For the past couple of months I took the WoW Classic plunge. It was fun. For awhile. I relived my old haunts and played through character development of many races and classes. I did not reach "max level" in anything. I just didn't feel "the pull" like I did the first time through.
At the beginning of this month, I stopped the auto-renew sub. I had a lot of days left and remembered that WoW Live also came with the subscription. So I downloaded all the latest files (50+GB worth) and looked into my old characters. I'm glad I never threw out my old authenticator! I got in and had to rename all my old characters, but got their old names back. All of my talents reset, so I'm sure I messed them up as I relearned them
HOLY COW!!!!! World of Warcraft has changed!!!!
First off is the crafting, which I have spent most of my time revisiting. It's now divided up into expansions with separate skill levels for each one. Unfortunately, on the first couple of characters, I was seeing ONLY "Cata Crafting" and recipes. So I got all my characters to Stronghold got them the old, original crafting. I "unlearned" that Cata Crafting" in order to do so. That was a mistake I found out later on. I didn't need to do that as my original craftibng was still there, I was just too stupid to see it
Next was travel. Getting from Kalimdor to the Eastern Kingdoms was not hard (a teleport from Darnassus to Stormwind in place of the old ship route). Getting back was a different story (no teleport back that I could find). I ended uyp going to Booty Bay, taking a ship to Ratchet, then flying to where I needed to go. Northrend was easy form Stormwind as there is a direct ship route. I think the last expansion I got was Cataclysm(?), maybe. So no Pandaria or lands from later on.
Now comes "level matching." Since I was doing crafting, I was going to starter zones to get my crafting back up. I don't recall creatures leveling up with my character before. Did they and I'm just senile, or is that from some patch or expansion (post Cata)? Normally I wouldn't care, and I really didn't here, but when I just wanted to mine ore or collect flowers, having to fight "gray cons" (no XP) was a pain.
I went into Jangolode Mine in Westfall and faced level 59/60 kobolds with my level 78 Draenai Deathknight. Along comes a level 20-ish rogue and plows through the kobolds. How do they do that, different mob levels per player?
Finally, it looks l had all flightpaths available to me. This along with mounts that are "account based" instead of "character based" made things too simple. I remember getting a kick out of "collecting" flightpaths. Another thing here is WoW's takeover of my level 85 Druid's travel forms. It was either bird (flight or running) or walrus (swimming). Gone was my choice to be a "fast cat" as a travel form. It was a button labeled "travel form." Sure, the bird is faster, but what if I want to be a cat!
All in all, I've enjoyed my time in WoW, though I have not logged in day after day as I once did, long ago. The friends on my list (old guildmates) have not logged on in 5+ years. My time is almost up for this month and I'm not sure if I'll keep the sub going or not.
Reporting from Stormwind, your roving reporter, AlBQuirky, channel 69 News.
Now that I've had my say, what have others' recent WoW experiences been like? Has anyone gone back to Classic and still playing? Anyone that never left in the first place? inquiring ("Enquiring" - old US gossip rag) minds want to know
Comments
I had the most fun in WOW back in the days of the WotLK expansion. That was the best version. Enough convenience to suit me and an upgraded version of the classic skill system that still felt like that old skill system - just more balanced. A server set to that patch might keep me around longer than 2 months but otherwise I'm done with that game.
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