The many hours I've spent in Azeroth.

World of Warcraft is by far the game I have spent the most time (and money) playing.  It's also one of my all-time favorites.  I never would have thought I would end up playing an MMO, but WoW sucked me right in.  People always snicker when you admit that you've played WoW.  They act like it's the nerdiest thing on Earth.  My response to them is always go try it out--get a free trial vision and then see who's laughing.  I can almost guarantee that they'll be hooked after those 20 levels and move up to the full version.

I remember playing through Warcraft III and seeing a little blurb at the end of the game about a new adventure.  That adventure became World of Warcraft and an extremely successful MMO franchise that has been around for ten years.  In World of Warcraft you get to choose one of the races from Warcraft to play as.  Those races are split up into two distinct and opposing factions known as the "horde" and the "alliance." (The original horde races were orc, troll, tauren, or undead while the original alliance races were human, dwarf, gnome, and night elf--that has expanded to include other races like the worgen and pandaren that can choose their faction).  Once you choose your race you can choose from a number of different classes and specializations.  One of the best parts of WoW is the ability to choose your playstyle--each class includes three different talent trees.

After you've created your character you're ready to hop into the game.  Your main task is to complete quests and gain experience to level your character up.  WoW is an absolutely enormous game with a great variety of zone and quest types that will keep you busy and entertained for many, many hours.  Along the way players can choose the types of activities that they want to pursue--there are dungeons at almost every level in which players can group up and work together to take down more challenging foes or player vs. player battlegrounds that pit them up against each other.  This is one of the great strengths of WoW, the ability for players to have these choices about how they want to play and not being pegged into a single style.

Once you get to maximum level you can choose to take on the most challenging bosses in the game in raids.  Raids require 10 or 25 people to complete and are the ultimate challenge in WoW.  They require much coordination, time, and effort from players.  The best items and loot is found in raids and the hallmark of the most dedicated and skilled players are the ones decked out in raid gear.  If raids aren't your thing you can test out your PvP skills in arenas and battlegrounds.  There are also people who play for the social aspects of the game like joining and running a guild or others who enjoy the more casual aspects of WoW like collecting or questing.

World of Warcraft really is an amazing game.  How many other games out there have been around for 10 years and are still relevant and popular?  I know that some people are turned off by the subscription fee, but honestly for the amount of content you get $15 a month is really nothing.  Blizzard is constantly updating and adding content--things like seasonal events, large content patches that add in new gameplay modes or special events, or even fun little things like pet battles.  Recently a WoW developer claimed that it would be around for another 10 years.  Some people might scoff at this statement, but from all the games out there I could believe it from WoW.