World of Warcraft -- Initial Impression.

I once said I'd never return to this genre. I had some of the best times playing Ragnarok Online, and I had what were easily the worst moments I've ever had gaming. The worst was enough to swear me off the genre forever. Or so I thought.  The concept of the genre is quite sound. The execution has always been flawed. And of course, there are the people themselves. My tolerance for dealing with idiots I can't virtually shoot or blow up is considerably low. So how is it I find myself back here again? Well, Riddel adores the genre and has been on me forever to play something with her. Magus has always expressed an interest in the game going way back, but he held off ever purchasing it. Between Halo 2, SOCOM 2, Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, and some Splinter Cell, we've quite enjoyed the thousands of hours we've spent playing online games. The promise of the genre is a strong lure, backed up by people you know and trust, I find myself roaming around Teldrassil as a female Night Elf hunter. Magus is a male Dwarf rogue, and Riddel is a female Human warrior. Pent will be a warlock, and Keldroc is to come along as a mage. My initial impressions are the game is fun and it's pretty. It's pretty for obvious reasons. The graphics are impressive for the size and scope of the game. They're nothing close to the best, but you have to consider the ambition of it all. The game is fun because at this point everything makes sense and it's full of stuff to actually do. You're being kept busy while gaining levels. Your focus isn't seemingly on leveling. That is what you're doing, but it's presented in such a way to disguise it extremely well. Right now we're all just leveling and completing quests in our starting areas of the world. We are spread out around the world and it will be a while before we'll be able to group up and work on goals as a group. The interface seems rather intuitive, there are a couple instances of how do you do this or that, but for the most part it's been easy going. Hopefully it will stay that way. Hopefully it will stay fair and balanced. I'll need to see how the level progression goes. How much pure grinding there is. There haven't been any instances of the other people being jerks so far. The game appears to allow you to tailor the game around your playing style. I'll need to see just how far that goes. But for now, it's surprisingly fun.