So yeah, my experiment with MMOs has come to a bit of a culmination of events. In general, I’ve been finding myself kind of frustrated and stuck in a bit of a rut when it comes to games in general. In order to try to spice these things up, I decided to do something I haven’t ever done and have actively preached against for ages. I signed up for an MMORPG. I don’t mean, started playing some watered down Free to Play game, I mean a paid monthly subscription (not that i can’t cancel it later or anything).
I considered trying something newer like Guild Wars 2 or Secret Wars but I’m seeing those as being a bit pricey. World of Warcraft has been the most enjoyable of these titles I’ve tried and it’s the “Big Daddy” of the genre, so why not. It also helps that Blizzard has the base game on sale so i get the game and a month of play for $5.
With this upgrade, I decided to make a new character. I’ve been playing my orc a bit but I’ve been finding his gameplay a bit boring. He’s a Hunter class, so his primary features are ranged attacks and his pet. This means every fight amounts to me standing 50 feet away from the enemies while my little pet Boar runs in to take all the damage and deal a bunch of damage. It’s easy, and safe, but I’m essentially playing a support class for a damn pig, and I’m not real content with that.
So I created a new Warrior class Blood Elf.
I have no idea of Blood Elfs and Warriors are a good combination or not. Some of the things I read online suggested not, but I wanted to play warrior and I liked this character, so I picked it. I really want to play an Alliance class but I think my next character is going to be a Tauren, and I’m going to try my hand at making him a “carefully curated and useful party character”. For this Blood Elf, I’m pretty much just running with “hey this seems like a cool ability/move/weapon/etc, so she is probably totally useless for anything meaningful (which seems to be Tank/Support/DPS).
Also, Blood Elf is not a class Trial players can use.
Anyway, so far, I’m enjoying playing as a Warrior and a Blood Elf much more than playing as an Orc Hunter. I have all sorts of fun useful skills that let me heal and damage enemies at once and I’m not limited on what types of armor I can use like the Hunter is. I also get to explore a whole new part of the world which is considerably less Brown than the Orc lands. Lots of forests and fancy crystals and architecture. The monsters seems more varied as well, I swear 90% of the monsters over on the Orc land are Scorpions or Boars. Though the other day I did kill some Giraffes. Medieval fantasy giraffes, not real ones.
One of the real interesting aspects of playing WoW is getting used to the impermanent aspects of the game play. The closest comparison i can think of is The Elder Scrolls, where I can defeat an enemy or townsperson or whatever, and find their body laying there for ages even if I walk away (in some areas). Meanwhile, in WoW, I’m on a quest to disable some sort of mechanism, which I do, and the little energy bolts disappear for some nice visual feedback, and then, while I’m still in the room battling some enemy, the thing turns back on. My first thought is that I need to do it again, maybe do all three faster. Then i realize, this is an MMO. The system needs to reset itself in case another player is coming along. It’s kind of funny to think that this machine will never be off.
It’s even more hilarious when you consider any quest where you have to slay some specific enemy. Some poor NPC leader gets to die and respawn, for all eternity. In fact, I got to see this first hand when i defeated the boss, but was killed by one of his followers. When I returned, the boss had respawned. I was frustrated a bit because it meant I had to fight the boss again. Then I noticed his body was still laying where I had left it nearby. I just needed to collect the loot and leave.
The loot being his head. Blood Elves are apparently obsessed with collecting heads, I think I’ve collected like 5 or 6 so far.
Anyway, on the subject of dying, I’ve found that warriors seem to die a lot. I guess the idea is that I’d recruit a friend to be a healer to help keep me alive. I’ve found that fighting more than one enemy at a time is almost an instant death sentence. It’s getting better now that I have some abilities that can heal and hurt at once, but I still am finding it easy to get overwhelmed. This wasn’t a problem with the Hunter Orc, since he has a Boar tagging along to absorb damage.
Anyway, I have no idea how long I’ll stick with this, but I’m enjoying it for the most part so far. I’m really looking forward to getting a mount, if only so I can travel faster.
