Customer Reviews

World of Warcraft Master Guide, Second Edition

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There's lots of great info in BradyGames' new (up to date as of Summer, 2006) guide to Blizzard Entertainment's phenomenal game, World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the bevy of crammed-in hints hardly makes up for the permeating, abysmal spelling and grammar mistakes. On average, there's at least one major spelling or grammar error on every page (most seem to occur in bunches). *Any* proofreader, human or computer, would've caught these distractions; frankly, they're embarrassing and lessen the guide's credibility. BradyGames obviously paid more for game hints and skimped on the actual English writing and editing skills, ostensibly trying to rush publication before the game changed too much--Blizzard plans a major expansion to WoW in early 2007.
The mistakes make for an almost unreadable book, and I use the term "book" in the sense of "bound printed matter" only. This is a disappointment for anyone with a background that includes reading (i.e., anyone who can read this review).
If you're a hardcore WoW addict, there's not much new here. If you're a n00b (newbie), you'll learn a lot. And if you're an English teacher, I'd recommend making this a semester-long extra credit assignment in proofreading.
Lastly, watch your fingertips--the ink can smear and come off like a fresh copy of the New York Times, potentially making this infotome not just difficult to read, but truly illegible.

It's actually more like a 2.25 or a 2.5. . .

There are some absolute basics missing from a book touted as the "Master Guide". Not only are there no indicators on the maps for vendors, quest givers or Gryphon masters, but there's not even a stinking INDEX!! So you're looking for a city a town or a keep and you go to the book. . . Guess what? You're S.O. L. buddy, unless you want to look through EVERY ONE of the maps individually.

Add to that the missing portions of the maps, poor spelling, horible grammar and mediocre layout and you just don't have something worth twenty-five bills. Very disappointed. . . Contemplating creating my own guide.

On the up-side, they did get the guys that write Penny-Arcade to add some of their cartoons.

I notice a number of mistakes in the book in just a few minutes of reading it and some information that was missing (found it all on fan websites). The quest section is almost a complete waste of space, giving only a quest title, general location, quest levels, which NPC starts and end the quest, prerequisite quests, max xp, gold and item rewards. Not to mention the font was so small, it's hard to read with poor lighting. There's nothing to help complete quests you might be stuck on (again found this on fan websites). The one part that I found useful: talent trees and skills gained by level are no longer accurate due to the patch released on Dec 5th. Wait until the expansion comes out and try the next book they will release.

While most of the chapters in this book can be learned by a weeks worth of play, and experience, it's nice to have a companion to read when you can't be in front of the computer.

To me, this saved me a lot of time, although in many cases, it was too late in my opinion to correct my mistakes. There is a lengthy character guide that helps you choose your race and class - I wish I had this from the beginning... I would have chosen a character very differently. In the future when I make a second, I'll know what to do.

The quest table is extensive, however it doesn't explain what is needed for the quest. It only tells you who gives it to you, the level, the place, and who you need to end your quest with.

The maps could be better, but with a guide this size, and a game this large, it would be difficult to fit everything you need into one guide. And there is an Atlas companion that is brilliant.

Basically, this is meant to be a guide... not a walk through, just the simple facts you might want to know before you begin, or while working through the first ten levels. It's worthless to an experienced player.

There is a vast quantity of information in this book. Unfortunately it was printed on very thin stock paper in tiny, tiny print. Perhaps the target audience of teen males won't care, but for post-30 users it may be rather difficult to use. Also, much of the information is freely available on the web, although not so well organized and designed. Is a static book better than a dynamic Wiki? Is better organization preferred to a searchable database? Is attractive layout and design better than the input of users? In the end I never use this book, although it is well made, and can't recommend it.

They tried to get as much into this book as possible, but reducing to font to microscopic was not the way to go. And they are still missing some of the maps. No city maps at all. Deadwind Pass is missing. And the maps are still the same as in the game, can't they make them better?
I wanted to find vendors, repair, banks, mailboxes and the auction houses not just in the cities, but anywhere. The area maps do list specific locations and specific characters which is very helpful for questing. They could have a more detailed map of the flight paths, as the tiny simplestic map doesn't have anything labeled as to locations. A beginner would be lost. It does have some good information about professions. And for character development the book is well done. Detailed charts of combat and healing abilities. And a lot of info for beginners. It also has a lot of quest info, if you can stand to read the tiny print.

I recommend this book, but you will need reading glasses or a magnifying glass.

This tome is mediocre at best. The ink smears and the binding does not hold together making a very frustrated me. The information in the book is a little to scattered for my liking. Perhaps the contents would be useful for n00bs but I doubt it...perhaps more info on macros. I do like the tab style index. It has its ups and downs all in all not that bad. With that said don't waste your money check out a few sites for this information...free of charge.

This book is brimming with information and is very useful, especially for newer players. Features such as maps of most areas, with mobs, their locations, and levels, are a great help. There are also listings of the abilities of each class, which is useful for those who need to know when they will be able to learn the next rank of a spell. Finally, the section detailing the most efficient order of quests for each newbie area is quite handy.

However, the book itself is not very well designed. It does not take long before pages start falling out of the binding, and the ink has a tendency to smudge. While the information in the book deserved a higher rating than 3 stars, the lack of durability was frustrating to me.

I bought this guide to see what I was missing after I had been playing for a year and a half. I think that it has an extremely useful overview of each of the classes, albeit somewhat biased from the writers. They describe each class and their respective roles. I liked the background on the different races and on some of the areas, but I did find it lacking in how it organized the items and displayed their stats. I would have really enjoyed a guide for each of the professions and showing where you could buy each purchaseable plan/pattern/recipe and then the mats for each. I think that if I were to have received this as a beginner it would have been VERY helpful, but now as a more veteran player, I found that it was lacking in a few areas. Informative, but not really teaching me anything that I didn't know.

It was a good reference until the last 3.1 update. I can still use it to check out which areas to go to at which level and look up little info like certain bosses and quests. They need to come out with a new one thanks to the huge changes this last update brought.