Most of you already know about the World of Warcraft game from Blizzard Entertainment, known to it’s die hard fans as WOW, especially since it is probably the most well known MMO of all time, with over 11 Million players and counting. But for those who have yet to try this wonderful game I have only one thing to say… What are you waiting for?

Payment and Installation

This game is available to the PC only, and you need to have an internet connection at all times as this game is not a single player game, but a world full of millions of people whom you can interact with in real time. WOW comes with 2 ways to purchase it, you can pay via credit card on Blizzards website and then download the game, which will take a very long time unless you have a rediculaously fast internet connection. The other option, and one which I prefer is to buy it from a store or Amazon.com, and install it from 4-6 disks (per expansion).

At its subscription rate of $14.99 a month or £8.99 a month, I would say it is well worth your money, unless you just want it for a couple of months.
But either way it is a game you MUST try, at least for 6 months as this game is so packed full of things you won’t get a chance to cover anywhere near a 10th of the game in the first month.

Introduction

World of Warcraft starts with you creating your character having a choice of 4 races per faction (Alliance and Horde) or 5 races with the Burning Crusade expansion. After selecting your race, you then need to choose a class, you have a wide range of choices for this and it would take me around 2 hours just to explain them all, so instead I will try give you a brief overview. After you have chosen your class you then get to choose your gender and finally how you look. This last past is quite a bit of fun for me as you can do amazing things with your character’s customizations.

Classes

There are 10 classes in World of Warcraft, all of which I have listed here alphabetically with a brief description of each class.

Death Knight – The death knight combines martial prowess with dark, necromantic energies. It is the first hero class in World of Warcraft.

Druid – Druids are versatile hybrids. They perform different roles using appropriate shape-shifting forms

Hunter – Hunters are the only class that can effectively use ranged weapons as a primary source of damage.

Mage – Mages are ranged magic damage dealers with very powerful direct and area effect damage spells, but have weak armor and low health.

Paladin – Paladins are Holy warriors and are a hybrid class. They can melee DPS, tank, or heal. Paladins also have very strong group support and buff abilities.

Priest – Priests are arguably the most versatile healing class in the game. Priests can be powerful in healing a single character or many allies at once.

Rogue – Rogues excel at dealing melee damage and incapacitating their foes, particularly low health and low armor targets such as casters.

Shaman – Shamans are one of the most versatile classes in the game as they can switch seamlessly from offensive caster to healer to melee DPS as needed.

Warlock – Warlocks enslave demons and call upon dark magic and curses to dominate and destroy their foes. Like hunters, warlocks employ combat pets.

Warrior – Warriors are close-combat fighters and usually fill the role of primary tank or offtank, as they are able to both withstand and inflict fierce physical punishment.

Leveling

A word soon to be dreaded by most new WOW players is “leveling”, it is what almost of your play time will be soon enough. You may think that leveling from level 1 to 40 can be easily accomplished, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fastest anybody has done it in, is about 4 days play time (this is about a month if you play 1 hour a night with just leveling) if you do professions and other things it can take up to 6 months (about a month played time) But at the end of this, it is all worth it.

Professions

There really is way too many professions in World of Warcraft for me to tell you about now, so instead I will supply a link at the end of this paragraph which will give you a better idea of the various professions in this awesome MMORPG game.

Professions become your main source of income as soon as you hit level 10, so I would suggest a profession in which you farm (such as Mining or Herbalism) and another profession which allows you to create things you can sell, and you have a huge range of  creating professions.
Pursuing a profession can be very time consuming, but it is also much more fun compared to just leveling or going on quests.

To learn more about various professions in World of Warcraft, check out this link: Professions – WoWWiki

Age Rating

The age rating for World of Warcraft  is 12+ and I agree with this, with all of the required logic and the many adults who play this game, it really is not suitable for those younger then 12. Unfortunately many kids younger then 12 do play WOW, and honestly it is what every normal player on WoW hates, they get verbally abused online because they do not know how to do many of the things as it requires so much thought and some just go around annoying other players.

Overall

Overall this game is amazing, I have been playing WOW for over 4 years, so I may be a bit biased when saying this, but I would give this game 9/10 (it loses that 1 mark because graphics could be slightly better) So if you are a fan of role playing games, World of Warcraft is definitely a must play game for you.

See larger image World of Warcraft (DVD-ROM) List Price: $19.99 USD New From: $0.15 In Stock Used from: $0.15 In Stock Release date November 23, 2004.

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As reported by GamePolitics, FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, during a speech on telecom policy and regulation delivered to the Practicing Law Institute on December 5th, singled out Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft , and and its 11 million players, as evidence of her claim that widespread Intent access has become a detriment to students.

She continued saying: “A late 2006 survey that showed 59% of parents think the internet has been a totally positive influence in their children’s lives– down from 67% in 2004.”

Despite her claims, Tate completely failed to reference any specific study or define any solid relationship between World of Warcraft or video games in general and college dropout rates.

Image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment

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