• WoW Comic Contest: Honorable Mentions

WoW Comic Contest: Honorable Mentions
Here is the next honorable mention comic submitted by Azzul. Remember, the comic contest will go on all year long, so don't miss your chance to win a J!NX gift certificate with an approximate retail value of $100! Keep those comics coming! You can submit a new comic each month. Check out the rest of the comics submitted for April, 2007 and browse older comics via the links at the top or bottom of the page. Have a comic to submit? Read the official rules and submit your comics today!

We are doing the sales promotion in many world of warcraft servers now.

We are doing the sales promotion in many world of warcraft servers now.
We provide the cheapest price in these servers.
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Aegwynn US - A Andorhal - A Antonidas - A Anub'arak - A Auchindoun - H Archimonde - H Balnazzar - H Black Dragonflight - A Blackhand - H Bladefist - A Blackrock - A Blackrock - H Bloodscalp - A Burning Blade - A Burning Legion - A Chromaggus - A Dalvengyr - A Darrowmere - A Darkspear - H Dark Iron - H Dethecus - A Destromath
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Warcraft Level 60-70 Guides

Warcraft Level 60-70 Guides
Days after the release of Burning Crusade, leveling guides for 60 to 70 have become available.Since we can now level to 70 and most of us want to quickly, I thought I would check out the guides and guide updates for level 60-70. Most of the commercial guides have been updated since the authors were all invited into beta testing.Joana's Horde Guide has a level 60 to 70 Burning Crusade update ready for download. Joana was the record holder for the fastest to level 60 (under 5 days played) on a new server and I expect a similar record for level 70.Bill Kopp also has an Alliance level 60 to 70 Burning Crusade Guide:"So you get all the class guides, any updated tweaks to the guide, and the 60-70 Burning Crusade Guides. "WoW Gold Secrets has an update for making gold in BC:"I was fortunate enough to have received a beta invite to the Burning Crusade. So what have I been doing since being invited? Researching gold-making strategies of course! "It's an amazing new expansion, so if you haven't, go get it right now!

[HOWTO] Maximize your Raid-DPS

[HOWTO] Maximize your Raid-DPS Well, everyone knows how to gain more DPS. Get more spelldamage, more hit/critrating, spend less talentpoints to Arcane Forti/Wand Spec, etc. But at one point you have the 'best gear' and the 'perfect talentspec'. More is impossible. Impossible? NO! There is a way! In this text I will show you how much time passes between 2 consecutive casts and how to reduce this time. 1. How much time is passing there? There is more than one way to find out. One would be to simply activate your combatlogging ( /combatlog ), cast some spells and then evaluate the time elapsed (which is indicated in miliseconds in the combatlog) between 2 spells and compare it with the casttime. A more easy way is to use an addon i have written for this purpose: Laginfo –
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Try it! The time that passes there varies how often you push the key and how much latency is between you and server. Average is 400ms. If you compare this time with the casttime, you will quickly notice that this is a huge loss from the theoretical possible value. 13.3% for Fireball-DPS and 26.6% for scorch... 2. How do I reduce my latency? Do i have to buy a new keyboard each month? Reducing your latency will result in better DPS, but is not always possible. Converting your keyboard to scrap iron would also result in better DPS but is not sense and purpose of the exercise. There is a way to go around this problem. We simply use the lag. Healers know this phenomen: A too late interrupted cast will result into a not interrupted cast. This is easy to explain. The stopcast-command needs its time to reach the Server. When it arrives, the cast is already over. The Server will ignore it since there is nothing to interrupt. If you send a cast-command together with this stopcast-command the server will begin to cast this spell. This is what I use to reduce the time between my casts. A fireball-macro will look like this: /stopcasting /cast Fireball(Rank 13) 3) Timing How do I know when the time has come when i have to use this macro? If I use it too early the current cast will be interrupted. If I use it too late I will loose more and more time. The exact time is the time of the key-press for the last spell plus the casttime. I don't want to teach you how to measure time in miliseconds in your head. We need a display that shows this information. For exactly this purpose i have written another addon: SuperCast –
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http://blogs.ign.com/RapidggoldskySuperCast shows this information in your castbar. It displays a small red part that indicates when you have to use the macro. This may take a little exercise. First you will concentrate on your castbar and forget to decurse. But after a while you will know and can focus on more important things in your raid. If you succeed compare your new Laginfo values with your old ones. Good luck! 4) Tips & Recommendations - Don't use it for PvP! - Don't use it for healing! - If SuperCast doesn't work with your castbar use RapidCast (works with oCB, CBRipoff, eCastingBar, aUF, ...) - Before you use it in your raid, test it on Dr. Boom extensively!

