My whole table game group is now playing WoW. I’ve teamed up with one at a time, occasionally over the past couple weeks, but last night we managed to all be on at the same time. It was a lot of fun to team up as a group. Usually when I play WoW, I’m playing solo, hunting and questing by myself. A group adventure is wholly different experience — not a better experience (and certainly not worse, with friends), but different.

Most of us are in the high teens, but our sole warrior tank was only 15th level. The dungeon we were invading was full of 20th-level monsters. The warrior was being pummeled, mightily, but our party priest managed to keep her alive, at least so long as none of us screwed up. We all died a few times. (Read “few” as “six to ten”.)

As a hunter, I am back, away from the front line melee, so I can see more of the battlefield. I need to make a macro to say, “Run!” with one key stroke. There were a some instances of being overrun by enemies. It was really disheartening to see the tank and my pet get surrounded by 3 or 4 tough enemies; I knew both would get killed in the next 10 seconds. And to make it worse, then one or two more would come after the priest and/or me. There just isn’t enough time to open a message and type before things get irrevocably bad.

Although, I learned and got to practice some group tactics. But when enemies
respawn behind us (or in the middle of us), tactics kind of get thrown to the winds. I’ve got to figure out how to use the traps. I haven’t used any yet, although I’ve had the fire trap for at least two levels. I’ve gotten practice at pulling enemies to us, one at a time, but when the enemy is a spell caster or range attacker, they don’t come to us like I want.

I made 20th level on my hunter. Twenty is a good level for hunters; they get a lot of good skills and abilities.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

My orc hunter has been using a bow so far, but as I said in an earlier post, I want to use a gun. So I asked around and found out what I need to do to get gun skill and the weapon. I would have to leave my starting zone, pass through an intermediate zone (The Barrens), and go to another starting zone (Mulgore). I got directions for the trek, and set out. I was advised to stay on the roads, because at only 5th level, there was a lot of very dangerous beasts and monsters and enemies in the areas through which I had to travel.

This 30-minute journey to Mulgore showed me, in stark clarity, the difference between World of Warcraft and Guild Wars — the difference prevented GW from really grabbing me and allowed WoW to capture me fully.

I left the Valley of Trials (the first area of the beginning zone of Duratar) on the main trail and headed for the first town in the directions given me. In the town of Razor Hill, I met a group of player characters (levels 6-12) who were organizing an expedition into The Barrens. I asked to tag along (safety in numbers), and they welcomed me. We marched (at a run) out of Duratar. In The Barrens I saw many new beasts around 12th level.

The rest of the group wanted to hunt (read: attack) the beasts, but I wanted to just keep on running through. I politely left the group and continued along the road. I passed through a couple settlements and eventually made it to Mulgore.

In this other starting zone, I began picking up more quests and experience. I gained some more levels and eventually got the gun skill and a gun. I was now the orc with a gun I wanted to be.

* * *

The difference between WoW and GW that stood out to me was how the world is open and active and “living” in WoW. I didn’t understand the concept of “instances” when starting GW, but now I do.

Instances are places in the game world where the game separates you (or your party) from the rest of the world. In Guild Wars, the whole world outside the cities and towns is an instance. In a city, you can see and interact with all the other player characters in the game. But as soon as you leave the city by moving out through a gateway, the system removes you from the main game and creates the world for just you (and your party).

In World of Warcraft, only a few special dungeons are instances. The outside world, cities, wilderness, small dungeons, everything is open with everyone. (In my first 10 levels so far, I have not seen or entered an instance in WoW.)

For instance, in GW, if you are in town and see a player character run out through the gate, you see them disappear. If you follow through the gate, you appear outside the town alone. That player character you followed is in his own world. Unless you are actually teamed up with someone, your outside world is unique to your game session, and you can never see them outside the city. And every time you exit the city, the instance is recreated and everything is reset anew.

