer worth it.

This is my third account for WOW and I will see this all the way to next year for the next expansion. I haven't been this excited since .....you young ones don't need to know.(it involved losing something 35yrs ago ). Easily value for money, plenty people around to help out also, although this time I'm PVE for a change.

In World of Warcraft, you create your alter ego by choosing from a variety of colorful races and powerful classes, and then you begin exploring, questing, and battling in Azeroth, the fantasy setting featured in Blizzard's Warcraft real-time strategy games. Fans of those games (especially Warcraft III and its expansion pack) will spot tons of references here, and they will be impressed at how faithfully World of Warcraft translates so many of Warcraft's little details and even some of the finer points of its gameplay into such a seemingly different style of game. Meanwhile, fans of other online role-playing games will be impressed at the sheer breadth and volume of content on display in World of Warcraft, whose setting seamlessly connects a bunch of wildly different-looking types of places and somehow makes them appear as if they all belong as parts of a whole.

Huge, beautiful, seamless world High streamlined and conducive to short or long play sessions Exciting, action-packed combat Elegant, easy-to-use interface Excellent music and sound.

Although it may be a great game it gets really addicting. Overall its a superb game.Very recomended

This game Is a MMORPG, Its one of those games that you choose your own race with its own special abilities and hometown/country, and after you've choose your race you choose your class which determines how you play the game, like if you want to see flashy spells and summoned creatures you'll be a magic class if you like fighting up close or with bows be a fighting class, so you'll be a Tank, a Ranged, Healer or other style. The games good if you can handle being called a noob and being killed by higher levels and going up levels which takes ages.

Wow is an excellent game, don't get me wrong. I love playing it. I'm still in my free month of play, have about 5 or 6 days of it left. I've managed to get myself to the 32nd level solo, but that's where the problem lies.

Going solo seems to be the only way I can get things done. Guilds won't let you in if you aren't at level 80 with epic gear, and the ones that do let you join don't seem to be much help, at least with the 4 that I've moved through. And 5-man dungeons aren't any good because people don't seem to want to get a group together and actually PLAY, they prefer to pay a high level player 5 gold to run them through, which is no fun at all.

It seems that if I stick with Wow I'll get to the max level and have nothing to do, I suck bad at PvP and I won't be geared enough for raids.

On a plus side, it has a LOT of chain quests with really interesting lore surrounding it, and those are always a lot of fun to do, although hard to solo. But it is some what easier to get a group together for quests rather than raids.

All in all, WoW is only good if you have friends who are already playing, or will start playing with you. I started with one who decided to quit so I was left bored and sinking time into something that seems will have no reward in the long run.

It is true, this game is fun, and while some argue the end game content is repetitive, its actually quite fun doing massive raids trying to get that item you want. HOWEVER, leveling up can be extremely boring if you do it by yourself and I would recommend playing with friends to enjoy this game to its full extent.

Unless you know 5 people that play this and you and them are on constantly, this game is definably not worth it. Most of the good comments here are probably from level 20s and 30s except for some odd level 60, but this game is nothing but grinding for level 40+ if you want money. Once you play for around 5 months, this game gets boring and i advise you quit then. Also, don't play this game if you value you social life and grades. For more info on this, google “The View from the Top”

Horrible at 60.

Levels 1–59 were the most fun I have ever had in a game. I took my time, made multiple characters, finally found a server and guild I enjoyed after 2 months. The next half year was spent levelling my billion alts, and having a blast with my awesome guild.

Your journey to level 60 is long, but far from painful. Take your time. Enjoy it. Because at level 60 you can either run the same 5-man dungeons over and over again, or do 20 man/40 man raids in order to get gear to do more 20/40 man raids. Or you could do some PvP, if you're lucky enough to be one of those classes whose raiding armor sets are good for PvPing. PvP is almost entirely gear based, and horrid faction imbalances usually end up with one side dominating the other, and one side having extremely long queues. If you want the best PvP gear in the game, prepare to put in over 12 hours a day, with a fully organised team. This will get worse when the cross server battlegrounds come out – while this will reduce queue times (which are a bitch on some servers), it will make it harder to compete with your own faction to reach the top PvP rank. (Yeah, that's right. You have to do more PvP than everyone else on YOUR SIDE to get the hot hot Rank 14 gear.) The grind begins at 60. Some people like that. If you like to grind, you can make it to level 60 with a total of ~180 hours played, or so. And then raid for the rest of your WoW career.

Get WoW. Play it from 1–60, you'll like it. Whether you like it at 60 is another story.

Once you find a class and race that you really enjoy playing, this game is brilliant. However it can take growing many characters to find one that you truly enjoy.

As mentioned in other reviews the server performance is a little lacking. However, Blizzard is currently upgrading all servers and increasing the number so performance is increasing. There are ‘Oceanic’ servers now too, which contain players who play at times suitable for New Zealanders to enjoy. For best grouping experience on US servers you need to be able to play from 10am-4pm to hit the evening US players. However, being off the peak times has its advantages, there are almost never any queues to join (apart from the elite high pop servers) and on pvp servers this means that you can play without much hinderance from the oposing faction.

For casual gamers it is easy to get to level 60 (the max level at the moment), however you will find it difficult to do “end-game-content”. But the game without the “end-game” is still very forfilling and a worthwhile experience.

Overall if you want a game that has a good social component to it (I have made many good friends) and enjoy the fantasy genre, this is the game for you.

If you are considering purchasing this game… don't. For the cost of the game along with the monthly subscription the game is most certainly not worth getting.

