Okay, so having discovered that Gilneans get a tree on a tree so they can ... uh ... piddle on a tree? Filled me with rage. That said, I took my Worgen to Stormwind and quit in a huff. (I'll be back soon, though, the RP as a Worgen is quite interesting.)
That said, I rolled out my hunter again and started poking around in Vashj'ir. It's ... interesting. I am, more and more, seeing elements in World of Warcraft that seem ripped from Aion directly. Oh, Aion, how I loved/hated you.
First off, there are cutscenes just about everywhere, for everything. That was one of the huge selling points for Aion, and although these aren't voiced, and World of Warcraft lacks the super-sharp awesome models Aion offered, it was jarring to me to say the least the first couple of times I got thrown into one, and left me with a distinct feeling of Deja'vu.
But then I get to Vashj'ir. Oh, Vashj'ir. How I love/hate you, as well.
This whole 'three dimensional world' thing is interesting. We'll go with "interesting." On the one hand, it's fascinating to see a billion dots on my minimap - being a hunter - yet no enemies ... until I look up. It's interesting and neat that we're seeing terrain built around that whole Z Axis thing.
However.
Little things about this frustrate me. For instance, without any frame of reference, my depth perception goes into such disarray that I often have problems telling if a monster, box, or NPC is even in front of or behind me, unless at extreme distance. Not realizing that a certain number of boxes - which I needed to find, in order to progress through the zone - were not on the ocean floor, but instead floating about in the water wasted easily fifteen to twenty minutes of my time, and then locating those boxes wasted even more. Hello, three dimensional environment. I sure did miss Aether Gathering a lot.
Wait, no I didn't.
The only good side of this is that there's no such thing as a flight timer / breath timer in Vashj'ir - more on that later - and that 'good thing' is offset by the fact that mobs are floating around in the 'air' along with you. Ambush from above, anyone? The groundbound existence every World of Warcraft player has gotten used to has also handily trained most everyone not to look up - a habit that, you know, players being human, we have already well-ingrained.
In regards to the breath timer thing: It ... hurts my immersion, somewhat, to be just floating around at the bottom of the sea, with only some magical spell attached to me, allowing me to breathe and talk underwater (without being crushed by pressure). Moreover, other people being able to talk underwater - and me understand them - well ... it just hurts me a bit.
That being said, all in all Vashj'ir isn't really unenjoyable, I just have some gripes about the more annoying parts of three-dimensionality and unrestrained movement, as well as Blizzard's handwaving your survival 20,000 leagues under the sea. Or, however many anyway.
Oh, also, the Whale Shark is kind of intimidating.
As is this massive shellfish, which is also kind of a zone. All to itself. Imagine if it just suddenly started attacking people ....
No comments:
Post a Comment