wow world of warcraft

No, the World of Warcraft (WoW) is not officially releasing in India. Well, atleast not that I know of. This particular feature is about an interesting observation that I made about the players of this wonderful game. I'd like to share my experiences of WoW, and players who play the game in India. I'm sure you readers must have read loads about Warcraft; this is a peek into the World of Warcraft from a player's perspective, and his experiences while playing the game.

Online at its Best

I got my copy of WoW way back in December; I am excited about it now, just as I was then. This game is a direct sequel to Warcraft: Frozen Throne. It begins with a brilliant intro-video that takes you to a tour of this virtual universe. Therefore, you're actually playing after Arthas and the Lich King become one. Well, that sounded different in my head, but Warcraft veterans will know what I am talking about.

So I started with a Night Elf Druid - Night Elves are my favorite race, and I liked the idea of a Druid. A Druid in WoW is a specialist unit that can heal themselves, and later in the game can morph into various other animals as and when the situation demands. In WoW, the game will get difficult as you level up, not only because the creeps will be stronger, but also because you will be required to do more and more at higher levels.

I started off in a small village, and after a few missions was sent to a nearby town to explore and eradicate a quest. In WoW, you can't access areas of the world map without exploring the area. In simple terms, you have to walk the entire world-map to be able to access an area on it. So there is a lot of walking around in this game, but most of it is pleasurable as it all looks great.

The graphics are very Warcraftish - with bright visuals and purple colored trees. The great thing about the World of Warcraft is that it makes you believe that you are the centre of all activity, that you are the protagonist in this world filled with 8 million people. There are thousands of quests to complete and gain experience from, and they all range from mindless killings to a strategic rescue operation, to just plain running away from trouble. At Higher Levels

At higher levels, the game is harder, but much more fun. You get to explore more areas by walking, flying, or sailing. You need to go to distant lands during the course of the game, and that is made easier by the ability to fly using Gryphons or Wind-Riders.

Flying around to a distant land can at times take as much as ten minutes, other RPG veterans would know that traveling in an RPG never takes more than a few seconds. But in WoW, the experience is made a little realistic by making you spend some time on your travels. You can also travel by ship; again you wait for the entire journey and also wait for the ship to dock. The ships arrive as per a schedule and follow a timetable. You can always see people fishing by the bay as they wait for the trip. Fishing is a common profession in WoW that most people acquire. There are other professions like skinning, cooking, mining and so on.

I am a skinner and a leather worker, so I make money out of making leather items and selling them on the auction house. You see, the whole experience is so real - you go hunting, kill a few animals, skin them, make leather items, and go sell them in the market. There is lot of hard work that goes into making a strong character; you have to level up, make good friends, and join a guild.

WoW has given me loads of online friends, people from all parts of the world. This is one aspect that makes WoW a great game; various people interact and get to know each other. My friends list includes a construction worker from France, a female bank employee from England, and there are a few guys from India as well. WoW is gaining more popularity, and is rapidly growing even to the remote parts of the world. There are many guys who play WoW (never heard of a girl play it here) in India, this was a shocker to me as I thought I was amongst the very few. So it turns out that there are many more, which is awesome! Before I get into that detail, there is one more thing I would like to share.

My character is 39, this is my primary one and I have two other level 25 characters. Therefore, as soon as I reach level 40, I will be able to buy myself a mount, an animal that will be my mode of travel. These mounts are faster and also make a great statement. I will be covering my character and a few more details about Raids and PVPs (both part of an MMORPG experience) in my next article for the same game.

WoW in India

o many people from India play WoW - especially from Chennai and Bangalore. I met a few friends online and took part in a PVP as well. There are also people from places like Delhi, Gujarat, many from Mumbai and also other parts of the country. Most of these guys play from private cafes and share accounts, few play from the comfort of their own homes. There are many WoW-India communities on popular community portals as well. If you are a member of Orkut, and play or like WoW, then you should join the community there as well if you wish. I hope that some big-wig takes notice and decides to bring this beautiful game to India and let the others experience it as well.

After a few weeks, I will be covering Raids and PVPs in the World of Warcraft, I'm sure all the fans would like that.

My biggest beef with the reputation system is quest rep vs limited kill rep & limited repeatable quests:

Some repeatable reputation quests stop at a certain reputation level (like turning unidentified plant parts in at the Cenarion Expedition stops when you reach honored). Likewise, some mobs stop giving kill reputation at certain reputation levels. I can appreciate the need to limit the potential reputation gain from these quests (turning plant parts in all the way to exalted would be too easy), but putting the limit at a certain reputation level has some very annoying side effects. The most obvious is reputation from normal non-repeatable quests effectively being 'wasted'. To make an example, Cenarion Expedition has 10k-12k reputation bound in non-repeatable quests. If a player were to ignore the plant part turn-in quest until they hit 70, they would be 1k-3k into honored, and have to grind ~30k rep in level 70 instances ('hard' to obtain rep compared to plant parts). On the other hand, a player who obtained plant parts before hitting outlands (by alt or by AH) will be able to reach honored before starting on non-repeatable quest rep, and as such would be revered by the time they hit 70 and only be looking at ~20k rep in instances.

IMHO, it would be much better if you simply limited the amount of rep available from a rrq or a mob type, but did not cap it at any specific rep level. That way we would not inadvertantly be shooting our collective feet when doing regular quests for a faction prior to maxing limited rrq's and mob rep.

My other problem with the reputation system is that unfortunately much rep grinding seems to be overly tedious and boringly repetetive. More factions like Tranquilien (if you do *all* ghostlands quests, you are guaranteed exalted) or Kurenai (every humanoid kill in Nagrand gives Kurenai rep untill exalted) would be welcome.

Hunter Itemisation

I have not really levelled my hunter in outlands yet, so I don't know much about hunter itemization. In general though, it seems that all mail rewards are either caster stats or +agi/ap/sta, making pretty much every hunter reward a gree 'of the bandit' item. I guess it wouldn't hurt if more rewards had hunter off-stats like crit, hit, manaregen, especially since 'of the bandit' gear is easily obtainable via the AH for those who want nothing more than agi/ap/sta.