Yes, I have decided to do a MMO. I played WOW for quite some time and can see why some people spend hours constantly playing. It's addicting just as any other MMO is, and with the addition of extra content being released every so often it becomes like a choir for some people. They need to play it. Let's start the review than shall we?
World of Warcraft was released in 2004 on the 10th anniversary of the first Warcraft game. It was made by the company Blizzard which has become a staple name in the gaming community. They have given us games such as the Diablo series, Starcraft, and the Warcraft series itself. Right now, around twelve million people are subscribed to WOW making it the most popular MMO in the world.
To start on WOW, you must make a character. You pick which side to align with whether it be the horde or alliance. Then you pick a race and class. There are five races per faction and there are ten classes to pick from. Some races cannot be certain classes so you must chose accordingly. Each class has an assigned sort of job they do in either PVE or PVP. There are healers, Tanks, and DPS classes. Some classes can have more than one role like say a Paladin which can be either a Healer, Tank, or DPS. You chose the class which you believe you would find to be the most fun.
Your main goal in WOW is to obtain the max level available to you. To do this you move to new areas while doing quests and slaying monsters on the way. This is where WOW really shines as there are thousands of quests scattered across the multiple continents in the game. Getting to the max level is not very difficult, but it gets very repetitive. Once you raise one character to the max level you will almost certainly not want to do it again. While WOW shines on it's variety of questing areas, it has a very repetitive feeling while leveling. This at times, makes the max level seem unreachable.
Once you finally reach the max level you have a variety of things to participate in. First off, you can choose to be mainly a PVP or PVE player. PVP stands for player vs player which you are thrown onto a special map called a battleground with members of your faction and given an objective to reach. To reach this objective, you will need to use teamwork and skill as the opposing faction will attempt to kill you and finish their objective. For doing these battlegrounds you are given honor points to spend on better gear which will allow yourself to defeat the opposing factions members easier. There is also another way to gain gear by pvping called Arena. Arena is pretty self explanatory. You can do 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 which you team up with people you know and attempt to defeat other players in arenas.
PVE stands for player vs environment. This is where you team up with members of the same faction to defeat dungeons called raids. These raids can consist of 10 players, 25 players, and sometimes even 40 players. You must work together to defeat bosses in these raids which is sometimes very difficult. Each have something special about them you must watch out for, and these bosses require extreme teamwork and some skill. For defeating these bosses you can get gear which makes you do more damage to bosses, as well as badges. Badges are acquired and can be spent in a certain city. You can buy gear which otherwise would be very difficult to obtain through badges. Each raid has a part in the lore which I have never even attempted to read.
Some other things you can do at the max level are daily's which are quests that reset each day and give you high amounts of this games currency, gold. With gold you can buy things off the auction house such as gear and materials you need to craft certain items. One thing that you can do to pass the time is level up professions. Professions are what their name implies. There are potion makers, weapon and armor makers, and many others. To level a profession up to max you need tons of time and money. Once they are at a max level, people will start paying you gold to craft special items for them. It really is a fun thing to do to pass time and it can really pay off.
In the end, WOW has many things that will keep you interested. With new raids and gear coming out every now and then and patches every week, they do their best to make sure you aren't bored. Unfortunately, you will get bored eventually and it is inevitable that you will cancel your subscription every now and then. It really just becomes repetitive after a while. There are tons of achievements you can strive to get, tons of raids to finish, tons of items to get, and tons of pvp to do but it isn't enough to keep you engulfed for years with no break in between.
Final score: 9: I can see why it is the most popular MMO in the world. It really engulfs you into the game and makes it so it is nearly impossible to leave for quite a few months. Unfortunately, the game suffers from severe repetitiveness after time much like most MMO's. Luckily, before that kicks in you will be having a fucking great time playing. That's what makes it such a great MMO. You really enjoy your time playing even after it starts getting boring.
On a side note, if I am forgetting anything important I apologize. Very long two days and I am exhausted. I just felt the need to put this up for my few fans that read these every now and again.
