I mentioned that I played Final Fantasy XI for a time. I really liked the concept, but ran into some issues. Mostly going to school full time, working full time at a retail store in the evenings, and trying to not fail catastrophically at either of those things. This left precious little time to play games of any sort, much less games that take a massive time investment. So, after I shelved my character, I realized that it would be a scant couple of months before the next new hot thing in massively multiplayer online role playing games was getting much much nearer to completion than I was aware of.
So I did some digging, signed up for the ‘open beta’ and gave the game a try.
And I liked what I saw.
World of Warcraft follows the story laid down in the Warcraft series and picks up just after the conclusion of III. But it’s nothing like other games in the series. You, an adventurer, have decided to venture out into the world. What do you do? Well, quite a bit. You can slay monsters, craft and sell items, do quests, socialize, or some combination of those. And there are thousands upon thousands (though now millions) of other people doing the same thing in the same game world. It’s pretty crazy to think about.
What makes this game a bit more accessible than Final Fantasy XI is that it’s quite a bit more friendly to the casual player, the solo player, and the casual solo player. There’s plenty of cooperative content, too, but if you’ve only got a bit of time at odd hours to squeeze in like I did, then this game might be for you.
I invested a lot of time into this game, but my odd schedule meant that the group of regulars I played with often were unavailable, so I did most of it solo. And a game like this has a certain amount of fun for the soloers, but that wears thin after a while.
I played in a few ‘pick up groups’ to lengthen the game’s appeal, but I had a bit of trouble finding folks that I could deal with. I’ve mentioned before that I like playing multiplayer games like this, even though I don’t really like using them to make new friends; I prefer to play with people that I know in real life. So, after about eight months, I retired my character. I still keep up with the game a bit, with the happenings and the changes. The game now only partially resembles the game I left, so I hear the call to come back occasionally. And since Blizzard’s character retention policy is quite a bit less restrictive than Square’s is for their MMO offering, I may try it again someday.
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