Lost and Found

So I went through ever computer artist's worst nightmare. Both hard drives crashed. At the same time. Go figure. Anyways, my entire portfolio is gone. Unfortunately, I had several blog posts that I simply hadn't put up yet stored on those hard drives, so they're lost for good; save for a few posts on CRIMSON SEAS, which I'll put up later.

In the mean time, here's some game reviews I wrote up!


There seems to be a trend in the video game industry in which more and more games are based off of existing properties. Games such as Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate are based off of the Dungeons and Dragons pen-and-paper role playing game, and others such as the 007 series, the Lord of the Rings series, and Star Wars series are based off of their respective movie titles. As of late, the movie industry has borrowed from the game scene with movies such as Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Doom, Final Fantasy, and Tomb Raider, but with little financial success. Rarely, however, have interactive video games been translated into successful non-digital formats. With Upper Deck Entertainment’s and Blizzard’s new World of Warcraft trading card game, a new change is on the horizon. This refreshing new medium of the massively popular role playing game turned card game successfully demonstrates how a video game can take form in a non-digital medium. The “WoW” card game clearly takes the best of a video game and turns it into a brand new genre of card games.
World of Warcraft is about a character, a digital “you,” that inhabits the world of Azeroth. How could a card game possibly emulate the immense world and character possibilities that an MMO provides? Well, it starts with the character, to be precise. The nine classes that are available for play in the MMO appear in the trading card game (TCG) in both the menacing horde and do-good alliance factions, creating eighteen possible character choices. These characters are represented by character cards, which in turn represent the player himself. Each player fields one character, and the game revolves around that character’s success and downfalls within the card game. Each character is characterized by his race, faction, class, specialization (example: Shadow Priest vs. Holy Priest), profession (tailoring, enchanting, etc.), health points, and special abilities. These are all taken directly from the digital World of Warcraft and truly give its players a sense of inhabiting the same world. Although these characters are not customizable as they are in the digital game, there are multiple variants of each class, race, and faction, which allows for a large number of choices. Within the game, characters can and will equip items, weapons, and armor – all taken directly from the online game – which will allow for more freedom when it comes to character customization. The game revolves entirely around the player’s character, ending when one character successfully kills his opponent’s.
As with most MMORPGs, World of Warcraft focuses strongly on the completion of quests. As such, quests cards create the foundation of play in the TCG. These cards are identified with the all-too-familiar exclamation point and allow the player to do a myriad of things. These cards form the basic points, referred to as “resources” that are exhausted (used) to play ally cards, purchase weapons, and perform special abilities – much like the “energy” cards from Pokémon or “mana” from Magic: the Gathering. These cards also allow the player to complete a quest, which can have multiple outcomes: from drawing a card to resurrecting a fallen comrade. This gives the player incentive to do more than mindless killing, much like the purpose of an in-game quest: a break from the endless grinding current generation MMOs are known for. In the MMO Warcraft, quests generally focus of player versus environment (PVE) aspects and have the player collecting, killing, or otherwise interacting with his environment. In the TCG, this has changed and typically involves a player spending the previously mentioned resources to achieve the quest’s outcome. While the questing system has been dumbed down in the TCG, it never the less incorporates a key factor from the MMO into the new TCG format.
Combat provides the basic foundation of game play for players in World of Warcraft, with the player participating in either player versus player (PVP) or PVE combat. In the TCG’s main phase of play, the “action phase,” players participate in a blend of the two aforementioned modes of combat whilst boosting their ranks, playing ability cards, completing quests, and adding weapons to their hero’s arsenal. Instead of a player fighting against either a fellow player or a vast number of non-player characters, the Warcraft TCG introduces the “ally” card. This style of combat has been seen in TCGs for ages, mimicking Magic: the Gathering’s “summons” and “creatures.” What is new here is how combat takes place and is resolved. As the overall goal of the game is to defeat your opponent’s character, the player will play ally cards to attack his adversary and reduce his health to zero. The opponent will in turn play allies to protect his hero and fight his opponent’s. Combat here begins