World of Warcraft – I’m Back!

Unless you’ve got some iron-clad willpower, it’ll eventually get you. I’m not kidding. Try to quit all you want but eventually, you’ll be back. I’ve said it before but World of Warcraft is like a drug. Not any of that lousy stuff that those dealers standing on corners in the shady areas of town are selling but premium, government engineered, weapons-grade drugs that will have you before you know it. Such is the case with me and I think I did a rather good job staying clean for a whole two years.

However, when I saw how awesome the latest expansion pack, The Wrath of the Lich King, was…I simply had to get me some of that sweet, sweet Warcrack.

A lot of things about the game has changed since I quit more than two ago. For one thing, the number of players required for the highest level of play has been reduced from 40 to 25. Of course, this is less of a problem these days but when that was first implemented, there was much public outcry and for good reason. How are you supposed to tell 15 people that you’ve played with for more than two years that they were no longer welcome?

This was mostly to appease more casual players who lamented the fact that they actually had to find 39 people to play with. For the top end raiding guilds, this meant that they had to say goodbye to 15 good players. For lower end raiding guilds, this means that you can get rid of 15 boat anchors holding (hopefully) 25 good players back from being awesome.

Another thing that has seriously changed is the overall difficulty of the game. When I left, the game was just wicked hard at the top end, requiring a lot of time, execution and gear on the part of 40 people. However, it seems that these days you can half-ass your way through most everything and beat it. This has led to many top-end guilds complaining about the game being too easy and getting incredibly bored. However, for the more casual player, they finally get to see content that only 1-2% of the 11.5 million people playing the game would’ve experienced.

Personally, I’m a bit in between. I no longer dedicate the time I used to playing but at the same time, I’m good enough of a player to roll through it. Surprisingly, many of the people I played with two years ago were still around and we fell back into our rhythm quite easily. As of a month ago, we had already completed all the content available in the game and are eagerly awaiting the next content patch where there will hopefully be something difficult. Honestly, I find the game less fun when everything is easy…mainly because I hate seeing bad players having the same equipment that I have.

I’m not entirely sure how involved I will be with the game but damn, it’s fun to play again.

in Entertainment, Tech and the Net