WoW atlas now available
by Jennie Lees 
Dec 5th 2005 at 8:00PM
We've seen pen-and-paper games and novels, but the reach of Azeroth into our everyday lives doesn't stop there. Brady Games have brought out a hardbound atlas detailing the world we all know and love, including not only in-game regional maps but close-up town maps detailing each NPC and flight path, as well as goodies such as rare spawn locations.Via IGN, BradyGames have a close-up look at the atlas and claim that it'll help you plan ahead and learn about new places -- in a world as deep and rich as Azeroth, a hard-copy atlas is certainly welcome when trying to plan out complicated flight routes or decide where to quest next. If you want to save $20, though, similar maps are available online to print.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Justin Belcher Dec 6th 2005 1:11PM
Just picked one up at GameStop last night. Very attractive layout and the information is already providing indespensible (particularly the index of quest NPCs and their location).
One thing that is kind of frustrating for me is the fact that the zones are alphabetical instead of relational. I know this makes wayfinding easy since you know your ABCs, but I find it a little unnerving to jump all over the place when exploring one region. I think the decision to have it alphabetical is the right one, just musing.
Pick yours up, I'm happy w/ mine.
johnny Dec 6th 2005 1:21PM
"similar maps are available online to print."
Where?
jennie Dec 6th 2005 1:27PM
Worldofwar.net has a load, including some fabulous flight path maps. You'll need a jolly decent printer, though:
http://www.worldofwar.net/cartography/worldmap/kalimdorcont.php
Ed Dec 6th 2005 8:22PM
I picked one of these up last Friday and generally like it.
Admittedly, its not really information you couldn't get elsewhere (thottbott, for example) its nice to have it available without having to jump out of the game and into a browser.
I really like the indexes at the end, which tell you where to go to find all types of trainers and vendors. The only annoying thing is that they could have done with some color coding so that you can tell whether the vendors/trainers are Horder or Alliance. Without this, one has to look up the co-ordinates of the vendor and then work out whether the town they are in is H or A (based on previous experience rather than anything else).
Generally, though, its a nice thing to have (and I'm sure would make a good present for the WoW addict in your family!).
tsukiyo Dec 7th 2005 6:43PM
I've seen that atlas in stores for a while now... Looked really nice. But when I was looking at the flight plans and ship routes page near the beginning, I noticed that they had inverted the colors between what ship paths on the map translate to in terms of what faction uses them. For example, the ship from Auberdine to Menthil Harbour was colored "blue" (can't remember the color) but the legend said that that path color was Horde. And it was the same across the whole map!