World of Warcraft | 
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| From: Blizzard Entertainment
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $2.47
You Save: $17.52 (88%)
New (72) Used (134) Collectible (2) from $2.47
Rating:  867 reviews
Sales Rank: 24
Platforms: Mac, Windows XP, Mac OS X, Windows
Genre: online_massively_multiplayer_games
ESRB: Teen
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Full Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Region: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.5
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 72212
UPC: 020626722124
EAN: 0020626722124
ASIN: B000067FDW
Release Date: November 23, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | This game requires a monthly fee, and an internet connection to play | | • | Create and customize your own hero from the unique races and classes of the Warcraft universe | | • | Explore an expansive world with miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and other exotic lands | | • | Visit huge cities and delve through dozens of vast dungeons | | • | Adventure together with thousands of other players in an enormous, persistent game world |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Vivendi (72212) World of Warcraft PC
From Amazon.com
World of Warcraft didn't invent the online role-playing genre, but it certainly benefits from the missteps of other titles that have come before. A mind-boggling array of improvements in graphics, gameplay, networking, and interface--really every category--makes this game the crown prince of the genre, a great starting place for newbies, and a challenge to any other MMORPG currently in the works.  | | The game's beautifully rendered locations are filled with small details, such as flying birds and flowing water. | A History of Conflict
WoW takes place just four years after the real-time strategy Warcraft series, which chronicles a 25 year struggle between the Alliance (humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves) and the Horde (orcs, tauren, trolls, and undead). Even though there's tons of accumulated story to the series, new players should not be daunted. The background is there for you to explore, but you don't have to tread a lot of Azeroth history to get into the action.
The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature.
| The game looks magnificent. There's plenty of detail and variety to the landscapes and interiors, and the artwork has a refreshingly playful style. There's not a lot of variety in the character creation process, but with all the skills and proficiencies to combine in the game, WoW focuses its customization not on the appearance of your character but rather on the character of your character. The game lets you adopt any two trade skills, regardless of character race or class, and combine those skills in useful ways. If you choose skinning and leatherworking, for example, you can fashion bags from the carcasses of monsters you defeat, which will allow you to carry even more inventory items. Expanded Commerce
You can sell the items you make, find, and loot through a variety of outlets. Like any role-playing game, WoW has merchants who will buy your cast-off items for fixed prices, but you can also sell to other players at your own price through in-game chat or by leaving it with one of the auction houses located across the map. This virtual free market is a game within the game, like Monopoly somehow inserted into the middle of Chess. Heck, you can even send items C.O.D. to other players via the game's mail system.  | | The game's Quest Log keeps track of up to 20 quests at a time. | In other online role-playing games, starting players have to invest dozens of hours whacking at small prey and doing other odd jobs one at a time to gradually "level up" to more interesting challenges. WoW lets players accept a variety of quests--up to 20 at a time without penalty for abandoning any of them before they're complete. The makers boast 2,000 existing quests with more being added, many of them noncombat in nature. Where some games only grant experience through battle, WoW grants experience for exploring and fulfilling quests too. A Level Playing Field
There's also a built-in handicap for casual players where your character enters a rest state when you log off from the game. The longer you're logged off (up to a week), the bigger the experience bonus you'll get when you return to battle. An enemy tagging feature--the player who lands the first attack on an enemy claims the loot for himself or his party--prevents onlookers from swooping in and pilfering items from a monster that you brought down. That resolves a common complaint of other titles.  | | Icons and pop-ups help put complex controls easily within reach. | Most games severely penalize players when they die in-game, usually by shaving experience points, funds, or both. In WoW, death just relocates your ghost to the nearest graveyard, and the only penalty is the time it takes you to get back to resurrect your character's corpse. All of this makes for a very complicated game, but the well-designed interface puts all the game's elements into icons either visible framing the action or within a simple keystroke. The enemy's artificial intelligence is quite strong too: Monsters will join nearby fights to aid their comrades, switch targets strategically midbattle, and ambush players. The map system fills in details on places you've visited, so you always know where you are and where you've been. Overall, World of Warcraft is a game that's easy to learn, challenging to master, beautiful to watch, and tons of fun to play. --Porter B. Hall
| System Requirements | | Minimum | Recommended | | Operating System | PC: Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Vista (with latest Service Packs)
Mac: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer | | CPU | PC: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlong XP 1500+
Mac: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor | PC: Dual-core processor, such as Intel Pentium D or AmD Athlong 64 X2
Mac: Intel 1.8 GHz processor or better | | Graphics Hardware | PC: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transfor and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce2 class card or better
Mac: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better | PC: 3D Graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capabilities with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better
Mac: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better. | | Memory | PC: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista)
Mac: 1 GB | PC: 1 GB (2 GB for Vista)
Mac: 2 GB | | Hard Drive Space | 15 GB of free space | | All Platform Requirements | Keyboard and mouse, required for controls. Other input devices not supported. Active broadband Internet connection required to play. |
Amazon.com Product Description
For the first time, players can experience the lands of WarCraft's Azeroth from a new, in-depth perspective. As heroes, they explore familiar battlefields, discover new lands, and take on epic quests and challenges in Blizzard's massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Blizzard has taken care to make the game accessible and fun both for hard-core 60-hour-a-week players and for more casual adventurers.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 867
 DADRN YOU BLIZZARD! July 17, 2010
John McAdam (Houston, Texas USA)
Sucked my life away! I was a druid tauren and I played 163 days worth of hours (to find out how much you have, in the chat bar type in /played )
Easily the most addictive game. There is just so much to do. There is just such a large vista to travel. I can't play this game because if I do then I will get sucked into it again. It's like a vacuum cleaner...don't put your hand on the nozzle or you get your hand sucked in!
too much to say about this game...really!!
