[editors note]
Original Post by Chris. This is the original post. And since I saw this review up somehwere, I think we can go public with this now.
[/editor’s note]

Last week many of us were given the chance to join the World Of Warcraft (WoW) Stress Beta.
In total I spent about 5 days playing this MMORPG, and I have to say I had fun.
I created a character I picked the Night Elf Race, and the class of a Druid once “Wanzer” was created I set off to into the woods to get as much “street cred” as I could in a limited time frame.

As a Druid Wanzer had access to some cool spells from the beginning these spells allowed ranged attacks, status attacks, and the ever important healing spell. In the first few hours Wanzer quickly made it to lvl 4. As with all RPG’s the spells got better, and the mana and HP climbed to match. WoW uses a system of “resting” to deter players from grinding EXP. I have to say I did not notice much of a difference as I played. Granted there were moments, where I would get 200% EXP for a kill, but considering I would play for as long as I did when I was deep into Star wars Galaxies last year, it feels as if this will turn into a novelty in the released version of the game.

Combat is a blast especially once you get into it with higher lvl monsters. I found myself quickly learning how to create combos of spells that would decimate creatures. Also many of the quests in this build of the game can be soloed and adventuring alone is easy. However after doing some exploring I found a way off my Island, once I was in the “new land” I started running into high lvl monsters, that would kill me without blinking…this brings us to death in WoW. When a player dies in this world, you are sent to the closest burial ground, here you are allowed to either “pay” to be rez’ed with EXP, org strap on your ghost boots, and “huff” back to your body! I choose to “huff” all the time. Now here is the problem. If you died in the middle of a pack of Bears you come to life in the middle of a pack of Bears! If you don’t time you rebirth just right your going to die often. Its also worth mentioning that Ghosts in this game are bound by the same “laws” as the living so no going through objects, no floating, and no possessing statues in order to free Zool….

I have to say during the many days I played WoW I did not feel bored, the feeling of move here kill stuff, move there kill stuff is still there. What staved me from going outside into the sun was the openness of my characters development. Aside from the skills Wanzer was learning as a Druid, he also took time to learn Enchanting, Animal Skinning Fishing, Bought a Pet Owl, gained the ability to morph into a Bear (to kill the enemy you must know the enemy!)
I had a lot of fun playing WoW and it was a good intro into the next generation of MMORPG’s coming down the pike. With WoW, EverQuest II, Middle Earth Online, D&D, and City of Villains coming out soon it’s going to be hard to choose.

Did anyone else play in the Beta?

[editors note] Original Post by Chris