To be honest with you I only started to play World of Warcraft this month. I have avoided it for years as I have wanted to concentrate on uni work and other such things. I recently found myself with a few months where I may find some time to play it. This is an expansion pack to the original game and you therefore do need to buy the original game before you can play this expansion. More on money later though!

What is World of Warcraft

From no on I will refer to the game as WOW (its common abbreviation). This game is essentially a role playing game, it has a few twists however. The game has been around for a good few years now and even the most casual gamer will have heard of it. It seemed to find a place in gamers hearts straight away, not only appealing to many people but bringing new gamers in.

The game involves you creating a character to roam the world of Azeroth. This is a huge place with multiple continents and some major cities spread throughout. You start at level 1 and to be honest...you are rubbish. To progress though the game you interact with computerised characters that set you quests throughout the world. When you complete these quests you get experience and money. When you have amassed enough experience you go up a level. As you go up through the levels more, harder quests become available to you. Then the real fun begins as you explore the world looking for quests. What sets this game apart from others is the fact that it is all online. You are literally in this world with thousands of other players like you doing similar quests to you. You can team up with these people and do quests together. Sometimes up to ten people can come together, if a quest in rather difficult. You can also interact and talk with these people. Not only that but you can trade items with them.

Oh! I forgot to mention. You can also fight with these other people in duels.

Installation

Before I delve deeper into the game it is best for me to point out how taxing this game is on your computer. When I installed the game the actual game installation took around thirty minutes, which isn't bad at all. I think it was around 2GB of memory on the hard-drive. Then however come the patches. Due to the game being online the manufacturer can update it regularly to fix glitches or add some new content. These come in the form of patches and at around a GB each they can take along time to download. To date Blizzard (the game manufacturer) have added two big patches that you will have to download. I have a great internet connection but it still took around 16 hours to download everything! This meant leaving my computer on overnight. The expansion packs (of which there are now two) are then simple to install over the original game and do not take too much time at all. I suggest it least 1GB of RAM and a good amount of space on your hard drive. Before you install you should close everything else running on your computer and if need be install in Safe mode to save on RAM usage! This is only one option however and you may opt to take advantage to buying the game straight from the WOW official website and then downloading it from their site. Firewalls either on an anit-virus or on you router do tend to conflict with downloads from Blizzard so you may want to adjust them before downloading or it will take ages and cause a lot of aggro!

Your character, Races and classes!

So when you have installed the game (eventually) it is time to make a character. You are first given the option of which side to choose from. These include the alliance or the horde. Essentially this just means do you want to be the good guys or the bad guys. It doesn't matter which one you choose at first, the storylines and places you visit early on are different but there are many of real players on both sides to interact with.

Here are a list of the races on the Alliance :

Humans - Your average choice really. On your first play it may be beneficial to choose humans as they start in a good area and are easy to use

Dwarfs - These guys are pretty good starter options also. They start, like the humans, near a big city which helps in giving you easy access to other areas!

Night Elfs - Best to steer clear of in my opinion for a first character. they start on their very own island, which has its good points but can be frustrating if you don't like a long walk! There world however is rather pretty and does add depth to the game if you were to play as them as you second character!

Gnome - Similar to Dwarfs but smaller! They start in a similar area and I guess it is just personal preference!

Draenei - these are a new race added on the Burning crusade expansion pack which preceded the Lich king expansion pack! They too may be one to choose as your second character.

Again I stress not to worry too much. You can have many characters at once and you can always delete any you don't like. Have a go with a few and see if you like where they start. Races do get special Racial abilities. Dwarfs for instance are good with guns and maces!

The horde races include the Orcs, undead, taurens, trolls and bloodelfs. Each are similar to a race on the alliance side but they all star tin different locations. Within the world there are different areas. You will find some are Alliance territory and some are Horde territory. There are also some that are contested territories. An alliance member cannot be randomly attacked by a horde player in their territory. Each race starts in a territory owned by their respective sides! You may find that once you are high enough level to quest in a contested area that some players from the opposing side will decide they want to attack you. This doesn't happen and it is best not to worry about it!

A quick note about deaths here. If you die within the game your soul is transported to a near by graveyard. You then must walk as your soul to where your body died. This can be frustrating. There is an option to be resurrected by a ghost like entity near the graveyard. However if you do this your current armour becomes damaged and your character will not be very strong for around ten minutes!

Anyway... onto classes. When you have chosen your desired Race you then have to choose a class to specialise in. This adds loads of longevity to the game as you can mix an match to some extent between races and classes and have a completely different character each time. All races have specific classes that they can be. Here is an example :

A human can be a mage but a dwarf cannot. However a dwarf can be a hunter but a human cannot.

