For a game that defines a decade of gamers and teenagers, World of Warcraft is beginning to show its age.
It is rare indeed to see as large a fan base as World of Warcraft’s, though not unique. In the arena of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, Warcraft ranks no. 1. But it has problems, many problems, which only seem to have gotten worse as the years roll on. One can cite many cases of discontent among the Warcraft community — graphics, antiquated leveling issues, balance problems — but the fact remains that quite simply, Warcraft is an old game.
The World of Warcraft has gotten larger once more, with the introduction of its highly controversial fourth expansion pack “Mists of Pandaria”. The expansion offers excitement, graphical improvements, and further features to make the game more complex and more developed than the grueling deathmatch of a game that Blizzard Entertainment originally released in 2004. By today’s standards, WoW could be said to be a well-polished game, featuring top-notch voicework, orchestrated musical selections and well-done CGI. However, for all this boastable content, Warcraft is very flawed in its content.
Let’s take a closer look at the “Mists of Pandaria”, where, as in the previous games, you assume the role of a fictional gaming avatar. Whether you’re a human, orc, undead or ambulatory panda, you are a player in the world’s largest video game world. Like in fantasy and tabletop roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, you are an adventurer, or a mercenary of sorts. The game serves as a framwork for your heroic adventures with other heroes and players.
For a player in the mist-shrouded continent of Pandaria, which bears more than a passing resemblance to almost every Oriental myth and folktale mashed together, there’s a lot of “heroic” things to do. One minute, you could be rappeling down from a burning skyship and assaulting an enemy base. Next, you’re collecting frog dung for a primitive monkey-like species to earn their trust. Then, you’re killing six tigers, seemingly for no reason other than the fact that they exist and the quest-giver has some vendetta against them. The “quests” in Pandaria get old fast. By the second day of play, one wonders whether the game is just a thinly veiled metaphor for the endless grind of life, not seeing any fruits of one’s laborious exertions until much, much later.
This is not to say that other aspects of the game aren’t fun. Pet Battles, a new feature introduced into the game, mimics certain popular color-minimalistic GameBoy games of the 20th century by implementing a system that allows players to stage legal fights between pets and animals. While the concept sounds marvelously dull, the actual practice is even duller. The game begins to feel less like Warcraft and more like a bad ripoff of Pokemon.
However, there is one arena in which Blizzard obviously succeed: art. The art and design of “Mists of Pandaria” is mysterious and beautiful. Zones are expansive and detailed, and inhabited by a myriad of interesting people, who you will probably be murdering and plundering. Perhaps, for some people, the art is secondary to the actual game, but for others, the art is the game. For one thing, Blizzard sure does know how to make a beautiful, if not titillating, game.
On the whole, “Mists of Pandaria” doesn’t offer much over “Cataclysm”, its predecessor in terms of gameplay, non-Pokemon infringing concepts, and a world without bipedal Panda men. The gameplay is shallow, even stale at times, and the missions and quests one is given can be downright boring. Player versus player content can still be enjoyable, yet “end game” player versus environment gameplay is still the end-all-be-all of gameplay. Cross-realm phasing, for example, has resulted in a healthy influx of war, outside of the usual arenas, as multiple players can now be present on multiple servers at the same time. Still, for some, this is all well and good.
By this point, Blizzard has hit upon gaming gold: a diehard fan base of players who have a played a game so long that they continue to play the game like it’s a drug. They’re almost totally apathetic to its flaws. To many players, there will always be just one World of Warcraft.
