07.04.08
Relapse
I bought World of Warcraft yesterday. Again. This time online, so I can play on American servers. I bought Burning Crusade as well, and since I doubt I’ll ever reach level 60, I’m going to be playing a Blood Elf mage with Jewelcrafting so I know I’ll get my money’s worth. And so I’ll see the nice Blood Elf starting area, because the fantastic environments is what I love most about WoW.
There are two reasons I’ve decided to give WoW another shot. First of all, I never played with people I know the last time. Sure, I picked the same server as Kathrine from Greenpeace, but I had no job and no education to look after at that time, and she had full time work at GP, so I out-levelled her pretty fast and then I had to team up with random people, which always seemed to mean elementary schoolers who could barely spell their own names. Secondly, I missed an important point the last time around: You’re not supposed to do every quest.
My approach to games is a lot like my approach to vaccuuming: I need to do everything. I have to experience as much as I possibly can in a single playthrough. I need to see every corner of the world, kill every enemy, and do every quest. Considering the sheer size of World of Warcraft, this approach would pretty much kill you. And indeed, it was the primary reason I ended up leaving the game: WoW’s quests are designed around the idea that you can choose only to do the missions that interest you, so clearly, when I had killed the 20th spider without finding any silk, I should’ve just dropped that quest and found a better one.
This time around, I’m playing with Nick. He was recently pulled back into the game by another friend, and now we’re both making blood elves on a low-population RP server somewhere in the US. Nick has characters elsewhere, so I need not be concerned about keeping up with him. I also plan to uphold a strict no-grinding policy. My goal the first time around was always to reach level 40 so I could get a mount, but by level 35 I was so sick of the grind that I had to call it quits. With the Serious Displeasure of the Undead Monarch expansion*, they’re lowering the level requirement for mounts to 30, so this time there’s a good chance I’ll get one before I tire of the game again.
*Yes, I did just blatantly steal a Rock, Paper, Shotgun gag.
Nicholas Van Sickle said,
July 4, 2008 at 12:38
Here’s hoping we don’t get infuriated with the game and swear never to play it again (again).
Jonas said,
July 4, 2008 at 12:40
Hahahah, yes. Another good thing about playing Blood Elf is that they make for good screenshots. Expect dance!
Casper said,
July 5, 2008 at 08:40
“My approach to games is a lot like my approach to vaccuuming: I need to do everything. I have to experience as much as I possibly can in a single playthrough. I need to see every corner of the world, kill every enemy, and do every quest.” That’s maybe why you get so irritated at me when we play a game together, last time I could remember that was in Bioshock, when I just want to get on with it,you had to explore every single item in that game
EER said,
July 5, 2008 at 09:14
You’re all junkies!
Felix said,
July 5, 2008 at 11:08
hehe. I too must admit I have a completionist approach to games, but not to the point of discovering every nook and cranny of a game, more just completing all the objectives/goals possible.
I too took up wow recently (for the very first time), and I’m not finding it too tedious. I absolutely loath grinding, thus all I do is complete quests and run instances, and that seems to be working out for me pretty well (currently I’m at lvl 26). Maybe it was the combination of total exploration and total quest completion that did you in. Did you try to complete each quest as soon as you got it, or did you try to kill as many with one stone as possible?
Jonas said,
July 5, 2008 at 12:05
Casper: Well, remember I want to make levels for a living, so understanding exactly how the fictional world is constructed, and noting how things are hidden and how the monsters are placed and how the boundaries of the levels are enforced and all that stuff is important to me
EER: How dare you!?
…spare a dollar for my WoW subscription?
Felix: Yeah that’s how we play too, but the problem is that a lot of the quests are pretty grindy - killing cougars until they randomly drop enough pelts is not my idea of fun. As for the logistics, WoW is pretty good at giving you a bunch of quests in one area and then sending you on to a new area when you’re done.