I play wow of and on and enjoy it in spurts. I used to play it hardcore to be the best of the best but found that to be silly and futile. The person who puts in the most hours becomes the best, no skill involved. Its very similar to diablo in that regard. The goal of the game is to grind for gear so you can grind for better gear. Silly. Why I do enjoy playing is for the actual play part. The dungeons and grouping aspects are very enjoyable especially because I like to tank and heal. This is why I play in spurts though. Every couple of years I level up my characters, run the dungeons and have fun, until I reach the point where it requires a lot of commitment: raiding.... Once you get here the game becomes a life suck and you have to commit to be on at certain times to help 24 other people. Fun for some bit not me. They did add a way to raid without this now though which is pretty fun but you don't get the godlike gear, but who cares, all it does is inflate your epenis. The PvP is a complete joke though, zero skill what so ever and is all about who had the best gear. If everyone has equal gear it comes down to what class vs what class like rock paper scissors. If all classes and gear is the same, unlikely, it's just luck.

You wouldn't be able to experience all of WoW in a month. Have fun playing for 30 days, not getting to end game and being cross about it.

Basically it's better than real life and there's always stuff to do. All the time. All. The. Time. You have to choose real life or wow life. I finally kicked the habit after 5 years sometime in the middle of Cataclysm with over 300 days of playing time. I remember thinking thats about 5 hours per day average. Probably over 50% of my freetime. But I didn't delete my characters. I know if I fell off the wagon I'd be right there again. "Ok guys, release and run back in. Let's try again. 56th time is the charm. " XD

It's just really fun once you get a good guild Also I've played for 4 years and never got addicted to it. No idea how this is so common.

It used to be good, there's many more mmo's you can play for free that are better

[quote]I am considering subscribing for a month to understand what all the fuss is about. Apparently, if you haven't played WOW like me, it is a gamer sin beyond measure. Tell me, what makes it so special, and why I would want to play it, I need to understand.[/quote] It defined the MMO genre and there is so much stuff to do, you can tank, heal, be dps. There are dungeons, raids, pvp, professions, mount collecting, achievements, gold farming etc. Infact I am going to do a raid right now.

WoW is special because it was the game that has shown consumers aren't willing to own their games and will subscribe to them and keep paying for them and often enough to give up everything they can to continue in the game that never ends. [i]because gaming at its core is a business™[/i]

Can't say I see why it's so loved. Subbed to it, played until I was at whatever the first expansion content was that ended up being free at that point and then quit. I felt like that by that point I'd already experienced it enough to say that it just isn't for me. I enjoy Hearthstone though.

I played WoW for 8 years, from release until 2 years ago. Having been there from the beginning its easy to see how I got sucked in. I got to see it from the start. I saw the changes. I had friends with me to experience those changes. Everything was new, fresh, and exciting. The game took work, on a personal level and as a team. If you wanted something good you had to work hard for it. You could see by looking at someone's character that they've done a lot (or not much at all). It was a golden age in online gaming for me. But now... Nearly 10 years since it released, its changed. And not all for the better. Power leveling to 90 for new players just so they can catch up? Bonus EXP boosts? Cash for mounts? Recruit a friend bonuses? And now they're making it feel more and more like Diablo by watering down the groups mechanics. Sure it makes it easy for new players, but its not as rewarding. And there's farming groups that do nothing but hunt rare spawns that drop free epics?! I worked my ass off to get my Paladin ready for raids, but now you just farm the epic you need and tah-dah! This isn't the WoW that sucked me in for nearly a decade. Try the free month and see if its for you, but I feel that the long term players are still around because of the good ol' days. Not because of its newly discovered ease of access.

I was like you about a year ago. Then the battle chest was on sale for $10 and oh god was I amazed. I didn't understand what the whole hype was about till I played. So don't take anyone's word about the game. Go experience it for yourself. It'll be worth it trust me.

Dude if you sub I will recruit-a-friend you

/waggle