World of Warcraft is an online, multi-player fantasy game built on the premise of role playing. Players connect to a number of servers, meet and fight other players and computer artificial intelligence within the gaming world, and develop their characters. The characters form the basis for both the game play and the ensuing obsession throughout the gaming world; these characters can be so personalized, so specifically created from top to bottom, that the game play becomes an extension of the players themselves. For a player, the first step in exploring this infinite world is selecting the type of character he or she will become, and one of the most popular classes is the World of Warcraft paladin.
The Holy Wars
The World of Warcraft paladin is a hybrid class, meaning it encompasses certain qualities of other, more polar classes. It is a melee fighter, but also a healer; it has the strength of a generic warrior, yet the magical powers of a druid.
The land of the World of WarCraft realm spans entire continents, and the new and casual player can easily find that they have become lost quite quickly. While in game maps will fill themselves in as you discover new locations, you are unable to see the maps that you have not discovered yet, and even if you have the in game maps uncovered, you may still need help to find quest locations. To help navigate the world of Azeroth and beyond, you’ll want to have a World of WarCraft map handy.
Free Online
World of WarCraft maps are easily found online, and several have interactive features. If you have Adobe Flash Player installed, you can view the World of WarCraft flash map at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/flashmap/ and see various points of interest on each of the zone maps while navigating the intuitive zone based world map.
The massive online role playing game World of Warcraft has become an industry in and of itself. There are players who make real-world money by creating add ons and modifications for the game. There are others who get paid to play the game for hours on end, build up a character’s experience and assets, and then sell the character.
Many of these cottage industries associated with World of Warcraft are of questionable ethical basis. Some activities are harmless enough and can actually encourage more people to play – and pay for – this online game.
Private Servers and Their Capabilities
Other World of Warcraft income sources are in a morally gray area. Some World of Warcraft private servers fall into this category. While there are some World of Warcraft private servers that are legal, others rely on illegal practices to make money for their owners while taking income from the game makers.
The modern world is a world of competition. Whether in political races, sporting events, publishing battles or classroom antics, no one wants to lose. This attitude is easily transferable to the fantasy worlds of video games, especially those multi-player systems. Gamers desire to be the best of the best; they desire the strongest characters, the most money, the sharpest swords and the thickest armor. However, many games, including World of Warcraft, start all players out on the same level: level one.
Here, players must flounder around for quite some time, the lowest of the low, unable to do much of everything. This aspiration for fairness is successful at face-level, but some gamers refuse to work their way up the ladder honestly.
Tired of old, boring desktop backgrounds? Sometimes, those plain landscape pictures included with your computer just don’t cut it, and you don’t feel any happiness at booting up your computer. However, you can inject all the great art design and excitement of World of WarCraft, Blizzard’s best selling MMO (massively multiplayer online game), into every aspect of your computer. World of WarCraft backgrounds are sure to spice up your boring desktop so that you can make your computer uniquely you once again with great art instead of boring landscapes.
Thousands to Choose From
With nine million subscribers, World of WarCraft is undeniably the most popular game in recent history, with a large percentage of those players logging in twenty or more hours a week. As such, there is now a huge fan movement in the arts, such as custom made fan music, writing, and art.
The gaming world is obsessed with World of Warcraft. This is not the first multi-player, fantasy-based role playing computer game: many have come before, and many will come after. But there is just something about World of Warcraft that has players making more characters, lining up for expansion packs and living the lives of their characters instead of their own. If anything, this obsession rests on the utter customizability of the game; players can design their characters from the bottom up, both physically, mentally, emotionally and verbally. Their characters can become extensions of themselves, or complete alter-egos. Either way World of Warcraft, for players is another world, maybe an even kinder world compared to the cruel world of day-to-day humanity.
One of the biggest sources of individualization and down-right fun within World of Warcraft is World of Warcraft merchandise.
While some players are drawn to World of Warcraft for magic, most are drawn for violence. The ability to run through environments, slaughtering creatures, attacking other players, looting bodies, upgrading weaponry and armor, selling parts for money and doing it all again hooks many gamers for hours, days and even years at a time. Stationed in front of their computer screens, players boost their characters’ statistics and prepare for all-out war. However, players must declare this desire for bloodshed from the beginning; a character’s race and class directly affect how successful a melee fighter he or she will be. And for those gamers thirsting for the ultimate killing machine, the World of Warcraft warrior is the perfect choice.
The Killing Fields
The World of Warcraft warrior is the most popular melee class; it has the ability to cause and absorb substantial amounts of damage.
World of Warcraft is a large, multi-player online game. Millions of players connect every day, and the game contains infinite creatures, environments, items, weapons, spells, armor, quests, guilds and every other fantastical element. The game is ever-changing, ever-evolving, through both official expansions and through the variety different players bring to the gaming world. The game adapts to anything and everything, but for the average player, such changes can become dizzying. And if a player is not up-to-date on everything in the World of Warcraft universe, he or she will be at a severe disadvantage.
The World of Warcraft Armory was created to provide every player with the means to have an up-to-the-minute recap of everything happening in the World of Warcraft universe.
With a land area in excess of one hundred and twenty square miles, or three hundred and ten square kilometers, the realm inside World of WarCraft is more than large enough to hold many secrets. Many of these can help you along your way to defeating or helping the Alliance or Horde, while many others are just fun and trivial. For example, outside of the Ironforge auction house, a guard moans, “Why didn’t I take the blue potion?” in reference to the film The Matrix. Other World of WarCraft secrets abound, and they all add to the entire WoW experience that nine million other people enjoy.
Pop Culture
World of WarCraft secrets allude to many different examples of popular culture, including Star Trek, Star Wars, Bruce Campbell, and the Super Mario Brothers.
World of Warcraft is an obsession. Both parents and psychologists, from the United States to Japan, worry that the children are sacrificing real life for the virtual lives they create on the screen of their computers. More and more young men and women are forgetting to live. While much of their time is consumed playing the game, other moments are spent furthering their connections to other players, both inside the game and outside the game. Numerous message boards, blogs, online journals and profiles are all dedicated to celebrating love for World of Warcraft, yet even these interactions rarely leave the protective shield of the internet. With World of Warcraft MySpace layouts, players can advertise this love to any world.
Life at Home with World of Warcraft MySpace Layouts
There is no doubt that for young players, an obsession with World of Warcraft is a sentence to social ostracism.