The last time I posted anything on WoW was last December. I played only a time or two after that post, and I let my account expire in early January. I was just finding the game, “meh.”

But then in March, I had the hankerin’ to explore Azeroth again. I reopened my account, played a couple of times over that week, and then let the account expire again.

Now, it’s been another few months since then, without playing WoW, and I’m again feeling the urge to explore a fantasy world. So last night I restarted my account. Unfortunately, I had to download all the updates that have come out since March.

I would like to say that after downloading the updates, I at least got to log in and see my old characters. But the updater was taking so freakin’ long that I just went to bed before it finished.

I think that fact that my regular, real-world, face-to-face, game nights are only once a week — at best, when we don’t have to cancel for one reason or another — that makes me long for the instant gratification of logging into WoW for some adventure.

Will this newest attempt to get back into WoW play stick, or will I again find it lacking the real feel of fantasy-world adventure that I’m looking for?

Bullgrit

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Since my boys like to watch me “play” WoW, I’ve decided to try gaining the World Explorer achievement. Now, when they watch me play (read: ride/fly around the zones), I can actually accomplish something more than just entertaining the Calves.

I was surprised to learn that there was still a lot of areas I hadn’t fully explored. I was mostly shocked to find out that I hadn’t finished exploring Durotar –- where my orc hunter started out. It’s kind of an annoyance to have to ride way off to some far corner of the zone map just to fill in the last small area. But, doing so does make my boys feel like they’re playing WoW.

One night, without my boys with me, I decided to explore all of Teldrassil (as an orc). The first two times I tried to get on the boat at Auberdine, I had trouble with PvP players. One human warlock ended up killing me, and one night elf something drove me away. The third time, I ran right to the boat and got on. No problem.

And then in Darnassus, I had a bunch of 70+ PvP players blasting me. They camped my corpse for about 15 minutes. Fortunately for me, though, I just minimized WoW to my taskbar and worked on other stuff to wait them out. Actually exploring Teldrassil was easy. Running through the guards in Darnassus was easy. But the PvP players were all over me, coming and going.

Then I went to Azuremyst Isle, by boat from Auberdine. I had no problem getting on the boat and exploring around the island (although I’m not finished yet). No PvP players came after me even when I jumped in and out of the Exodar.

Sadly, to me, exploring the world isn’t nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. It’s really just a time dump. I could be doing something much more fun. So I think I’ll just forget about going for that achievement. It’s a waste of my time.

Bullgrit

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I finally got Wrath of the Lich King. After getting my main character (orc hunter) to Northrend and looking around for a short while, I made a death knight.

The beginning quests, all in Acherus, make an interesting story, but the actual play of the game is still World-of-Warcraftish. Actions still have only temporary affects on the game world. For instance:

Taking the orb/eye/spy thing down to the village to look around, I flew over the massed civilians and in a moment of evil curiosity, I summoned a swarm of ghouls on them. The ghouls climbed up out of the ground, the civilians died or ran away, and the soldiers ran in to fight off the ghouls. It was pretty funny, for all of 10 seconds. The ghouls died quick, and the fleeing civilians turned around and ran back to their assigned places in the town square again. Within 20 seconds of me siccing a dozen ghouls on the town, all was right back to normal –- like nothing had happened.

When my quest sent me into the mine to make ghouls, I could transform a miner into an undead beasts while another miner stood just 10 feet away, oblivious or uncaring. A couple of times, a miner hauling a cart walked right through me and my collected ghouls without reacting at all.

Then when I performed the quest to fire the ship cannons on the assembled Scarlet soldiers (all elite!), I killed all 100 required to complete the quest. But by the time the undead flying thingy hoisted me off the ship to take me back to base, the beach was still full of stationary soldiers. When the quest giver congratulated me with, “You destroyed the whole fleet?!” (or some similar salute), I thought, Not really, they were all still there when I left.

So, try as the designers might, WoW is still WoW. It’s still just a grind through quests that have no real consequences or results. Yeah, sure, the campaign map changes as you accomplish certain quests, but that’s artificial –- it doesn’t feel like I’ve done anything real.

From what I’ve seen, WotLK hasn’t improved WoW game play in any way. It’s added some neat gimmicks, but the game play is the same. I’m starting to feel all “meh” about it, now. I’m disappointed, and I feel like the purchase was a waste of money.

Bullgrit

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I may be the only WoW player in the world who doesn’t have Wrath of the Lich King yet. I’ll probably get it this week, but I’m in no hurry. One of my friends ordered a copy through Amazon, but when it wasn’t going to get to him fast enough, he bought a box off the shelf. I’m going to buy his Amazon copy from him when it gets in — I’ll get it minus tax and shipping, and he’ll get some of his money back.

I logged on and played on the Isle of Qel Danas (or whatever the hell that island is named — crazy elf names) for an hour the other night. I ran around doing the 10 daily quests (for the 100gp), and I saw only one other player on the whole island. Everyone has run off to Northrend, apparently.

Then I thought, what happens if I go to Northrend, myself, without having WotLK? I took a flight to Undercity, ran out to the new zeppelin tower, and waited for the zep to the new continent. The zep came, and I boarded with one other player — he was already 73rd level.

The zep left the tower and I started to think maybe I’d actually get to see the new land. What would I be able to do there, without the expansion installed? When the screen changed to load the new zone, I appeared in a cage in the graveyard outside Brill. (I took the screenshot after leaving the cage.)

