Combat Dynamics and Grouping

Once you’ve settled into your chosen profession, class and surroundings is when the real fun begins. The biggest draw of WoW would have to be the combat with either players or monsters and the grouping with friends to do so. Depending on the combination of classes and what you’re trying to fight can lead to very unique strategies and tactics. Each of the classes brings a special outlook on any situation to the table and beyond that you also have the talents.

Talents are a system of points that are given out at a rate of one per level starting at level ten that can be spent in one of three different class specific trees of abilities. These abilities coupled with the way different people will play different classes make for a lot of unique characters. With the talent system, almost every group will be different from the next.

That being said, the combat in WoW is very entertaining to say the least. The action is pretty frantic and thoroughly engaging. Each class has a load of skills to choose from and, for the most part, they’re all at least marginally useful in certain situations. The days of hitting a button and waiting are over; it seems the new wave of MMOs has gotten it right. It'd be overkill to suggest that the game is about button-mashing, but the player's fingers are kept quite busy as he times his damage-over-time attacks and watches various meters (rage, combo points or just plain mana). It makes combat much more involving than merely setting the auto-attack key, pressing taunt/backstab every now and then, while scratching your balls in the meantime.

In WoW there are two different types of servers: PvE and PvP. PvE stands for Player versus Environment in which a large portion of the game is dependant upon fighting the computer controlled opponents with the ability to fight other players if desired. In a PvE server the player chooses when he or she wants to fight someone else by turning on what is known as a PvP flag. Within the game mechanics, it’s possible to allow yourself to be attacked by members of the opposite faction by turning on your flag. Once activated, the flag lasts for five minutes from when you turned it on or your last aggressive action against another player. There are other ways to activate the flag such as attacking flagged npcs or attacking another character that has their flag on. This welcome design makes most play relatively safe from sneak attack by members of the opposing faction.

Then there’s the PvP server. PvP stands for Player versus Player and, as you can imagine, this means that anything goes. These servers add an extra element to the gameplay overall. Not only do you have to fear getting killed by wandering monsters but also by random players that may happen by to stick a sword where you don’t want it. Both types of servers offer a different experience and challenge, and both are fun, so it really comes down to a preference. PvP servers are obviously much friendlier to those players with guilds to protect them, retaliate or simply assist on quests.

Now, no matter what server you’re on you’ll have the many different quests and areas to explore and conquer. Some of the more entertaining places to visit in the game are the instanced dungeons. The levels range quite a bit per instance, but they’re mostly geared more for higher level characters and always have some interesting loot and bosses to fight. Instances are packed to the brim with elite monsters and bosses that will make even the most kill happy players take a step back. There is much killing to be done.

While the game is extremely addictive and fun, there are a few little problems here and there. One of the most immediate things that come to mind is the overpopulation of some servers and the neglect of others. Now, it’s completely unrealistic to try to restrict players from joining their friends on certain servers and what have you, but it’s also unrealistic to expect one server to handle the load of two. It just doesn’t work well. The cities start to bog down noticeably and then there are the infamous login queues, whereby a player is required to wait his turn in a line to actually get into a server and play the game.


Another little problem that has popped up repeatedly is character balance. As always, this is constantly in flux and while all character classes are adept, their relative value in a group (such as warrior vs. paladin) can change with patches, new equipment. This can have gameplay consequences for players, who may have a more difficult time finding groups if their class is currently hurting.

One final issue presents itself: the cities of Ironforge and Orgrimmar are amazingly laggy to almost everyone. There are a few reasons for this but the most prominent is the fact that they house the auction houses. If a city hosts the auction house it is automatically going to attract more players because of the extended trade. This coupled with the fact that they’re also the hub for many quests and training makes for a slideshow experience not just frustrating, but frequent.