by Christopher Harrison

Created on: March 22, 2007   Last Updated: April 12, 2007

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The good news, is that Blizzard's foray into MMO's, World of Warcraft, is fun, and more importantly, and possibly the reason that their subscriber base has topped 8 million, it's easy also.

The bad news? It's quite similar to the good news, the game is easy, in a genre where the typical question is "what level are you?" the common WoW question is "How many 60's do you have?" soon to be amended to "70's" as Blizzards expansion "The Burning Crusade" raised the level cap to 70.

I've played the game now for about 2 years, and did enjoy it a great deal. the problem I have with the game, is that the focus, isn't on playing the game and leveling your character, the focus of the game is hitting the level cap. Essentially the point from when you start playing, up until you hit the level cap is just a training portion of the game. This ease of play has attracted a number of people however, its hurting the game experience almost as much as its helping it.

The problem is this, in most other MMO's it takes a lot of work to get to the higher levels, and eventually the level cap, a lot of people who play them, never actually make it because it requires not only time investment, but an actual skill with playing the game. WoW on the other hand, really just requires a time investment, if you play long enough its impossible, to not hit the cap, and enter what's referred to as the "End Game" content. Now this content is intended to be difficult, the assumption being that if you've reached if you should have a relative proficiency with your chosen class, however, because of the ease of leveling, this isn't always the case.

Now, understandably this is a fairly specific grievance, however, as I mentioned because of the ease to reach the top levels, its one that each player will either cause or experience.

So, overall the game is great, its fun, however, I view it more as a "Gateway" MMO, play this game, get to 70, learn the interactions and etiquette associated with games of this type, and if you like the style of game, then pick up something like Vanguard, which will allow you to play the games the way they're supposed to be played.

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