I started playing WoW about 20 days ago so I thought I would share my experiece as a new player.

WoW is one of the most polished games I have played. It's my first MMO, however it's much more polished in terms of gameplay and content than many other non-MMO games. At first when I looked at gameplay videos, I was led to believe that the game had horribly aged graphics but when I started playing I found that on max settings the game looks stuning.

It is an immence game with tons of content (I've only seen the tip of the iceberg as im lv 29). I wouldn't worry so much about getting addicted. I believe that any mature individual (at least 16 i would say), you should be able to balance your life between the game and reality with relative ease. You don't HAVE to keep leveling until your eyes leak out in front of the PC... Just take breaks at lv 19, 29, 39 etc anf try out the battlefields for pvp points whenever you have time (you can buy very decent gear when you accumulate abit of points - and right now theres some special event going on giving out more points).

I've never tried Guild Wars but I heard from a friend that since the game has only limited MMO content it's not the best choice out there (its only the best choice without monthly fees). I really doubt the gameplay or pvp is as polished as a game so huge as WoW.

Another thing if you decide to play WoW, when you pick a character just stick to it - I got to lv 10 with 3 or 4 characters before I finally leveled up a hunter to 29 and it was a little tedious but it was my fault. Also you don't need to be a twink in order to do well in the battlefields (which are also very polished).

And finally at the end of my big post I'll say that yes its true that some people you've talked to only once (on the bigger, older servers) can be fed up with noobies, most people you talk to will be very helpful... By level 10 usually someone invites you into a guild and they will take care of all your questions. It's really easy to make a few friends who will help you out too. Just make sure you choose a fitting server for your needs (if you need help with that just ask me and I'll tell you about server types and population, because ive tried a few out and know a few sites that can help).