“You must The Wrath of the Lich King expansion installed to access this area.”

Oh, well, I’ll have to wait to get the expansion.

Bullgrit

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Well, I’ve rejoined WoW. Wrath of the Lich King is coming soon, and various other factors prompted me to reinstall and get back into the game.

I can still find the game very fun when I stay away from the lure of gear, (through gold and rep grinding). The “fast” money from doing daily quests is very addicting, and I have logged in a couple of times over the week just to make a quick 100 gold (in 1.5 hours). But I’ve taken time twice last week to spend a couple of hours with a new character — a tauren shaman — just slowly accepting and completing individual quests for the story enjoyment.

Following a story and role playing a character is the fun I now find in WoW. This is a main reason why I’m looking forward to the release of the Lich King expansion. I want to see and explore the new lands, take on the new quests, and even play a new character (a death knight).

I just really love exploring exotic places, meeting strange creatures, and killing them and taking their treasure. Here’s hoping the expansion will give me this activity enough to keep the game fun without grinding.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I’ve quit WoW. Again. I actually canceled my account a couple of weeks ago, and the end of my subscription came the very next day. I uninstalled and deleted all my WoW files. My quitting seemed abrupt to my friends, but I’d been considering it for a few weeks.

I’ve complained before that my friends all switched faction from Horde to Alliance, and went on to out-level me in Alliance. They’d all reached level 70 before I reached level 60. They were already working towards heroic-level instances while I was grinding my way through the low 60s.

I really like WoW, but it really had become a grind at the end. Before entering Outland, my human priest character was exploring areas I hadn’t seen or been to before with my old orc hunter. Playing was still pretty much just grinding through the levels, but at least the places and quests were new and different from what I had experienced before.

Then when I went into Outland, in Hellfire Peninsula, my human priest was doing all the same quests, in the same areas that I had done with my orc hunter. The names of the quests were different, and I was based in a different town, but the actual work and terrain was the same.

When I hit level 63, all my friends were so far into the end-game adventures and gear that I really didn’t think I’d catch up and be able to take a real part in their raids for several more months. I found myself trying to play as much as possible so I could catch up faster. It just was taking too much of my time and attention.

I figured I should just give up on the game. Besides, there are some fantastic-looking first person shooter games that I’d like to try. FPSs used to be my favorite computer game style, but I haven’t played a new one in two or three years. I’ve been looking around at computer upgrades, and I’ve found some stuff that’ll let me play Crysis and Call of Duty 4 — games I’ve been dreaming of for months. So in a couple weeks, I’ll be testing out a new video card and a hot new game.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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I’ve mentioned before, in a previous World of Warcraft post, how I failed in numerous attempts to defeat Arazzius the Cruel, in Outland, with my orc hunter. Arazzius is a level 63 elite, and I couldn’t beat him even at level 70. I don’t feel so bad about those failures now.

Playing my human priest this week, I had the quest to kill him. I put out a call for a team on General and I immediately got invited to a party: my 62 priest, a 61 warlock, and a 70 paladin. First, we easily pulled and killed the two six-armed she-demons on his platform. Then after a brief refreshment pause, to regenerate mana, we went after the big A. The paladin tanked him, the warlock put in the DPS, and I kept everyone healed. As my priest is shadow specced, I threw in some Pain, too.

The fight was intense, although no one went below half their health, and it took a long time to drop that big demon. Plus, he summoned two big infernals to make the whole event complicated.

I thanked the party and we all went on our way. A few minutes later, another player contacted me, asking if I was still looking to do the quest. I told him I had just completed it. He asked if I’d help him. I said I was still in the vicinity, so I could help him, but we’d need at least 3 to take him on. “He’s very tough,” I warned.

Soon I was in a new party: my 62 priest, a 61 priest, and a 61 paladin. I directed us to pull the she-demons first, and we did that easily. Then we tried Arazzius. The paladin tanked him, and the other priest, in shadowform, put in the DPS, and I again tried to keep everyone healed. Unfortunately, the big A was dealing damage faster than I could heal, and the paladin died. So there was and his two infernals coming for the other priest and me. Sorry, buddy, I thought, there’s no way I can keep you alive. If A and his boys can pound a plate-armored paladin into paste like that, our cloth armor wouldn’t do us any good.

I started running for the exit a second before the other priest was killed. I ran right into one of those green demons that hang out around A’s platform, and so I had four big, bad, killer demons chasing me. I jumped in the water moat around the platform and swam for my life. Big A and the infernals gave up on me, but I had to fight the green demon to the death. I survived with no mana, and very little health.

I rested and drank and ate to recover mana and health before going back to the platform for a look-see. Arazzius was standing alone, and the corpses of my two comrades were laying on the floor before him. I rezzed the paladin from a distance, but the other priest had already released his spirit to run back from the graveyard.

The three of us stood on the ramp to A’s platform and discussed the situation. The paladin called in a buddy of his. When the buddy showed up, we had a stronger party: my 62 priest, a 61 priest, a 61 paladin, and a 70 paladin. Two priests and two paladins. It would take us a while to kill this bad guy.

The next round with big A ended much better for us. I managed to keep everyone alive, and they managed to take down the big demon and his infernals. After neither victory did I get any loot from Arazzius. But loot wasn’t necessary — I felt good for having beat him, finally. And I don’t feel so bad about my orc hunter, now, because even other level 70 characters need a team to take the demon down.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

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