One of the most challenging issues to deal with in our society today is a lack of productivity. People can spend eight hours at work and come home, feeling as if they got nothing done all day. Yet games such as World of Warcraft (WoW) provide a very rewarding structure. In just half an hour in WoW, a player can kill 20 vermin and complete a quest or two. In a night, a player can gain an entire level, especially at lower levels. WoW is excellent at providing rewards, but is it fun?

In the early levels, playing as a draenei paladin, I found WoW to be both fun and rewarding. In just four hours, I reached level 10. The game is cleverly tailored to beginning players; the opening area is easy and harmful creatures are clearly marked. Enemies are often not hostile until attacked.

Blizzard added a lot of very thoughtful design concepts to the opening quest flow as well, making questing quite painless. Players are given just a few quests to manage at first - no more than five or six. Breadcrumb quests are given to lead the player to the next area, and there are often additional quest-givers along the way, providing both a visual cue for the player and reinforcement that he is on the right path. Quests given out the same time are often grouped in the same area, reducing frustration for a player, as he can often get rewarded for killing the enemies on the way to a quest item. The actual numbers of items to be collected are also kept to a minimum, often between 1 and 8, reducing tedium. Another nice feature was a remote quest giver, such as a scout in an enemy area, that could give the player credit or move him forward in a nearby quest without the need for the player to return to town.

The quest flow in Ammen Vale and Azuremyst Isle was enjoyable, but still not quite satisfying enough for me. There were only a couple memorable quests out of the many that I completed. I was very impressed by the Prophecy of Akida quest chain, in which I could turn into a panther and travel through the world as if I were in a spiritual realm. The game took on a sepia tone, and the screen swirled into a haze. It was a fantastic experience, but, unfortunately, such quests are the exception. Most of the quest writing is somewhat bland and uninteresting; while WoW does have a fairly consistent writing tone, it seems to be written for those that only wish to skim the text. For this reason, I felt that, although I was generously rewarded for completing quests, the rewards themselves were hollow. The people who gave me the quests were not characters, just resources. The work I did seemed to have little impact on the world around me.

Although playing through WoW at a normal pace was more satisfying than playing with triple experience, I found that it is still not the MMO for me. The unmemorable quests encourage the player to push through the levels without much thought. It seems to promote instant gratification with minimal effort or investment in the world. I prefer a world that encourages me to be invested in the story and to reward me only when I deserve it.