Found In the Woods

Goldshire… Westfall… Azeroth… Ironforge… Stormwind… no, it's not some sort of Lord of the Rings reference, rather geographic locations in World of Warcraft ; my latest obsession/interest/hobby. If any of you know me well, you know I'm a HALO junkie. Well, WoW ranks up there with HALO as the best games I've ever played. I have never played a game (an MMORPG in this case) where the immersion is so high, so complex. The folks at Blizzard have built this game so extensively and so comprehensively that it allows you to play for weeks and not have the same (or even remotely similar) experience as you go through it.

You are free to roam wherever you want. You are free to fight whatever monsters you want. You have various races, classes and alignments to choose from. You can customize your character. You can interact with almost anything and the greatest thing about the game is that you're playing with over 7,500,000 other real people! The draw of the MMORPG is that you are actually playing, real time, with other real people from all over the world. You can join forces and fight monsters, go on quests, explore, etc.

When I hear about folks playing this game for days at a time, it comes as no surprise to me. This is because I can relate. After playing this game for a few weeks I can see the draw; it's so darn addictive. For me, I have distractions that keep me from playing; kids, chores, work (sometimes). However, the wife is into it too so we will play together for hours and hours which is nice. What I'm not quite understanding is all of the high level mumbo-jumbo that the really serious players are into. Folks who play this game have their own lingo and processes for in-game play which baffles me. I guess I need to play more to get up to speed.

It's a fun game and worth a try. In January they're releasing an expansion pack so things are about to get even better. If you play, I'm on the server Gurubashi and my current character is Dobrhaltar. And before you start pointing fingers and laughing, yes, I realize how nerdy this is… and I love to bust on it.. but I still love the game!