My warrior, going through an early 'woo-hoo fabulous' phase. He grew out of it, thank god.

Part 10 of the Summer of Warcraft series.

My interest in Warcraft is beginning to wane severely. I put the two characters that I’ve leveled past 25 on ice until Blizzard releases The Mount Patch and allows me to get quests done in minutes, rather than hours.

So, I decided to start a new warrior character. I should have done this a six weeks ago.

The camera dropped down on my new green haired, purple-skinned night elf meathead, and … I was in a 3D version of Faxanadu. World Tree indeed. Is the entertainment industry in general finally out of ideas?

Still, the night elf areas and storyline have been, so far, the least cliched high fantasy experience that plain vanilla WoW has offered thus far (not saying much). The green and purple color scheme reminds me of the visual craziness of the old New Orleans-inspired Tableau sim in Second Life, only classically Greek in flavor. It’s actually “fantastic,” not just “Fantasy.” For the first time, I’m seeing design that’s not easy to pigeonhole.

Playing as a fighter has been a breeze. For solo leveling, the increasingly common mode of play on the old noob continents, Warcraft is a game of the clobbering classes – hunters, shamans, paladins and warriors. Most of the early leveling is melee combat ad nauseum with no one around to help out. If you’re wearing cloth armor, every solo quest is a strategic assault until you get some useful abilities. Warriors are ridiculously balanced for soloing, though, having low equipment overhead, heavy armor, high powered weapons and no mana requirement. I breezed to level 17 in only a few days of casual play. It’s enjoyable not having to run around and beg some aspy with a severe inferiority complex to tank for me.

The night elf storyline is definitely the most noob-friendly I’ve yet encountered. The first two playing regions are relatively linear, compact and enclosed, compared to the human storyline. Quests are located close to towns, and none have taxed my warrior yet. My only complaint is that Teldrassil isn’t a real hot spot for blacksmithing. It takes a boat ride to Darkshore if you want to practice the metallic arts.

Finally, elves are bloody ridiculous looking. You can’t help it. When the hairstyles are all taken from 1980s hair bands, the ears look like canards on a supersonic jet, and the skin colors range from mauve to violet, your characters are going to look bizarre no matter how you configure them. My advice? Just go with it and make the most asinine thing you can. It helps if you can snag a ridiculous name too.