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| WTB this Swift Steed of 'Merica |
Back in 2007, I bought my first computer that was somewhat worthy of the modern gaming scene. I was about to enter college and majoring in Graphic Design so this naturally caused me to buy a Macbook Pro. Being excited with my new purchase I wanted a game to play while I was at my friends houses and that had a lot of replay value. Two months ago, I would of wanted to go back in time to my young self and sack him, tell him it was a really bad idea because you are gonna hate it come the third expansion. Two months later, I would sack the one responsible for the soon-to-be sacking, and tell 2007 EF that all will be okay after the third expansion. There will be Pandas and they will save it!
It has been 2 whole years since I have even a remote thought on returning to the world of Azeroth. Then, on some random Thursday afternoon, my best friend texts me and asks, "Are you getting Mists of Pandaria?". My immediate response was a rational thought at the time. It was a long the lines of, "LOL F THAT". Little did I know that this text actually sparked my interest and caused me to look into Mists of Pandaria. Reading articles would lead to my discovery of live streams. This would lead me to wanting to live stream... andreturningbacktoWorldofWarcraft. There I said it... Wow I feel good! Like really good! Now that the burden is gone, let's write this article! Just remember, these are all my own opinions on this game. Also I am returning after a 2 year hiatus, so I'm learning some new-ish systems.
A hero is
As I said before, I immersed myself into the World of Warcraft around 2007, so about halfway through Burning Crusade. I sat staring at the character creation screen and had no idea what character to make but when in doubt go for the plate character that carries a big stick, right? So warrior it was.
My Night Elf warrior zoned into Teldrassil with that fresh noob smell radiating off of him. Between reading the tutorials and figuring out my abilities, I gave my character a heart beat every 5 minutes. Then, I killed a few boars and then BAM, I was level 2. From this point on, everything was a blur between wowhead.com and the World of Warcraft client. I do remember tanking Deadmines for the first time... my condolences to everyones repair bill after that one.
Mom look! I'm doin' teh PVP!
I finally hit level 70 after many hours, days and months. I was older and wiser in the ways of WoW and in real life as well. At this point I passed many of my friends who were playing before me and I realized this might be a good time to reignite my relationship with the sun and people. So I took a "month" (one week) off.
After my "month" off I came back and had no idea what to do. I didn't know the difference between PVP and PVE, but all I know was my friends were having a blast in the battlegrounds, so I joined them. I somehow got the full set of season 1 gear and some of the season 2 gear before discovering PVE with our new internet friends. We ran dungeons for a little over a week before we were a week away from Wrath of the Lich King's release date.
We checked out the new world content leading up to WotLK's release and prepped for an expansion that would stick with us for a considerable amount of time.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Glitch King
Okay so maybe the section topic is a little too off topic but anyone who played WotLK knows exactly what I am talking about.
This is when I really got into all the little things WoW had to offer a player. From farming gear in heroics, spending hours in battlegrounds and working on getting reputation. I loved this expansion. It had something for everyone. Our guild being casually-hardcore raiders and PVPer's, this was our time in WoW.
Our guild, freshly filled with real life friends and newly-met internet ones, was ready to take on anything, primarily raiding. We all farmed our gear for a couple weeks and then set a date to start on the newly rebooted Naxxramas. We told ourselves we wouldn't get serious and this might just be a one time thing. We look back on those words and laugh. Friendships were tested, and it turned into a weekly gathering where we would get together and try to down content as a guild. I was in MMORPG social heaven. This is what I loved and I wish I could go back to it.
Wrath of the Lich King was the highlight of my entire gaming career. This had nothing to do with what kind of content Blizzard was introducing to us, it was the difficulty of it all that had brought us together. Because of this expansion I have met, talked and raided with people all over the world. We knew each others personal lives and were friends, even though none of us met. This is something I will never take back and I will never forget.
After many patches, all of us taking breaks, working on clearing all the content together, and finally taking the Lich King down, we are yet again a week away from the next expansion. Cataclysm. Let me tell you, it didn't just ravage just the world of Azeroth...
Cataclysmic
I'm going to do this one nice and quickly. *GASP* It sucked, not all content was for all-difficulty players, the guild disbanded and we all quit over time. There it is. We who quit, told ourselves we wouldn't go back because Blizzard was toying with us. Once again we would eat our words.
Interjection from WF: Except WF. His words are still in the fridge and will probably go stale before he plays WoW again. /End-3rd-Person-Interruption
Once Mists of Pandaria was announced we all laughed, made a slew of Kung Fu Panda jokes and never thought of playing it. Oh, how naive we are...
Pandaland
As I said before, I had no plan on playing WoW every again in my existence. But with my friends simply suggesting that we should play again, this infected my mind and took over. My friend sent me a Scroll of Resurrection and that's when the unthinkable happened... To me at least.