to take a step away from the traditional TCG and makes a new stride in the genre by quite literally following the online game’s example. Combat is dealt with on a one-on-one basis, and instead of an attacker declaring all his attackers and a defender declaring defenders, the attacker actually declares a target. This simple and what appears to be a miniscule difference from traditional TCGs is what makes World of Warcraft’s so unique. In the online game a player chooses who he attacks, so why not in the TCG? Players can specify if they want their ally to attack the opposing hero or select one of his opponent’s allies. This then allows for certain allies to have special abilities, such as “protector,” which allows an ally to stand in and take damage from the declared defender. This represents in game classes such as paladins and warriors – known as “tanks,” as they often hold aggression (stealing a monster’s attention away from a lesser character) and are able to take the most damage – using their abilities to change the course of combat. Other specials such as “ferocity” and “elusive” allow for interesting twists and strategies to be utilized in the combat phase while borrowing more and more from the online game and making the TCG feel that much more like the MMO. Ability cards complete the action and combat phases by representing specialized attacks and skills that match your hero and his class. This is the primary influence a character card has over the game, as each specialized ability represents a character’s power: whether it be a healing spell or a magic attack. While this combat and action phase may mix a few of the online game’s characteristics, it still stays true to the game’s roots and values. It adds a new face to Warcraft while sticking with the qualities that make Warcraft Warcraft.
While the basic concepts are incredibly similar and allow the TCG player to really feel the MMO’s influence, what really sets this game apart is that extra mile the TCG travels to truly make the game feel like the world of Warcraft. Most every TCG pits players one-on-one: first one out loses. While World of Warcraft is solo friendly, much of the game is group-based. Two of the games major turn-ons are, in fact, its group dungeons and raids. The World of Warcraft TCG has introduced something never-before-seen in the TCG market to cater to these players and make the game even more like the online version: the raid deck. Onyxia’s Lair, the first of the Warcraft TCG’s raid decks, represents the stride this new TCG has already made in the industry. Based on the highly popular end-game raid of the same name, Onyxia’s Lair allows a group of players to join together, as a team, to fight through the dungeon – controlled by another player – and defeat the dragon Onyxia. The amount of detail and the similarities found between the MMO and TCG raids is almost frightening. During one play test (each player having never played the raid deck and only one having played the MMO’s raid) the MMO experienced player was able to give out advice as to strategies and how to go about defeating the dragon; his advice actually helped the team win, as the weaknesses and tiers the raid deck presented matched the MMO’s almost identically. One player even commented on how he felt the same anxiousness and excitement battling the card game’s Onyxia as he did when facing a raid online. Subtle characteristics of the cards further help to make this game feel like the online world, as cards so often directly represent items, characters, and abilities from the online game. During another play test, a player noticed an ability card titled “Wing Clip.” He immediately recognized the ability from the online game, and when combined with the card’s illustration of a Tauren fending off harpies, he actually recalled a point and place where he fought the same harpies using the same ability against his own Tauren hunter. To make the TCG and MMO stay up to date, the TCG will, and has, released new editions of the game. With the recent release of the MMO’s Burning Crusade expansion back, the TCG followed with its own expansion, Dark Portal – bringing the card game up to date and introducing the same two new races to the card game as were introduced to the MMO. These expansions will not only allow for new additions to the TCG, but will allow for the TCG to stay current with the MMO. With the promise of more expansions and new raid decks, the Warcraft TCG will always be right up with World of Warcraft.
Traditionally, one doesn’t see a digital property turned into a non-digital format. Trends are, in fact, usually quite the opposite, or all the different formats appear at once, such as the case with Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon. The folks at Blizzard decided to give it a whirl, and made a game innovative and new while still sticking right with their roots. The amount of detail and the similarities the MMO and TCG share prove that not only is it possible to translate digital media into other forms of entertainment, but it set a new standard as to how well such a translation should appear. The World of Warcraft TCG is the World of Warcraft in the flesh: different medium, yes, but still the same, incredibly successful game.