RSS News Feeds

RSS News Feeds
World Of Warcraft Vault has an RSS feed so you can grab all the latest news without going through the trouble of pressing that little browser button and typing in our excrutiatingly long address. Here's a cool site to test feeds. If you have a Google Account, you can add our feed to your Personalized Home. Simply follow these steps:
Click on "Add Content", then...
..enter http://wowvault.ign.com/ into the "Create a Section" box.
And you're good to go!

BlizzCon 2007 Announced

BlizzCon 2007 Announced

Its been a while since the last BlizzCon but it looks like we will have one this year in August. Check out the official press release...
IRVINE, Calif. – April 12, 2007 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for its second BlizzCon™ gaming convention. BlizzCon is a celebration of the Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® franchises and the players who have helped make them so popular around the world. This year’s event will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on August 3 and 4, and will feature various activities for attendees to take part in.“We were gratified by the response to our first BlizzCon in 2005 and have been looking for an opportunity to hold a follow-up event ever since,” stated Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “With BlizzCon 2007, we plan to deliver another entertaining and informative experience for the attendees, and we look forward to meeting all of them again this year.”BlizzCon will be open to gamers age 4 and older and will offer a wide variety of activities to help all attendees get the most out of the two–day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:--Discussion panels with Blizzard developers --Artist and developer signings --Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents --World of Warcraft® Trading Card Game tournaments and demos --Costume, machinima, and character sound-alike contests with great prizes --Commemorative merchandise and other products based on the Blizzard franchises --A silent auction --Live orchestral performances of music from Blizzard games --More exciting activities to be announced Tickets for BlizzCon will go on sale in the next few months at a price of $100 USD per person. As the event draws closer, further details will be announced on the official BlizzCon website
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world of warcraft

For those looking to manually download the latest patch can do so over at FilePlanet. Now on with the notes:
Mac - Improved memory usage and stability under Mac OS X 10.4.9 using multi-threaded OpenGL Bug Fixes - Attempting to turn in a guild charter with a signature from a player that formed his own guild will no longer result in an inappropriate error message. - Using the customer support "Auto-Unstuck" will now trigger the one-hour cooldown on the player's hearthstone. - Arenas Players will no longer be able to see their opponents in the Combat Log of an Arena match-up before the game starts. - Battlegrounds Eye of the Storm: Players should no longer be able to exit the bubble before the match starts. - Mechanar The gate at the top of the elevator in Mechanar will now remain open while attempting the gauntlet and after Pathaleon the Calculator is killed. - Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad The Escape from Durnholde event will no longer break during the church part of the encounter. - Various localization fixes have been applied. http://ggoldskywow.blog.com/
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WHAT IS WOW

WHAT IS WOW
At last, the world of Azeroth, first glimpsed in the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, is brought to life in glorious detail. Join the eight million players (and counting) currently adventuring in Azeroth as well as beyond the Dark Portal, and see what journeys await for those who would plumb the many secrets of this ancient realm. As a massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft enables thousands of players from across the globe to come together online - undertaking grand quests and heroic exploits in a land of fantastic adventure.
A Familiar World


