The gameplay in and onto itself is very elegant once a person can get past some of the confusing elements of it. Though confusing to the newcomers of World of Warcraft, once a player can see past these nuances of confusion, it almost seems as though this slight blunders are a must. Just like in Microsoft operating system, there is elegance that is derived from a sometimes-hindering system, as opposed to the too overly simplified Macintosh, which may detach hardcore users. World of Warcraft tries to balance elegance, but at the same time allow many options for the player to adequately use. It is very straightforward and logical. All that a person needs to do, if he or she is lost in a game is talk to the players around them, and most will be more than willing to help. Though I have heard that those on the Horde side are mature and more willing to help a person out on a stranded quest then those stuck on Alliance side.
Though the elegance of this gameplay will now flow into the multiplayer aspect, because since this is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, it has hard to keep both the gameplay aspect, and the multiplayer component separate in two distinct areas.
Multiplayer: 8/10
Now let me not deter you from the game, just because I gave the aspect that is central to this game a deduction of two points from perfect, because it is not perfect, but it is awesome enough to maintain such a high enough level that it lives as possibly the only classic massive multiplayer online role-playing game to have ever graced the gaming world. I guess since most of my critique on the multiplayer aspect will cover its positive traits rather than its negative ones though, I will start with the more detrimental ones and culminate into the much more appreciative aspects of this game.
The first thing that comes to people's mind when they hear about massive multiplayer online role-playing games is the price of the game and is it worth it. Now this is opinioned based, but if you plan to hang onto this game for years, expect not to have many dimes in the wallet to spend money on other games that might pique your interest. Not only is a person required to pay for a registered copy of the game, but a player must also pay monthly fairs ranging from $13 to $15 (depending on what pay plan a person chooses) per month in order to continue to play. Now if you believe that this game will be the game you plan on planning for several months and could care less about playing other games that enter the market, then this might be okay. The fact that this game does not require much hardware demand, that it is fairly stable, and that it is constantly being updated may be perfect. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the monthly fair justifies the means of gameplay content. The only thing that is truly noticeable in the game is that it is usually update several times throughout the year. Though that is all that occurs. That the servers are kept open, and that patches are added to the gameplay. There is no new game content, and if a player wishes to have access to the additional outlands, he or she must pay more money for the expansion pack. Now I understand that a living and breathing game must be paid continuously to keep it alive, I do not believe that the price justifies what is being delivered, and had this game had a monthly fair of about $6-$7 per month, it would be well worth it. Let us face up to this fact, with all the money combined, it costs about $200 per year to run this game. And that $200 could be going somewhere else for other gameplay content out there, but if this game were less than $100 a year, and even better, only about $50, then I believe that my marginal utility would definitely be worthwhile in this game.
Now besides the obvious moral dilemma of whether the price justifies the game itself, there is also the constant updates and server downtimes that plague the system. When I was playing this game with my friends on their computers and on my own computer with the ten-day trial, my multiplayer experience was limited at least three times thanks to the numerous amount of server downtimes. When I play a game, I want it to be reliable, and I do not want to have constant server downtimes. Now I can understand a server downtime happening once per month or even once every fortnight, but when I have to deal with server downtimes that occur three times in a ten-period and with the fact that when the servers go down, they are down for six hours or more at a time, then I am truly missing out on my multiplayer experience. I am thankful at least though, that the Blizzard team informs players of when the servers are going to be down, but when they do go offline, I feel that it is really kick in the multiplayer experience. When a game claims to be multiplayer, it is the necessity of the game creators to make sure that there are as little flaws in the programming to make sure that players are not distraught by the experience due to pauses in multiplayer access thanks to glitches or buggy programming or servers.
