I added this almost as an addendum to my post yesterday about gear but I’m going to highlight it just because 🙂

Since I resubbed I’ve been struck several times about how beautiful the environment is. Now some of that is because it’s now rendered in gorgeous ultrawide, and because I can actually see what I’m looking at as it’s not all so dark *rolls eyes* but I think it’s also because I’m prepared to see it. I felt this way when I resubbed for Legion and that was on the old dark screen.

Prior to that I would say the last time I felt a sense of wonder re: environment was when I saw the Valley of the Four Winds for the first time (a very light zone). My breath caught in my throat as my character crested the hill and I just went WOW because WOW.

I remember playing Swtor once, on the Imperial Agent, and my jaw was on the floor at the animations and how I could snipe across platforms (warcraft would give line of sight errors for that) and it was anyway just an incredible moment.

In the post yesterday I said that my main point was if the game is broken down into simple terms it’s “hit buttons and stuff dies” and so while the buttons might change sequence a little (alts) or the mobs might change (encounters), it’s still just hit buttons and stuff dies. There has to be some kind of immersing factor to transcend what the hands are doing, so that it feels fresh and different and fun otherwise there’s no playability.

These days I sometimes narrate what I’m doing, like if I’m on my pally I’ll respond to dialogue on the screen with stuff like “I’m Tirion Fordrings heir, I’m the light I will save you!” etc. or on my Demon Hunter I’m the biggest spacebar clown in the world and I’ll often say wheee when I glide off stuff and cackle because in some respects Demon Hunters got flight early :p

I also try and be thematically appropriate in my choice of race/class combo, and sometimes even spec. Like my Void Elf had to be a Priest because of shadows so duh has to be shadow spec. I used to be Disc mostly on my old priest so shadow is actually entirely new to me. If I ever play my Nightborne, that’s a mage and I’ll spec arcane because duh magic hehe.

My Demon Hunter can wield other weapons but I always instantly transmog back into Warglaives because nothing else is appropriate imo. Since being granted Ashbringer my pally refuses to wield anything else. You know stuff like that.

The game is just a game where you hit buttons and stuff dies unless you make it more than that. You can make it more in whatever fashion feels right for you but I guess I’m just saying a sense of wonder helps, you enjoying the sights of the world and the animations and of course very fundamentally (for me at least) the story.

I’m sorry I gotta. I just read today’s The Queue on Blizzard Watch and there was a question basically saying “haven’t played in a bit, what should I do?” and the suggestion said “quickest way to gear up” and then “fill any gear holes” and then “group content aka mythic+” and I just looked at it and went really?

Blogging about stuff is actually super cool because I have an archive which goes back to early 2012 and I’d already been playing Warcraft for about three years at that point. So I don’t have my perspective from day one but I do have my transition from solo player —> pick-up raid healer —> raid healer —> raid tank —> raid leader/main tank —> solo player.

It’s funny considering how much raid tanking I wound up doing, and how much I preferred it to healing, that I have an article from 2012 explaining how much I hated raid tanking. You see actually I never hated it, it’s just that it scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. Once I got to the point that I felt I could do better than the PUGs my guild was forced to call in, I realized that I wanted to tank and then I really grew to enjoy it.

In the queue yesterday on BlizzardWatch somebody asked about how people would rank the expansions. I didn’t really go through and read any responses because I’m sure it got a bit vicious with the Cata and Warlords hate among other anti-comments. Anyway despite all the discourse I do think it’s a fascinating question. The answer is going to be different for everyone depending on when they started playing the game, and what it is about the game that they enjoy.

Personally for me I didn’t rank Vanilla-Wrath because I started playing at the tail-end of Wrath and I didn’t think I could really evaluate what I hadn’t experienced. My list went:

1. Legion
2. Cataclysm
3. Mists of Pandaria
4. Warlords of Draenor

Which would probably be odd for most people because it’s quite common that the expansion you went “all out on” e.g. when you raided, when you were in a guild, was when the game was at it’s peak for you etc. Yet that was Mists for me and I ranked it 3/4 and I’m going to blather on and say why now 🙂

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This was a debate topic on BlizzardWatch fairly recently and my friend Waya (oops I still think of you like that) – Joakim – mentioned it in the comments where we’ve been chatting. It was thought-provoking because he agreed with the person I’d been debating with on BW and I have an alternate point of view. I figured that would make it a good topic for a post.

My argument is as follows:
– Races are cosmetic
– The game isn’t just the latest expansion
– Having to work towards things/not having immediate access is ok
– Because it’s just cosmetic

See it kinda goes full circle. If it was gear or something progression related being gated then I’d understand the contention. It would hold people back from playing but something cosmetic? Plus it’s not like there aren’t these gates already in the game and for classes which aren’t cosmetic! Death Knights require another class to be levelled to 55, and I think Demon Hunters require a level 98. There is precedence for having to play something else in order to unlock what you want.

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Two and a half years ago, or thereabouts, I wrote a post called “Why I unsubbed to Warcraft?” In it I was reasonably certain that I would never play again. Indeed while I thought about the game a few times in the intervening years, I didn’t feel much of a pull to play. However, last month I got nostalgic. I don’t know why I had a sudden surge but I did and I guess it caught me at a weak moment. I decided to resub for a month and see how it went. I didn’t immediately buy the new expansion because I wasn’t putting more money than I had to into the game unless I was enjoying it.

That resolve lasted for about a week *cough* because well power talks. I knew if my main was max level it would make grinding in Warlords a lot easier. I admit it, I’m lazy, and I saw some 110 players one-shotting things in Tanaan and was jealous. Anyway, I just got my notification that the sub has been paid for the next month and it hit me that I’d been playing again for a month.

When I started I wasn’t sure if I was just visiting, or if I would continue to play. Out of interest I went and found my last blog post on the game “Why I unsubbed to Warcraft” posted April 2015 to see what I’d put and that sparked some thoughts, and I figured I’d write a blog post. After all I’m still playing after a month so something must have gone right.

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I was talking with a friend the other day, a friend who started playing Warcraft not long after it launched. He unsubbed partway through Mists, was persuaded to try Warlords but didn’t even make it to level cap. He’s done with the game. He said that was the nature of MMO’s, they change, and the game Warcraft is now, isn’t the game he loved and played.

That made me think. I’ve said repeatedly, here and elsewhere, that I didn’t know what to do with Warcraft. I’d invested so much time, effort and money into the game, that just turning round to leave and never going back was hard to contemplate.

However, games are supposed to be fun. Rather than spend time in a game I no longer like, let alone love, wouldn’t it be better to leave? Let the memories of the good times remain, and accept that the game has changed and it’s no longer the game I loved and played.

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Warlords isn’t even half over and I’m already looking ahead. Part of that is because I’m not happy with Warlords direction, each expansion brings a shake-up and I’m hoping the next one will be good. Another part is because blizz have said there’s going to be two raid tiers this expansion, not three, which makes Hellfire Citadel the last raid of the expansion. That was announced last night, so the beginning of the end is upon us.

This post is going to be in two parts. I’m going to try and theorize what blizz might actually do, but then I have to allow myself some wishful thinking in what I hope they might do. November, in seven months, will be Blizzcon when they’ll announce expansion number six. Given that patch 6.2 has already hit the PTR, even though I don’t raid anymore, I hope very much that beta will hit soon after Blizzcon, and therefore the expansion release is early-mid 2016 to coincide with the release of the film.

Blizz managed to weather 14 months of the same patch remarkably well, and I have promised not to rant about it anymore, but I really hope to never see that again. In a subscription game it is really beyond a joke.

Right so expansion number six …

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