World of Warcraft is the most successful MMORPG of ALL time with (as of June 2011) 11.1 million subscribers.
To paraphrase a classic line - anyone who tells you that they weren't a little bit overawed the first time they stepped into the WoW is either lying or mad - it's not called WoW for nothing.
However, once those first fledgling steps are taken, most players settle down and find their own way to make-it in the game. There is a huge variety of races and character classes to play and the chances are that somewhere there's a combination that will fit you like a glove. Do you like to express yourself with a sword? or perhaps blasting monsters with magic is your thing? You may be one of those rare types that prefers to give, rather than to receive - perhaps becoming a healer is your calling?
Regardless of your choices within the game - one fact remains. It's huge. Let me say that again, its HUUUGE. This isn't some kind of 200 room dungeon with a few monsters that re-materialize every 5 minutes. There is just so much room to breathe it's unbelievable. The place is so stuffed with monsters, secrets and quests that you could spend a lifetime wandering from place to place trying to figure it all out.
Now, some people are quite happy to mooch around, picking up the game and the quests as they go - and I say: good luck to them. If you can treat your game-time like disposable income - I envy you. I just don't have that much available to me - every minute is precious. It's not a problem if you're 18, no kids, no responsibilities - you can afford to spend days at a time figuring it all out and making those wrong turns that waste hours. But don't for a minute think that 18 year olds with nothing to do with their lives form the majority of the WoW player demo-graphic. Data on the game's player demographic isn't perfect - but Nick Yee's Project Daedalus gathered data that showed only about 25% of MMORPG players are teenagers, and the average age? 26. On average - a player will spend 22 hours a week playing the game. Now - as I said - these stats aren't perfect - but I can sure as hell tell you that I don't get 3 hours a day to play games!
It's the time issue that makes me want a more guided experience within the game - I want to explore and find new things - but I want to do it on my terms. I don't want to waste time if I don't understand something. I'm fully aware that I'm not "Albert Einstein" quality when I comes to thinkin'. There are some bits to the game I just don't get. Part of it is my own intelligence - but I think that more of it is that sometimes - the game's designers and I just don't "click"; that is, we're not on the same wavelength. It's at these points in the game that I turn to, what is perhaps, my best investment to-date - other than buying my WoW time that is!
I use Dugi's Ultimate WoW leveling guide. This is an in-game guide. That is, it shows itself within the game client. There's no reading of a manual, no flicking between windows on the computer. The guide is always there if you need it.
It really is the perfect WoW companion. It can help you level your character (any race, any class) from 1 all the way to 85. You can level as fast (about 5 days of solid play) or as slow as you like (i'm still 55 after months - but i get to play so little) it's totally your choice. The guide will show you where to go, what to do and will even display little pictures of the people / items you need to interact with at the time.
It can keep you positioned within multiple quests - even if you're undertaking them simultaneously and it knows the best paths to take through the quests so that they naturally flow, one into the other. This makes playing the game a much more immersive experience. It's no exaggeration to say that I've come out of a session after several hours (generally it's 3 or 4 in the morning and I'm destined for a bad, bad day at work) without realising how long I've played.
There are actually a number of guides that Dugi's site offers - leveling, dungeon mastery and professions advice. I've only got the leveling currently - but will consider the others when I start a new character. Next time i'll do it all the right way and save myself a bunch of time.
There is so much that is good about Dugi's guide that I can't fit it all into this article. For a more complete review - go to my site, linked in the bio box at the bottom of this article, and check out a more complete review.