Review by Tim Adamec
Touted as a book of “Insights into the World of Warcraft“, The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction is more of a class guide and compendium of essays about the different aspects of Blizzard Entertainment’s smash hit game. Players and non-playing family and friends will likely find something of interest in this book.
The book is split into two parts titled “The Game” and “World of Warcraft Classes”. Part one contains essays written by a diverse group of people ranging from Science Fiction authors, to video game producers and Psychiatrists with topics ranging from a brief history of role-playing games and how their evolution progressed to WoW (“Ancestors and Competitors”), to social and economic exploration topics (“LFG… And A Little More” and “The Economy of World of Warcraft“), and on to psychological topics for players and non-players alike (“Should we Sell World of Warcraft by Prescription Only?” and “Advice to the WoWlorn”).
Part two contains a simple class guide for each of the playable classes. Each guide contains information about the strengths and weaknesses of each of the classes, types of armor and weapons that may be used and other useful information. After a brief description, several pages are devoted to notable literary or historical examples that could be real-world representations of that particular class. Each chapter finishes up with a summary of key points for playing the class in the game.
Those who have no interest in playing an on-line game like World of Warcraft should probably skip this book; the chapters on mapping and history of RPGs would likely be the only interesting sections. Family and friends will likely get the most out of the essays relating to the social and psychological topics, with the “Advice to the WoWlorn” chapter being of particular interest to game widows and widowers.
Some of the essays can be a bit tedious or preachy and an author or two inserts far too many parenthetical inclusions for my taste (and telling side stories, pointing out something possibly obvious or otherwise distracting from the topic at hand).
The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction is an entertaining read for fans of MMORP games and those looking for insights into the draw of the genre.
The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction, by Bill Fawcett (editor)
Published by: BenBella Books (July 2006)
ISBN: 1932100849
Genre: Gaming, Pop Culture
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