Orcs

What do actress Cameron Diaz, comedian Dave Chapelle, starship captain/lawyer William Shatner, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and former adult film star Jenna Jameson have in common?

They can all be found online, along with millions of other enthusiasts, playing the massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft and destroying the image of the stereotypical gamer geek. With such a large and dedicated fanbase, World of Warcraft has crossed over to the mainstream in a big way. Although World of Warcraft (or WoW for short) boasts a richly detailed playing environment (known as Azeroth), storied history, and complex backstory, the uninitiated shouldn't feel intimidated. WoW is newbie friendly too, allowing newcomers to immerse themselves with ease.

World of Warcraft is a subscription game created by Blizzard entertainment in 2004 as a follow up to a series of other games set in the same shared universe. As a testament to its popularity, the Guinness Book of World Records cites WoW as holding the largest share of the subscription MMORPG market--62 percent. In fact, it's so popular that it's become the default MMORPG archetype. For a $15 monthly subscription fee, over 11 million players worldwide assemble their user-created characters into guilds and embark on adventures in this online realm of swords and sorcery.

Character
Obviously, you don't step into the World of Warcraft as yourself. Instead, you create your personal avatar--your in-game character and persona--from a selection of various available races and classes. There are two opposing forces in Azeroth, The Alliance and The Horde, and your character's race depends on which affiliation you choose. Alliance races include things like Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves, and Draenei (which are sort of giant humanoids with hooves and tails). The Horde encompasses Orcs, Trolls, Blood Elves, Tauren (pseudo-minotaur monsters), and Forsaken (armies of the undead). Each WoW race has its own special attributes.

Once you've chosen your avatar's race and customized their look, it's time to select a character class. WoW features 10 different classes, although not all classes are available to all races. Classes include things like Warrior, Warlock, Death Knight, Druid, Paladin, Page, Priest, Hunter, Rogue, and Shaman. Each class has its own specific talents, necessitating the need for a well-rounded guild (team) in order to conquer WoW's challenges. You can mix and match from over 50 available talents and skills when bringing your avatar to life. You can also assign two professions to your character, helping them further develop crucial abilities.

The Quest
Once you've created your character and joined up with a guild, it's time to decide what kind of adventure you're seeking. The game features a variety of locations (realms), each with its own individual opportunities for adventure. Your adventures in these realms are largely dictated by which type of gameplay you prefer. World of Warcraft offers two basic types of gameplay: Player vs. Environment and Player vs. Player. Player vs. Environment entails working together with other online players to battle monsters and complete quests. And, as the name implies, Player vs. Player gameplay features battles between users.

WoW features an in-game currency system that allows characters to purchase new skills and equipment. Quests are missions that usually reward players with this in-game currency or experience points, allowing characters to advance. Typically, a non-player character (a character controlled by the game as opposed to another gamer) will charge players with a quest that might involve delivering a special item to a designated location, locating a lost artifact, or destroying specific monsters. It's common for one quest to lead directly into another quest on completion, generating much of the in-game story as the players interact with non-player characters.

The more successful your quests, the more your character's in-game reputation grows. A higher reputation leads to more involved and rare quests for you and your guild which means the possibilities for gameplay constantly expand as you make your way through the world. Quests can become very involved, with epic adventures and storylines to rival blockbuster movies. Your character may even be killed, only to return as a ghost before finally being resurrected--if anybody in your guild wields the proper skills for the job. Many guilds choose to actively roleplay quests, communicating only in character as a way to further enrich experience.

Player vs. Player
While gamers can still battle each other on Player vs. Environment servers, in most cases each party must agree to the challenge beforehand. However, on Player vs. Player servers, members of opposing factions can attack each other at nearly any time, between questing and exploring dungeons.

For more intricate melees, characters can engage each other via battlefield campaigns. As with quests, battlefield victories are rewarded with experience points and in-game currency, allowing characters to grow and advance.

WoW Appeal
The World of Warcraft has firmly found its way into pop culture at a level unseen since the heyday of Pac Man Fever. Comedy Central's popular South Park featured an Emmy-winning, WoW-centric episode that was heavily animated with in-game footage. Felicia Day of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame created and starred in sitcom The Guild based on her own "addiction" to Warcraft. It's easy to see why the appeal keeps spreading.

As a newbie, once you join-up with the WoW phenomenon, you'll be able to access beginners-only areas, designed to help you get acclimated as quickly as possible. Thanks to the many kinds of assistance available in-game, as well as the support of an extremely dedicated gaming community, you could be making a name for yourself in Azeroth in no time at all.Dugi's Leveling Guide have been around since classic World of Warcraft back in 2005 and over the years we have continuously upgraded our horde leveling guide to meet our customers demands. We have manage to evolve from a written step-by-step guide to a easy to read in-game guide to a sophisticated fully automatic guide that we called Dugi's Guide V4, which is it our 4th generation of in-game leveling guide since we first started.