Here are the different classes and what each one can do!

Priest - Quite a hard class to use. They specialise in healing. Whilst this is a good thing if you are in a party of people it isn't to great when your on your own. However because you can cast some spells and because they are rather hard to actually kill priests can be formidable in the right hands. A priest has many buffs which they can learn. A buff is something that improves your character for a set amount of time. For instance you may have a buff which increases your strength for ten minutes or one that increases your armour for five minutes! A priest cannot use too many weapons. Big swords etc are out of the question. They use staffs and wands which are not very powerful in melee attacks but are good for spell casting. They also cannot wear heavy armour. There are many types of armour such as cloth, leather and mail. A priest can only wear cloth armour which offers the least amount of protection!

Rogues - This is the race to choose if you like to fight hand to hand combat with someone! A rogue is a great melee fighter and specialise in using two weapons at once. They use weapons like daggers or one handed swords. They are not the best healers but it doesn't matter too much as they can use potions etc to get health back! They can also use stealth abilities meaning the enemy cannot see them unless they are rather close! A rogue can also pick locks and is quite good at poisoning the opponent!

Warrior - Again another hand to hand combat fighter but this time they are a bit less stealthy than a rogue. A warrior usually uses big two-handed weapons that deal a huge amount of damage! They can also wear mail armour which can take a lot of damage! Unfortunately again they cannot use many spells or buffs! However because their armour can take a big hit they are hard to kill anyway! Warriors can be a great class if used properly. If you can I would advise doing a bit of research on the net about how to us them properly!

Mage - Mages are a bit like priests but they can cast many more powerful damaging spells and less healing spells. They can cast a lot of buffs They are known to be good at dealing with a lot of enemies at once due to spells that effect an area rather than a specific target! Towards the higher levels some of the spells a mage can learn are huge! They are however quick to die if you get on the wrong end of a crazed bad guy with a sword!

Druid - A druid is a hybrid class. They take a bit from a few other classes. They can heal , cast spells and cause some melee damage to an extent. they are not really very good however. I do not see much point in choosing one as they are hard to specialise in one area with. Later on groups of people do like to have players that are specialised in one area so they can carry out a specific task! One nice thing however is they can change into different creatures like bears or sea lions so they can deal with different situations!

Hunter - My favourite class! A hunter uses a ranged weapon but unlike mages they have a back-up in case of melee combat. Whilst they themselves can deal some damage close up they are stronger at range. To deal with this a hunter gets a pet. You can train many animals from around the world to be your faithful companion. Then when attacking an enemy your pet will charge at them and start attacking them whilst you sit back and shoot them! It is also nice to have something else there with you especially when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere! My pet at the moment is a wolf. When I got him I was level 10. Now I am a higher level so is the wolf, not only that but he is much bigger!

Warlock - Warlocks are similar to mages but specialise in certain types of magic and can summon shod creatures to come and help them, similar to the way a hunters pet works! Warlocks again are rather hard to use but can be rewarding in lets levels!

Shaman - Another hybrid class. They are a mix between mages, warriors and healers. Not a bad hybrid class but again I do not see too much point unless you know what you are doing as they can be hard to use in early levels! They do however provide a look into a few different classes that may give you an idea of where you want to specialise!

Paladin - A paladin is a melee type that deals a lot of damage from the many buffs that they know! They also can heal quite well and are a decent class to start with as they are rather hard to kill and can deal a lot of damage.

Death Knight - The new class that is only available on this new expansion pack! They however are not available straight away. They can only be unlocked when one of your existing characters is level 55. however when you start a campaign with a death knight you start at level 55 and have some good gear and some good spells and abilities.

Each class has a range of abilities which they can master. When you go up a level you get ability points which you can then spend in your ability interface. for example a hunter may choose to learn abilities that benefit his shooting ability. Alternatively he can gain more healing abilities or can choose to have abilities that benefit the pet! You may choose to spend all of you points in one area (which is best) or to mix and match between areas (hard to do right!)

Weapons and armour

Your character has a number of different kinds of weapons that they can use. There are swords, maces, guns , staffs and so on. You will find that the higher level you are the better weapons you can use, also more become available to you. Weapons can be bought or looted from enemies once you have killed them! Looting from enemies is also where your money from. Not only that but some will have food and potions etc. Food can regenerate health and mana (for spells). Weapons are each called something different. You can see by the name of weapons and armour how good it is. White names are what you start with and are rubbish. It then goes from grey to green, to blue and eventually to orange! Some weapons can give you more strength or health and the makers have come up with some great original designs when considering how many there actually are!

