As everyone sort of mourns Blizzard putting World of Warcraft on the back burner, I came across an article I’d copied from Computer Gaming World. I don’t have the date on my copies, unfortunately.
The headline “Is World of Warcraft the breakout online game everyone’s been waiting for? Blizzard’s Brave New World” is so much fun, and reminds us the game was once all shiny and new, with an uncertain future in a crowded market.
The article is written by Jeff Green and Thierry Nguyen (two writers I miss!). Here’s some of what they liked:
“…the game world is beautiful. Blizzard has truly realized it’s goals with the game’s graphics; it really feels like you’re inside the WarCraft strategy games. The landscape and architecture boast Blizzard’s distinctive painterly, slightly surreal perspective–not quite realistic, but not overly cartoony either.”
“…World of Warcraft opens almost as if it’s a single player RPG–giving you very specific goals, cool rewards, and an easy, gradual introduction to the world around you.”
“World of Warcraft takes its quest interface almost straight from WarCraft III. NPCs with quests to offer appear in the world with large yellow exclamation points above their heads, just like in the strategy game.”
“Before we started playing, Blizzard told us that one of its goals was to achieve what it did in Diablo II–make World of Warcraft so fun that “level ups” come as a surprise. We’ll be darned if that didn’t happen a number of times throughout our two days of playing.”
“World of Warcraft, more than any other MMORPG we’ve tried, plays much more like a single-player RPG–something Blizzard designed on purpose.”
“…it’s that fun, it was everything that made Diablo and the WarCraft games so addictive, and more.”
“The biggest worry all along might have been that Blizzard would be out of its depth here, in a tough genre in which it has no experience. Instead, Blizzard has taken genre and done the best thing it could possibly have done: made a Blizzard game.”
The Last Chapter Gaming Blog 