Game Evaluation

1. Game Evaluation World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade CIS 487Alex Zammitt

2. Basic Information • Game Title: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade • Company: Blizzard Entertainment • Genre: Massively-multiplayer role playing game • Price: $29.99 • Requires Original World of Warcraft: $19.99 • Monthly Subscription Options • $14.99 – One Month Recurring • $41.97 – Three Months Recurring ($13.99 per month) • $77.94 – Six Months Recurring ($12.99 per month)

3. System Requirements • System Requirements for PC • OS: Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4) or Windows XP (Service Pack 2) • Processor: Intel Pentium3 800MHz or AMD Athlon 800MHz • Memory: • Minimum: 512 MB RAM • Recommended: 1GB RAM • Video: • Minimum: 32MB 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as an NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or above • Recommended: 64MB VRAM 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability, such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 class card or above • Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card

4. System Requirements • System Requirements for Mac • OS: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer • Processor: • Minimum: 933MHz G4/G5 • Recommended: 1.8GHz G5/Intel • Memory: • Minimum: 512MB RAM • Recommended: 1GB DDR RAM • Video: • Minimum: NVIDIA or ATI graphics processor with 32MB VRAM • Recommended: 64MB VRAM

5. Installation • Original World of Warcraft must be installed first and fully updated • 5 CDs • Many updates need to be downloaded • Burning Crusade • 4 CDs • A few patch upgrades need to be download • May take a few hours

6. Expansion Feature Overview • New Zones • New Races • New Dungeons • Level cap increased to 70 • New arena-based Player vs. Player Ladder System • 3 New Cities • Flying Mounts • New profession: Jewel crafting • Socket items

7. Artwork of New Races Draenei Blood Elf

8. New Zone – The Outland

9. Player vs. Player Arena • Arena sizes: 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3, 5 vs. 5 • Win games to improve your team’s rating • Points are awarded each week based on your team’s rating • Turn in points for powerful weapons and armor

10. New Dungeons and Raids • Many new 5-man dungeons to explore • “Heroic Mode” dungeons • Dungeons originally designed for lower levels are retuned for players at the level cap. • Features harder encounters and upgraded loot. • Raid size reduced from 40 to 25 in the expansion • New high level armor sets found with in raid dungeons

11. Story Line • "The Burning Crusade" refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life throughout the universe. • To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in our War of the Ancients novel trilogy. • As part of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, players are able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields. (From www.worldofwarcraft.com)

12. Player’s Role • Quest your way to level 70 • Use professions to aid your characters success • Improve characters weapons and armor • In a party there are 3 basic roles • Tank: His job is to protect other party members by making the creatures attack him • Healers: His job is to keep the party alive • Damage dealers: Kill things as quickly as possible

13. Manual • The Burning Crusade’s manual is only 20 pages long • Majority of game play is learned through in game tutorials and hints

14. Sound and Music • Each zone has its own music • Realistic background noises • Many “Bosses” have their own voiceovers that are triggered throughout a fight

15. User Interface Overview • Simple • Easy to find important information • Fully customizable • Blizzard supports and encourages players to develop custom “add-ons” to help game play and to customize their own interface.

16. User Interface

17. Customized User Interface

18. Game Review • What’s fun about the expansion? • 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 Arena’s • Many new challenging raid encounters • Being able to fly makes for easier travel • Same feeling as the original but with lots of new content to explore • What’s bad about the expansion? • A complete fresh start, anything accomplished before the expansion doesn’t really matter. (This could be a good thing for some players) • A lot of the graphics are reused from the original World of Warcraft • Appropriate Audience • The Burning Crusade is rated T for Teen • 13 years +

19. Game Review (continued) • How does this game compare to other games in the same genre? • Focus on interacting with other “live” players • Similar leveling system found in many online role-playing games • Similar features of other online games (Quests, experience, leveling, killing monsters for experience, magic) • Design mistakes and bugs • There are bugs and mistakes found within the game • But the game is constantly improving, many of the bugs are fixed with patches shortly after they are reported

20. Game Play Screen Shot

21. Screen Shots (Continued)

22. Screen Shots (Continued)

23. Summary • Pros • Lots of new content to explore • Flying Mounts • New PvP features (Arena system) • Cons • Reuse of old graphics for creatures and armor • Flying mounts only usable in the new zones • Is the game worth purchasing? • Yes! Many hours/days/months of game play • How could the game be improved? • In my opinion, the game is overall very solid • Fixing the little bugs that exist and creating new content is the best way the developers can improve the game.

24. The End • Any questions?