Bio Break

When my gaming PC was knocked out of commission permanently last week, it threw me for a loop. Suddenly, I didn’t have access to most of my MMOs and other games and had to make do while I started shopping for a replacement. Fortunately, I was able to load World of Warcraft retail on my Macbook Air and get in a good weekend of gaming with no other distractions — perfect for finally hitting level 90 on my Warlock and getting started on delves and gearing a bit.

I’ve really been enjoying doing full zone clears. I know a lot of people rush through the campaigns and ignore side quests, but that doesn’t feel right to me. Some of the side quests have better stories, for one, and some cool rewards (pets, housing decor). And by doing all the quests along with the occasional delve or dungeon, I had no problem hitting the new level cap before I was done with Zul’Aman.

However, what I didn’t realize until about halfway through is that even if I hit level 90, I wasn’t able to access world quests, higher-level delves, and the rest of the endgame stuff until I got through the campaign at least once. So my previous plan went out the window and I started to power through the campaign just to get it done. Like most of WoW’s campaigns, it was a big nothing-burger of a story, but at least it was fully soloable with the follower dungeons.

It was a surprisingly huge relief to finish the basic campaign and see all of the standard endgame systems unlock at once. That gave me more choice on a nightly basis, and I started to juggle weeklies, delves, campaign quests, and side quests depending on how I felt at the time.

I do want to get back to my Death Knight at some point and work on getting her leveled and geared up, but one character at a time — and I should probably wait for a timewalking or leveling event.

One lone Shaman, level 45, doggedly going through the world of Azeroth, making a slow and meandering way to Outland. Yet enough of these level dings, enough progress keeps happening so that I don’t feel overly antsy. I think the Burning Crusade XP changes really smoothed things out well for the vanilla content.

As I ran into Badlands, I reflected on how great it is to actually see water in Loch Modan. Cataclysm did you dirty, girl.

It was a great relief to be able to blast through the numerous quests in the Badlands — I have memories of getting bogged down here, competing for mobs, both in vanilla and Classic. But I suppose that most of the playerbase has moved on, so there weren’t as many people around. Some, but not many.

I was watching a video in which the author asked himself why he plays WoW Classic. It’s a deeper question that you may at first realize, and the answers we all give may be wildly different. Right now for me, that answer is “comfort and consistency.” It’s a very familiar game with a slower playstyle that greatly appeals to me. I like the gradual progression to the level cap and with better armor. And I enjoy this older version of the world where I still make new (to me) discoveries, like the above library in Stormwind that I’ve never seen.

I love finding the little artistic touches in Classic that wouldn’t look out of place in modern WoW. The art team in this game always knocked it out of the park, right from the beginning. Square prairie dogs and all.

There’s moving slow, taking your time, and smelling the roses… and then there’s going so slow that it becomes embarrassing. The latter is what I’ve experienced this month so far in WoW Midnight, mostly due to time restraints outside of my control. I’ve been enjoying crawling through the opening zone, doing all the side quests, catching pets, doing the first dungeons and delves… but I also do want to get to the point where I can engage in some of those more lucrative weeklies. The solution here is to push delves and dungeons a bit to get from level 84 to 90, start in on weekly content, and then double back and do the other zone stuff and campaign at my leisure.

At the choose-your-own-adventure portion following the first zone, I went with Arator’s Journey because it seemed like it was the only choice not tied to a specific zone. Might as well get it out of the way, ya whiny Paladin. But I’m not that grumpy, because Blizzard gave us back steady flying. As a not-fan of skyriding, I was happy to get my dependable flight form back.

Going on this questline made me reflect on the fact that I never really mained a Paladin, even though the hybrid nature should appeal to me. I’m not incredibly opposed to it, but right now my thinking is that I’m going to save a Pally character for Classic Plus, whenever that arrives.

Unlike the last expansion, this time around my wife’s back in the game and actually out-pacing me in terms of leveling and content. She takes one to two-year breaks between WoW bouts, but right now I think she needed a fun project to blow off steam, and this MMO ended up being it. She’s especially excited to make gold on the auction house, and I’ve found that discussing the game’s been an engaging conversational piece for both of us. So WoW for martial bonding, I guess!

I’ve very much been looking forward to the Arcantina, accessed through Arathor’s Journey. The idea of it is perhaps the most intriguing of the entire expansion: A magical tavern resting place where you can hang and then get a weekly adventure to somewhere in the world. The place is just perfect — magical, cozy, inviting, and free potions all around the place!

I think I made a new friend.

Even though I’m level 42 in WoW Classic, I don’t think I’m going to be seeing Burning Crusade’s Outland any time soon. Play sessions have been sparse and limited as of late, and I know I still have about half the leveling journey (more or less) until I’m level 58. On the plus side, absolutely no rush and no desire to blitz through all the content. This is something I’m just playing for the feel and accomplishment rather than any specific long-term goal.

Duskwallow Marsh questing is pretty good times, all things considered. The zone hits a lot of my checklists: Visually interesting, easy mobs, easy grinds, lots of straight-forward quests. And hey, beating up teenage mutant whinging turtles never gets old.

My wife came into the office while I was playing and immediately commented how familiar this all looked — that she hadn’t seen WoW in this state for a long time. Because, of course, she’s only played retail off and on for years now and never expressed any interest in Classic. I might have to nudge her in this direction, because I suspect she enjoys the journey more than endgame stuff these days.

One of the most underrated additions with The Burning Crusade is the zone revamp for Duskwallow Marsh. It turned it into a lifesaver for the mid-40s with some great questing, another flight point and hub, and fun grinding to boot. It might even be my imagination, but the drops seem better here too.