World of Warcraft - My Experiences in The Trial

So, to take a break from writing about Starcraft II and Dragon Quest IX all the time, I decided to download the trial version of World of Warcraft and try it out, then write back on my thoughts on it.

If you're an active World of Warcraft player who wants to check out a guide related to the game, click on any part of this sentence.

And, we're off!

I have a lot to say about this, and it's going to get ranty, so bear with me:

• Blizzard really needs to make one, all-inclusive package for their trial version clients instead of forcing their players to patch the client after it is downloaded. Seriously, it's ridiculous.
  
• To add salt to the wound, and insult to injury as it were, the trial period starts when you fill out the online form to sign-up for the trial, instead of starting when the player initially logs into the game. Terrible thinking there in my opinion.
• Thirdly, why are the patches SO big? Why in the world does the forsaken trial version need so much data if the player is capped to level 20, and probably won't be able to experience one-tenth of it?
• On a somewhat unrelated note, if you buy a copy of Starcraft 2, said game comes packaged with a pair of guest passes for SC2 (allows the person who uses the code to play for seven hours; basically a "full" demo if that makes any sense) and, more on-topic, a pair of trial passes for WoW. In my opinion, rather than ship that out like that, I would've made the trial passes game cards instead, so the buyer can play WoW for 20 days (10 days per card; 2 cards if they follow the same system) unrestricted or (if he/she has already played WoW and determined that it's not for him/her) give the game cards to any friends who may want to play it or try it out. After all, the whole point of the trial is to get the interest of prospective players piqued and thus buying the full game and paying the subscription fee, so what's five to ten USD from someone you'll probably get at least three times that?
• All that patching took well over twelve hours, and that's AFTER downloading the client. -_-
  

Well, after all of that mess I mentioned above, the client finally finished patching, so I fired up the game. As can be expected from Blizzard Entertainment, the introduction cinematic is epic, showing, at the end, one very ticked off Illidan Stormrage bellowing: "You are not prepared!".

Then you have to accept the EULA (End User License Agreement) which is pretty much standard with any game, and doubly so with an MMO. After you do so, you get the title screen where you can put in your account data, allowing you to log into the game. A nice button at the top of the screen will taunt you, daring you to upgrade your account. I put a piece of tape on that part of the screen and reminded the game kindly that I was only playing it for research purposes. Maybe someday when I'm rolling in cash, I might play the full version. Maybe.

So, the game will then suggest a server for you to go to (I'm on Malfurion), based on your preferences. Normal servers are good if you prefer the Player vs Environment (or Player vs Monsters as it is called as well) aspect of an MMO. If you're that type of person who delights in slaughtering fellow players (and getting slaughtered in turn), then a Player vs Player server is right up your alley. Roleplaying servers are as their name suggests, and have you taking on the role of your character, literally (as in talking as if you're a denizen of the world and so forth. Try not to break character!

So, since I'm a carebear (look up what that means for online games if I confused you. :P), I decided to go on Malfurion, which is a normal server. Unlike my choice of server, my choice of character was pretty much decided ages ago (as in way before I had even thought of playing WoW). My favorite characters are those that heal and those that can take punishment. The Paladin in World of Warcraft can do both. I had read somewhere on the net that being Human, if you decide to play on the Alliance side, is a good first character pick, so I decided to become a Human Paladin. I then randomized his name, found something I liked, tweaked it a bit, and came up with Adgalein.

After the cool introductory cinematic, you are dropped off in Stormwind, one of the last bastions of humanity in this World of Warcraft. Now, this is where the game loses a bit of rosiness. Everything is beautiful until you're subjected to a whopping three kill and fetch quests within the first hour of gameplay. Mind you, it's hardly unbearable, but it's somewhat dull watching a Paladin with basically no skills (save the ability to heal himself) smacking a monster's skull, over, and over, and over again. After you smack a monster enough times with your weapon of choice, it falls over, dead, and you loot it. Rinse, lather and repeat eight times for the quest that requires you to get wolf pelts (for the other quests you're doing this because loot is good. :D) You'd think they could add a little something to the experience, given that I had to wait so long to play the darned thing! (Yes, I'm still a bit peeved over how long it took to patch.)

After those three quests I mention, and another quest where you get to meet your class trainer (these fellows can teach you skills, at a price), you get sent off to Goldshire and learn about Inns. Basically, if you log out of the game while in an Inn, you accumulate rested time, which doubles the experience you earn once you log in again. I took this at face value and logged out. :P

I'll keep playing tomorrow, or should I say later? (I go to bed really LATE. :P)

Anyways, here's a screenshot of my character just before I logged out for the day.

So, after doing everything I needed to do (including writing up a new videogame hub), I decided to fire up the WoW trial client again. Mind you, I don't blame Blizzard for what I'm about to show you (they are a business and are trying to convert my presence on one of their servers into $$), but I just HAD to snap a screenshot of this.

So, ignoring the ad, I logged into the game and got to the character select screen with my Level 4 Paladin looking at me intently. Right above his head, there was a button nudging me to upgrade my account. I'll give Blizzard props for trying so hard to convert me into a sale. It might've actually worked if I had never played an MMO before and I had some real income. :P

Anyways, I entered the Malfurion server once again. Last we left off in my trial adventures, I had logged out of WoW inside of the Inn at Goldshire, to get some Rested Time. While you are rested, you gain double experience from monster kills. In my case, I got about 3 good kills before it wore off. Not sure if that's intentional or a sneaky nudge to upgrade again.