A peasant returns to the town hall
World of Warcraft draws heavily upon the lore of the Warcraft universe. Long-time fans of the Warcraft games are finally able to step into the world from a player's perspective, and experience the universe firsthand. People, places, and units from the strategy games are brought to life in World of Warcraft.
You can visit such places as the Burning Steppes, where Grom Hellscream fell in battle against the demon lord Mannoroth, and Ironforge, where the dwarves make their home below the mountain. Legendary heroes, such as Thrall, Cairne Bloodhoof, and King Magni Bronzebeard, are also in the game, presiding over their respective peoples as leaders in their race's capitals.
Guards in the human city of Stormwind look just like footmen from Warcraft III, peasants in the human town of Hillsbrad look exactly like their counterparts in the strategy games, and orc peons shuffle about the farms of Go'Shek in the Arathi Highlands. Night elf players can even see gargantuan Ancient Protectors patrolling the elven lands of Teldrassil, while a towering Ancient of War waits to greet all visitors to Darnassus.
Creating a Character


Character creation
When choosing a character to create in World of Warcraft, there are many choices before you. There are ten races and nine classes available, but the game's primary choice when it comes to character creation is the faction you wish to fight for. You can join the Horde or the Alliance, and your choice here has an impact on what you can and cannot accomplish in the world.
You can only group and talk to players in your own faction. You also can only view and befriend players in your faction when using the in-game social commands. The intent is to make you feel like a member of one enormous team, while at the same time setting up the other faction as an enemy or, at best, a rival. Thus, if you wish to play with your friends, you should all join the same faction. Other content, such as the zones you can visit and the quests you can accomplish, are also organized by faction. Some quests can only be completed by Horde players and others can only be completed by Alliance players. Some zones offer cities and interactive NPCs for one faction, but are completely hostile to the other.
The Horde faction includes the orc, tauren, troll, blood elf, and undead races, while the Alliance faction is comprised of dwarves, gnomes, humans, draenei, and night elves.
Adventuring in the world
After you create your character, you will enter the world in your race's starting area. All the races except trolls and gnomes begin in a unique location. Those two races have to share starting locales with the orcs and dwarves, respectively. After watching a brief in-game cutscene introducing your race, you are set loose upon the world.
It won't be long before you encounter your first monster in your travels. World of Warcraft is home to a huge array of creatures of all shapes, sizes, and of varying threat levels to your character's well-being. These creatures can be found everywhere, from roaming the countryside, residing in their own camps, or populating vast dungeons. There are wandering beasts, which will range from forest creatures such as bears, spiders, and wolves, to more exotic creatures such as giant phosphorescent moths and six-legged crocodiles called crocolisks.


A water elemental
You'll soon encounter more intelligent, dangerous enemies as well. Humanoid foes of every kind, such as murlocs, gnolls, and furbolgs, join more unnatural monsters like undead, oozes, and elementals. And, should you dare, you'll find more spectacular enemies like demons, infernals, dragonspawn, and mighty dragons stalking the dungeons and high-level areas of the world.
While you're exploring the lands of Azeroth and Kalimdor, you'll be treated to a multitude of different regions, each with its own visual style. Vast, varied, and beautiful, many of the regions were recreated from their appearances in prior Warcraft games, while others introduce heretofore uncharted lands in the Warcraft universe. This variety and detail can be seen in the lush forests in Ashenvale and Feralas, the snowy mountains in Dun Morogh, the savannah of the Barrens, the plains of Mulgore, and the deserts of Tanaris. Swamps in Un'Goro Crater, jungles in Stranglethorn Vale, farmland in Elwynn Forest, and even deforested hills in Stonetalon Mountains are even more of the many regions you can explore. Terrain that has been vastly altered by magic and the ravages of war also appear in the game. The razed city of Dalaran, encased in a protective magic shell, is a painful reminder of the devastation of the Reign of Chaos, while the infested Eastern and Western Plaguelands are filled with diseased animals and plantlife, courtesy of the Scourge's plague.
This long list of landscapes doesn't even include the underground environments and dungeons of the world. There are dungeons available for all ranges of mid- to high-level players, and they offer many rich quests, fearsome foes, and powerful rewards.
Questing