5/5
John McAdam: Author of "Were Ancient Gods From Other Planets?"
$15 per month is CHEAP!!! June 23, 2010
Timothy C. Curry (GRANGER, IN, US)
Considering the amount of entertainment, potential social connectivity, personal enjoyment, etc. you can obtain from overcoming the initial learning curve... this game is a great value. I have been playing since December 2007 and recently took 9 months off since I had been playing pretty hard-core since I started.
I have recently begun playing again and even bought an entire new set of the original game and expansions and have 2 accounts now. I use one for a new horde guild I started since I already have 10 lvl 80's on my other account. I now pay $30 a month to maintain both accounts, and guess what? It's still worth it!
Please stop and read the box before you buy it... There is clear labeling of required monthly fees to play this game.
Like many other reviewers have already stated, the game has become increasingly accessible for even the most casual player. Blizzard has accomodated both hard-core and casual gamers in recent patches with additional content like never before.
Only buy this game if you:
~~ Like goal oriented progression of your avatar/character.
~~ DO NOT mind paying a samll monthly fee, which by the way works out to be about 50
cents per day for several hours of entertainment.
~~ Enjoy playing with OTHER people online. Socially awkward people may have
trouble enjoying this game since working WITH other players is an important
aspect of gameplay. However, for some individuals that aspect may help you to
make new friends.
There are several other reasons to own this game or avoid it for that matter. It is really up to what you are looking for in a game.
Good luck and enjoy!
 Nerds take me to your leader!!! June 17, 2010
Vanessa L. Nixon (Canada)
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
The only game where there is therapy for people that are addicted to this. I heard some people play up to 19 hours a day? WOW indeed.
Old reviews need not apply May 19, 2010
Dustin T. Mitchell (USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
After reading a lot of the bad reviews for this game, I see that a lot of complaints are about things that are not even true anymore. Then I look at the date of the post, and see that it's a very old post, and back when they posted it, it was before they changed that problem!
This is like complaining about legitimate problems with Windows 95; something nobody uses anymore.
I know that no game is perfect, but a lot of these complaints literally no longer apply, yet their bad rating is affecting the overall rating!
Even my review will be outdated as more customer complaints are fixed.
So, to counteract some of these low star ratings that don't apply to the game anymore, I figured I would post some of the features you currently get with game, including some fixed complaints.
It's worth mentioning that my review is not comprehensive, it's mostly in response to some outdated bad reviews. (From reviewers who likely agree with me if they still play.)
It's also worth mentioning that some (only some) of the stuff I'm talking about is `max level' stuff requiring some additional expansions.
"Leveling in this game is really slow and long!"
At the time of my review, the max level is 80 (and the next expansion is announced, making it 85 soon). And yes, it does take a lot of time to go from 1 to 80. But leveling is much faster now. You can go from 1 to 80 in about the same time it used to take to go from 1 to 60.
Combine this with the fact that hitting a new level is a fun aspect of the game (giving you access to new powers and abilities), this makes leveling a lot more fun than before because you can see your character getting stronger at a faster rate, and that's enjoyable.
Examples of what makes the game faster for leveling:
- Less experience required to go from 20 to 70.
- More experience gained from doing quests from 30 to 70.
- Mounts at an earlier level. (Faster travel sooner in the game; plus mounts are fun.)
- Experience can be gained in battlegrounds. This makes it less of a grind because you have more options if you get bored with quests.
- Leveling a second character up (on the same server and faction) is much easier because of heirloom items: Items that scale with your level and make you noticeably more powerful.
- The Dungeon Finder tool (explained a bit more below) makes another avenue of leveling (doing 5-person dungeons) more common. This also decreases the feel of a grind, if you get bored with quests.
"When you get to level 60 [or whatever the max level currently is], the casual player has nothing to do!"
This game has been improved in many ways to make a max level casual player still have fun:
- Battlegrounds cause you to earn honor points, and these points are spend like money to earn items. It used to be that you got a rank, and you had to grind like crazy just to MAINTAIN a higher rank. Now there is no penalty for not playing, or taking a break. You just accrue points slower (because you get none while you don't play), and thus you get gear slower than a hardcore player. In other words: It scales with your playtime, as it should!