At this point in time players are unable to create characters in over 20 different realms which means that if you had intended on playing with friends you probably will not be able to play on their server. Of course, you could start out on one of the less populated servers but the complete lack of people to play/group with makes this alternative highly unattractive.

The subscription is about 15 US$ per month which just really isn't worth paying only to have to put up with the numerous problems Blizzard is currently unable to provide any long-term solutions to.

Just wait for Diablo 3.

WoW is a great game, It is addictave and the monthly fee of US$14 is not to expensive. WoW is an almost endless game, you can spend many days doing quests and still come out at the end with more to go.

WoW has tremedous replay value, there are 8 races and different class to choose from. For the full experience you will need (and want) to play all 8 races.

The battle system in WoW is alright, but it gets a little too tedious after about level 10 where the levels are slow to get.

If you don't need support for technical troubles or other things you will be alright. Blizzard is the worst game company I have ever come across for service, the main site, worldofwarcraft.com is good, but half the services they offer are down. Blizzard never tell the people anything about how they are going fixing problems, they make annoucements about crappy competitions that only lvl 60s can go in anyway.

I gave WoW 4 stars because I believe it is a great game, but 5 stars goes to perfect games and this game isn't yet perfect.

Great game! There are tonnes of quests, You will most definatley never be in a time without quests, unless level 60, but even then you still have the battlegrounds to earn a reputation with other races to ride their mounts, or looking for good improved gear, set items, raids and much more!

For me it's really hard to get level 60 because the time I have to play, but most people do get bored after level 60. But new content is being added!

Oh and my friend told me an expansion pack or something is coming out soon!

This is one of the best games I've ever played. But beware, it's still an MMO and that means you need to spend a lot of time on it to make it worthwhile (with the monthly fees and all). But if you have the time, this is possibly the best value for your gaming dollar (Me and my brother together clocked over 150hrs on the first 30 days which was included free with the game)

This game owns all, there is no greater game! I've been searching for a mmorpg for sometime and i am fully satisfied about this game! this game offers everything and then some!

Forgot Lineage 2, World of Warcrafts here.

If you're a Warcraft fan, this game is defenitely worth buying. Even if you're not, it will still get you addicted to the Warcraft world.

This game features very very beautiful sceneries. I took about 50 screenshots in 2 days, and still going. Gameplay for this game is also very good. It can make you play for 12 hours, and you think you've only played 2 hours.

The only bad thing I can say about this game is just the servers. Of course, you can choose other servers, but the fun servers (mainly PVP ones) that have heaps of players in it can sometimes become quite slow, and get you disconnected. [Editor's note: This is a problem that Blizzard continues to work on]

Overall, this game is the best game Blizzard has ever made, and the best MMORPG ever made. Thankyou Blizzard!

I have been playing now for a couple of weeks over Xmas / New Year and WoW is simply an awesome game. Graphics, characters, the people – all make this an experience to be enjoyed. Having said this, it did take quite a while to download the patches (over dial-up) over a period of several DAYS (not hours – the guy who said 5 hours is lucky – although this was mainly due to not being able to tie up the phone line for long periods of time ;-) oh well) – not looking forward to next patch :-(

A very addictive game in the early stages of levelling up.

I'm currently playing as a Level 26 Undead mage.

The variety of environments is pretty incredible. I can't stop taking screenshots of this game, the artistry is the best I have seen in a long long time. At a polygonal level the graphics are pretty low detail, but with soft lighting effects and some really great textures the game looks awesome. It is so beautiful to behold you will wish you could walk into the screen, and into the game to witness the surrealness firsthand. Trust me, you will be taking shots and using them as desktop images ;)

The only negative thing I can say about this game is that the pace of the game slows down a lot when you reach higher levels, and dare I say it the game is starting to get tedious. I mean when you have been killing monsters and questing for 24 days in a row somethings got to give. Thankfully there are several classes to player, as well as several professions and races, so it would not be an exaggeration to say that there is at least 12months of fun to be had, if you don't mind paying for it :)

Hey all

This game is just wonderful! Everything about it ‘ownz’. Except one thing..

Updates, yes, updates, now this isn't too much of a problem, but before you buy the game, you should check with your parents to see if they are willing to let you leave your computer on a long time (hey, I'm on Jetstream and I was doing about 0–12kbps on ONE update – Took me 5 hours – It's because their updates are done using a p2p system).

But other than that, just wonderful! (And to me, the update was worth the wait).

Good luck. Have Fun. Good Game.

As playing the Beta for about 2 months, and absolutely loved it, on November 23 I rushed off to beat the crowds to buy World of Warcraft: Colllectors Edition.

Just watching the start up trailer for the game made me drool over it, intense graphics of each race of the World of Warcraft fighting for survival, A Night Elf Druid tracking down the enemy in a forest, A Dwarf Hunter with its Pet Bear in the Snowy Mountains of Ironforge, a Tauren of a needle of the grasslands of Mulgore, and many more races such as Orc, Undead, Human and many more races in spectacular landscapes.

In the game once you reach a certain level you can choose two proffesions out of about 20, Cooking, First Aid, Skinning, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Herbilism, and many many more.

Endless quests, Many races, Endless proffesions, Endless landscapes, devoted team, Many Classes, and much much more.

Possibly the best MMORPG for years to come or even the best game for years to come!

This game is very accessable, easy to play, and best of all: fun.

It doesn't feel like a grind, and the content is varied and interesting. I was on the beta, and liked it so much that I've bought it (even though I had to start again).