Yesterday, I published an opinion article about World of Warcraft, and received quite a bit of feedback from the community.  And, as promised, today we have a response from one of our own WoW Zam staff members, Brian "Wordaen" Kincaid.  Take a moment to read them both, and see what you think!

Well, Autumnkiss has some great points as a new WoW player. I remember my starting days in this game and I have to say, I do see some parallels in her mindset as compared to mine when I first started. The initial login is full of some oohs and ahh’s as you see the spectacular graphics and ease of movement in the game world.

Now, as is pretty common with all new players, she mentions the issue that we all run into at least once and usually more at the lower levels…your death in an MMO. Now, to be fair, running back to collect yourself after taking a beating is emasculating to any player but Blizzard has done something differently than other MMOs I have played, and that is the introduction of the Spirit Healer at strategic locations to ease that embarrassment somewhat. In addition to having one at all, the spirit healer does something in this game that no other game has so far. It offers you two choices – run to your corpse where you take a 10% durability hit and no exp loss or rez at the graveyard and take a 25% durability hit and lowered stats for 10 minutes. Either way, you are in ghost form while you make this decision and are protected from something that might think you are a tasty snack.