Customer Reviews

World of WarCraft Atlas (Bradygames Official Strategy Guide)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was hoping to get a pure atlas revision of brady's strategy guide. (ie no class or armor information)

What I got instead was
blown-up pictures with only npc's listed, no quests.
30 Pages of NPC by alphabetical order.
2 pages of flight paths, that don't have them all listed.
It's perfect bound, not spiral, so its hard to keep open an flat.

It's not a bad book, but I would save my money for a revised brady strat guide

Although I didn't buy this from Amazon, I still wanted to state my feelings for this book. And I feel cheated. I was expecting highly detailed maps, showing spawn areas, NPCs, etc. I would have also expected a series of maps for dungeons/instances. Instead, I've got a book of maps that, like others have said, are nothing more than blown-up versions of the maps from in-game. And there are some major errors; from mislabeled flight routes for the Alliance, to NO DUNGEON MAPS!! My advice for others looking to buy this. DON'T!!

Like other reviewers here, I expected a lot more from this book.

The front half is just blown up maps from the game with grid overlays on and the locations of vendors and griff points. (I should note it's accurate only up to patch 1.7 - it still has the old Silithus map, not the new one).

The second half is basically hand-drawn maps of the towns, which are fairly nice. However, there are no maps of instances in here (which I fully expected).

At the back are lists of minerals, skins, and other stuff. Some of this is useful - the list of Rare Mobs is particularly interesting - but it's nowhere near enough to make getting this book worthwhile. I'm feeling like I rather wasted my money on this one, even if I did get it cheaper than the listed price.

First of all, this is a lovely piece of bookcraft -- a well-made, well-bound, solid book with full color pages, well-typeset, and easy to read. That's enough for a star all by itself in my eyes.

Second, it's a great reference for many kinds of Warcraft information. It holds great resources on production and gathering craft levels (one of the only places that explains what gathering level you need for each type of gathered item -- did you know you need Herbalism level 125 to harvest Purple Lotus?).

Of course (being an atlas) it has maps. Maps of every zone and capital city, as well as smaller (half-page) maps of each minor town. Every map has a listing of vendors and trainers included. This is valuable to me because I'm always walking into the capital city needing to know where the enchanting supplies vendor or the war effort recruiter or the weapons trainer is. These maps have it all provided. It has all flight paths shown on a large continent map, also.

The biggest value is an index of all mobs by name (great for when you have a quest to kill so many rothide gnolls or bristleback quillboars and need to know where to find them). The mobs are listed alphabetically with level range, location description, page number in the atlas, and a grid location on the map. It also has a complete list of rare (silver dragon) mobs by zone, listed with rarity, level, and locations.

... which leads me to my only complaint, which is that the grid locations are (in my suspicion) Brady's attempt to remove a level of precision from the atlas. Instead of game coordinates (such as those used by the Titan or Kronos addons, which are much more accurate), it has its own crude grid system. This will get you in the right neighboorhood, but not "knocking on the right door," so to speak. That's my only criticism.

I would strongly recommend this as a supplementary resource for any serious WoW gamer -- I find myself using it daily, which is more than I can say for the other WoW game guide out there. An informative and aesthetically strong book!

This atlas is exactly what it claims to be - a book of game maps and charts telling approximately where most everything is. Brady did mess up the colors of the flight paths, but anyone who's got even one flight path can figure that out in 5 seconds or less. The book was published in December 2005 and game content including new flight paths and auction houses has been added since then, so they won't show up in the atlas. This is not the fault of Brady.

The atlas does not include contents information typically gleaned from Cosmos or Titan such as XY coordinate locations because add-ons are optional (and often illegal) and the book must cater to people who use no add-ons whatsoever. In that way, the atlas might seem vague or annoying to some, but I have had no difficulty whatsoever in coordinating between the index of mobs in the back and the gridded maps that make up the bulk of the book.

The maps of towns showing where each NPC is located along with their names and job descriptions, and the charts of node location by zone are what really make this atlas shine. This is an excellent reference that will not disappoint anyone who remembers that books don't get patches and that add-ons are just that: add-ons. It's so useful that someone stole mine and now I'm buying another to replace it.

Sigh. What a rip-off. World Maps are just copies of the completed in-game WoW maps with little or no additional information on them. Town maps are hand-drawn and sorta nice, but since towns in WoW are very small, they are also pretty useless. In fact the maps and info in the original guide are far, far superior to this, so buy that guide instead. And the final insult, my hard-bound copy of this guide was bound upside down.

