Ars Technica: World of Warcraft Review

By Jim on March 10th, 2005

The good, the bad and the ugly – Teldrassil style
The good

* It redefines addiction and takes it to a new level. It should be regulated by the FDA.
* The environments are just gorgeous.
* Nice backstory and a well-crafted, interconnected world.
* Different classes, professions, locales and quests really give you a lot of things to play with. Variety++
* Accessible to both casual and hardcore gamer.
* Night Elves

The bad

* Deplorable server performance that still hasn’t been acceptably corrected since launch.
* Relative lack of high-level content.
* Design problems with the worth of some crafted items, world itemization, and high-level instance loot tables.
* Many bugs, from small to terrible, that still have not been corrected despite many being known since beta. What the hell was beta for, then?
* Being zerg-rushed by Murlocs.
* Gnomes.

The ugly

* Blizzard’s silence keeps the player base uninformed and on edge. Other developers houses manage this just fine, you know.
* Orc females. Sorry, but it had to be said.

Score

An eight, because despite the existence of evil in this thing, there’s also a lot of goodness too. And I do mean that. If you decide to try it, I think you’d be making a very good choice, since it’s a solid and engaging MMORPG. That said, be wary that as of now it’s not in an ideal state. On the other hand, it will be patched, so it will become even better. Plus, future additions like Battlegrounds and new high-level content will be more than welcomed in expanding the already vast panorama of things to do, places to see and things to kill. Whenever that comes around, that is.

Mind you, you can get hooked on this thing, baby. For real. Make sure this doesn’t interfere with other secondary things, like your real life. Other than that, go and get it.