Can I interest you in a quest?
Quests are a big part of World of Warcraft. Like most other role-playing games, World of Warcraft lets you advance in level as you gain experience. Experience can be gathered by killing monsters, exploring new destinations, and completing quests. Unlike in other games, quests are a significant tool for level advancement. Players who try to level up through combat alone will likely not advance as fast as those who combine questing with defeating monsters.
Sprinkled liberally throughout the game world are hundreds of quest givers who provide thousands of quests. These quests can range from the simple to the complex. Some quests ask you to slay a set number of beasts or monsters, others ask you to collect trophies from creatures, and still others ask you to slay unique non-player characters or named creatures. You may be asked to deliver documents or items to other NPCs, escort important characters out of danger, or recover artifacts or lost items from fortified dungeons. Although many quests share a similar structure, all of them are presented by unique NPCs who deliver interesting backstory with each quest, which in turn brings the world alive and gives each quest a unique flavor.
Those who love the story will want to dive into the quests simply for the lore they reveal, but many players will also want to complete quests for the experience and the rewards. Nearly all quests give sizeable experience rewards.
Many quests also provide material rewards, such as cash, potions, food, magic items, armor, and weapons. Some of the best equipment in the game will only be available as quest rewards.
Intuitive Interface
World of Warcraft has as friendly a user interface as possible to make the game accessible to all players.
To ease players into questing, the game makes it easy to identify quest givers by the yellow exclamation marks over their heads. It is also easy to keep track of your quests through the quest log. You can always refer to this interface window to view all your accepted quests, the goals you still need to accomplish, and where to go to turn in your quest. When you return to a quest giver for your reward, a yellow question mark will replace the exclamation mark to tell you that your quest can be turned in.
World of Warcraft's interface allows you to determine from a quick mouse-over what something is and how you can interact with it. Your mouse pointer will turn into a context-sensitive icon when you are pointing at something you can interact with. For example, NPCs such as quest givers will turn the default pointer into a chat balloon when you mouse over them to let you know that you can talk to them. Trainers, who teach your characters new abilities and spells, turn the pointer into a book icon. If you can harvest a resource from the world, your cursor turn into an appropriate action icon when you mouse over them. If you can harvest a plant, your pointer turns into a flower. If you can mine ore, you get a mining pick pointer. In this way, the game tells you immediately and intuitively how you can interact with the world.


Fighting a bear
When you mouse over an enemy player or creature, the pointer will turn into a sword icon to show that you can attack them. Thus, to attack, all you need to do is right-click on a monster. Casting spells is also simple: Click on a spell icon and then click on a target. To facilitate the use of spells and skills, World of Warcraft offers an action bar at the bottom of the screen where you can place icons representing all your spells and abilities. You can thus use them at a quick click of the mouse, or by pressing the hotkeys associated with the icons on your action bar.
You can move your chat window around the screen, customize the colors of the window to better suit your tastes, and customize your combat log, which is a scrolling text box that logs your actions and those of your enemies in real time.
Social Aspects


Create a guild with your friends!
World of Warcraft is an online game with thousands of players, so the game is built to facilitate extensive in-game socializing. You can search for players easily by searching by name, by looking for those in your same zone or by keywords such as a class, race, or guild name. You can also add players to a friends list, so you can keep track of nice and helpful players for grouping or just chatting.
Grouping is simple as well. Many quests are designed to be accomplished with other players, and you'll therefore want to seek out the help of other characters for these. Groups can have up to five players, who should be around the same level so that all players in the group can fight acceptable challenges and earn good experience. The game also has "raid groups," which allow up to 40 players to adventure together against uncommonly powerful foes and quests. However, while in a raid group, the vast majority of quests (except special "raid quests") can not be completed and the experience reward for defeating monsters is significantly reduced.
Instanced Dungeons


