Underneath a Panther's Black Fur
An Amazing Game for All
Published on March 14, 2005 By Pantherchic In WoW
My husband has been playing the Warcraft games for a long time. I could never really get into them. The whole strategy game is beyond my normal thinking. But naturally when World of Warcraft came out, Bear bought it. I watched him play for a little while and then decided that I would give it a try.

I am hooked.

I have two characters on two different servers. One of my favorite things about this game is you can totally customize your characters appearance. Hair color, facial features, male/female, class, race, hair style, skin color. Depending on the race you can pick features unique to that race. Piercings, horns, scars.

My first character is a night elf named Ivie. She is a level 21 druid with Alliance afliation. You can pick two professions with each character. The two I chose are herbalism and alchemy. I pick different herbs, mix them together and create different potions. Some are to heal and some are to improve. I had to learn fishing also as a trade skill because some of my potions need fish (I'm not sure why). Ivie is on one of the 'normal' servers. That means that I can go about playing my character and talking to other people via the chat option and no big deal.

My second charater is a tauren named neheptra (panther in a foreign language). She is a level 10 warrior with Horde affiliation. Her professions are mining and blacksmithing. That works out really nice because I can make my own chain mail and such. The skills that I learned with her are fishing, first aid, and cooking. She is on one of the 'role-playing' servers. That means that when I chat with other players and conduct myself I am supposed to act the way that character woud if it were real. Including my manner of speech. I dont know how to speak like a tauren so I don't say much.

I play at least a few hours a day. I like the way the game is layed out. I like doing the quests and talking to people, but often enough I will just wander around to see what I can find. I have "met" people from all over the United States and even talk to a "friend" from Australia. There is an artcile here on JU by Draginol about his son and that game Link If you get the chance you should read it. This game is so expansive that no matter what your reason for playing, it is worth the $15 a month to play.

Comments
on Mar 15, 2005
I have generally shied away from MMORPGs in the past. WoW looked neat though... easy to get into. I gave it a shot no more than a week ago, and I'm already hooked! Dare I say, I'm playing too much. It WAS in fact easy to start up, and I never got the level-grinding blues... there's always something. I think those 3 words sum up the addictive nature of it... "There's always something". I log on to take care of some business... attend to my mining issues, for example. One hour later, I'm knee-deep in evil looking for some trinket and tryiing to figure out which items I should haul back to town in my bulging backpack, and which to leave behind!

There's always something...

OMG... one of the first characters I tried making was EXACTLY like you're first character! I was planning Herbalism/Alchemy, Night Elf Druid... I tried the name, but it was already taken... I tried "Ivy" first, then Ivyy, then Ivie... no good... That was on N... Ne.... dammit, it was a server that began w/ an "N"... I wonder...

I went a different way, though... I have a Dwarf Hunter on the Azjol-Nerub server, w/ Mining and Engineering.

I think it could be neat to have a class focused on trade skills... something that can take more primary professions, and special bonuses to such things. I'm surprised I'm having so much fun mining! Wouldn't be the same without my trusty bear "Buske", though.
on Mar 30, 2005
Hey Pantherchic, you haven't blogged lately. You must be really busy or ...SUCKED INTO THE VIRTUAL REALITY OF World Of Warcraft. Here's a fun story I came across on that topic Link. It sounds like a really addictive game. Hang in there. Don't lose your grasp on the real world.

on Mar 30, 2005
Angela~
Thanks for the link. Definetely interesting. I have been meaning to write...just been so busy with a million other things (not just WoW!) I will try to get an article or two up in the next few days. Thanks for reading and sorry about the lack of articles lately.

-Panther
on Apr 18, 2005
What are your thought on PvP and ganking?
on Apr 18, 2005
In all honesty, World of Warcraft is fairly limited insofar as customizeable avatars are concerned. EverQuest 2 is certainly more robust in this capacity, and even that game is extremely limited compared to City of Heroes. If paper-doll tweaking is appealing to you, I highly recommend City of Heroes, it will keep you glowing for hours on end with the sheer volume of possibilities.

However, that said, the stunning artistry and design acumen produced by Blizzard in their realization of a 3D Azeroth is absolutely jaw-dropping. Plenty to see, plenty to do.

-Zombosis
"A peculiar neurosis, this deep vein zombosis..."
on May 22, 2006
wow sucks after u get a lvl 60 man and do ragonos it just boring
on May 23, 2006
I played warcraft 1 when it came out.

I still have the game in a disk 3.5 format, pirated.

I also have the second and the third game with both expansions.


I will not buy or play world of warcraft mainly for two reasons.

1) I will never pay to play a game in multiplayer, each month. No thanks. Blizzard has enough money to keep them free as they did with diablo 1, starcraft, starcraft broodwar, diablo 2, diablo 2 lord of destruction, warcraft 2 b.net edition, warcraft 3 and frozen throne. Why WoW would have to be a "pay per month" ? I have seen how the servers and everything works and the service is not better than the original b.net service.

2) World of Warcraft is designed for kids. The graphics are good but it has the same problem civ4 got : you feel like you are playing theme park or any other colorfull game.

When I play a RPG, in multiplayer as in solo, I dont want to be in an atmosphere of candy and joy.

Long live to Neverwinter night, long live bioware and obsidian !!
on May 23, 2006
I played World of Warcraft quite a bit over the last two years, although I've given it up in the short term in the best interest of finding a job (generally an important thing to have!) While WoW was enjoyable to play, and well crafted (I actually appreciate the stylized artwork, although I realize not everyone does), I didn't feel that it offered enough redeeming features. While games are, for the most part, for recreation, I think that they should challenge the player in some way--either through hand-eye coordination, strategic thinking, or diplomatic ability, etc. WoW doesn't really challenge either--the only significant skills it builds are planning and working toward achieving goals. Galactic Civilizations II offers that as well as significant challenges to strategic and operational thinking.

What I'd really like to see would be a massively multiplayer strategic game, but there are massive design issues there yet to be resolved. Many people who play strategic games like to do so for the "emperor of the world" feeling--that's easy to do with single player games, but when there are a thousand players, only one of them can be emperor, and the rest will be left wondering why they're playing the game. That's a fundamental challenge to the design of an massively multiplayer strategic game, so I don't think we'll see a good one for quite some time, if ever.
on May 30, 2006
wow sucks after u get a lvl 60 man and do ragonos it just boring


That is a mis-conception. The game doesn't change after 60. What does change is your perception of it. Simply while you level to 60 you have the illusion of working towards a goal. At 60 advancement is no longer so apparent. I assure you from 1 to 60 the game is plenty boring.

on Jun 02, 2006
From a advancement perspective I'd say WoW post 60 isn't as fun as pre 60. I played it a lot on a PvP server, was really well equipped, had killed Ragnaros, and was very high in PvP Rank (Rank 11). When I quit there really wasn't enough to do at 60 besides PvP and kill the same raid content for the 1,000,000th time. Since I quit they've added a lot of high end content, so I might check it out. I think EQ has the best End game of any MMORPG, although the graphics really need an overhaul.
on Jun 02, 2006
I guess I am happy in the stone age with Warcraft II
I also like Starcraft. Haven't ventured much further