I watched hours upon hours of live streamers playing at level 90. Between Ducksauce, Bajheera and Towelliee, I wanted to play again. Hearing that it is far from the Cataclysm model and more like Wrath of the Lich King and Burning Crusade, made me one happy gamer looking for this classic MMO. Then I consulted my friends to see who would want to play and the usual crew were up for the challenge.
After finally conquering my first inner conflict, I now had to choose which character I had to level. On every other expansion the warrior, my pride and joy, was the first one to hit level cap. With my luck they were what we call in the business, "OP", in PVP. It's pretty juicy right now so I am enjoying their reign of massive DPS, or as I like to call it, beast mode.
As for every other expansion, I have tried the new race and/or class. I must say, I have eaten my words hard on Panda's. I made fun of them to no end before playing one and now I have a level 68 Pandaren monk. I also plan on making my monk my main tank out of all of my characters. Also, I am loving the updated character model (dem facial expressions!). I will give credit to blizzard for adding a few things to warrior tanks to help them keep aggro on multiple mobs, but monk tanking is just insanely fun to level with and an awesome role to fill in dungeons. Also giving monks the daily buff to increase experience gained by 10% was just an ingenious idea.
The environment in Pandaria is also pretty enchanting itself. I find myself more than ever, stopping and checking out how awesome the art looks on ultra settings. I wasn't a huge fan of the "Kung-fu" theme to a game that is based around swords and magic, but somehow Blizzard has impressed me with how well they pulled this off. Props to you on this, Blizzard.
While leveling I really enjoyed the fact I couldn't fly, even though there were six 90 level Horde constantly covering my questing area and killing all lowbie Alliance like trying to herd squealing pigs with big swords and magic (The one true difference is that pigs might have a better chance to rise up and win a battle compared to Alliance on Arthas-US). This forced world PVP and man oh man... I missed world PVP. Flying mounts in Azeroth kind of killed this wonderful joy. Putting the PVP and PVE gear vendors in different zones other than the capital cities is another decision I really enjoy. This again, forces you to venture out of the capital city and enjoy this world. I find myself spending time in Pandaria like I did in Burning Crusade with the Outlands.
The easy, the medium and the heroic
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| There is nothing wrong with greens! ... Right, guys? |
Blizzard has really changed the way they handle difficulty in the PVE area of WoW and I am very happy with how they did this. You can start with something that requires little strategy (this doesn't mean you still can stand in the fire. Slacker.) called scenarios. This is a three man dungeon that doesn't yield high reward, but at the same time usually doesn't require specific roles. One thing I do advise if you put together a group is bring a healer.
The dungeons still have a normal and a heroic mode, but have a fun new mode called challenge mode. Normal can still be treated as a tank-and-spank instance. Heroics require a little more skill if you are a shiny new 90 with a gear score just over 435. You can still make it through without crowd control though. Challenge mode takes heroics and turns them into a time trial. I have not dabbled in this yet, but I plan on it as soon as some of my guild mates are up to it.
Raiding seems to be the thing that is hard to please everyone with, but I think Blizzard has figured it out. With looking for raid, you can can join a random group of people all wanting to have that raid experience without building their own raid, but at a cost for lesser item level gear. From what I have heard, the boss fights are also reduced in difficulty, to make up for the lack of communication that will probably happen. Next up you have your normal, homemade raid. These people will get the normal allotted item level gear from the raid they run. This good for those casual raiding guilds out there looking for a challenge but don't want to beat themselves to a pulp against a wall. I plan on raiding up to this difficulty when my guild is ready. Lastly, there is heroic mode. This of course is for the people looking for a real challenge. The best of the best will be dealing with this difficulty and of course get rewarded with the shiniest epics a WoW player can lay eyes on. Until the next content patch of course.
Farm, baby, farm!
I have never been a fan of farming, but I do say I have started to find it relaxing farming Motes of Harmony. I enjoy putting on the stream and doing my mount and item farms while chatting it up with some awesome people. The one thing I can't seem to bring myself to do is farming reputation. After spending
TL;DR, also shut up EF
It is worth it and awesome! If you are slightly interested, I suggest you check out my stream as well as others on twitch.tv to get a good idea if it's something you will enjoy.
Also, screw you fictitious internet troll I made up...
Serious conclusion
The quests are the usual kill, collect and return type. I'm sorry if you are saddened by this. The story of why the Pandaren race is now in Azeroth is a interesting one and I suggest you check it out. They have changed the talent system, I believe for the better. Class balance is still an issue, not as much as it used to be, in my opinion, but hasn't it always been that way? They have made things with a broad array of difficulty. I like this. Something for everyone. Also, monks are awesome, kind of under powered but still awesome.
What ever your reason to returning to World of Warcraft, it seems that everyone is much happier with this expansion than the one before it who we will not name (*cringe*). It's good to see this expansion have a difficulty level for everyone, from the hardcore raider to the casual PVPer.
See you in Azeroth.
Stay Classy, Internet
-EF
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