A long time ago (October), in a galaxy far far away (Azeroth), I had the brilliant idea of “trying out” this addicting game everyone is talking about, World of Warcraft. Up until this point I had been a die hard FPS fan with the occasional sports title thrown in for good measure. RPGs (and MMOs especially) were a new a scary universe that I was not entirely prepared for nor fully convinced I’d like. The following stories are written to chronicle that journey for your enjoyment, because trust me, you’ll find what I do comical.
It was a typically fall day in San Francisco, and by that I mean 85 degrees and sunny. I had been working with Blizzard in the gaming world for almost a year now and had never once been interested in trying out WoW. However, this time was different. Wrath of the Lich King was due out shortly, , with a new hero class, the Death Knight. This sounded right up my alley, but there was one catch: in order to achieve Death Knight greatness, you had to have a character at level 55. Well crap, I had zero characters at level 1 let alone any at level 55. So this started me wondering, “How long would it really take me to get to level 55? It couldn’t take “that long” right?
I headed over to one of my coworkers, a devoted WoW purist, you know him as Arturis, and asked him how long he thought it would take me to get to level 55? His response: “The best can do it inside of a week. If you play 10 hours a week, you shouldn’t have any problem getting there within a month or so.” This turned out to be a gross underestimate on his part as he neglected to remember two things: 1. I had NO idea what I was doing and 2. No leveling guide to get me there. Now it is true that Arturis and Mandifesto were both extremely generous with their time towards me in my march to the DK, but whenever they were not grouping with me, it was a disaster of inefficient proportions. I spent more time running around looking for things to do, then I did actually achieving quests and most importantly, experience points.
Keep in mind that my main purpose was to level up. I had not read any of the books, nor played any of the previous games (I’ll pause so you can pick you jaw up off the ground). I had played StarCraft a bit growing up, but never the Warcraft RTS games. The style of gaming rarely appealed to me, and when it did (Command & Conquer) I was so thoroughly disappointed with what happened to that franchise that I gave up the genre almost all together. In playing WoW I had a primary goal of getting to level 55 and a secondary goal of…..of……yeah I didn’t really have a secondary goal. I wanted the Death Knight and nothing else. That is what drew me in and that is what drives me to play.
I will be the first to say it; I don’t know how WoW players of old did it. I was a part of the “recruit-a-friend” option where I and my referrer get 3x XP and I have to tell you, even with that on, I felt like things went WAY too slow. Granted I was in the Draenei starting zone, which I was told is the easiest and best laid out place to start. Regardless, I found myself, as I’ve said before, running around a lot. Now I understand that Van Gogh didn’t paint his first masterpiece on the first try, but good grief Blizzard, could you be a little nicer to your players in terms of layout and questing? We’ll get into my questing escapades another time, but as a new player, used to the perfection handed to me the first time, wandering around in the “old kingdoms” was beyond painful and if it wasn’t for the reassurance from my colleagues that it would “get better” I’m not sure I would have stuck with it. But, now here I am, obsessed, just like the rest of you. It only took a month.