- Every casual player can obtain level 80 epic gear for every slot their character has, even without PvP. It takes a bit longer than hardcore players, and it's not the best of the best (something casual players are usually cool with). Back when this game was released, only hardcore players had epics, and now even casual players can get a character who has lots of epics. This is because doing 5-man dungeons earns you emblems when you kill bosses, and these emblems can be spent like money for really good gear. The emblems are something everyone gets too, so even if the boss doesn't drop a cool item for you directly, you still benefit from the kill, every time.
- There are easier versions of raids now. There are `heroic' versions and `normal' versions, as well as 10-man raids and 25-man raids (4 different kinds total for the same bosses). The 10-man version on `normal' is easy enough that the words `casual raiders' actually applies to the game now.
"People kill you a lot on PvP servers!"
People who try to legitimately use this complaint, legitimately shouldn't be playing on a PvP server. I agree that this is annoying and makes the game less fun, when I tried it. But I mostly play on a PvE server, where this doesn't happen, causing the complaint to vanish.
There is no benefit to PvP servers other than the fact that you get to be a mean high level player too, if you want to.
"Guilds require you to put in time like this is a job, and many guild leaders are mean, etc."
This is a specific problem, not an issue with the game itself. I'm in a casual guild, and they don't force me to raid. They're my friends.
I will say this: Because of the idea of easier raids, etc (mentioned above), it is easier for guilds to be more casual about things. So `casual guilds' seem a bit easier to come by these days. And smaller guilds can still do 10-mans.
"Battleground queues are 60 minutes long!"
They're usually 15 minutes for me. It got a lot faster when they made it so that you queue with other people from your entire battlegroup (multiple servers together), and thus it became easier to fill the slots and get all the required people.
"It's hard to find a group for a 5-person dungeon. I keep asking people, but everyone is busy."
Now you can join a Dungeon Finder queue (again with other people in your battlegroup) and it finds 3 DPS, 1 tank, and 1 healer FOR you. Then it teleports you right to the dungeon!
DPS wait about 15 minutes, healers about 2 minutes, and tanks find a group in seconds while waiting in the queue. And you don't have to do anything other than sign up, and click that you're ready when the group is found.
There is an additional benefit: You don't have to be the max level to use this Dungeon Finder tool. You can start using it at level 15. Because the queues are not super long (and you can quest while you wait!), this tool has essentially revived doing 5-mans at lower levels! (You can also level as a tank or healer now if you want; it's not faster than questing, but it's much faster than it used to be before this tool.)
This Dungeon Finder tool is quite possibly the best addition to the game Blizzard has ever done.
"PUGs are notorious for being failures, and having people steal gear."
Most of these cross-server PUGs (Pick Up Groups) actually go well if you're geared well, because it puts you in groups with similar gear to you. (So it's harder when you first hit 80, and your gear isn't good yet, but that's temporary.)
And again, most people are there for emblems (which everyone gets) and the loot is vender trash. Even if someone `ninjas' it, it's not a huge deal, and most people don't because it's not nearly worth ruining their name over. Also, certain items can only be `need rolled' by certain classes.
Over half of my PUGs are cake-walks, and most of the rest are relatively easy. Bad PUGs are the rare thing now, not good PUGs.
"I shouldn't have to rely on websites like wowhead.com and thottbot.com to figure out quests!"
First off, there is a really good add-on that makes most quests (that don't have some trick to them) easy. It's called Quest Helper, and it shows you where quest objectives are.
Second, I think based on the popularity of that add-on, Blizzard added destination markers for a lot of quests. You see them on your map. This helps tremendously.
Some of the harder quests still require explanation from websites, but tricky things in video games often do. That's why Zelda games have strategy guides, after all. And the WoW sites in question are free, and have good search tools.
"Most classes are shoe-horned into specific roles. Warriors are the only raid tanks, and most people ONLY let them tank."
Not true any more, though some hardcore raiders who like to min/max and overanalyze everything will disagree on some specific cases. But a Priest and be a Shadow Priest and never heal if they don't want to. A Warrior is not forced to tank in raids, neither are they the only tanking class. (There are 4 different classes that can tank at the raid level.)
Combine this with the dual-talent specialization, which can be purchased at level 40 or higher for 1000 gold. It allows you to have two different specs and you can change between them in seconds (out of combat).
Combine this with the fact that there is no `healing spellpower' in the game anymore (or at least not on the level 80 items, and I think some talents contradict this). All `spellpower' on gear effects healing and damage. This means a Priest's (for example) healing set is almost the same as their damage set. If they raid as a healer, that same exact gear is good enough for getting emblems as a DPS in 5-mans, they just need to change specs.
"Blizzard doesn't listen to customer complaints!"
Then why have they implemented all these changes ;)
Final note: I give the game 5 of 5 stars due to rounding. No game is perfect.
 Just a Box May 18, 2010
Christopher R. James (US MA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thought I was buying a used CD with the files so I could at least install the files. When it came in the mail there was no CD just a box and the manuals in side it. It could have been on my part when ordering because I might have missed where it said that there was no CD included but just in case anyone is ordering this please understand that it is only a box and manual.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 867
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