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Author Topic: World of Warcraft - What's it all about?  (Read 6085 times)

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DaraAllen

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World of Warcraft - What's it all about?
« on: April 21, 2008, 02:41 PM »

Since leaving VMK, I have been playing an MMORPG called World of Warcraft.  It is arguably the largest of them all, with 10 million world wide players.  It's been translated into more languages than any other MMORPG.  Synopsis of the game is here, and useful websites to do your own exploring are provided at the end of this post.

World of Warcraft is owned and operated by Blizzard Entertainment.  It started as a PC-based game (Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III) and then expanded to the MMORPG world.  The first expansion of the online game, the Burning Crusade, came out in May 2006, I think.  The next expansion has been promised for some time and is called The Wrath of the Lich King.  Understand that people stand in line at their local retailers the night of an expansion, which I am sad to say that my husband and two eldest boys did at midnight the night BC came out.

Basically, there are two main groups to the game, Horde and Alliance.  For whatever reasons, the number of Alliance characters across all realms (what Blizzard calls its servers) outnumber the Horde about 2:1.  Most Alliance players, also for whatever reasons, are younger, say teen to early 20s.  Us more seasoned folks tend to roll a Horde character.  No idea why, it just seems to work that way.

There are three ways to play the game:  Player versus Environment (PvE), Player versus Player (PvP) and Role Playing (RP).  PvE allows you to interact with other players on your server in solving quests, farming materials to make things, sell things on the auction house, view other players' gear (weapons/outfits).  PvP allows you to fight players of the opposing faction (Horde versus Alliance) at will.  RP allows you to role play your character while doing either or both of the above.  There are hybrids of all.  For example, the server on which my character, Elfshine, lives is a PvE server.  There are distinct places you can go to PvP.  And, you can immerse yourself in your character an RP as much as you'd like.  There are PvP only servers where no matter where you are or what you are doing, you run the risk of the opposing side killing you.

The lore behind World of Warcraft is long and fascinating.  There is a whole series of books, fantasy style.  Most of the websites at the bottom of this post will provide you with this background material.

Depending on the faction you choose (horde/alliance), you have different races of characters you can choose from.  I am a blood elf, cute brunette with pointy ears.  Sclim's main character is a tauren, an 11-foot tall cow-like humanoid.  We are both Horde.  From that, you choose the class you want to play, such as mage (me), warrior (Sclim), shaman (our 14-year old), etc. You choose your faction, race and class upon creating a character.  Then you can customize certain features.  All races have some sort of limitation on which class they can be.  The choices for all of this are clearly defined on the sign-up page.  It tells you which races can and cannot do what.

Groups of players form a guild.  No major benefit here except that you get that fraternity thing happening, get help with quests, can share a common bank, etc.  Plenty of people do it alone for a long time.  But, human nature is such that having a group always makes it better.

Your will choose professtions for your character. You can only have two main professions (e.g., alchemy, tailoring, engineering) and all three secondary skills (first aid, cooling, and fishing).  All races can do all professions, I think.

Playing options are the free version, which has very limited interactiOn capability; pay as you go cards (like a prepaid cell phone, you pay a certain amount of time upfront and once you use it up you either stop or recharge it); or monthly/quarterly/yearly subscriptions.  Our family has three monthly subscriptions.  Each one is $14.99 per month.  So, do the math.  $15 per month times 10 million paying accounts.  Big coin, boys and girls.  You do get a free 10-day subscription to test drive it.

The playing environment is very different from VMK or POTC or SL.  Anything can and is said in general or guild chat. Anything.  You can also create private channels and only invite certain people.  You can shut off channels you don't want to see on your screen, and you can enable language filters, though I don't know how effective they are because I don't use them.  I do, however, turn off the trade channel ("WTS (want to sell) the blah blah blah, 4 gold" gets old 47 times a minute) and certain other channels.  PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A GAME FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN. NO WAY, NO HOW!!!!  DEPENDING ON MATURITY LEVEL, PRE-TEEN IS PROBABLY OUT, UNLESS YOU ARE RIGHT THERE WITH THEM, TURN ON ALL FILTERS AND STAY AWAY FROM CERTAIN AREAS!!!!!

What do you do?  Well, mostly, you run around and kill stuff/things and collect stuff/items and you get money for it, which you use to buy more stuff/things and collect more stuff/items and, well you get the idea.  You start at level 1 with like 10 slots in your bag.  Trust me, you fill them up fast and pray for quests that will give you more bag space.  You can do these by yourself, or in a group, or both.  Along the way you level up your class and skills.

The graphics are breathtaking.  The environments so imaginative.  And yes, you wonder what drugs they were on.  And yes, there are the smartass things like a vendor named Floyd Pinkus.  You could play this game 24/7 for months on end and never ever finish it.  Matter of fact, there is no finishing it.  Some quest will take you down some path and you'll wind up some place you never thought you would.

Now before you Disney folks have your little sights on being Tinkerbell in WoW, know that they are strict about copyrighted names as character names.  You aren't finding a MickeyMouse character here.  Yes, on my server at least, Yensid is taken (I know him, and his alternate character Yensiditto). No offensive names are allegedly allowed, but I've seen my share that have made me think, "Ummmmm."  I currently have one main character, Elfshine, an alt that I'm working on leveling up, Vavavamoolah (she started as bank alt, can you tell?), my current bank alt, Bankshine, and another, Trollabyte.  Sclim and I are in a large guild called Khans, which is mostly high level characters.  We also have our own guild called Bounced (Tigger reference there, folks) for our alts and our 7-year old, Calf (he's a tauren, get it? baby tauren = Calf).

So, this is what I've been doing for the past 8 months.  Having a blast. If you want to join us on our adventures, contact me here at VMKNOBS, or if you create a character in WoW, do so on the US server Skywall.  Then you can find me, Elfshine, or my husband Sclim/Yuksick.

Websites, as promised:

www.worldofwarcraft.com - main site; source of all goodness
http://wow.warcry.com/ - information on the background and helpful hints, plus links to elsewhere
http://www.wowinsider.com/ - more information
http://www.warcraftpets.com/ (I love collecting the pets - check them out!)
http://wow.allakhazam.com/ - more information
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=232052&TabID=1954188 - The Bounced website, our guild.  No members except me and Sclim and Calf!

I will do my best to answer any and all questions you have.  If there is enough interest, I will be happy to either start a new guild for former VMK'ers or add you to Bounced.  I can roll a new character to level up with you, and help you along.
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thealienstitch

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Re: World of Warcraft - What's it all about?
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2008, 06:01 PM »

I play World of Warcraft, and can honestly say I love it. I got involved because all the guys where I work at TSA played. I was hooked from the first moment, and it is quite a bit of fun. The cost is $14.99 a month, and I am definitely getting my moneys worth. I play a Nightelf Hunter on the server Aggramar named Chalyce. We have a guild, and help eachother out all the time. It gets a 4 paws up from this here alien hee hee hee hee..............................Fee  :clap2:
« Last Edit: April 21, 2008, 06:02 PM by thealienstitch »
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Alien

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Re: World of Warcraft - What's it all about?
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2008, 12:04 AM »

Myself and Charmed both play on Cairne Server.... several different alts and characters between the 2 of us.
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Purpleduck

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Re: World of Warcraft - What's it all about?
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2008, 01:00 AM »

Myself and Charmed both play on Cairne Server.... several different alts and characters between the 2 of us.

No wonder I haven't heard from you two!! :uhuh3:   Stay in touch sweet stuff! :hug:
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