Make sure you check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series if your just joining in.

I held off on playing World of Warcraft because I just knew EQ2 was going to suck me in for about a year (only lasted about 2 months). I ended up picking the game up about 6 months after the release and so far, this has been the best MMO (obviously). But did they do everything right? Well most. Let’s take a look

Compared to my EQ likes

Combat

Combat in this game is about the best so far. WOW’s combat is similar to DOAC, but improved. Also, due to the character building features, you had more choices in how you play your character.
The World

WOW got closer to the feel I got when playing EQ as any MMO. While things were a little cluttered in some places, and sparse in others, the immersiveness in the world was there. The only problem, even though the cities were very nice and fleshed out, they still felt like you were entering an area with filled with “quest vendors”. Without other players around, the cities actually felt empty, lucky enough there were always tons of other players running about.

Dungeons

In WOW, something changed. Instead of having dungeons where everyone went, got a group and camped monsters, they had instances. Instances did 2 things, one good and one bad. The good was that it really created “dungeon crawl” style gameplay. You started at the beginning and fought your way to the end. Many times it was just your group. The bad thing is you couldn’t go into an instance and see all your peeps “camping” their different spots, no Lower guk all nighters here.

Armor State counting

This is something I think was an improvement in WOW. Because of all the different ways you could build your class, you had different options of what type of armor or weapons to support that build. Yea in the end, there were still times where there was a default outfit for X class, but this time it was more for show than viability. Don’t get me wrong, armor and weapons were still real important to your viability, you just had more viable options.

Did WOW improve on any of my EQ dislikes?

Random Instant deaths

WOW, for the most part, didn’t have any of these areas. The level grouping of monsters in a certain area was pretty stable. Thinking about this made me realize one of the possible reasons EQ mixed it up a bit. In WOW, you usually only see other players in your level group in any particular part of the world. If a area have monsters that are level 10-20, you would hardly ever see a level 30 or higher player. In EQ, I remember seeing the occasional higher level players roaming the high level monsters that wander the low level areas. Even though I don’t know if I agree with this, it was kindof motivational to see that level 40 taking down the high level monsters in the low level area in EQ.

Death Penalty

I have had some comments on the other post that disagree with me, but like I’ve said before, harsh death penalties are a big turnoff for me. Playing the game is fun, and with any game, once you take someone out of the actual “play” it isn’t fun anymore. World of Warcraft found a nice balance with their death penalty. I was never scared to attempt something because I didn’t want to deal with the death penalty. If I died, there was a mild penalty but you usually were respawned close enough to where you were hunting that it wasn’t a chore to get back into “play“. You could ignore your corpse if you wanted and it didn’t ruin your day.

Leveling

Just like the death penalty, the leveling in WOW was balanced out nicely also. Like most games the higher you got in level, the longer it took to gain levels. But it was overwhelming in WOW. You always had that sense of accomplishment and pushing forward, if that’s what you’re into

Balance

Ok, this is where Wow hasn’t learned too much. When it comes to PVE, Id say any class is just as capable as any other class. PVP is where things change. Some classes are just more fun and better to play, and some were clearly gimped (then patched to be overpowered then gimped etc)

Forced Grouping

I would have to say that there definitely no forced grouping here. You could solo every level if you wanted. Where the forced grouping came into play was with the dungeon raids (instances). That kind of forced grouping was understandable and you always had an option as to join a raid group or solo.

For the most part, I would say compared to EQ, WOW took out most of the bad and added enough new or different to keep people playing, which is why it’s the best selling MMO of all time (so far).