The basic spellcasters fall back on the familiar battle plan of keeping foes at a polite distance while pelting them with eldritch harm, but more complicated magical classes have correspondingly eccentric behaviour - such as Shamans, who create totems on the landscape to provide magical effects. Warriors, for example, must build up a 'rage' level through giving and receiving damage in order to power their combat skills, whereas the Rogue attacks form cascading combos that build up to finishing moves. Strategy comes from recognising the right moment to counteract an enemy skill or launch your own without risk of interruption, and class-specific mechanics lend further tactical considerations. This pace is aided considerably by WOW's energetic combat, which follows the traditional MMO structure of a rhythmic trading of blows, but is so up-tempo as to suggest an action-RPG (not least Diablo). That familiarity doesn't necessarily have to stem from experience with WOW's forebears - although Blizzard has helpfully provided a storyline synopsis on its website for newcomers - more if you ever had a soft spot for high fantasy. The beta launch saw WOW fansites across the internet collapse in domino sequence under an avalanche of information-starved hits there are 'US beta testers' with IP addresses from Argentina to the Ukraine and at the time of writing there are accounts for sale on Ebay with bids at $350 (apparently it's a slow period).īig in other senses, too: this is the result of four years of Blizzard's notoriously meticulous production, converging WarCraft's extensive backstory and the developer's previous experience with online multiplayer into a new look at a familiar world.
That much could be expected from a developer whose games routinely pull in more preorders than many titles ever sell, but Blizzard's entry into the new wave of massively multiplayer titles casts a long shadow.
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