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neuronstatic -> RE: World of Warcraft (9/5/2006 5:58:07 AM)
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Ok, some WoW basics:
The game is set on two continents: Azeroth and Kalimdor.
There are two factions: Alliance and Horde.
While the Alliance mostly holds Azeroth, and the Horde mostly hold Kalimdor, there are disputed lands.
The Horde and the Alliance have an uneasy truce while fighting The Scourge, some other race.
There really is a story behind each of the races and the entire game mythos, though a complicated one.
The Alliance is composed of 4 races: Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, and Night Elves.
The Horde is composed of 4 races: Orcs, Taurens, Trolls, and Undead.
With the expansion game coming out in November they will add Blood Elves to Horde and The Drenei' to Alliance.
There are goblins as well, but they are purely capitalists and are neutral, selling to anyone. They even have their own neutral cities controlled by the goblins where the two factions intermix freely (until there is a raid - another interesting part of the drama).
Each race can be some different class but not all classes are available to all races. The classes are: warrior, priest, druid, mage, hunter, shaman, warlock, rogue, and paladin.
I forget the details of who can be what, but I do remember that only humans and dwarves can be paladins, only night elves and taurens can be druids, and there are no Orc mages. There is more to this, but it is too early in the morning for me.
Now each player is not only a class, but can have up to two primary professions and can have all 3 secondary professions. The primary professions are: herbalism, mining, blacksmithing, engineering, tailoring, skinning, leatherworking, alchemy, and enchanting. The secondary professions are cooking, fishing, and first aid.
You take on these professions because in the game, your character needs to earn money. Just as in the real world, there is an economy, nothing comes free. You have to earn your living to buy food (yes eating is important) and water (yes that is important too). Additionally, though you can find gear randomly dropped from monsters and NPCs (non-playable characters - AI characters in the game), you will find that you need to buy other things.
There are vendors located in the capitol cities and most small towns. Some times the little encampments spread around the world have vendors, sometimes they don't. But it is important to know where to find the vendors that can also repair your items. Through battles and death (and yes you can die), your items will suffer damage. You have to pay to get it repaired.
As a side note, my little romp through an opposing factions two capitol cities on their "subway" cost me an arm and a leg so to speak. I died multiple times trying to do it and watched my items' durability go down 10% each time I died.
That brings up a good point. When you die, you have two options: take resurrection at the local graveyard, or find your body and resurrect. Either way you will have all your items, but there are consequences. If you resurrect at the graveyard, you will have "resurrection sickness", reducing all your capabilities to 25% of what you really can do AND all your items take a serious hit in their durability. Basically it means you wuss out and decide to just tailor some bags for a while until it goes away, or go exploring in one of the local towns.
So most people resurrect at their body. However, sometimes your corpse could be surrounded by bad things, like monsters, beasts, and if you are in PVP mode (player vs player) other players. You also rez with only half your health and half your mana (if you have a character that needs it = any class but warrior and rogue). So there are reasons why you would want to rez in different ways.
So the stories in the game propel you along through various quests. Some are meaningless, like go kill 10 wolves to prove your strength or talk to that guy 12 feet away for me because I am an NPC and can't move and you are a roaming character [8D]. Other quests are integral to your class or the story and involve dealing some blow to an enemy or the other faction. And other times the quests are merely for profit.
Speaking of profit, there is an auction house where you auction items, raw materials, or stuff you create to the other players. You can bid on items or buy them out straight. Some game servers have really whacked out economies where the auction house prices are insanely elevated, while other servers have something a little more affordable. It just depends on the server.
The economy is based on gold, silver, and copper. Basically 100 copper is 1 silver. And 100 silver is 1 gold. It takes a long time to get that first gold and the items for the highest level characters can go for 20-100 gold. So it takes a lot of work for your character to earn the money to do things in the game.
This has just been a gloss over. There are many intricate parts to this story and game. I did not even discuss playability or anything. I just wanted to give an idea of the complex world of WoW. It is not just another "run and shoot" game.
We all like this game a lot. Perhaps too much [8D]
But it is a lot of fun and we enjoy having our characters help each other. Either by direct combat support, or in making items for each other. There are many ways to enjoy this game.
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