If you listened closely to our last segment you should have a good picture of what this next part is about.

Boasting millions of players around the world, World of Warcaft is a sweeping success and a model for the future of the MMO genre. It has captivated the traditional gaming demographic blocks and, defying belief, expanded them. But can they continue?

It is a widely known, but not documented, fact that a notable population of MMO players display less than enlightened behavior.  Self-serving, rude and just plain idiotic actions abound in pretty much any digital universe.  Ninety percent of the time they do not bother me.  I can simple ignore the knuckle-draggers and loudmouths during the day-to-day grind and questing.

My theory is that those players, other than being chronically stupid, don't have an incorrect perspective on the way an MMO is meant to be played.  They seem to treat it like a single player game. 

Since the time when two paddles and a ball where cutting edge, the player's actions were the center of that reality.  No matter who the Player Character was, the world revolved around their actions, and ultimately they were the hero of the day when the game ended.

In the few MMO's that I have played I have always enjoyed playing the odd man out.  I think playing a human in any RPG setting is the vanilla of the gaming experience.  I played a Taru Taru on FFXI, a troll in Camelot, and mostly a gnome when WoW first came out(with a bit of Nightelf for the Druid experience).    When Burning Crusade came out I resisted renewing WoW, but I eventually gave in and had to level me a 70 blueboy shammy.  So I got my 70 and I was done with WoW, in my mind, until the Litch King shows his mostly obscured face.

Then the fellow who first got me into Camelot, FFXI, and tried to get me hooked on Eve said he wanted to play WoW again.  I was elated, my inner self-satisfied jerk was grinning from ear to ear about how I could lord my Level 70 over him and be like the big brother figure.  And I think he realized it, so he said he wanted to play Horde.

....All I could think was "Holy Biscuits, do I really want to start the grind over again?"  Even worse, I didn't know where all the low to mid-level quests were, like with most of the Alliance areas.