As I added the fourteenth dead Knoll to the stack at my feet, I realized that the experience was beginning to pale.

It wasn’t the killing, it was the endless repetition.

I’m a relative newcomer to the World of Warcraft and to the world of MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) but after a short time playing, I came to a startling realization - killing is boring. I understood that in-game experience builds as you raise levels, that new skills and new challenges open up as you raise your character….but it was dull. Fiendishly, achingly dull.

It was the old formula, albeit in a terrific package – see the world, meet strange people …and kill them.

The morality of it all doesn't bother me – heck, I had selected a Rogue as my primary character, just for the sheer enjoyment of skulking about backstabbing from the shadows. No, it was just dull.

At that point I decided that, instead of concentrating on “leveling up”, I would become a tourist.

WoW takes place in a HUGE and varied world, from barren desert buttes, to lush forest and frigid mountains, all beautiful, compelling and beckoning, so why not play turista?

The one clear advantage that playing as a Rogue gave me was the ability to effectively skulk through areas where lesser characters would face certain death. The quiet trees of the Elywnn Forest echo with virtual strife, bloodshed and slaughter. The snowy mountains of Dun Morogh are littered with dead beasts as players “level-up” on quests and gathering. The ability to creep through carefully would allow me the chance to delve into some off-the-beaten track locales. Or at least, as close to it as you can get in a virtual game with 6 million users.

I set off from Elywnn Forest, bound for the Westfall, a burned out stretch of farmlands, ruined towns and decayed fields – very picturesque. The Westfall is now rife with bandits, feral coyotes and other vicious beasts – something like Pittsburgh but without the offbeat charm. Determined to find something to like, even in this decayed venue, I headed to the beach to check out the sun, the surf and the sand. The beach itself looked inviting, except for the abundance of vicious, bulbous-eyed Murlocs and their kin, swarming over all the best spots like drunken t-shirt venders in Cancun.

After the fourth violent encounter, while trying to find a nice quiet spot for a beach umbrella, I decided instead to swim offshore to try my luck on one of the small, hilly islands. Alas, they too were swarming with foul-tempered Murlocs who seemed determined, like condo owners in Florida, to claim the beach for themselves.

Several tries later, I hauled my sorry self up a steep-sloped island to find something I had not seen before in WoW – peace, serenity and quiet. The island was empty. The Murlocs had faded in the distance, there was nothing but the sounds of birds and the quiet sea – not even the ubiquitous corpses of dead players marred the pristine view: you do find them in the strangest places; corpse “graffiti” is one of the unique ironic sights in World of Warcraft.