After my 10-day trial, I was left unimpressed by World of Warcraft (WoW). I decided that I had seen what I wanted to see and left the game to the hardcore fans. Recently, one of my good friends picked up WoW and encouraged me to give it another shot. Hoping that the game would take on a different meaning with a real-world connection, I bought the WoW Battle Chest to give it another chance.

One of my frustrations with my previous character, a Night Elf druid, was that I didn’t admire her. If I was going to play WoW again, I needed to have a character I was proud of and wanted to see every day. Fortunately, The Burning Crusade expansion brought the addition of Blood Elves, an attractive race from a beautiful city. I modeled a female Blood Elf to look similar to me (but better) and chose to be a hunter. I couldn’t be a druid, and the hunter class seemed like the next best.

WoW soon became a part of my daily routine. When I had extra time before class, I would play WoW in my empty classroom. It was fun because there was always something to do. In 20 minutes, I could complete most or all of a quest and feel as if I’d accomplished something. While I would tire of the format after a couple of hours, I enjoyed the process of going on quests and leveling up. WoW continually rewards the player, so it was fun for me. I really enjoyed the positive feedback I got from the quest givers and the way the game made me feel like I was helping the community.

The game mechanics were highly polished. I really appreciated the indicators on the map for people to talk to that were relevant to my quests. It made questing much more efficient. I rarely felt as if I was wasting time, except perhaps when traveling between locations on foot. Even so, it was always with purpose, and careful planning could help me to group my quests by location. Other refined mechanics included the respawn rate of enemies and the item system. The game progressed with an efficiency and polish that kept me focused on enjoying the game.

Given my limited prior experience with the game and MMOs in general, I am learning understand a few important conventions of MMOs. For example, I can lead enemies away from groups to pick them off slowly. Then there are interesting social dynamics, such as an insane number of group invites on my server from people I don’t know. Also, I found it disconcerting not to have a real pause button. If I needed to take a phone call or get some food, I had to plan ahead on how to stay safe in the virtual world or log out.

So far, I have been having a lot of fun with WoW. It lacks the cohesive, tightly-woven story of a normal single-player RPG, but WoW certainly is a nice way to unwind after a long day. It allows me to have fun and feel productive, all while escaping the mundane reality of everyday life. I hope that I can continue to enjoy this game without getting addicted.