World of Warcraft Preview
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Then there are the type of quests that make WoW unique. For example, as a shaman, I have a class-only quest to gain a new totem (which is an area effect buff) at level 10. It requires that I first journey to a new area to find the right trainer, who then sends me to find a "hidden trail" up a specific mountain to its peak. It's not really very hard to find, but on any given day expect to see several "where is the hidden trail?" questions in the general channel. So I embark up the mountain at the appropriate spot and it is a thin, windy steep trail I probably would not have explored otherwise. When I got to the top, there was an absolute magnificent 360 degree view of all the surrounding areas. I could see the newbie area when you first enter the world, and almost all the other areas of Durotar and a sizeable chunk of the Barrens from that one vantage point. At the top, I was assigned another fetch & kill quest, and when I returned I was assigned to drink a potion enabling me to "see" a special flame elemental that only those who have completed the previous quests could see, and right at the peak of the mountain I was assigned to defeat it in combat, ala Gandalf in the LotR:FotR book (not movie). Unfortunately I died in combat, but after gathering another two people, we were successful.When you begin the game with a new character, you'll always be close to a quest giver, indicated by the yellow exclamation point above their head. This gets even casual players a head start in the game. Help text has been implemented in this phase, so you'll often see a question bubble blink in and out of transparency on the bottom middle of the screen, and when clicked will provide the help. After you complete the half-dozen or so quests in your starting area, one of the NPC's will inevitably give you one that leads you to a new area just outside the starting one, encouraging you to explore. You can of course travel at will anywhere, but if you die, I've explained the consequences above.
Character Progression, the New Skills & Talent System
Beginning at level 4, which can be attained in as little as half an hour or less, your character will be able to purchase new abilities from their class trainer every two levels. These new abilities are one of the things that will keep players addicted, as it's quite fun to drop what you're doing and seek out your trainer to see what's new. As it is now and I expect will be through release, if you spend your money on weapons or armor at merchants, you will probably not have enough left over to buy all your abilities when they become available. The abilities not only become extremely expensive, but make each character class fun to play and unique. A minor gripe I have is that with only 8 character classes, I find myself missing the diversity that you'd get in, say, EverQuest. The mage, for example, is the direct damage nuker, and because I played mainly a wizard in EQ, I find the mage in WoW comparatively lacking in the diversity that the wizard had in EQ, and I hope that they implement a little more for the classes to be able to distinguish themselves.
Other classes have generally more going for them, though in this recent phase, many testers are upset about the "nerfs" to the Paladin and Rogue. In fact, Blizzard reworked the damage system, which helped make the monsters slightly tougher to defeat in this phase, and therefore combined with a steeper xp curve, gaining levels happens at a slightly slower pace, regardless of the new resting system that I'll mention later. I still find the pace to be adequate however, but the game did seem faster last push, and that was something I thoroughly enjoyed.
Another changed element in this phase is the new skill system. When you leveled before, you gained a specific amount of "Talent Points" that could be applied to any one of your primary abilities such as strength and stamina, or special talents such as magic resistance or fire specialization. Skill points were gained every level and you used them to upgrade your trade skills, such as Enchanting, Blacksmithing or Herbalism. As it is now, as you defeat more creatures in combat, you gain "skill points" that can be applied to both your primary attributes and to buy trade skills with. It's my personal opinion that having to choose between trade skills which can cost a lot to begin with and upgrading my primary skills or buying new proficiencies, it makes me want to hold on to them, and thus not increase my character at all or only in small slices. That said, I was able to max out my abilities with my phase 2 level 14 Shaman with a few skill points left over. Since the whole skill and talent system is still being severely tweaked and re-implemented and will no doubt change, I'll leave any further discussion of it to a later article.
