I've played video games starting with the Atari 2600 in the early 80's. I always liked adventure and fantasy games. Before World of Warcraft, my favorite fantasy game was Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate was incredible - even for an intermediate gamer. Yes, I had to use a walkthrough to finish it, but that was part of the fun. This was storytelling at its best!


In October 2007, we returned home from a 10 month backpacking trip across South America and Jamaica. Now it was time for a virtual adventure. I bought World of Warcraft in New York City at Rockefeller Center and as soon as we got settled in at home, my Warcraft adventure began..

From the first day I played, I liked everything about World of Warcraft. Lots of games have good graphics and gameplay, but not every game creates such an immersive world. And its easy for the beginner (though there's lots to learn!).

Here's my Warcraft story and a few tips..

I decided to go with a warrior. For me, the two classic Dungeons & Dragons characters are the warrior and mage. Start with something you're comfortable with. If you like animals, try a hunter. If you like magic, try a mage or warlock. Within a few months, I took my warrior to level 60. I still had a few areas to quest and explore - Winterspring and others. At this point, I was questing for gold as I'd hit the level cap of 60. Each quest made me about 10 gold.

Then I tried soloing the dungeons (also known as instances). Its fun going back to dungeons you struggled with 4 others at level 30 and walking through them with ease on your own at level 60. Good gold too. Now it was time to get the expansion - Burning Crusade.. What a beautiful world Outland is! It was fun leveling through each area.

I did a bunch of the dungeons but eventually slowed down - they take 2-3 hours each. When you're in a dungeon, 4 other players count on you to keep playing till the last boss. Eventually I built a route for doing the daily quests - doing 17-18 of them a day. Each day of doing the dailies gets me 300-350 gold. Then I got into pvp play. Warcraft has a few player-vs-player battlegrounds. The action is much faster than with dungeons and they last anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. That's a lot easier than committing 3 hours to a dungeon.

With pvp play, you turn in honor marks for much better weapons and armor. It'll take a few months to get everything I want. I have until December to do this and a few other things in the game - that's when I hope to have the new Wrath of the Lich King expansion!

Here are some of my favorite screenshots, enjoy!


























































I've done panoramas with photos and had to try it with Warcraft. They don't come out as perfect as photos, but sometimes a panorama is the only way to express the view you're seeing.



And here is the last one in full size.

Then I did a Quicktime 3D version of one of them..



I took these 3 in August 2008. The first two are pvp battleground screens and the other is from the Isle of Quel'Danas - a sort of playground for level 70's.