For Instance
As you start to get a grip and climb through the levels, you'll inevitably start grouping together with other adventurers. Obviously you'll find that a reasonable blend of styles and talents makes for a more effective party, but what you can do with your seemingly standard group arguably transcends some of the accepted logic of the genre. 'Instances', for example, are almost like worlds within the World of Warcraft - once you've banded together and crept beyond the blue-tinted entrance to an instance dungeon, things are different.
You won't find other players there, even if another group has just headed into the same instance ahead of you. Instead your party's adventure will be entirely self-contained, allowing you to tackle monsters and complete your quest as a group without distraction or the frustration of watching other characters camped around waiting for certain items or enemies to respawn - in games like EverQuest you could spend hours getting to a certain point and then find that another group is already camped out in the same spot. What's more, if you happen to die you won't respawn within the instance unless you're re-invited by someone else in your party - the idea is, where possible, to complete the quest in one thrust, almost Diablo-style, giving you an added sense of satisfaction for any rare items you might uncover. Of course, there are things you can do to better guard your health - having a decent healer on hand for one - but since instances are generally the culmination of a lot of smaller related quests, you'll probably be well equipped in any event.
Blizzard is very keen to avoid the sensation of grinding through the levels, and instancing is one aspect of that, but there are of course others. Raids are arguably the next step up and one of the defining aspects of the 'endgame' - the point at which players hit the highest levels and find themselves in need of something new to do. Raid content will have you grouping together in large guilds - a term that will mean a lot even to MMORPG novices - and tackling even heftier tasks. One example is opening the Dark Portal, which is a pivotal moment in the evolution of the Warcraft universe - even in a persistent world - and will be driven by a group of some 30 Warlocks banding together with all the right equipment in the right place, and entering the right raid instance and overcoming its obstacles. It's not just a switch you flick at level 60 though (the highest level in the current version of the game, although not for much longer). Blizzard is unwilling to reveal exactly what you'll need to get there, and you can assume that means it'll require plenty of subsidiary quests and specific tools that won't be simple to come by.
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