World of Warcraft Preview
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Trade SkillsWith the little time I've spent working on trade skills (tailoring, leathercrafting, skinning, herbalism and enchanting), and from talking with others online, WoW seems at first glance to nail down the trade skills correctly. Not only will there apparently be secret trade skills, but each of standard ones such as Enchanting and Tailoring depend on items that are farmed from other trade skills. For example, Enchanting requires herbs found using the Herbalism skill, and Blacksmithing requires ore which can be picked up using the Mining skill. What this means is that you'll likely be interacting with other characters and exchanging items and helping to stimulate the trade skill economy. If you have a high Herbalism skill, you can make a lot of coin by fetching rare roots and plants and then selling them to Alchemists or Enchanters. You can of course pick up both dependent trade skills, but that may stretch your time too thin, and so the option is there for you to trade for your required items.
Best of all, the skills are easy to use, never fail, and are fun to do, encouraging you to explore the world in search of the rarer items. All crafting trade skills require "recipes" for the item to be made or enchanted. Many can be bought at the trainer for a moderate price but there are a large number of recipes that will drop randomly from monsters as well, and can then be traded to the appropriate player.
The Crux
So, in its current state, is the game fun? The game is surprisingly polished and so far I've had a lot of fun. WoW "feels" different from the other MMORPG's I've tried but I have difficulty in pinning down exactly why. It has a faster pace to it (which was more evident last phase unfortunately but I'm sure will be nearly perfected by release) and there seems to be something to do, finally, if you can only log in for half an hour, due to the extreme number of quests and leisure trade activities. Perhaps it's the beauty of the world that lends the game such a unique quality. It's got that characteristic Blizzard spectrum of cartoony vibrant colors--especially found in Warcraft III--and the realistic landscapes are full of diversity and organic uniqueness. It features a novel travel system that is a blast to use (with personal mounts available at high levels). Its quests are for the most part very fun but saddled with the aforementioned potential camping problem, and the ability to play Horde vs. Alliance is a feature that is going to be well-liked by all. With all the addictive elements I've discovered about the game, there is still a lot more I haven't figured out or tried: PvP, high-level gaming, most of the dungeons (which are said to be fantastic), and several of the high level zones... though I did venture into a couple and was killed almost immediately. I'm looking forward to further participating in the beta and seeing how the game unfolds. For any of you who are wondering if the game is worth it, especially if you're currently playing another kind... it is a very satisfying world rich with life and things to do. Blizzard is known for fine tuning their games well past release, and I expect it will be the same with World of Warcraft. Hopefully its longetivity will prove as satisfying to others as the brief amount of time I've spent in it has been. Even in its current state, it's a game well worth waiting for.
