Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry One

“The One Ring”

It’s been a year since my last addiction. I jumped into World of Warcraft a year after heavily playing Guild Wars (roughly 2005), I left WoW a year later due to boredom with leveling and grinding. There were so many other games I could get into that didn’t involve the time investment into this MMORPG.

Then, in 2007 I returned on the eve of Burning Crusade. Blizzard had me… they put out an expansion and drew me back in even though I never had a character (“toon”) that could leverage the powers of the new content. I had two characters at level forty four but most of my friends left for other adventures once I quit the game. I started over yet again, only now on a PvP server instead of the “too easy” PvE server everyone abandoned. This time I made it to level eighteen with one character and level twenty with another but I left not long after because of time issues and managing my life around other games (and my kids).

Here I stand now, a third attempt at World of Warcraft with little to no expectations but a small goal: be ready for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion due out later this year. If I can reach those goals I’ll have also conquered the Burning Crusade content I’ve never achieved. Not even three hours into gaming I’ve re-rolled another character which my distract from my goal.

Why Roll A New Character? I ask myself this question often and the only good answer is denial: life as a low character is easy and I gather neat new skills faster so I feel more progress is being made, although the inverse is true. I’ve had these same issues with classic paper-dice RPG’s, I love inventing new characters and new roles, the end game content isn’t always my first choice.

I’m back to my PvE way of life, on yet another realm and have paid my USD $50.00 to transfer my oldest two characters to the server, back to my life as a Horde. I’ve abandoned those friends that once abandoned me when they moved to PvP and, now, met up with some other friends who play more casually. I’m not a PvP kinda guy, I just want to occasionally game without the pressure to meet up for weekly raids and practice our “tactics.” I just wanna kill stuff.

World of Warcraft is an addiction, a way of life, it is something that you’ve got to take seriously because you’re paying monthly for the privilege to lose precious hours of your real life to a virtual world. You have to respect it, always keeping it at arms length to avoid being crushed by its outer worldly desires. If you let it consume you, you’ll be a changed person with very few options to get out. World of Warcraft is the “One Ring” and must be taken seriously to avoid danger… you’re always running.

How long will I hold out before I release the game once more? I’m not certain, hopefully until at least February of 2009 so I can fully appreciate the extra content I’ve continued to purchase. But, I’ll get out before I find myself in a dark cave eating fishes while invisioning Azeroth and whispering, “my preciousssss”

0 thoughts on “Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry One”

  1. As a fairly new player to WOW (three months), I’ve learned one important thing. The game is what I want it to be.

    I don’t understand those in a hurry to level up. I don’t want to race from quest to quest like my cloak is on fire. If I decide to spend the day fishing, I don’t consider it a waste.

    The goal for me is to have fun. I already have a job. And in that context, WOW has more to offer than people give it credit for.

  2. In some ways you’re right, in others you’re still new to it 🙂 Once you’ve created a new character a few times you may encounter a situation where you end up doing the same quests again, like deja vu.

    For instance, creating an orc and then a troll will lead you down different paths from level 1 to roughly 7 but then once you hit higher levels you’ll start crossing paths to where, no matter what race you have, you’ll always be doing the same Crossroads quests and such.

    What I’ve tried to do is stick with races that are more separate by space, Tauren vs. Troll vs. Undead vs. Blood Elf, so that you get a slight variation to the quest. Then, you want something completely new you try some Alliance races/classes.

    Everyone ends up on the same quest track by level 25 so once you’ve created five horde characters you realize that you’re doing the same thing five times in a row, that gets tedious and, with that, you tend to use more addons like QuestHelper to give you a bit more clue on what direction to go “just to get this one done with.”

    I just like experimenting with new classes and exploring the possibilities, but the quest situation… in the end, I’ll be doing the same thing I did with my Troll and Tauren.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Starcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and DreiStarcraft 2 Part Eins, Zwei and Drei

Nobody is perfect. When it comes to creating an epic story arc, awesome pre-rendered movies and a fully fleshed campaign Blizzard has done well. Now, Blizzard speaks of Starcraft 2 and the world shuts their mouth and listens to each and every word. What’s the word?

A Trilogy.

We’re not talking about the Lord of The Rings style trilogy, but three games with full stories which all end with the gamer being satisfied at the closure, not cliffhangers.

