World of Warcraft (WoW) is a MMORPG which really stands for massive multiplayer online role play game. Basically that means that you can interact with other players from all over the world with your in-game character! There is a friends list in WoW which keeps track of players you liked particularly and have decided to add to your friends list. A larger version of this friends list is a 'guild' which is basically a large (or small) community of players who come together and interact with each other by trading, killing monsters, doing quests etc.
You can train your character to become a higher level which results in much more strength and greater possibilities! Each character can choose two different professions they like to learn. Each profession is useful to certain characters or classes, or some useful to all. When your character reaches a higher level, you become stronger in terms of gaining 'stats' points like stamina, strength, agility, intellect or spirit. These points are awarded automatically so you don't have to worry about spending these points wrongly! When you reach level 10 (which can be done in one day) you receive what's called 'Talent Points'. Different classes have different talents where they can invest their talent points in to make them even more powerful. There are 3 talent trees available for each class to specialize in. If you have spent a few points incorrectly (to your point of view) you can unlearn them by paying your class trainer certain amounts cash. Remember (almost) everything in WoW is reversible but always at a cost!
Another great thing about WoW is that everything is explained in the game itself to help you maximize your fun. When you mouse over an object, player or monster, a small tooltip displays at the bottom of your screen providing some information on your target.
There is never an end to the game as Blizzard keeps creating new content which means you'll never get bored of doing the same things over and over again. The customer service is also great because there are Blizzard employees inside the game (called GMs or game-masters) who will help you immediately after you've called out for help. Of course they won't help you with advancing in the game itself (like killing a particular monster) but they can help you with technical difficulties and such. If you have serious problems with your WoW account you can also call their helpdesk.
In WoW, there are three different types of currency. Gold, Silver and Copper from highest to lowest. It works like our in real life system, 100 copper is one silver, 100 silver is one gold. You can use gold to buy items from NPC vendors, unlearn talents, learn profession skills or class skills or even to buy item from other players. Players usually put items they want to sell to other players on the auction house. You can then bid on items (a minimum is set by the selling player) but you'll have to wait till the auction expires before you receive the item. Or you can buy it straight away for the maximum price called the buy-out price, which is also set by the selling player. Note: not every player sets a buy-out price.
Quests are your main objective for training your character. You get 'experience' by doing quests and killing monsters which results in leveling up. You cannot lose your experience once you've gained it. There are literally thousands of quests in WoW for you to explore and complete! In addition to experience, quests also give you money and items as rewards! When you've killed an monster you can 'loot' it. Usually monsters drop some cash and sometimes even items! Some more difficult quests have amazing rewards that are definitely worth the time. Many of these more difficult quests often take you to 'instances'. An instance is a private place for you and your party members. This way other players cannot steal your monsters and take the loot. Instances contain more difficult monsters and boss encounters that you normally meet outside but obviously they give improved loot and money. You know when you see an instance by the a colored swirling portal, indicating the entrance.
There are different types of items in the game labeled by different colors. The lowest rank is grey items. They are generally useless and can be sold to NPC vendors for additional cash. The next rank is white items. They are useful to some particular players but they are also usually sold to vendors. The following ranks are green, blue and purple items from lowest to highest. They are much rarer than grey or white items and are often armor or weapons that you can wear. They have improved stats and more armor or damage. Green items drop quite often from random monster. Blue items have a much lower drop rate from random monsters but can be found often on bosses in instances. Epic items are the rarest of the three but can be found from bosses found in extremely difficult instances. There are also orange items which are extremely difficult to obtain. There are only a few weapons of this rank and they are obtained through long and difficult quests. It is rumored another rank exists, the red items. They haven't been seen in-game yet but Blizzard is developing them.
When your character dies, you become a spirit at a graveyard and you can return to your corpse by simply walking towards it and resurrecting. The only set-back is that you lose 10% durability of your gear. Durability is the lasting power of your gear. When you take damage, your gear wears and tears and eventually breaks. It can be solved easily by going to a NPC (non player character) and asking him/her to repair your items. Only certain NPCs can do that but that's for you to find out.
There are many aspects of this game that can't be discussed in this short introduction! So please try this game and discover for yourself! Go to http://www.wow-europe.com/en/index.xml for more information.
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