Now, as a 5punker I have always had a deep mistrust of this game. Rumour has it that it is populated by leetspeaking smacktards that make the game virtually unplayable, and that it'll steal your wife and job (and probably soul). So I went into this with a little apprehension and, I have to admit, a little excitement - millions of people can't be wrong, after all.
Before I make mention of the game itself I want to address the technical issues. It took about 13 hours to download the 3.16Gb client via the torrent-like download exe. I did try an alternative from a direct download, but upon running the download exe to catch any missing files it fucked it up. So the first day of my trial was spent downloading.
As with CoH I found that I'd downloaded the wrong version of the client - I had US, I wanted EU. Not too big a deal though - just create a new trial account on the EU server and adjust the config file to connect to Europe. All well and good, apart from now I have to fiddle that file every time there's an update, which is every other day (at about 2.5Mb too). On the good side, I've yet to see a lot of lag.
So the game then. I'm used to creating colourful, individual characters in CoH. In WoW there's not much scope for individuality. I have to say that even the higher level bods I've seen knocking about only seem distinguishable by their pets and mounts (especially the guy with the big white gorilla
). It might be possible to dye your outfits so that you can stand out, but neither me nor Joose have worked out how yet.
Outside of your character though, and the world is very detailed and colourful. Locations vary to the point of being able to instantly recognise where you are by the landmarks and terrain. The world is absolutely vast too - I've covered one area, of which there are probably about ten just on the Horde continent, and it's taken me all week. Populating this vast lansdcape are a healthy scattering of flora and fauna, some of which are hostile, someof which aren't. There's usually about three or four different types of beasties in any given location. The towns and cities too are busy both with players and NPCs - occasionally too busy in the big cities when you can't find a shop or trainer you want.
So it looks nice. Gameplay mostly involves completing quests, of which there are many. The variety isn't bad either. Quite a few are "Go and kill X amount of this type of thing", but these are infrequent enough to be quite refreshingly freeform against the "Go here and do this" type, which are nicely varied in their implementation. The rewards for quests are quite nice - often one of a selection of nifty bits of kit, and it has a Diablo style upgrade system. Not quite as compelling as Diablo (no "Holy crap that's a good sword" moments as yet), but it's nice to find something unusual.
Aside from grinding missions there's the crafting side of things to spur you out into the world. Crafting seems to work very well - there's quite a bit of variety in what you can do, and you can select two professions so you can compliment your resource gathering with your construction skills. It seems as though you can create gear that will be useful to yourself at the level you are, so you get a little satisfaction out of wearing your own armour or drinking your own potions. Selling your goods to NPCs seems to result in a loss though compared to selling the raw materials.
Finally, other people. I was surprised when I logged on for the first time and wasn't immediately called a noob. Since then I've been surprised at the lack of idiots I've seen. Sure there have been some - people constantly spamming me with duel requests being the worst - but for the most part interacting with people has been okay. I haven't teamed up yet - without TS I find it restrictive so I avoid randoms, but when refusing an invitation I'm often asked why and am generally thanked for explaining my reasons.
PvP interaction is interesting. There's the aforementioned duels, which is an arranged fight until one player is down to low health. You don't die from it, and if someone challenges you you can bet they're about ten levels higher. Then there's the raids where Alliance players will arrive and wreak havoc. These work very well - I seem to be ignored (I'm not sure if they can attack me for some reason), but they raid towns and kill the NPCs and any PCs looking for a scrap. Generally they're jumped on by high level players and sent packing (there's an automated channel dedicated to telling you which town is under PvP attack), but I've also seen a group conducting guerilla raids for hours to quite good effect. I never felt like this was griefing because I was always left alone, but they were menacing enough to make me reconsider my route. There's also a PvP arena, but I've not tried this.
I have two issues with the game though. The first is the team system. From what I've seen of it it's very inflexible. It pales in comparison to the extremely good sidekick and team mission system CoH has. I may be wrong, but I'm getting the impression that if I want to play with friends I'd better be of a similar level to them. This bothers me a lot, and if I'm stuck soloing because I'm going too fast or too slow compared to my friends then I can't see me sticking at the game. Which leads me to my other point, which is that there are only a couple of 5punkers play it. Any game is made far better by playing it with friends over TS, and this may never happen with this one. I know that most 5punkers either have already played it a lot and don't want to any more, or see so much stigma attached that they'll never try it. From the reaction I've had I think it's mostly the former - I've only had a gently ribbing rather than "He's one of them! Shun hiiiiim!".
Good points then:
Beautiful, detailed environment.
Interesting quests
Good progression
Useful and accessible crafting
PvP Raid system
Death isn't a big problem
Bad points:
Bastard to download (especially if you're a biff like me)
Poor team system
Lack of 5punkers
Not much depth (compared to Eve)
Lack of individuality
In conclusion, I'd say I was misled. I'm enjoying soloing my way around the game at the moment. I can pick it up and play for ten minutes, or for twelve hours, whichever I want. Has potential for CoH silliness, but doesn't have the individuality or the 5punky following.
