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New to MMORPG's Please take this review with a grain of salt. I have completed approximately 10-12 "offline" RPG's, but never before have I tried a MMORPG. Therefore, I can't compare this game to others of the same kind. I bought World of Warcraft because of the great reviews it's gotten just about everywhere. Several things about this game have surprised me. After two weeks of play, I have seen no storyline. There are also no "puzzles" to solve thus far, and I'm not sure whether there will be. In these respects this game is different from the RPG's I've played before. It seems that the goal of the game is only to make your character stronger in competition with the creatures and other players in the game (rather than to avenge a murdered parent, save a kidnapped damsel in distress, keep the world from blowing up, and the like that you see as goals in many other fantasy RPG's. However, these goals serve as morals to the "story" at the core of some RPG's and may or may not be important to everyone, though I think they provide a satisfying sense of completion to the game. I'm not sure this game really "goes" anywhere. Why should the makers want it to...at $15.00 per month?). A player gains experience points by completing quests (e.g., kill so many such and suches or bring this item to so and so) or by going out and killing creatures more or less randomly with the sole purpose of gaining experience points. Levelling up is fairly easy to do, and so far (I'm level 16 with just intermittent play) it's possible to play solo, as I have mostly done. It's not possible to tear open the game box and dive into play as soon as you bring the software home. It took about an hour and a half to install the game and download the latest patches. By the time that was done, my "playtime" for the day was about over. However, I played a while that first evening and was able to have some fun with the game right off the bat. As a newbie to this kind of game, it was possible to start playing right away, though the game is very complex, and the learning curve, while not too steep, is very long. It would have been very helpful to have a more comprehensive game manual included. The game manual is substantial, but it fails to provide the information a beginner like me needed to move along smoothly in the game. I soon bought the $24.99 "Official Strategy Guide" which is very helpful without being "in your face" with spoilers. (It is also possible to get a lot of help from the game's website, but for most of the help I needed, it took a time-consuming search through forum messages, which really puts a damper on one's fun while playing). My game server is frequently down. I don't know how long this problem will persist, but it's down as I type this. Not having access to the game is very frustrating, needless to say. I would have rated this game 3 1/2 stars if 1/2 stars were allowed. I plan to continue playing, and I would guess as newfound disappointments diminish in importance, I would give the game more stars. I hope so! I would recommend World of Warcraft to anyone who enjoys role playing games and who wouldn't be too bothered by the expense of the game or by what I consider its imperfections. The game is addicting and fun for the most part and I'd buy it again knowing what I know now.