In WoW, if you are in a town and see a player character run out through the gate, you see them leave and run down the road, just as you would expect to in the real world. If you follow through the gate, you run out of the town and can follow the other player character where ever you want. The whole world is shared with everyone. If you kill a monster outside in the wilderness, another player character can wonder up and see the corpse. Every time you exit the city, the world is just as you left it before. In fact, you can stand inside the city gates and look out at the world outside in its open life — you may see nearby monsters wandering about, other player characters fighting monsters, others entering and leaving the city on whatever business or errands they have.

WoW is a true mega-multiplayer experience. GW is only mega-multiplayer inside cities, and only multiplayer when you specifically join up with at most four other player characters.

In my few hours playing WoW so far, in my very limited travels in the world, I’ve seen other player characters traveling the roads (along with me, and going the opposite direction), other player characters hunting beasts and fighting monsters, enemy player characters attacking an outpost, other player characters getting on a ship and traveling by sea, and other player characters flying overhead from one settlement to another. I’ve helped other player characters, and received help from other player characters, after randomly meeting each other out in the wilderness. All this without ever officially joining up as a team.

WoW has not only won my game time from GW, but it was good enough to do so with a monthly subscription cost versus no such cost from GW.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I installed and started playing WoW last night. Like I did before starting Guild Wars, I did some research on the Web about the game. I wanted to play a human hunter with a gun, but turns out that humans can’t be the hunter class. My second choice was an orc with a gun. Unfortunately, orc hunters don’t start with guns. Oh well, I started an orc hunter anyway, and will get a gun when I can.

The game looks good, and is pretty fun. I only played a couple hours, up to level 5. I had some video “stumbles” in the opening animation. That surprised me — my computer meets the “suggested” (not just the minimum) specs, including a good vid-card. The graphics are as detailed and impressive as those of Guild Wars, but not realistic.

Something funny that I experienced in my first hour of play: While wandering around in the beginning zone, I found a hidden trail up through some hills. I walked up onto a cliff overlooking a river with a town on the other side. The town was Ratchet (the game said, “You’ve discovered Ratchet.”). In Guild Wars, you can’t fall off cliffs. The game just won’t let you walk off. But there are no safety rails in WoW. I fell off the cliff and down into the river. And since this was my first exposure to swimming, I was a bit bewildered. Fortunately, I found a sandbar to stand on. Then some crazy giant crab-thing (“Level ??” — the level actually showed as double question marks) came up out of the water and promptly killed me.

So at about 2nd level, I got my first death experience. Unfortunately, my spirit popped up in Ratchet, and had no idea where I was or how to get back to the river. I wandered around some and found the river. I made my way back to my corpse. I was surprised to see 4 or 5 other corpses in the river. I resurrected myself and started swimming for the Ratchet shore. Half-way there, the crab thing came and killed me again. Son of a. . . .

I ran back from the graveyard and rezzed myself again. I swam as quickly as possible straight to Ratchet. I made it this time. Everyone in Ratchet, PCs and NPCs, were in the 40 levels. Whoa, I was badly out of my league. I asked out loud how to get back to the Valley of Trials. No one answered, but then I found my Hearthstone. Poof, I went back to the Valley.

I continued the beginner quests and made 5th level before calling it a night.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I played GW again, with my elementalist in post-Searing. I’m finding it decently entertaining, but not engrossing. I’ll continue to play here and there, to build up a character. I need to decide which is more fun to continue through to the end: hammer warrior or pyro/geomancer — I like them both, but they are completely different play styles. I’m looking forward to seeing some new monsters (besides just renamed pre-Searing monsters), allying with other PCs, and maybe watching some guild versus guild (player vs. player) action.

From what I’m learning, now, GW is more fun in the PvP. I’m told that the game was first designed around the PvP element, and the player-in-the-world mode was secondary. Unfortunately, I got this game to play in the game world, not to death-match other players in an arena.

World of Warcraft

Talking with my friend who has been playing WoW, I’m starting to consider giving it a try. My friend gave me his disks and a code to install and try out the world for 10 days, free. (This is all legal, as the code card is included in the game box with direct permission to pass 10 free days on to a friend.) Couldn’t hurt to take a free test play.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com