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 - Awesome fun but slow declineI am a long time veteran of World of Warcraft, following and playing it from Beta. I have to say that from the start I absolutely loved this game. Pros: The cartoon graphics are loss at first but you quickly realize and appreciate the genius of their low requirements to your system. The game, even on extremely old systems runs exceptionally well allowing for an impressive experience without the constant fear that you might have to update your computer to fully enjoy this product. The world is also astounding, easy to follow, and at times, breathtaking. The map system IS fairly primitive but is an almost unnecessary feature. Quests are extremely straight forward, providing an extremely straightforward description of where to go and what to do almost every time. Travel time is reducible by flight paths that are acquired through the game and various (very functional)means: speed buffs, mounts, potions, etc). Combat is combined with very little lag as well as extremely enriching creature and environment models will almost surely drive you to want to play this game more and more. After defeating a creature you are even able to loot it for fairly worthwhile return. Gameplay is extremely intuitive and non-intrusive tip pop ups over spells, items, and mobs make the game simple while the diversity of abilities and gameplay allows for combat to not get boring. It is also possible to solo through the whole game regardless of class. Cons: Over the years I leveled to 60 and now 70 quite a few times. The game has continued to provide nearly endless satisfaction. Yes there were bits and pieces here and there that always nagged throughout the whole experience from even day one; the constant change and incredible diversity of the game long forestalled its impact however. The fact is though, over time the game does indeed get taxing. This I (personally) attribute to a lack in expansion by the developers. Grouping is limited to 5 players, unless one is in a raid which can then be limited to 10,15, or 40 players. This in itself proves to be a hugely positive thing as there rarely are more than 5 people looking to group for any one particular thing even with 8million players (there literally are that many). The problem that comes up is that grouping rarely pays off. The experience is amazing while grouped and the system for dungeons is interesting. However, most veteran players will tell you that if you are truly looking to level fast that you will want to solo and even just grind. Dungeons and grouping generally SLOWS gameplay considerably. For instance, you may join a group to do a dungeon and find that it took 1-3 hours to get through it, even for low level dungeons. Further, the loot received is almost insulting and after you have gotten another character fairly high level (which is easy) you really start to loath this. The game really starts to fall apart in this area and progresses so. Dungeons become time sinks for the only source of truly worthwhile items: especially as you level past 40. It is also the case that as you level past twenty, you'll be changing equipment fairly regularly. So the shiny new axe you just got after god knows how long from this ridiculously long and unchanged dungeon is now nearly as good as a common drop and you're setting your eyes on something else. For the first time through the game and even the second or third this isn't all that frustrating. However, by the third time around pretty much everyone agrees... the game is starting to slack. By the time one reaches 70 one is acutely aware of these faults but may or may not be bothered by them. However, max level is a whole new game. Where before you were grinding your way through dungeons and mobs through a really impressive world, you now enter into an arena environment. To really get anywhere you'll be putting 3 hours a night into the game for any kind of character advancement and if you aren't in a good raiding guild the chances of your character's improvements are slim. Further, the loot system drops only rarely drops more than one type of relevant item (worthwhile item) per boss per dungeon. So even if you are in a good guild you'll be fighting with your guild members over it. This leads into a guild squabbling and a general gnashing of teeth between all members and high level players as a whole. A common term to describe end game WoW is "ever grind" because there is no chance to rest and enjoy the incredible game it COULD be. From 1- 70 it is a rush to the top and a fight to even stay above the water. The final two points I would say are incredibly important are community and sexism. For women I would say to you to find another game. The community of WoW and WoW in general has a passive sexist attitude that really just brings the whole game down. Woman where exposing clothing in even the most powerful suits of armor and the bitterly laughed at example is that some of the best WARRIOR armor for women is a steel thong. You'll be running around nude alot and it is very common to have a male player run up in your face and /dance which looks as if they are doing very perverse things to you. Blizzard does uphold a very strict harassment policy however, which is curious given the latter. Further, within guilds there is a kind of shunning of having many women within guilds as the entirely game just breeds elitism (women somehow being excluded in this) and it is typical to find only two or three guilds per server that are even reasonably respectful of women. Finally, as a whole, the general populous of WoW is equally passively rude and obnoxious. This is largely attributed to the massive number of children from 13 to 17 that play the game. For the rest ... most people (newbies) do not start out this way. Rather, slowly having played through the game the general bitterness from all stated above tends to wear down on EVERYONE playing and once one has had a few months of play the generally pessimistic feelings of those around you becomes palpable. Neutral Points: Pvp is both exceptional and not. While diverse and providing many rewards, the rewards often out shined by dungeon loot. There is a definite balance problem that is just sickening as one reaches into the 70s that really only is apparent in PvP of any variety. Dungeon equipment being superior (typically) to PvP equipment, can still be worn in pvp and has a rather devastating impact. Warlocks and Hunters are also (even relatively poorly equiped) demoralizingly powerful in pvp situations leaving further gaps in player vs.player combat balances. While this can be avoided by joining the vast number of PvE servers available, a huge and very fun chuck of the game is lost: pvp. For Married Couples... this game is for you in alot of ways. Almost everything from 1-70 can be accomplished in a two person group. However, do NOT add a third member to your parter or you exp for fighting will be woefully dismal. That's true for everyone by the way. Equipment gained outside of dungeons is largely horrible compared to what is gained from raiding. This seems not so until one really sits down and does the math. Very truthfully though the difference may be as much as 400 damage out of 1000 in difference. So it's very impacting. This is balanced (kind of but not really) by the variety of skills that one uses and how adept you are at playing your class. A skillful play is often able to defeat and entirely overpowering (by equipment) character simply because they know what they are doing. However, in reality the chance of meeting a skillful AND overpowering character with 8 million people playing a game is about 50 / 50. This makes pvp the very difficult to judge. Lastly, I would bring up the time constraints. Blizzard literally BUILT time into the game. Everything that you do is perfectly calculated so that, regardless of how hard you grind, (unless you never sleep) the average time it takes from 1 - 60 is roughly 14 days. REAL TIME DAYS... so if you are working a lot or care to have a social life but enjoy gaming... this game really will tax your time. I hope this gives a better view of wow as a whole. It's an amazing game, immensely flawed, subtly sexist, and disbalanced... but you won't find one that runs better on any computer nor many as stable and reliable to be the same game the next day you log in. Rating:  - Hott Mage Goin' OffWatch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LQQQCHMZK9BI Vid By: Atkins Switcher World of Warcraft http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=16988 http://files.filefront.com/Atkins+Switcher+Episode+2/;4865756;/fileinfo.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvd5hpX2dy8 Rating:  - This is my entertainment!I play this game almost nightly, I solo every character. It is not like those other MMORPG games that you have to group all the time to level. There is lots of quests to help you level, I used to play EQ but where was the quests??? This game beats it hands down. The graffics is fantastic! Any time I have had a problem (2 times in a year and a half) a game master has helped me to my satifaction. WOW all the way! Rating:  - online gameplayAn excellent game by an excellent company that continually provides updates and sertvice to their software. You will need a fast internet connection, and a credit card for the subscription fee. Be ready for a long install, though, the virtual-world is huge, and you will have to download a lot of "patches" before you can play. Rating: - Late to the partyI just started playing World of Warcraft a couple of months ago. I've been a video game fan since I was a kid and am amazed at how huge the worlds are and how much there is to discover and do. I play it a couple nights a week with some work buddies and it's really fun. They just added voice chat so now I'll burn less cell phone minutes conference calling with them. This is an addicting game so if you have no self-control, don't get hooked.
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