I just need to do another quest then I'll review...
Lets start off by me saying I'm not the biggest WoW fan or player. I'm an FPS man, but there is something about this game that just captivates me and made me want to start playing which was about 2 years ago. I have just got my Gnome mage up to level 28, this is because Ive played for two months then taken 5 months to play FPS or RTS. But the only games I can see to even slightly compare to WoW in popularity and recognizably are Counterstrike: source, Mario and Starcraft, but Blizzard made that so it should be recognized.
Now the actual game is one that sets the player up with grand ambitions of heroic tales and fighting evils that plague the land around you, this excites the player and gets them all fired up for the long journey ahead. Then after 10 minutes I was stabbing trolls to save someones box.
The thing is though that you want to carry on, despite the fact your getting a random box that 10,000,000 other people that have already returned it 10,000,000 and killed enough trolls to class it as genocide against the troll race you still go on to do it then move to the next quest and the next. I've found myself spending entire days rushing through as many quests as possible to get my level up enough so I would achieve greatness. As I've said previously though I'm only level 28 and am not the strongest of mages or anything but its kept me believing that one day I will achieve greatness.
If I could personify WoW it would be an old woman who ran a pie shop that has every variety of pie with endless supplies of them. These pies are the best in the world and the old lady is really really nice, you chat about things, she makes you a cup of tea makes you feel at home, and shows you pictures of her grandchildren etc but at the end of the day you still have to pay for the pie. There are times when I have to think though "Is she lacing my pies with crack or something" when I've missed meals or nights of sleep. But at the end of the day its a nice place to go for a while to escape after the toils of work unlike in an FPS (which is more like a free rave that all age groups are aloud too) or RTS (which is like going to play chess in the local park with the old codgers).
So yes, World of Warcraft is a fantastic game and deserves credit for its story telling ability and heroic re-playability and would advise it to literally anyone, but I will be one to approach with moderation as I don't want to get fat from too many pies =P.