In either case, I then headed off to a nearby mine to do two more killing quests. This time, I was to kill some Kobolds for their drops, and take said loot back to two different NPCs. Well, here's where I discovered a neat feature that separates WoW from a fair amount of other MMOs: When you're on a quest, bringing up the area map will show you where you have to go to undertake your quest. Beats having to actually find the place through sheer luck like a blind man.

Also, I discovered the generally amiable people who exist on the server (although I couldn't chat with them in any serious function, since one of the many restrictions of the trial is the inability to use the chat channels, except for a few commands that are not as intuitive as just using the area chat payers have access to). People who notice you fighting a monster help you out. Due to how the game works, you still get full experience for the kill so long as your temporary ally isn't vastly overleveled compared to you (in which case you'd only get partial experience for the victory). I usually return the favor by healing them or using a buff on them that increases their attack power by 20 points for 10 minutes. Actually, I tend to do that without being asked to; I like to be a generally nice guy in MMOs, because that's how I'd like to be treated in turn. :)

So anyways, after killing what seemed like one hundred kobolds, I finally got 10 Gold Dust and 8 Candles...or was it 8 and 10? Bah, it doesn't matter much in the end. Like I was saying, I got the items needed to complete the quests I was given and returned to Goldshire to claim my rewards. Instead of walking back, I used the Hearthstone I had acquired in the Inn.

Hearthstones allow you to teleport back to your home location (you can change your home location at any time by visiting your prospective new home) and have a 30 minute cooldown (so this isn't as godly as Town Portal is, if you're a Diablo fan. :P)

By pure accident, I had also managed to complete a quest that involved scouting out the mine I had gone into (the quest counts as complete once you go deep enough into the mine, and that'll happen by accident if you're looking hard enough for more kobolds to kill). So, after turning in my quests in Goldshire, I decided to go back to Northshire to train my Paladin in the ways of his class and, thus, get more skills. The training set me back 2 silver, give or take a few coppers. :P

Oh, I haven't mentioned how the in-game currency works yet. Well, it's quite simple. The lowest denomination of money in WoW is the copper. If you get 100 coppers, they become 1 silver, which is the second denomination. If you get 100 silvers (which I'm not nearly close enough to just yet), those become 1 gold. Gold is the highest denomination of money in WoW, and what high-level characters usually dabble in when purchasing and selling rare items. I'm not too clear on why Blizzard did it like this, but I think it's a neat touch. Perhaps they thought the same during development? :)

Anyways, after training my Paladin, I decided to do some quests that had opened up in the immediate area of Northshire since the last time I had been there. I was now at the uber level of 6, so I was feeling just a bit more buff. Essentially, the quests involved killing some bandits near the village, as well as fetching a grape harvest for one nice lady (because there's always fetch quests in RPGs, and MMOs can't break the trend, can they? :P). After I dispatched those quests, I realized that there was nothing left to do in Northshire, and I bid it farewell (forever?). I ran down the path to Goldshire, where I had several more quests waiting for me. Among these was another quest to kill some fiendish creatures (boars) for their meat, so I could make a pie, so a kid who had stolen an amulet would tell me where he lost it, so I could go kill the monster that now had it (okay, that was actually a series of quests, but they're exactly as I mentioned, so it feels like one big quest. :P). Of course, the monster in question (Goldtooth) was in the mine I had left a while back, so I decided to leave him for tomorrow.

What I did try to do, unsuccessfully, was kill some Murlocs near a lake to acquire some Crystal Kelp. Oh, was that ever a mistake. Mind you, I had since reached level 7 and was feeling godly with my Holy Light healing me, and my Divine Intervention cutting my suffered damage in half, but those darned Murlocs gang up on you.

You see, most MMOs have the concept of threat (or aggro as it is called by the players themselves). WoW is no exception. Threat is essentially a measure computer controlled monsters and characters use to determine whether you should be the player they are attacking at a certain point in time. Healing and attacking both draw threat, so be careful of drawing a group's ire, no matter what you're doing in the area.

Now, here's the kicker, and what gets me killed (you're going to see a neat pic of the spirit world you spawn in when you die in WoW pretty soon): If a monster is being attacked and it has allies in the area, they'll rush to reinforce it (much like you would help an innocent bystander getting overwhelmed by monsters; or at least how I would. :P). So, I had a total of four Murlocs desiring my death, and they managed it. :(

So, when you die you spawn at the nearest graveyard, in front of a mysterious being called a Spirit Caller, and suffer penalties. What those penalties are I have no clue, as players that are Level 10 or lower are immune to them. Given my past experiences with MMO games, I assume it's a loss to item durability, experience, gold, or some combination of the three. Once in the presence of the Spirit Caller, you can ask it to revive you instantly (which costs nothing if you're Level 10 or lower) or run off to retrieve your corpse. However, if you died in a particularly nasty place (such as the one I did), you may be reviving yourself just to perish again, so keep that detail in mind when making your decision. Here's that pic I promised you.

I'm sure you noticed the yellow text in my chat box that says: "Discovered Crystal Lake: 65 experience gained."

Well, I had forgotten to mention that, but there's another neat feature that separates WoW from other MMOs. Basically, the first time you discover a new area, you get some bonus exploration experience for the discovery. I believe that this is a good thing to have in the game as it provides alternate ways of leveling up and rewards the player for taking off to search the world and see new locations.

After my run-in with death, you can imagine that I was a little reticent to keep playing. Given that I had played for nearly two hours already anyways, I called it quits for the day, and logged out in everyone's favorite Inn, located at Goldshire. :P

Well, this hub has certainly gotten much denser in the telling than I expected it to, so I'm going to divide it into several parts (the number of parts depending on how many more days I play the trial. ;) ).

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate