Each of the character classes is quite deep. The hunter and the warlock are ranged attack specialists who get to fight alongside pets that can help deal damage and distract foes. The warrior, rogue, and paladin are multitalented fighters, capable of drawing their enemies' wrath from their more-fragile, magic-using allies, and temporarily bolstering their own abilities while crippling their opponents. The priest, shaman, and mage learn a variety of different spells that make them quite a bit more versatile than what's conventional. And the druid can learn to shape-shift into different animal forms, so it's kind of like a hybrid of many of the other classes. The classes feel pretty distinct right from the start, though they start to get really interesting at the 10th level when each one gets a signature ability of some sort. But it's not like you need to trudge through a bunch of experience levels waiting for the game to entertain you. From the get-go, even as you encounter lots of new quests and areas to explore, you'll also find tons of new equipment and gain lots of new or improved abilities.
The benefit of having a limited selection of character classes to choose from is that each one gets to be viable and interesting. The potential problem of this, though, is that you can end up with a gameworld populated by a whole bunch of cookie-cutter characters. Fortunately, the good variety of different character appearances and equipment help to keep things diverse from a superficial standpoint, and the presence of the talent and profession systems keep things diverse from a gameplay standpoint, too. Talents come into play starting at the 10th level, and they let you marginally improve your character's core abilities. This is represented by a multitiered character skill tree much like that of Blizzard's own Diablo II. You get a talent point each time you level up, and certain, more-significant talents become unlocked once you spend enough points completing their prerequisites. Whereas the new abilities you gain from leveling up tend to be instantly gratifying, the talent system is more about planning and differentiating your character over the long haul, and it works great in this regard. Since you can see all the potential talents available to your character, it can be fun to plan out how you'll be spending your next 40 or 50 levels' worth of points (even though it'll probably take you months to actually accomplish that plan). And should you ever decide you made a mistake, it's possible to reset your talent points and redistribute them.
Meanwhile, the game's profession system is a way for characters to lead productive lives outside of all the ugly, dirty business of questing and fighting. Professions mainly fall into two categories: gathering and production skills. You may have two professions at a time, and if you wish to be self-sufficient, then you'll opt for an obvious combination of one of each. For instance, a combination of skinning and leatherworking lets you claim valuable resources from slain beasts and then turn those resources into sturdy equipment. Or a combination of herbalism and alchemy will let you find and collect precious plants out in the field, and then brew them into a variety of useful potions. Blacksmithing, engineering, and cooking are some of the other options, and it's possible to mix and match professions however you wish. Regardless of what you decide, the goods you gather or make will be in demand. If they're not immediately useful to you or your friends, you can auction them off to the highest bidder, which you can do by going through one of the game's auction houses located in some of the biggest metropolitan areas. World of Warcraft's profession system is streamlined and easy to get into, much like the rest of the game. More importantly, it lets you quickly make useful things or some good money. Incidentally, one great way to put your handmade goods into the right hands is via the in-game postal service, which lets you send items as well as messages to other players even when they're offline. Part of Azeroth's charm is that, despite the predominantly medieval flavor, it features these types of relatively modern accoutrements.
Another one of World of Warcraft's great successes is how it makes your choice of character race have a noticeable impact on the gameplay. Like any online RPG, the game lets you choose from a variety of dramatically different-looking types of characters, from the hulking orcs to the limber night elves. But unlike most games of this type, the difference between the characters cuts below the surface. For one thing, each race has certain unique traits, like the tauren having a war stomp ability, which can stun their attackers for a while, and the burly dwarves being naturally more skilled with rifles than other races. Certain classes also have slightly different abilities depending on the race. But what really distinguishes the races is that, depending on your choice, your allegiance and starting location will change--and the variations here can be pretty extreme.
The eight races comprise two opposing factions: the alliance, consisting of humans, dwarves, night elves, and gnomes; and the horde, consisting of orcs, trolls, the tauren, and the undead (the latter of which are "forsaken," and not friendly with your regular old-fashioned, mindless undead). The game takes place in the wake of the events of Warcraft III and its expansion pack, and it explains that the conflict between these factions is ideological in nature, instead of being just a pure good-versus-evil thing. Regardless, members of one faction generally won't be well received by the opposing side; they'll sooner be attacked on sight. So your allegiance determines who your enemies are as well as which half of the world you'll be spending much more time in, at least at first.
There are six completely different starting points (the dwarves and gnomes, and the orcs and trolls, share residence), as well as six corresponding major cities (whose guards helpfully provide directions to points of interest should you need them), plus countless little towns, outposts, towers, caves, shrines, and so forth. Depending on your starting point, you'll get to undertake different quests, face different monsters, explore different territory, and so on. There are class-specific quests, too, so if you stick with a single character in World of Warcraft, you won't nearly see the breadth of the game's content (although you'll still get to see an awful lot). Even though the questing is roughly equivalent regardless of the race you choose, you'll definitely get a different sort of experience with each one. Nevertheless, in the simplest of terms, most of the quests either charge you with killing some stuff or transporting something somewhere, and all the quests descriptions are written out, so be prepared for a fair bit of reading. Of course, your choice of race and gender also superficially affects your in-game personality. In a nice touch, each race and gender combination has a variety of different verbal quips as well as its own little dance. Blizzard has always done a good job of imbuing its characters with personality, and it succeeds at this once again in World of Warcraft.
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