An amazing MMORPG, one of the best to date.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) set in the world of Azeroth, and based on the Warcraft storylines. Much like any RPG you choose a race, gender, class, and then begin playing. Unlike other MMORPGs, WoW includes an intuitive quest-based leveling system, so it gives you a good break from the normal 'grind' of regular RPGs, where you spend hours killing monsters in order to progress through the game.
The quests are usually very easy, and usually require things like "Go to point X, kill Y number of mobs, and return to quest giver Z and get experience." However, there are some 'Elite' quests that require you to group with at least one other person, or wait until you are a few levels higher in order to complete it, as 'Elite' mobs are much harder than normal ones. Overall the quest-based system allows for easy leveling, and you'll find yourself progressing through the level very rapidly...until about level 35 or 40.
I call, along with many others, the levels between 40 and 55 "the wall," because that's what it feels like. These levels are much harder to progress through, but I'm not exactly sure why. I suppose it's because quests are harder to come by, but it may just be the feeling that at level 40 you are only halfway to 60 (experience wise) and you've already spent 8 days in game leveling up that far. However, the game still keeps its fun-factor as you can run many different instances, explore other towns, or just do some good ol' PVP in battlegrounds, or raids against other cities.
Battlegrounds (BG) is my favorite part of the game... if you are lucky enough to A) Get a team, and B) Have a decent team. When you go into BG you get put into a queue until there are enough people for your particluar BG choice (There is Capture the Flag, an Assault-like game, and a game where you try to control various points on the map for points, like King of the Hill). All of these are team games, which means you have to wait for a certain amount of people for each alliance to join. This can sometimes take a very long time or a very short time, depending on what server you are on, and sometimes what alliance you joined, Horde or Alliance. However, when you get inside they are very fun to partake in.
Graphics look amazing, if you're into the cartoony-type graphics. I myself am, so I find that these graphics look very good, however, there are those that would prefer the more "real" graphics such as those shown in EQ2. If you like it, you'll love it, if you dislike them, you'll hate it.
What I don't like:
1) At level 60, there's not much to do - you can PVP, but after enough bad teams, I've been turned off from BG for the time being, or you can go into instances to get better armor, which rarely drops, and if it does, there's a chance you will be outrolled by another player and have to run the entire instance (usually lasting 2hours+) and hope for it to drop again.
2) On PVP servers there is usually very little honor - high level players will kill and camp you just because they can, so if you choose a PVP server, get used to watching high level players camp your corpse... because it will happen a lot.
3) Because this game is based on Warcraft, is very easy to get into, and looks "cartoonish," there are many little kids on the game, some of which can be extremely annoying. Of course, there are also "1337" gamers who think they're better then everyone, but that's in every game.
If those 3 things don't turn you off, you should DEFINATELY go out and buy this game. It is fun, easy to get into, and it has a great value (I have over 1000 hours and I still play a fair amount). It's definately one of the best, if not the best, MMORPGs ever made.