A quick review for a brilliant game.
There have been many MMORPGs released of the past decade but none have had the success of WoW. With some figures saying over 9 to 10 million accounts created since its launch in November 2004 its easy to see how someone who has never played the game might wonder why so many people are drawn to it.
While I can't answer that question for everyone I can hopefully add a little insight into what this game is about.
Your journey in Azeroth begins with picking a faction, then a race, and finally a class. The Two factions are The Alliance and The Horde, which faction you choose won't have a huge difference in terms of actual game play, other than pvp (player vs player) and some faction based quest/rep. When it comes to the races the Alliance and Horde both have 5 to choose from, all have their own unique racial ability which can range from spells such as mana tap (drains a players mana) or an ability that increases a players skill with a certian type of weapon.
After you've decided what Faction and Race you want to play as its time to decided what class you want to play.
There are a total of 9 classes each having their own unique play style.
Once you've created you character and entered the world you'll begin your adventure at one of the many starting locations. Which of these locations you start at depends on what faction/race you chose. For the first 30 or 40 levels you'll spend most of your time running around completing quest to level up. After about the 40th level though the amount of quest that are available become a bit sparse, (and stay that way until you get to Outlands) meaning that most of your time in the game will be spent doing a combination of grinding mobs for hours on end and completing any worthwhile quest you can find.
Upon reaching level 60 you'll find there isn't much left to do in Azeroth, but don't fret the Burning Crusade will have you grinding another 10 levels to cap your character off at level 70. This to me is where the fun starts, there's always something to do whether its playing PvP to get better gear or raiding high level dungeons for "phat loot".
All in all I think World of Warcraft is a brilliantly designed game that I have yet to become tired of playing. I can't think of any other games I can say that about, which in my opinion more than makes up for the $15 a month fee.
