World of Warcraft

This game is very close to my heart as it was the first that I ever played. Before I played this game, I was a gaming virgin. World of Warcraft took my virginity swiftly and completely, and I was never the same again. It is pioneer game, the game everyone should try at least once. With around 10 million subscribers and many free-to-play people, this game probably has the biggest following of any MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) to date. Over the years, it's gotten better and worse with each new expansion. The graphics have been altered in some cases, the quests have gotten longer (and shorter), and dungeon-queuing with friends has gotten a lot easier. Plus, with the new expansion Mists of Pandaria, you can play as a panda, and let's be honest, who doesn't want to be a panda?

World of Warcraft, or WoW as I will shorten it to, is a roleplaying game in which you, the player character, must save the world of Azeroth from itself. You can play in two different factions, the Alliance, the "good guys," or the Horde, the "bad guys." The Alliance is made up of six primary races: night elves (purple elves), worgen (werewolves), draenei (goat people), dwarves (short), gnomes (shorter), and humans. The Horde consists of six races as well: orcs (big and green), trolls (big and blue), blood elves (blonde Barbie dolls), undead (zombies), goblins (really short), and tauren (cow people). The new race of Pandaren can play on either the side of the Alliance or the Horde through choices made in-game. You can also choose a class: druid, shaman, priest, warlock, mage, hunter, rogue, death knight, warrior, paladin, or monk. Each class has specific abilities and spells that you learn how to use at the beginning of the game, and you build yourself up to level 90 by defeating villains and going on adventures. Personally, I prefer my blood elf mage to any of my other characters, as she is stylish and powerful.

WoW has decent graphics for and MMORPG. The environments look a little too cheap and colorful, but sometimes the colors are well-done, especially in newer areas.

Crystalsong Forest

Over the years, they've slowly gotten better. It began as cheap, blocky-looking people and creatures (as seen with the orc faces still), and has evolved into something that could be called art.

Some of the questing done now is a bit more simplistic. For example, the Westfall quest of making stew for a woman used to take hours. You would go out and kill four million pigs and six million birds to find eyes and pork but you would never find anything you needed. Now, the drop rate for the materials has changed to where you could do this quest in anywhere from half an hour to an hour. Shorter questing is good in cases like this, but not when I want long, complicated quests that stimulate my brain and make me think. Some of the quest chains are really decent now, though. In Westfall again, the entire chain centers around finding out who the mysterious person stirring up the countryside is and stopping her eventually in the Deadmines instance. There are pros and cons to all of this.

This game is free-to-play to level 20, so I highly recommend that you try it out! Or, if you're not into gaming, you don't have to experience this game filled with fun and adventuring. I'm just saying.