World of Warcraft -- Progress Report.

I have reached level nineteen in World of Warcraft. I have left my starting area of Teldrassil which is an island off the northwestern shore of the continent of Kalimdor and made the journey to Darkshore. I've tamed a bear as my pet. In keeping with my Phantasy Star based naming tradition I have named him Algo. The bear makes a major difference in how I approach the game and in my ability to deal damage and survive. His job is to be my shield. A Hunter can control the pets he tames where all the other pets in the game are purely for ornamental purposes. I can command Algo to be aggressive, defensive, or passive. He'll attack everything, attack only when attacked, and never attack respectively. I can command him to follow me, or command him to stay where he is. His attack range is rather large, even beyond the range of my arrows. I can use this to my advantage. I will select a target and command Algo to attack. He'll roar and rush off into battle.  The enemy will see him as the threat he is and will focus in on Algo and not me. This allows me to fire away from a safe distance. His attacks are actually quite powerful and he can absorb a lot of damage. I have attacks that slow down the enemy's speed which helps slow the damage he has to take. It's surprisingly smart AI and it actually comes off as actual teamwork. It's a strange experience. The pets have their own sets of skills that you can power up just like you would your own character. They are based on his level and the skill levels themselves. You can't buy a higher attack skill at level three without having one and two and so on just because you've reached level twenty which allows for the level three skill. The only requirements for keeping the pet are in keeping him happy. All that really comes down to is keeping him well fed. Each pet type has a variety of foods it will and will not eat. You just need to keep enough of what they like on hand. It actually costs me next to nothing as he's big on eating fish. I spend a lot of time fishing so I'm always well stocked on pet food. This isn't much of a chore as it helps in both my fishing rating and the cooking rating. Plus the benefits from having Algo are immensely worth it. We're all just plugging away, raising skills, gaining levels, doing quests. Keldroc has joined the game as a Mage. I've yet to meet up with him. He's reached level eleven rather quickly as of this entry. So we have a well rounded group with my Hunter, Pent's Warlock, Keldroc's Mage, Riddel's Warrior, and Magus' Rogue. We should be getting to the point where we'll be able to group up here and there to help each other through some of the tougher quests sooner than later.  As for now we're all just working on improving our characters.