The same goes for armour. There are different types of armour for the different classes! Cloth, leather and mail are the regulars and each offers different levels of armour value. The colour scheme works the same for armour, there is again loads to choose from.

You can sell any armour that you pick up that you do not need. Alternatively you can trade it or put it is an auction house on the game!

There are some other equipments like rings an pendants which come in handy when improving you character.

Some armours come in sets also. To give an example you may loot some Defias boots from a bad guy. In this set you can get cloves, pants, chest and arm armour that is all called defias. If you wear it all you get a boost of strength etc.

In the big cities and the towns scattered across the world there are tradesmen and specialist sellers that you can sell anything you don't want. These people allow you to buy back anything you have sold if you only realise its importance after you have sold it

Gameplay

The game plays similar to games like fable. You don't actually button bash to fight, it is more skilled than that. You move your character in the normal manner but when you spot an enemy you want to attack you then tell your character what to do using a series of shortcut buttons on the main screen. For example : If you saw an enemy you wanted to attack you may first want to cast a number of buffs on yourself to power up to your maximum strength. Then you select an attack from the bottom of the screen. If you were a hunter you can right click the enemy to start shooting regular bullets. Your pet will also then run at the enemy. Whilst your character is shooting its target you may decide you want him to also fire a shot that will confuse the enemy. You select the confuse shot ability from a button on the bottom of the screen or using a hot key (you may decide confuse shot should be button 1 on your keyboard). Then you may want to shoot a round that will poison your enemy. This is done in the same way. You do not have all of these abilities from the start however. As you progress every two levels you can then visit a class trainer, many of which are dotted around the map. This class trainer will be specialised to your class. They can teach you new skills as you become higher levelled. One thing to note is that usually every 10 levels you get a very good ability. A hunter gets their pet at level 10. A druid gains the ability to change into a bear at this level. At level 30 all classes are able to ride mounts which can range from horses to robot legs!

When you have reached a very high level you may find you have more abilities than there are spaces to put your abilities on the screen. This leads you to customising your best abilities on the screen and using hotkeys!

The game in general consists of doing quests. There are many computer characters throughout the world, mainly in the big cities. These people will appear to have an exclamation mark above their heads if they have a quest for you. By speaking to them you gain details on the quest and whether to accept it or not. Once accepted you then complete it and then return to that person to collect the award. This plays well as you can accept up to 25 quests at once. You may then complete them all and return to the town where you got them from to collect all your rewards and all of your experience! The quests are clever in that they will lead you to other areas of the map once you are strong enough!

Price

The big thing concerning WOW for me is the price. unlike most games you not only pay for the game disc but for a monthly subscription. You cannot play the game single player, it has to be played online. I got the game and the "burring crusade" expansion pack together for around £15. With that you get a months free play time to test if you like the game. After that it costs around £8 a month.

To see if it was worth it I compared it to Mario Galaxy which I consider to be the best game I have played this year. Mario cost me £30 and last me around one month. I haven't re-played it since then. warcraft has cost me £15 up to now and I have also played it for a month. I will get two more months before the total reaches the same as what Mario costs. After that however I wonder if I will be bored of it. Of course you have the option to cancel you subscription or simply you can pay £15 for a 60 day game card whenever you please. These cards are available from Amazon and you can use them whenever!

The lich king

If you do not own the game already then you have no reason to buy Lich King. On the expansion a new continent appears as does the death knight class. you however need to be level 55 before you can use the death knight and new characters wont be able to go to the new continent till they are this level! I suggest you buy the normal game for £7. Then play it for the free month and see if you like it. By that time you will be ready to buy the Burring crusade expansion if you choose to keep playing. Only then would I suggest buying this game. There is a lot on it for existing gamers but I do not see much that will benefit new gamers!

Should you get it?

I do see what all the hype is about. This is a great game. It has so much content that you will have hours upon hours of fun playing it. If you have friends that own it then again this adds to the enjoyment as you can actually quest with them! I do see that it can take over people lives however! It becomes addictive very quickly and you mind find yourself playing into the early hours. There is a market here for the casual gamer but I think you should think whether the cost is justified for the time you have available to play it! I only intend to play it for two more months before I stop.

Overall this is easily a 10/10 game. The graphics, the music , the story...all of it is brilliant. As I say go buy the original for £7 and see if after a month you think you are ready for the World of Warcraft!