The first element that sets it apart is the Warcraft universe. While it contains many of the familiar fantasy trappings—paladins, orcs, and flying eagles among others—there is something very distinct about Azeroth, Ironforge, Kalimdor, and other locations in the Warcraft world. This is due to the distinct artistic style that reached its fruition in Warcraft III and carries over to WoW. It is a cartoonish take on fantasy that still manages to be gritty. WoW is a beautiful game, not because it sports the most advanced graphical engine, but because the artists took their vision and put it in the smallest rock as well as the largest vista. To contrast this, take Everquest. Although many people were and still are devoted to the series, I was never crazy about the series’ artistic style. I played it, but I was never pulled back for more. If you’re going to spend hours in a fantasy world, you have to be captivated by it. WoW enhances the experience through the use of situational music. Depending on what the player is doing, the music changes accordingly. A soothing melody plays while exploring a town at night, while combat is marked by a more battle worthy score.

With the gameÂ’s popularity, it seems as though most who play it are sticking around. During my time playing the game, the servers were packed with adventurers. For my first character I chose a human paladin. Not clothed in the most respectable garments, I aimed to purchase some armor befitting a warrior. I chose to spend the first few hours alone. It is entirely possible to never converse with another soul and still get a lot of enjoyment out of the game. The quests that are available to undertake range from small scavenger hunts to very detailed, story-driven narratives.

Gameplay is not that dissimilar from MMORPG’s that came before it. You move around in a third-person perspective and do what you will. Quests can be undertaken from non-player characters (who have a handy exclamation point over their head) or you can just explore and initiate combat on your own with hostile creatures. Each of the playable races—human, orc, gnome, tauren, troll, night elf, undead and dwarf—begin in a starting city. From there the player can access some surrounding areas in order to undertake quests. At a certain level, they are then able to leave this initial area and begin exploring the world around them. It is in these more “neutral” areas that you encounter the more interesting and powerful enemies.

Eventually the player will die, and it is this element that is rather unique to WoW. Essentially, there is little consequence to dying save the inconvenience of hiking back to the body. The player becomes a ghost, and in this shadowy form must simply follow the on-screen compass to the body. This gives players the incentive to explore, get killed, and get revved up to gain experience and try again. Of course, you can have yourself resurrected immediately, but this comes at the cost of some experience points.

Other incentives include the usual vast array of weapons, armor, and other items common to fantasy RPGÂ’s. Some of these are only available by completing quests. Others just take the usual accumulation of gold. Merchants are available in most areas, and during my time with the game there were plenty of people initiating trades. If you canÂ’t afford an item, there is usually some way to barter for it, or you can visit the auction house and put in a bid. Each class also has certain skills that can be learned, such as blacksmithing, skinning, or even cooking. These skills can be enhanced by practicing them, and can lead to the creation of items that can be sold to other players.

Of course, there is a limited number of clothing and armor, so even though there are plenty of ways for your character to stand out, you’ll run into quite a few twins along the way. While initially setting up your character, you can customize features such as hair, skin color and so on. This adds a little more variety to the populous. One element that is sure to get anyone noticed is a mount. At higher levels, players can attain beasts of burden such as horses and white tigers. One time during my explorations I stepped out of a tavern only to see hordes of players crowding around a high level night elf atop a mount. There were shouts of admirations and jealous mumblings—think of it as the WoW equivalent to Hollywood.

Technically the game has had a few problems. There were a few instances of servers going down for lengthy periods of time, resulting in an extension of the initial 30 day free trial. I never experienced any game crippling lag or outages during my playtime, so perhaps IÂ’m a bit biased on this point. There were, however, some very legitimate complaints that people leveled at the game. But considering the sheer popularity of it, it is to be expected.

I was simply unable to test out every type of character, and not all of those that I tried reached the highest levels, but I have read complaints on various forums about some imbalances—this or that character is not strong enough or is too powerful. In my estimation, it makes sense to have characters that are stronger or weaker, if only to add variety to the game experience. After all, it is unlikely that a WoW devotee isn’t going to try most, if not all, of the races. But updates are constantly being released and they continue to tweak game balance and stabilize the game.

In the end, a MMORPG is best judged by the way it embraces interaction between real people. World of Warcraft was supposed to have a feature called honor points. As you slay players of an opposing faction (or particularly challenging NPCÂ’s) your honor score goes up. Having high honor gives you access to rarer weapons, items, and buildings. You can also lose so much honor (such as by attacking level 1 newbie with your level 65 psycho axe wielder) that you can become an outlaw and are pretty much spat upon. Unfortunately, this has yet to be implemented, but has been promised by Blizzard.

In order to determine how much you want to engage in player vs. player combat, the game lets you choose what type of server to play on. A Player vs. Player server means you can attack opposing factions at any time. Areas of the game world can become contested and won for your side, adding a little bit more persistency to the experience. A non Player vs. Player server still lets you fight others but you must initiate this combat, after which everyone can see that you want to rumble and can attack you. Of course, if you just want to quest with others and not get so competitive, you can initiate a friendly duel or create parties to explore together or complete quests. I found plenty of people willing to team up with me, and within the first ten hours of playing I was already a party leader and had multiple friends in my buddy list in order to quest with later.