Entrance to an instance
To promote the idea of epic adventuring with friends, World of Warcraft also introduces a concept called the instanced dungeon. These instanced dungeons are entire dungeons that spawn specifically for each group of adventurers that enter them. Each time a group enters such an instance, a unique version of it spawns for that group only. This means no other players can play in that instance and bother the group, steal kills or treasure from the party, or otherwise hinder its play experience. With each group getting its own personal dungeon, players will have all the benefits of a single-player role-playing experience but with the camaraderie and fun of an online game.
Instances are meant to be challenging, but also to be fun and rewarding. There is especially good treasure in instances to entice players to explore their depths, and more powerful foes called elite monsters to keep the instances challenging. Instances are also more densely packed with monsters, and home to some of the game's most unique and powerful adversaries. These bosses drop valuable rewards that will make defeating them well worth the effort. The experience one gains by learning these instances is another reward in itself. Running instances will help players learn how to play in a group, including how to fill their class roles and how to use teamwork and communication effectively in the context of the game. These lessons will be very valuable as players reach the end game and apply what they have learned.
The first available instances are for characters in the mid-teens in levels, and there are dozens more to accommodate all levels up to 70.
Player-versus-Player Combat


"I'm glad I'm not on a PvP server!"
Player-versus-player gameplay is very important to World of Warcraft. However, not everyone wishes to engage in PvP combat. Thus, there are different realm types, normal and PvP, that will accomodate either preference. On normal servers, PvP combat is entirely consensual. You cannot be attacked by other players unless you want to be. The other server type is player-versus-player, and on this server, you can sometimes be attacked by players of the opposing faction without warning.
On normal servers, you can enter into player-versus-player combat by storming enemy capitals, entering special PvP zones called battlegrounds, or by attacking the guards in enemy cities. You can also flag yourself for PvP by toggling the option in your player menu, or attack an opposing faction player who is flagged for PvP (doing so will automatically turn your own flag on). In all cases, you have a choice to engage in PvP combat or not.
On PvP servers, there are many zones that are flagged as contested territory. In these zones, players from opposing factions can attack each other freely. Thus, you could be fighting monsters by yourself, only to be attacked by a stealthed enemy rogue. PvP servers also enable PvP combat through battlegrounds, attacking enemy guards, and entering enemy capitals.
The rewards for PvP play are excellent, however. Since the Horde-Alliance conflict is central to the Warcraft universe, player-vs-player combat is encouraged. As you defeat enemy players, you will accumulate honor points. You can then spend those points on honor rewards, such as special equipment, weapons, and mounts. Your honor points will never decay or decrease without spending them, so this system makes it possible to buy several smaller rewards or one large reward with the same number of points. Keep in mind though, that you will only gain points for defeating players near your level.
Learning More
The information in this guide is a teaser for World of Warcraft. Indeed, it is just a small sample of the epic adventure you can experience and the scope of detail and options available to you in the world of Azeroth. To learn more about the game, visit the World of Warcraft guide via the links to the left or by visiting the URL

The Time of Noblegarden Draws Near!

The Time of Noblegarden Draws Near!

Noblegarden comes but once a year,ushering in a day of cheer...for no one has a thing to fear from painted eggs and festive gear.The feast of Noblegarden, which will take place this year on Sunday, April 8, is a celebration of life and friendship, a time for the races of Azeroth to come together with their kindred and reaffirm the common bonds between them. What better way to do this than to look for hidden painted eggs? The brightly-colored Noblegarden eggs can be found throughout Azeroth, near the capital cities and towns. Opening them will yield an assortment of treats unique to the holiday. Enjoy!
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Arena Tournament Webpage

Arena Tournament Webpage

The World of Warcraft Arena Tournament webpage is now live. Our most current information is on this page, including news announcements, frequently asked questions, and the newly released tournament rules. We will add more content to this webpage as the tournament progresses, so check back periodically for the latest information.
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http://ggoldskywow.blogspot.com/

Arena Tournament Webpage

Arena Tournament Webpage
The World of Warcraft Arena Tournament webpage is now live. Our most current information is on this page, including news announcements, frequently asked questions, and the newly released tournament rules. We will add more content to this webpage as the tournament progresses, so check back periodically for the latest information.
http://ggoldskywow.blog.com/
http://ggoldskywow.42tales.com/
http://www.selectablog.com/ggoldskywow/
http://clearblogs.com/ggoldskywow
http://ggoldsky2007.blogspot.com/
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http://clearblogs.com/ggoldsky
http://blogs.ign.com/Rapidggoldsky

