Thank god they let us keep our open beta Lin2 characters, otherwise I would have been PvP'd to death.
Starman's review is pretty much right on par with my own thoughts after finishing the stress test. I played an undead warrior to lvl 10, a tauren hunter to 6, and a human warlock to 17. I thought the warlock quests needed some fleshing out when compared to tauren hunter, but I understand this is all in the works.
I''ve played so many MMORPG releases that were buggier than this game is a few months away from release. The polish is amazing on the level of detail. There are so many little things to find. The almost complete lack of loading when changing areas is very helpful in making it immersive.
I tend to get bored quickly with these games and I've played a lot of them. CoH held my attention longest, but in the end I felt it didn't have enough content. The city didn't breathe the way areas in WoW do. The WoW universe feels alive. Sort of like what Starman said, when you come out of the cold feeling dwarf mountains into a city you FEEL warmer. Then you can wander around and find an empty little home that has a fire going and a bed that makes you want to take a nap.
Riding a griffin from one town to the next (you first need to discover routes, so it isn't that easy for low lvls) they take the "scenic" route. While this can be a bit annoying when you are in a hurry, it really is beautiful. The route from Stormwinde to Ironforge is amazing to take in.
Finally, on PvP, I NEVER PvP. I did in Lin2, to defend myself, but honestly I really don't ever care to. Everyone always seems better than me and I wind up dead with whatever penalty that entails. The lack of penalty here made go on "raids" quite often. It was great fun to show up in Horde territory (although I understand that swimming to get to Booty Bay is an exploit??? is that true?) with 50 other Alliance players and get into a huge battle. I died a lot but I also killed a few, including a sweet ambush on 2 guys who were wailing on a lower level Alliance player who got caught out alone. I came up from behind, set my minion on one and put the smackdown on the other myself. Until they were almost dead they had to clue what was happening.
Crafting is great. Again, I never craft because I feel like I never have enough time/materials to make something worth selling or wearing. In WoW I crafted all the time and sold/gave away things I made to many other players. I was a tailor and skinner. It was easy once I learned how to get the raw materials (dropped by certain types of mobs) for making cloth and linked it up with the leather I skinned. Before I went to bed each night I'd put a few things up on WoWBay, my term for the auction house ingame, and the next morning I'd have a bit of pocket money. Crafting was sweet.
I'm going to buy this and play in the open beta. If it holds my attention for 3 months it just might be a miracle, but the way this game looks today, it just might do that.
/Maude, lvl17 human warlock on Nargananon (or whatever it was called)
