“The Grind”
With Wrath of the Lich King arriving last week it only made sense to jump into the new content “Lich King” style. Although we had initially reacted to the beta, playing the final content was much more fun with all of our guild and friends to play along.
It only took a few hours to get my new Death Knight to level-58 beyond the starting area and into the real world of Azeroth. Upon reaching the main city (Ogrammar as we’re horde) I picked up two new professions to make me a bit of dime: mining and skinning. This is where the beauty of the Death Knight fell apart…
A level-58 character has a few options open for exploration with the Burning Crusade content being the most desirable starting point. However, quickly it became apparent that my professions of mining and skinning were useless in Hellfire and other Burning Crusade areas. Why? Professions start with a value of 1. The last expansion requires your professions to be roughly 300 before you can utilize them.
My level-58 Death Knight has no experience in the ways of skinning and mining, what has he been doing all his life? Apparently killing innocent people in small villages throughout the Eastern Plaguelands. My anticipation with leveling my Death Knight died knowing I’d spend the next few days hunting mines and killing animals as if I where a level-10 toon.
There I was, a high level character trolling Crossroads and Thousand Needles hunting for copper and tin and skinning all the low level creatures I could find. Why didn’t Blizzard consider this when they allow you to create a level-55 character on day one? If we don’t go off and grind our way to a profession level of 300 we might as well not even pick professions at all.
I was not alone in these findings, along my path I found several Death Knights with skinning knives and mining tools looking for open opportunities to cut into the earth or the dead animals skins all around them. Sure, we can kill a cat in seconds flat but the “grind” is what we wanted to avoid, this is what characters spend their first twenty levels doing!
After three sessions of mind numbing grinding I’ve managed to reach a skill of 340 in skinning and coming upon 200 in mining. Mining is still too low for high level game content so I must whisk myself away to noobville every so often to catch a few mythril nodes and pray for a gold deposit along the way.
This may not be a bug in the Wrath of Lich King expansion but it sure is an annoying design flaw.
Been a long time since I posted last. Bloody university getting in the way of life. Glad to hear that you guys are now part of the next gen. My opportunity has fallen through, as the Game store that I pre-ordered my console from tried to bait-and-switch me twice for a more expensive PS4 bundle which I did not want. That and I withdrew my pre-order as all the games I wanted to play have been deferred till next year. Probably will get it when Elder Scrols comes out.
@EA
Ok I will admit it. Humble bundle was a stroke of genius. EA tried competing with Steam for years via Origin with poor results. But Humble Bundle blew Steam clear out of the water. They may not be making money with this, but Humble Bundle is a brilliant positive publicity generation tool. That is something that EA needs more than money.
@The name is Bond. James Bond. A level 72 Dark Elf Warlock in service of Her Majesty the Queen.
I can see the point of this. Gamers are impressionable people, mostly in their teens and early adult years. They are perfect targets for criminals. If you are fresh-out-of college/university unemployed, your opinions can be easily swayed. Maybe that’s what the intelligence agencies are looking for.
@Neverwdning Story
The media industry rule of thumb is that a franchise should finish with a number 3. Anything that goes beyond that is just dragging the series out. Unless there is a reasonable time gap between the releases (i.e Final Fantasy, Halo).
Assasin’s Creed is now planing it’s 7th game. I am currently playing the 3rd one. Since I don’t do series marathons I will probably catch up to the series in 2020. That is rather daunting. Maybe they should really bring Prince if Persia back…
@Disney’s Indiana Wars: Raiders of the Lost Ark Strike Back. Excelsior edition.
To be honest, I think it is a good thing that Disney is sponging up all the abandoned IPs. Not only do they inject it with money, they do a good job marketing it as well. Indiana was idle for quite some time. He should be out of retirement kicking Nazi ass about now.
PS: I remember Disney wanted to acquire Mortal Kombat. And now imagine a 12+ Mortal Kombat experience. The horror…