Ok, first, let me say, I realize that the title is
derivative and overused. Let’s get past
that.
Are we good? Ok… I
need to say something.
Blizzard really knows what they’re doing.
I jumped off of the World
of Warcraft wagon about 10 months ago, right around when Star Wars: the Old Republic came
out. At the time, I was a bit bored with
WoW; my guild was in the early stages
of death and there wasn’t much for me to do with my main character without
them. I didn’t have much interest in
starting over with a new group of people, trying to earn my spot in raid groups
for endgame content. Also, as doing the
same quests over and over can only not be boring the first couple times,
starting new characters in the game was also not much of an option.
So, when greener pastures with light sabers and space ships
appeared, I jumped the fence. It hasn’t
all been sunshine and puppies in the galaxy far, far away, but that’s a story
for another time.
2 weeks ago, Blizzard sent me a “baby come back” email. They offered me a free week with WoW to help me prepare for the new
expansion (read: to get me hooked on the crack again). At first I pooh poohed this - what would a
week do? What would be different? What have you done for me lately?
7 days ago, I cashed in my free week, curious to see what,
if any, changes had taken place in Azeroth in the 10 months I had been away.
That first night, I didn’t do much, and wasn’t very
impressed. I logged into my main
character – a level 85 Orc Hunter that I’ve been playing since about 2007. Initially, I was disappointed: 2 years ago, before the
last expansion (Cataclysm), there
were quests and daily events leading up to release that tried to get you
involved in the story; this time, there was none of that. I spent an hour or so playing as a lower level
character I had abandoned a year and a half ago thinking that nothing had
changed, other than a tweak to the talent system. I was underwhelmed.
I didn’t even log in on day two.
By day 3, I decided to log back in as my “main.” I thought I would try
the raid finder tool (an addition that went into effect after I defected) to
maybe get a crack at the big bad of the last expansion, a dragon by the name of
Deathwing.
I wanted to fight this guy... isn't he cute?
I was a bit bummed to find out that my gear was not good
enough to queue up for the raid this way, and since my guild had finished its
death throes in my absence, I wasn’t likely to get into a group for this raid
as random people I had never played with would have more stringent
gear needs than the raid finder.
I decided to try to run a few random dungeons to pass
the time, and I found a new option in the raid/dungeon finder screen:
Scenarios. The only scenario available:
Theramore’s Fall.
Rather than queue immediately, I decided to look up what
this entailed. Basically, scenarios are
new to the Mists of Pandaria
expansion. They play out like dungeons,
but are tuned to be done with 2 or 3 people instead of a full party. Also, they are open to any party
configuration, so waiting on a tank or a healer isn’t necessary. And, rather than the 45 minutes to an hour
that a regular dungeon can take, these are usually able to be completed in 20
minutes.
Then I saw the loot table: there were 2 significant upgrades
that my hunter could use that were possible drops from this mini-dungeon. Also, as this was only a “preview” of the
scenario, it wouldn’t be available after the 24th to anyone under
level 90. I logged back in and queued up
for my 1st crack at Theramore’s Fall.
I found a group in less than a minute. This in itself was a treat, since, as there
are a glut of damage class players, usually we are stuck waiting 30 minutes or
more for a full group to get together for a normal dungeon.
20 minutes later, the scenario was over. It was a quick, fun diversion, I earned some
“justice points” (currency you can use towards gear), but did not get either of
the 2 items I was hoping for. I also
re-discovered something: WoW has a ton of charm and I missed this world.
So I queued up again.
And did so at least another 15 times over the course of the
next 4 days.
I ended up getting both items I was hoping for; the 1st
about halfway through my runs, and the other on my last attempt. I also had accumulated enough “justice” to
buy 2 other upgrades to my equipment. I
even started running regular dungeons again and ended up with another upgrade.
Bear in mind that this was all for gear on a character in a
game I haven’t played/paid for in about a year.
Gear for a game that I wasn’t sure I was going to keep playing after my
free time ended. Gear that, if I did get
the expansion, would be obsolete in a few levels.
Today is the release date of the new expansion, and it’s
been on my mind since I woke up this morning.
It has me seriously considering dropping $55 today - $40 for the game,
$15 for a month of play time.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to cave in – I ran into an old
guild mate last night that is trying to lure me into his new raid group.
Well played, Blizzard pusher-men. Well played.