The three standalone games will be (says GameStooge):

  • Terrans – Wings of Liberty
  • Zerg – Heart of the Swarm
  • Protoss – Legacy of the Void

Gamers are probably thinking, “so, I can play multiplayer with only one race?” No! The campaign is split into three separete games, not the races and multiplayer features. Although, each title is sure to introduce something new to the game engine, Blizzard has said:

“Nothing changes for multiplayer or skirmish mode. All three races are fully implemented from the get go. Each campaign will feel like an epic story – not a cliffhanger into the next one. They will each have separate arcs that have a clear start, middle, end – and you will feel like you’ve really finished *something* at the end of each game. More content than we’d previously planned – many more Movies, Missions, etc.” (games.on.net)

From our perspective, it seems Blizzard is itching to release the multiplayer system to the world sooner than later, considering some countries use Starcraft as a professional league, but they don’t want to rush out fast to market campaigns just to satisfy this multiplayer desire.

Instead, they’re going to take their time, in usual Blizzard style, by releasing the game as they finish it… per races story. This should give us a less watered down storyline or having one or two races with a piss poor storyline while another has a kick ass storyline because it was done first.

End result? Multiplayer gamers will be happy in the end while those that play Starcraft for the story will need to wait for each game to be completed. We know Blizzards release schedule is “when it’s ready” so we can only imagine how long it will take to reach that third game in the trilogy.

Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry TwoTrials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry Two

“Questing.”

While Frodo Baggins had one major quest, destroy The Ring, I’ve found myself in a cesspool of incomplete quests, filling my quest book to the brim with worldwide travels. From coast to coast, island to island and across the open seas I’ve got missions to complete with no end in sight.

It’s an addiction, a fascination, an uncontrollable urge to click any creature with an exclamation upon his head. I cannot stop taking on the responsibilities of the world all upon my lonely shoulders. Unfortunately, travel time is not free and I find myself traveling the world in search for quest “turn-ins” and random item drops from creatures small and tall.

When does it end? I turn in a quest to get another! A few quests have me traveling to far off lands where more villages scream for my help with yellow “!” above their heads. I must help a wandering soldier, a fisherman, a poor villager and the beggar; I do it all “for the horde.”

You can have something like 20 quests in your log at a time, I’ve got it full with quests from each land. Perhaps someday I’ll complete them all or throw them away to pickup others, realizing the value of each quest will decline as my character levels.

The lesson here, stay where you are until the quests in that land have all been exhausted. Ah, the trials of a wondering adventurer striving to conquer the land.

Sony, What Doesn’t Kill Them Makes Them StrongerSony, What Doesn’t Kill Them Makes Them Stronger

David Reeves, Sony Europe’s President said, “we simply have to suffer a little” when talking about the PS3, Europe and the competition. He was talking specifically about Sony’s loss of market share, mind-share and overall performance in the latest competitive console arena. While Sony’s president dismisses Nintendo as in a separate market, David Reeves said, “we’ve learned from Nintendo how to grow the market and move from hand-held device to device – they’ve done it brilliantly.”

Buster Douglas Takes Down Mike TysonWhat Sony may be dealing with is the fact that they’re not top dog in the latest battle for consoles. Europe has taken to the PlayStation 3 better than the United States and they’ve got plenty of fans in the region. There has been a recent upside to it all, some light at the end of the tunnel:

“PS3 games sales are up 53% and there’s a healthy 1.1m pre-order book for Killzone 2, the first of a new batch of IPs that Sony will be counting on.” (guardian.co.uk)

Although it’s reported the PSP says are down 15% and PS2 software sales are down 51%, at least the PlayStation 3 is filling in the gap for some of those losses. At some point you’d expect the PlayStation 2 to decline, gamers are probably migrating over to the new hardware.

They’ve got some things to be proud of:

  • PlayStation Network increases revenues by 200% in 2008
  • 55% of all PlayStation owners are on PSN
  • 17.5 million PSN subscribers
  • 53% rise in software sales on PS3
  • Won HD format war

Unfortunately PS3 sales were down last quarter by about 9%, perhaps a response to the harsh economic times. And, of course, the fact that Sony’s VP’s are constantly defending their position in the market is a bit disconcerting. As David Reeves said:

“It’s like Ali v Foreman – go eight or nine rounds and let him punch himself out. We’re still standing, we’re still profitable and there’s a lot of fight in us. I don’t say we will land a knockout blow, but we’re there and we’re fighting.” (guardian.co.uk)

Sony is playing the defensive, guarding themselves against the punches of the competition. Nintendo making headlines for sales, Microsoft coming out of nowhere to try to build market share, while Sony holds out for the tenth round to win it in the end? We’re not yet sure if it’s Ali vs. Foreman or if Microsoft is the next Buster Douglas.

(Thanks, Guardian)