AKA "My dad's 70th level human warlock can beat up your dad's 70th level night elf rogue!"
Last week, my wife emailed me asking whether or not I was familiar with World of Warcraft. I had heard plenty about it, but never really gave it much thought due to the monthly subscription fee. Well, some of her coworkers were praising the game (as most WoWheads do), and it intrigued her enough to purchase the game on her way home from work. The rest was history.
Within a day we had it installed on 3 different machines for multiple playing options. I found myself digging around online for options to increase my mobile playing experience (keep posted for more on that one) because nobody wants to play on a system that has to be set at the lowest settings and STILL occasionally drops to 15 frames per second (though probably due to lag from hotel connection). Don't get me wrong, it runs quite well most of the time.
Okay, so why on earth would I be writing about a game that came out years ago? Simple, ever since it was released I have managed to withstand the pressure to play. So it's all new to me. And seeing as how this is my blog I'll do what I want. So get off my back already. Geeze. Uhhh...in any case. I did get caught up for a while in the Star Wars Galaxies phenomenon, but kept running into spans where I didn't have time to play thus wasting my money. Also, it puts a strain on the relationship when one is spending hours on end playing a game while the other stews in anger over the lack of "quality" time spent together.
As a HUGE fan of Oblivion (The Elder Scrolls IV), WoW was a no-brainer. It really feels like a less polished but far more versatile and never ending version of Oblivion (though leveling in WoW is much less complicated). It also has the added bonus of letting me play with my wife rather than around her (or worse...holed up in my dungeon office). Plus, since I'm not at home 3 nights a week, it gives us a mechanism through which to get together (and kill things). So instead of tearing a marriage apart, it's allowing us to get together and tear something else apart...if only virtually.
As aforementioned, I did play Star Wars Galaxies for a while (with the original rules and the revamp a year or so later). I must admit that WoW is far superior in performance and overall game playability. It's also nice that they don't start everyone out in the middle of the same gigantic spaceport surrounded by people shouting, fighting, and running around. However, I do wish I didn't have to wait till level 40 to get a horse. Honestly. That world is too damn big to have to run around like that.
My only turn off is the monthly fee. My work tends to be feast or famine, and there are times when I'd be lucky to find an hour a week to dedicate to gaming. I hope someday to see a pay plan that allows me to buy time instead of paying monthly. For example, if the average user spends 40 hours per month online, then 40 hours would cost $15. Then if it took me 6 months to burn through 40 hours that's my prerogative. If it took me 2 weeks then I need to consider switching back to a monthly plan. I think this would attract numerous gamers who have trouble finding time to play and thus can't justify the monthly fee.
If you think you're even mildly interested in the game, you should download the 10-day FREE trial and see if it is your cup of tea. The only thing you have to lose is several hours of download time (or the rest of your waking hours if you become addicted).
For anyone interested, here are the Windows Experience Index numbers for my laptop (Toshiba Tecra M3):
| Processor | Pentium M 2Ghz | 3.8 |
| Memory | 2GB | 4.4 |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GO 6600 | 3.4 |
| Gaming Graphics | 128MB Dedicated Memory | 3.4 |
| Hard Disk | 5400RPM | 4.4 |