After hearing about World of Warcraft all semester, I finally decided that it was time for me to take an MMORPG for a test drive. No longer would I be in the dark the next time conversation turned to guilds and classes. I wanted to know first-hand what all this meant.

Fortunately, there is a free trial right now – likely a promotion for the new expansion (The Burning Crusade). I jumped at the opportunity to download the full game for free and try it all out for ten days.

However, knowing the achiever part of my personality and compulsion with which I like to play my RPGs, I knew I had to be careful. I vowed not to subscribe to the game after the trial. I even told all my friends, “Ten days and that’s it!” Few believed that I have the willpower to resist such a game, but I am determined that I can be done at the end of the trial and continue to lead a normal life.

With over a week left before I have to return to school, today seemed like a good day to begin my trial. I had put it off long enough, afraid of the potentially dangerous addiction that has led to the downfall of some academic lives. I downloaded the installer (around 3GB). This took a couple of hours. Then I had to actually install the game (4GB), which took a long time as well, especially considering that I had to clear off enough space for the game on my computer.

Five hours later, I was registered and ready to play. I chose to be a female night elf druid (a choice I had made carefully over a length of time before playing), and began my adventure.

Quest acquisition and completion seemed easy enough. I liked the fact that killing monsters was part of some quests, meaning you’d level up both by killing the monsters and completing the quests themselves. Movement seemed fairly intuitive – I quickly grew fond of the WASD keys beneath my left hand and the mouse beneath my right for a default position. I really enjoy the customizable hotkey bar at the bottom for abilities. This way, I could cast spells using the low numbers, only needing a fraction of a second to move from the WASD keys.

Unfortunately, I found some of the in-game tips to be more annoying than helpful. These seem to be the main form of tutorial. I had to ask other people like an idiot how to save and quit the game. It was really embarrassing, especially when the enabled tips should have revealed such vital information. I finally did figure out how quit after half an hour, and I was very relieved to find my character exactly as I left her when I logged back in. Unfortunately, the tips that appeared the second time were exactly the same as before, and, despite their promises to become more advanced, they failed to teach me more rudimentary information that I needed to know, such as how to group or ungroup, how to talk, etc.

World of Warcraft is an intriguing game. After one day, I am not completely captivated by it – especially after my frustration in trying to save and quit. I got to level 5 in an hour or two which I find quite rewarding, but I’ll see if it becomes any more addicting tomorrow.