I will be honest, I have been playing WOW (World Of Warcraft) for a year and a half. Not only that, but we have three paid accounts here.

First, you must know that this box doesn’t contain all you need forever, but it’s a good start as long as you know this….you can play ‘for free’ for a trial of ten days (maybe a month in some cases, depending on what free trial you get?) but then..it’s FIFTEEN DOLLARS A MONTH TO PLAY.

What do you get for that money?

You get to make I believe it’s NINE characters which I will go into later. This means mom can make one, dad can make one, the kids can each make one, then you can even make a few more.

Once you have those characters, you must delete one to be able to make one new one (or switch realms which I wont go into at all)…BUT only ONE PERSON can play at a time. So if Dad is playing his Warrior, mom can’t play her mage until dad is done. Thus…you end up with three accounts like me

Next, you DO NOT HAVE to buy Wrath of Lich King or Burning Crusade now! Or ever..but those expansions allow what used to be a max level char of 60…to go to 70 and so on. I know you have no idea what that means if you are new to WOW…just know you don’t need them yet.

So, you get this, load it, load patches (let me insert something important here. If you do not have a GOOD computer with a GREAT graphics card, dont bother with warcraft. This is a HUGE game with basically streaming video and intense graphics. If you try the free time, it’s a good way to know what will slow down your game etc…like the big cities usually will. My brother in law had an e-machine that was ‘only two years old’ and it slows and stalls all over the game.) and now you are ready to go…

You choose a character (hunters are probably easiest to start off with) and you can change a few things about them like hair and such…but not much. This is no Sim’s game.

You start out in an area, let’s say, and what happens? There is your hunter..and next to her/him you see a guy with a question mark over his head. Run over to him, click on him. He gives you a QUEST…dah dah dum! Oh the drama…the excitement! He may tell you to go find 7 of some plant. You run around that area and will see something sparkle…it’s the plant! You run to them, click on them…them find more. When you are done with the 7, they stop sparkling to tell you that you are done. You run back to that guy and turn them in. WOOHOO! You get a new quest, some money (copper, silver and eventually gold) and some junk items you can sell for money.

All over the game are ‘non playing characters’ which will buy the junk and give you money.

Now the fun part…all over the game are OTHER REAL PEOPLE! Let’s say you log on and find my character running around! We can run over to eachother, say hello, give eachother gold/silver/copper…chat about stuff, go do quests together in the game!

By the way, the game is HUGE. I am not kidding when I say we have all played for a year and a half. You can start out playing in a snowy area with white tigers and funny looking old dwarfy things…then run to another area that is like a lush jungle with crocs and flying dragons…then to another area that is like being on mars…barren and rocky and tilted

There is a LOT to do in this game. Questing is the biggest part, you must complete quests like I said to ‘level up’. You start as a level one with limited armor and skills. It’s easy to learn what you are doing, slowly, as the game progresses. Then you complete quests and hit level two! Now you get a new skill, new armor to use! At the time I wrote this today, the max level is 80. When you are a level one, you hit level two within moments! But it took me about a week and a half to go from 78 to 79!

Then there are ‘professions’ etc. You can learn to fish..super easy to do, just get a pole and some bait (sold all over) and drop your line in the water. You can do first aid..which means when you loot a bad guy you might get cloth mixed in with that silver/gold and quest items (like the plants we talked about earlier)..which you can click on to make into bandages! It’s not tough.

I can’t multitask much and I’m not born to win at video games. This game is FUN and you learn as you go.

You can also join a guild, which means there are players that have come together to help other players who join their guild. Fun, super helpful.

Rather than go on and on, let me say this…it’s fun. It’s addictive (the pattern is, you get wow…you play all night at first, then you call in sick to work, you plan your vacations around the game..) and I mean like ADDICTIVE. But, there are bad things. First, it’s usually down ALL DAY LONG on Tuesdays…every Tuesday, for schedulted maintenance. Trust me, if you play, and are off on Tuesdays, you are going to be mad about this.

Also, there are jerks in ‘chat’. You can turn the chat off, and if you have kids I suggest you do. There is always someone saying something crude in chat. Blizzard does not care..they offer you to turn off chat or ignore one person at a time.

I have not even covered battle grounds…playing lots of players against lots of players! But suffice it to say, in my opinion, this is the greatest game ever designed. If it was ten a month the whole planet would probably play. If you have a great pc, get it. If you only think you do, learn about what you really need to play.
Rating: 5 / 5