The Pursuit of Trivia

I thought one more post before the end of the year would be nice, although perhaps I should do a special “Year’s end – The future” post. I haven’t decided and New Year’s isn’t for three days so I have some time. Anyway, for christmas I got Trivial Pursuit Warcraft style. Which seems a little odd I know as I don’t know anyone in real life who plays the game. This led me to playing against myself on boxing day and I thought that a review would make a nice post.

I also got Trivial Pursuit Star Wars style so I might do a little comparison of the two. Though they are different trivia games as the Star Wars one also utilizes DVD questions, whereas the Warcraft one is just on cards.

What do you get in the box?
The Warcraft box is small. The game board has the same number of steps on it as other trivial pursuit boards but it’s physically a lot smaller. This might be why it refused to lay flat, one corner was resolutely at a 45 degree angle which was a bit annoying as the pieces sometimes slid when they were on that section. The pieces themselves are little murlocs which is a nice touch but they were plastic. Here’s a comparison, the Star Wars board was full size, the pieces were made out of metal and they were all different as opposed to just different colours.

So the Warcraft version didn’t feel like it was such good quality I have to admit. One way Warcraft did come out on top was with the dice, it was custom with murlocs on, whereas the Star Wars was just a generic dice. Warcraft boasts it has 600 questions which sounds like a lot until you see Star Wars says it has 2500. Warcraft came with one pack of cars, Star Wars with three and the DVD on top. However, it’s not about the board, or about the pieces, it’s about the game.

How did it play?
Well I know Warcraft a fair bit better than I know Star Wars if I’m honest. With the Star Wars game I was answering on average 2-3 questions each turn before I’d get one wrong and I’d have to swap hats to be the other player. With the Warcraft game I started off with the blue murloc and the yellow murloc didn’t get off the starting position until I had 5/6 of the cake slice point things. It was an incredibly one sided game when I was playing myself at the Warcraft version, as it was very rare that I got anything wrong. I think if I was playing with someone else we’d have to institute a maximum number of questions that could be answered per turn, otherwise they’d just sit there and watch me win the game before they could start.

Some of the questions in the Star Wars version were, to my mind, incredibly obscure. Not all of them of course, there were some obvious ones. Whereas Warcraft didn’t have so many obscure questions, the ones on the topic of loot were where I fell down the most, and even then not very often. I might not know the names of all the tier sets for all the classes in the game, but I can guess what class it belongs to easy enough. I mean one of the questions was “what planet would you find northrend, eastern kingdoms, kalimdor and pandaria?” well it’s going to be Azeroth. That has to be the most obvious question ever. I suppose I could be biased and it is of equal difficulty, I just know Warcraft better. I did say that above and it is probably true. I mean some of the questions asked what dungeon did these bosses belong too, and they weren’t the more obvious bosses either. The first question like that the answer was Wailing Caverns, a dungeon I haven’t set foot in, in years.

I’m not sure that the Warcraft version has as much replay value. There’s just less questions for one thing. Then there’s the fact that it’s too easy. Sure I like feeling smart like I know things but completely dominating it gets old quickly. Whereas the Star Wars version I played Darth Vader vs Yoda, dark vs light and it was neck and neck most of the way down. Vader got the first couple of chips and had the luckier throws of the dice, the dark side was strong with him. However, Yoda staged a comeback and light conquered dark. The Jedi won as we know he must, the galaxy was saved, I had a blast basically. The game took a decent amount of time, I learnt a few things and it could have gone either way. With Warcraft the game took maybe 10 minutes if I’m generous and it was 6 slices to 5 at the winners post. I played two games of it and both times the murloc I started with was the winner. It sounds close 6 to 5 but the first murloc got 5 of them, then the second murloc got 5 of them, then the first murloc won. It went that way both times.

The good and the bad
I would have liked to see more questions I think in the Warcraft box, perhaps some harder questions. Maybe they could have broken up the question packs. Here’s pack one which is just in game general knowledge that your average player has a chance of knowing or guessing, here’s a pack for your more dedicated player and then a pack which crosses all warcraft resources for lore and has the really tricky questions. This would make it a more equal game as one player could play with a handicap of the hard question deck, another could play with the easy question deck, and so one person is unlikely to dominate the whole game. I wouldn’t consider myself to know everything about the game, I wouldn’t consider myself to know more than average really, and I stomped all over the game with ease.

I would have liked more questions in the box full stop. However this trivia set goes up to Mists of Pandaria. We are getting a new expansion at some point next year, hopefully sooner rather than later, and there will be more expansions after that. Maybe they should release trivia card packs, as like expansion sets for the trivia game, that asks questions about the new expansion. I would have liked the playing pieces to be of better quality, but that’s probably just because I had the Star Wars ones right next to it. I would have liked the board to lay flat but maybe if I put something heavy on the end it will do.

I liked the layout of the board, the murloc dice was a nice touch, the categories were all relevant and different. I liked the look of the cards, it evoked memories of quest text. Though I moaned about the board being smaller I do like the smaller box, it’s easier to store and find a home for. Space is at a premium in my house and I have no idea where I’ll manage to put the Star Wars game.

Conclusion
If you like Warcraft then the trivia game is worth a look. I’m someone that likes trivia games. I search for quizzes about my favourite TV shows and movies on google sometimes. I guess I’m testing how much of a fan I truly am, I don’t like it if I don’t get 100%. Even if I just sat there and read through each of the question cards, instead of actually playing the game it’d be worth the box price. It’ll take up a couple of hours of my time, spread over a few months probably. It’ll be something fun to keep coming back to and I’m glad that I got a copy. Who knows maybe I’ll be able to entice my guildmates to a game over vent or something, with a limit to the number of questions per turn obviously.