Strategy Guides – A Book Review

MMORPGs are complicated games. Thus companies like Prima Games or Brady Games sell strategy guides, which are supposed to make players’ lives easier. This is a comparative book review of the two strategy guides for Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft. Are these books worth the money?

If you have never read a strategy guide before, you might be asking what they are good for. For the most part, they contain compilations of data from a game, organized in a way that makes it easier to find and compare information than in the game itself. For example, instead of having to create a warrior of every race in game to find out which race has the most suitable stats, a strategy guide will an easy to read table. If you have a typical question while playing, like "where can I find monsters of my level to fight?", or "what would be a good two-handed sword for a warrior of my level?", you look the answer up in the strategy guide. That saves you running around to find out the answer yourself, or having to ask other players in chat.

Strategy guides also often contain hidden information, such as maps if the game doesn't offer any, or exact numerical values of how many hit points an orc has, which you would otherwise have to find out by adding up all the damage it took to make him keel over. Finally, strategy guides not only have lists and tables, but also more guide-like descriptive text, for example describing the relative merits of the different character classes, or explaining game etiquette. You are supposed to read the text part of the strategy guide once, and from then on use it as a reference book.

There are two general arguments against buying a strategy guide for a MMORPGs. The first is that these guides rarely contain any information, which could not be found for free on the internet. The second is that MMORPGs change with every patch, so some of the information in a printed book is necessarily outdated.

On the other hand, the free information on the internet is not always easy to find, and, unless you have a second computer, often difficult to access while playing. While standing in the middle of the orc camp, you do not want to Alt-Tab into a browser window to start looking up the orc's hit points. And while patches can change a lot, many things like maps and races remain unchanged over the whole lifetime of a game. You might also say that strategy guides are spoilers, which take away the fun of exploration and discovery. That is certainly true, you should only read the two books I describe below if you don't mind spoilers.

The Everquest 2 Prima Game Guide costs $24.99, and seems to be targeted towards the veteran Everquest player. It starts with a chapter on the differences between EQ1 and EQ2, but does not offer much basic introduction for people that have never played a MMORPG before, except for a walkthrough of the tutorial and the Isle of Refuge newbie part of the game.

Besides the usual descriptions of races and professions and lists of the items found in the game, the book has two highlights. The first is the detailed description of game mechanics that are not well explained in the game itself or its manual. EQ’s complicated mechanisms for upgrading your spells or skills are well explained; these are really helpful if nobody told you before. The second highlight is Brasse's Atlas, with beautifully handcrafted maps of all zones, together with quest lists and descriptions of the zones. As many of the zones in the game either have poor quality maps or no maps at all, the atlas is very useful.

On the weak side, the crafting section of the book is rather vague, which is probably due to crafting being one of EQ2’s least finished features. And curiously missing in the book is a bestiary. Some mobs are mentioned in the atlas part, but if you are looking for a list which shows you the levels of the different types of orcs, you are out of luck.

The World of Warcraft Official Strategy Guide from Brady Games costs $22.49. Just like the game it covers, it is very welcoming to players that are completely new to the genre. It starts with a chapter giving an introduction to MMORPGs in general, a walkthrough of your first day in the game, and common tactics and roles of the different classes in a group.

Just like the EQ2 book, it has descriptions of the races and classes, lists of equipment, and a chapter on crafting. It also has a chapter on PvP, an interview about future raid content, and the bestiary the EQ2 book was missing. There is an atlas, but the maps are just screenshots of the (useful enough) in-game maps. The atlas also has descriptions of the zones, with lists of quests, NPCs, and resources to be found there.

The best part of the book are the comics from Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade fame. Those are really funny descriptions of the many humorous situations that can happen in a game like World of Warcraft. The weakest part is that there are no maps or descriptions of the instanced dungeon zones, which are the games strongest group-based content and the source of the best loot.

If you were playing both games but had the money for only one of the books, you should probably buy the Everquest 2 one. The World of Warcraft book is in no way worse, but the game of WoW is a lot more helpful than the game of EQ2, thus the EQ2 strategy guide ends up being more useful. WoW not only gives out a lot more information in the game itself, it also has one single website as alternative source for all information you are likely to want to know.

If you are only playing one of these games and you don't have a second computer for looking up information while you play, buying the strategy guide for the game you play is a good idea. Both books contain useful information, which could save you a lot of running and searching around in game. Neither is absolutely necessary to succeed, but both are good to have on your desk next to the keyboard.

This has also been posted at Grimwell.com.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:13 AM Permanent Link