Wow Gold -- not for the casual gamer anymore

In 2004, this game was advertised as 'being for the casual gamer' but also having content in which the 'hardcore gamer' could strive for. Anyone who did not have 14 hours a day to sit and play video games could have a lot of fun with this game in both PvE (player versus environment - you against the computer's monsters) or PvP (player versus player - players going head to head against one another). Originally the content was meant to be such that 'casual gamers could experience the full richness of the game and hardcore gamers would get a little bit extra out of the game, but the differences would be small.' On levels 1 - 59, this remains the case. However, upon reaching level 60 (which doesn't take anywhere near as long as other games, but is still a lengthy journey), the story completely changes. Hardcore gamers are rewarded with items which allow them to kill another player with just 1 swing / magic spell / shot, and armor that makes them so powerful that fighting them becomes like 'fighting a tank with a toothpick.' The developers of this game have effectively stopped releasing content for the "casual gamers" one year ago - and now spend the majority of their time catering to the "hardcore" players - which by the way, accounts for approximately 8% of their player base.

Levels 1 - 59 can go solo or fight in 5 man groups fighting quests or doing instances (dungeons in which only members of their party can enter) to get items or to level up. At level 60, to get the "hardcore" items which allow superior status, one must join 40 person "raids" (a raid is a combined coordinated collection of 2 or more groups, in this case, 8 groups) to fight the "hardcore" instances - which can take 6 - 14 hours ... or more.

World of Warcraft is a game that brought the masses in by its appeal from casual gamers and the differences that set it apart from EverQuest, whose end-game content also required very long "raids".

A recent New York Times article author recently described "casual" (generally non-raiding) gamers as being 'lazy, having no skill and not having partying (grouping) skill', to which the lead designer of the content of World of Warcraft effectively agreed.

Be warned about this "raid or die" mentality before you make the purchase of World of Warcraft.

Next - don't think that if you purchase the game that you will be able to play with your friends or family members. Blizzard's success with World of Warcraft has brought them far more subscribers than they bargained for, leaving them with game servers that have filled up to the max, leaving players with large amounts of lag and *long* waits to even log into the game. Blizzard's "queue" system sets a maximum number of players on each server, so if you try to log on at peak times when the server has reached its maximum number of players, you may have to wait - up to 2 hours - to play. To attempt to solve this problem, they have instituted a ban on all new character creations on certain servers for people who do not already have a character on that certain server (so if you don't already have a character on say, server "Dalaran", then you can't make a new character, you have to pick another server). If all of your friends or family are already playing on one of those servers, then you are out of luck. You will be playing all alone on a server in which you know nobody while the people you wanted to group with are on another server. Blizzard has been tightlipped about as to whether or not this new 'character creation ban' will be temporary or permanent. Thousands of people have bought this game since mid-December of 2005 and have been extremely irate by this issue. If someone bought this game under the assumption that he or she would be able to play online with friends and that person can't - that person ned not expect a refund from Blizzard. Their reply to this - "Working as intended. Cancel your account if you don't like it."

Combine this horrible customer service with the fact that almost all the servers have queue lines, many of them even during non-peak hours. Servers with huge loads of players experience unreasonable amounts of lag which hinders even basic movement throughout the game, much less talking to quest givers, getting loot from dead monsters and any other trivial task attempted to be undertaken. One thing that will really make any gamer mad is to be running through the forest, be lagged so badly as that it appears nothing around you is moving, then for the game to catch up 3 minutes later and you find yourself dead from monsters you couldn't see. This customer service has left many fans and players of World of Warcraft with their heads spinning, wondering where their $15 monthly subsciption fee goes.

This game was absolutely wonderful a year ago, and the content from levels 1 - 59, and the first few hours of level 60 is marvelous. The casual gamer can have lots of fun getting up to level 60, but once level 60 is attained, very little content exists for the "casual" gamer. This game is beautiful, has wonderful sounds / music, fun action and even requires thinking on the most basic "hack and slash" warrior by using abilities which must be planned and strategized versus just using one or two buttons for every fight. However, word has it that all the initial designers have long since left, leaving new designers which have changed the direction of the game.

My rating for World of Warcraft would be 5 for fun and 5 overall were it not for the terrible customer service, horrible server structure, new character creation ban and complete lack of end game 'non-raiding' content (it feels really bad to put many many hours of online play into a character only to have to abandon it simply because there is nothing else to do if you aren't a hardcore raider gamer). However, there is no fun at all when you have to wait 1 to 2 hours looking at a computer screen that says "Position in queue: 952. Estimated wait time: 1 hour 43 minutes" only to come back 10 minutes later to see the "Estimated wait time" at "1 hour 44 minutes." Some queues have even gotten up into the 1500s.

Please consider this before buying this product or referring this to a friend. Please go to the World of Warcraft website and look at their "general" forums. Then make a decision.