World of Warcraft Review

World of Warcraft Review
Let me start out by telling you a little more about myself. After all, who am I that I should review a game? What qualifications do I have? Well, I have no English Degree, no formal journalism training, hell I never even worked on my school newspaper. What I do have is a LOT of gaming experience. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1978. I still play this game table top now. I have run boxed adventures and created my own content for my players. That was the starting point of my gaming career. Since then I have played no less than 50 pen and paper RPGs. Then in the mid to late 80s I started playing online. There was a service called QuantumLink. They were like AOL but only for Commodore users. I played a D&D clone online there called the Red Dragon Inn. Eventually this lead to playing Vampire:The Masquerade on AOL for 4 years. Then someone told me about a game called Underlight. It wasn’t 3D but it was graphical. After that I moved on to play Ultima Online (UO) when it released. Then EverQuest (EQ) came out and I played that for 5 years. Then Star Wars Galaxies came out and I played that for about 6 months. Now we come to today where I am playing Word of Warcraft. So after 27 years of pen and paper RPG experience and 20 years of playing games online I feel like I am qualified to give my opinion on this game.
World of Warcraft (WoW) was a very highly anticipated game. People clamored for the chance to be in Beta. There was a lot of hype about WoW and how it would be the EQ Killer. Back in the day everyone complained about EQ and how one daya game would come along and knock EQ off it’s proverbial throne as King of the MMORPGs. EQ had it’s flaws for sure but it is now and always will be a classic. Like Doom, Halflife or even Halo EQ is what MMORPGs would measure themselves against. Now in my days playing EQ the doomsayers would predict EQ’s demise with every game release or rumor that hit the Internet. At its heart that is the problem with hype and anticipation it always falls short of expectations… or does it?
I played in the stress test beta and the open beta. When the game released I waited a month or so to let things settle a bit and then bought my copy. In the Stress Test I thought to myself how much better this game was than EQ was at its release. Then the open beta came and there were changes but they were all positive. Now the game is finalized and been out for some time and I am here to give you the what for and here to about it.
Game Play
The game is smooth. It runs great most of the time. Sure there are some lag issues now and then. I seem to run lag free though for about 95% of my game time. I don’t have the best video card in the world (Geforce 2 MMX400 64MB) but what I lack in video game power I make up for in memory (1GB of DDR RAM). I live in the Pacific Northwest and I have a cable connection. My latency is usually about 130ish. I will cover the graphics in a later section.
You start this game like you do most any other MMORPG by creating a character. You have a moderate amount of customization, more than the original EQ but not nearly as much as City of Heroes (CoH). You don’t tweak your stats. You pick a name and submit it and then you are in the game! This process is quick. This may disappoint those of you out there who are crazy about tweaking your character out but trust me the game is worth it!
Now you are on Azeroth in a starting area, each race has its own and even on Player vs. Player (PvP) servers these areas are blissfully free of those who would cause you harm (griefers, gankers, and thugs oh my!). As you look around your surroundings you will see many other players and NPCs. Some NPCs have a yellow exclamation point over their heads. These are the NPCs who have quests or tasks for you to do. Quests give you experience and sometimes items and/or money. Quests usually, in my experience, give you more experience than if you simply hunted for the same amount of time. Not only do you get experience for the mobs you kill but you get the bonus experience of completing the quests.
There are a few basic types of quests in WoW. There are the collection quests, go out and get me xx number of the quest item. Sometimes you get these items by killing and sometimes you get them by simply picking them up off the ground. There are the killing quests, which ask you to kill xx number of a specific mob. There are escort quests (though these don’t usually come in till later levels) where you are asked to escort soandso from point a to point b. Last but not least are the delivery quests. Bring this package to suchandsuch in Anytown.
You also gain experience for exploring your surroundings! As you move around it will tell you that you have discovered a certain area and grant you anywhere from a handful of experience to a few hundred experience depending on the level of the area you found.
