World of Warcraft
I purchased World of Warcraft a year ago. I also paid thirty dollars for a two-month game card. My total investment was fifty dollars. Despite the fifteen dollar a month subscription fee, I decided to try out this popular game.
The game installed well and updated and I eventually got a character going. I started a fighter. I wandered around the starting area and did all the quests I could find. It took a while to learn all the controls, but most things were simple enough and intuitive enough and mouse-driven enough to easily remember. I had a good time fighting annoying kobolds and other creatures. I noticed that there were a lot of other people playing this game, and that monsters appeared at a fast rate so there was never any waiting around to find a mob you might need for a quest.
I had fun with World of Warcraft for over a month. I did not play every day and not play for more than a couple hours at a time. I ended up hunting pigs for leather, as I learned the skinning skill at a high level. I grouped with other players occasionally to do quests or fight high concentrations of monsters in certain areas. This was pretty cool, but after a while I just got bored with the game.
The main problems I had with World of Warcraft were that it is very structured and there are a limited number of things you can do at any one level. Different areas have different level requirements and if you go into a high level area you are bound to get killed by something. The game is very focussed on combat, which would be a good thing if combat was more interesting. As it is, you pretty much fight things on auto with a bit of throwing in skills now and then to do more damage. I did not get involved in a lot of player vs player combat, because the level differences between players make this very much a contest of who has played the game longer and who has better equipment.
What I liked about the game was that there was a lot of content. I did not even manage to explore more than a little of the world and there were many places I did not go. I liked the fact that you can go into the territory of an opposing faction if you like player vs player combat, and I liked the various gear that was available. The graphics were on the cartoony side, but nicely done and fairly artistic. The auction house was set up well, and there were always many things to buy if you were looking for gear. World of Warcraft is a good game if you like repeatedly fighting the same kinds of creatures over and over again. The quests all seemed to be missions where you kill a certain number of the same kind of creature, which I thought was a bit lame. There was a lot of room for adding more quests where you could go different places or do different things.
Overall, I think World of Warcraft is a good game. I got tired of fighting so many of the same creatures all the time and got bored with the constant danger everywhere you go. Still, I think the game is exciting and has many good features that would make anyone who plays MMORPGs happy. I did not continue my subscription after my three months were up, but I can see where some people might get addicted to this interesting game.
