Adventures in WoW
I've been back playing WoW since about 2 months before Cataclysm was released. My plan was to resubscribe, poke at a few bits and pieces of the game, get in a good wedge of money before the expansion, and generally see how the game had progressed. Getting my main to level 80 was a low priority on this list, since the Wrath quest lines had left me unmoved to the point of complete boredom.
I finally got to level 80, but it wasn't until the early days of Cataclysm that it happened - the existence of what I could see was really good, interesting content, slanted toward my playstyle, spurred me on through the last bits of Wrath I needed. There are still whole zones in the Wrath content I've never been in, and I've no huge intentions of doing those areas - if I should ever get other characters to those levels, they'll grind through on gathering skills, fishing and cooking dailies, and plain ol' kill-the-monster xp, and not a lot of questing.
So, Cataclysm. I really, really like the content, pretty much without reservation. I wasn't in the first wave of people going through the zones, so I didn't run into any of the bugs and quest oddities. My experience has therefore been very smooth. More to the point, I did not get bored once from 80 through 85, and even at 85 I'm sitting there going "so much to do!" as opposed to "not interested in raiding, not much else in the game..."
I really like the goblins. If they'd been in when I started playing, I would never have played anything else, I reckon. The starting area was very entertaining, although it has the issue of not being nearly as much fun on a second run through. I haven't even tried the Worgen yet; that's another thing I have still to try.
And then I tried the Random Dungeon Finder for the first time ever. I never used it during Wrath - well, I tried, but being less than level 80 on a DPS class when everyone else in the universe was at the level cap meant it never actually went anywhere. But in this case, I got a Halls of Origination run within 20 minutes, and it worked beautifully. The tank and healer were great, and the run was perfectly successful - couple of deaths, no wipes, clean run. I liked it so much I immediately queued again, and got a second Halls of Origination run, again with a competent tank and healer. The only awkward bit in the second run was a rather odd hunter who dropped out after the second boss, and was promptly replaced with a very competent hunter. I was, I have to admit, very taken with the whole thing, and I'll be hitting the random button as soon as I get in this evening.
And then there's the tradeskills, and the archaeology, and the new Orgrimmar, and, and... I am enjoying WoW more now than I have done at any time since the heady early vanilla days.
Posted by Drew Shiel at January 12, 2011 12:27 PM