As you run around and talk to NPCs you will find all walks of people. Some are vendors who will sell you supplies such as food, drink and ammunition. Some are the quest givers I mentioned above. Some are trainers. The trainers will do everything from train your class skills to teach you how to make armor, potions, weapons, just about anything really. There is a catch though. You can only have two primary skills. There are two types of primary skills. Collection skills allow you to collect the raw materials needed for Crafting skills. Crafting skills allow you to create items from raw materials. Certain skills go together well like skinning and leather working or mining and blacksmithing. Which skills you choose are entirely up to you. When you get high enough in a crafting skill you will need to choose a specialty. There are too many to list here so I will give you an example. When you get high enough in Leather Working you will choose weather you want to do Dragonscale Armor, Tribal Leather Armor or Elemental Leather armor. All these specialties allow you to make different types of armor. Each is very powerful and has its own pros and cons.
There are also secondary skills these are things like First Aid, Cooking and Fishing. You can have as many of these as you want and there are no specializations.
Like any other MMORPG the lower levels tend to move quickly. Sooner or later you will need to move beyond the area you started in. WoW has an excellent transportation system. You can travel by foot, boat or air. Air travel is along pre-determined routes and only between certain cities so you can not jump off in mid trip. The same holds true for boats as well. The number of destinations is good and you can get near most anywhere you need to be at. As you enter a town or city you go see the Gryphon Master and they will fill in the routes for you.
Eventually along your journeys it is sad to say it but you will die. When you do though take heart because the system implemented here is just as good as the rest of this game! When you die you will appear as a ghost back at a graveyard. You have two options now. You can either run back to your corpse and resurrect yourself, you take no experience loss or extra damage to your equipment and can continue where you left off. Or you can resurrect at the graveyard. If you choose to resurrect at the graveyard you will have all your equipment but it will suffer 25% damage (all equipment has its own health rating and when it reaches 0 it is rendered useless until repaired) and you are given resurrection sickness (lowered stats for 10 minutes). Over all the system makes death a bad thing but doesn’t make it so bad it ruins the game. Equipment can be repaired by NPCs but not other players yet.
Overall the game play is friendly and engaging. It is highly addictive as well. Sometimes high population servers have queues in order to log in. This does frustrate players at times as they do pay to play and should have access to the game. I don’t know why Blizzard chose to implement this particular solution but it is a downside. I play on a medium population server and have had to wait in queue less than 5 times in 3 months.
How does it compare to EQ? I think it blows EQ out of the water. How does it compare to EQ2? Again I think in all aspects of game play it beats EQ hands down!
Graphics
The graphics are very well done. The environments are incredible from the snow peaked mountain home of the Dwarves to the forests of the Elves to the desert dwellings of the Orcs. The scenery is immersive and flows smoothly. The water effects are awesome both from outside and inside.
You can see most items that your character wears. Chest, arms, wrist, head, hands, legs, boots, cloak, weapons and shields are all visible on the character. In addition to this if you are a member of a guild you can wear your guild’s tabard. A tabard is a symbol that the guild leader has created to symbolize the guild. This is like a crest from the middle ages.
The world is vast and the graphics support that. When flying over a jungle you can see the treetops go on for what seems like miles! When you cast a spell the effects are visible and do not cause lag. I can only attest to the graphics as far as the limitations of my graphics card so I don’t see the waving grass and such but over all it is impressive!
Overall they didn’t seem to have done anything outlandish or ground breaking. What they did do was combine solid graphics and performance. It seems that the graphical detail automatically adjusts to what your individual card is capable of and this makes the game play very smoothly!
Conclusion
In conclusion the game is a superb piece of software. I will be doing more detailed breakdowns in coming weeks on various aspects of the game including classes, races, and more detail on game play and graphics. So please stop by weekly for updates and to see what’s new in the World of Warcraft!
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