I'm a nr. 1 Warcraft fan and I know what people expect when they see a book with the title Warcraft Atlas. This book isn't it.

Turn open the first page and you already bounce against a mistake. The colors used to define the difference between Horde and Alliance maps are switched :-s

The feeling the book gives you is that it has been put toghether in a haste. Use the hype of the Warcraft game to easily sell the worthless book.

The way professions are handled is incomplete. There is a nice grid that shows in witch area you can find certain herbs, but they forget to do it for clothing. For that profession, the location of Moonwells are even important (Mooncloth), but even that is completely neglected.

Half the book is filled with cheap copy/paste maps from in-game, without any fancy restyling. A cheap grid layout on top of it and that's it.

Same for the major cities. Just the smaller area's like Goldshire and so on are designed in a nice style. A style which should be used for all maps.

It's worthless. I can't see in any way how you would use it in a practical way. The information is easier and faster to find using thottbot or other popular warcraft community sites.

My advise : save your money and don't buy it. Rather go buy and read the War of the Ancient Triology by the hand of Richard A Knaak.

This is an incredible atlas! I use it constantly, to locate my quest recipients, find answers for online buddies, and to help local family members and friends in the game. Although the regional maps do not have absolutely every detail labeled, and the large cities do not have individual shops specifically identified, the atlas has so many other benefits, this is insignificant. The region maps do have names of places printed on them, as you would see them after exploring in the game, and as if your mouse were hovering over every named location. A directory beside each region map tells you where flight masters and a few key vendors are, using a grid system to get you close to the target. There is a world map in the front of the book with all regions and instances labeled for quick reference, and all flight and boat paths drawn in, in color to show whether each is for horde or alliance. There is a huge section of smaller town maps that don't exist in the game itself, showing each little town in detail with a directory beside it showing you exactly where each vendor or key person is. Next, there are many, many pages of alphabetical listings of almost every character you will ever need to find in WOW, whether it is a quest giver, specialty vendor, or named creature--so when you have no idea where to turn, just look up the character in the index, and you will be told a brief description of that character, which major region and town map they are associated with, including page numbers, and a specific grid location for them on the region map, so you can even choose the closest flight point to get there. Next is a bunch of tables to help you easily locate: Weapons Trainers, Mount Trainers, Innkeepers, Flight Masters, Class Trainers, Profession Trainers, Skill Trainers. After that is a section of resource charts, showing which regions have specific minerals, herbs, and skinning types, and which animals drop the type you need. Finally, there are pages with Rare Mobs named, described, and listed by region, so you can seek out the wandering, Elite, named monsters to get that special treasure, and a chart listing all the specialty vendors and where to locate them. This Atlas was published prior to the Burning Crusade expansion, so at the time I am writing, it does not include any of the new lands, resources, or characters. This is such an amazing book, I recommend it to all my friends who play, and I would gladly pay twice the price to own it.

As an adult gamer who just enjoys playing WoW, I would say that this is simply the best gaming tool for WoW--period. As mentioned in some of the other reviews, it is not meant to be like the Brady guides, and frankly--I prefer it. It doesn't have quest hints, or dungeon layouts, or walkthroughs. It doesn't make suggestions on who to have in your party for a given instance. It's not supposed to. It has maps of every region and every city. It has an index that refers to all quest creatures and people that makes it worth it's weight in gold!

It does have a color code issue on one page with flight paths--but it's an obvious red/blue thing that's easy to interpret properly. The indexes are great and they help you find the zone for the person or creature(s) you're looking for without giving away the quest. I really like this tool and frankly, find it better than the Brady guide because it has an excellent index, and it doesn't give away the answers--it just helps you know where to go. Given the size of the WoW world, it's particularly helpful to be able to find exactly the kind of spiders (kobolds, wolves, thieves, dragon, NPC, raw material, professional trainer, or whatever) that you're looking for by just checking the index. Then you can go straight there--instead of wading through a mass of guys in an area of the Wetlands that you don't need until phase 2 or 3 of the quest you're on.

I highly rate this Atlas as the best 'non-cheat' tool for WoW.

While the printing is acceptable and the binder seems sturdy enough, the maps feel hastily done like they were just screen shots from the game and enlarged without any sharpening. Most of the pertinent information is at the back of the book, not kept with the maps. Rare spawns are not marked on the maps making them a pain to find. There are also no instance maps in this book at all. If you insist on having everything WoW related then you might like this book, otherwise you will be disappointed at the quality and content.