OP, you mention that the LYN Malaysian Community is small yes. But it's not a true reflection of the number of players from Malaysia. We wouldn't be that small if we didn't get a mention in the Blizzard press releases about their playerbase.

There are a lot of players but they are split mostly between the US and China/Taiwan servers.

The other thing about WoW is that it has mostly evolved into a "team environment" where the sport is not the short duration battles that you desscribed but more for the longer duration ones located in dungeons. Unfortunately, to really experience the high-end dungeons/instances will take a few months. Best I can think of is that if one of your friends raids, you can then see what it's like although some guilds are quite strict and others more relax about raiding requirements.

Money is not so bad if one plans out properly. Someone mention that paying Maplestory or any of the other paid MMOs are just about the same as paying the WoW subscription. Although if you are a student, yes it's pretty expensive but the WoW population is probably made up of working adults who in their younger days were gamers. Those are the gamers that most of the video game houses target : the working adults and not so much the students. Then again, in US dollars, it's probably a lot cheaper for students than it is for our local students.