A bit of a slowdown for me over the past week or so. However, I do have some impressions of World of Warcraft: Forever; you’re excited for that, right? That and more in this week’s blog.
The trouble started with a jury summons that kept getting pushed back and throwing me out of whack; with that said, it is all done, and I am good for a whole year now. Huzzah. I am the type who gets flustered easily when planned things go off track. It feels like wasted energy and bothers me when those sorts of things happen. It’s nice to be able to have come through the other side of that frustration.
Projects
Here are some brief updates on things I have been up to.
- Progress on the next Cosmic Dash chapter has been slow; I am hoping to have it finished next week. It’s not particularly challenging, and I don’t need to pry myself out of a narrative knot. I am just writing slowly.
- I might write a side piece for Fang of Triseria as well – a little lore post about the sentient beings in the setting. Let me know if that is of interest.
- The big project this week has been editing Kevin’s book, The Errant Apprentice.
Lastly, I finally wrote a new episode of Supernatural Selection. It had some research problems I had to overcome. I am hoping to write a breakdown of it once I complete the second part. Anyway, check out “Ouija, Will Ya?” if you have the time.
World of Warcraft: Forever
World of Warcraft is like quicksand for me. No matter how much I struggle against it, it pulls me under. For a long while, at least since the middle of Warlords of Draenor, I had escaped. But even if you fall into one pit of quicksand and emerge from it successfully, it’s not like there is only one pit out there. Inevitably, I walked into it again, but maybe I wanted that, really.
It turns out that I am comfortable in the quicksand. I crave it.
Experience
My peak era of World of Warcraft was from Wrath of the Lich King through Cataclysm. I had played since the original release era, about a year before the Burning Crusade. I was a raider, usually as my Protection Paladin, and accomplished a lot of feats and reputation grinds. WoW was very much a daily activity for me, especially with the emphasis on daily quests in Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King.
I can’t begin to quantify the hours, days, months, and years of playtime I put into the game. Eventually, though, I stopped, mostly because I was getting burned out and wasn’t finding the story direction that interesting. I preferred the lore where player characters were accessories to the main lore, not the main drivers. By Warlords of Draenor, the big lore characters would defer to me – a nobody – and I wasn’t feeling it.
So, with the recent announcement of World of Warcraft Forever, I was intrigued. Enough so that I pre-ordered and got into the Beta.
Impressions
WoW Forever, in laconic terms, is WoW Classic +; It is a reimagining of the original levels 1-60 retail release of World of Warcraft, but significantly slower, with an emphasis on horizontal progression. So far, the timeline elements have eluded me, and I am unsure if this is a reboot, time bubble, or alternate reality to the existing, ongoing story. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me, but I am curious how the game will expand in the future, especially with the claims that the game will cap at level 60 permanently, as I understand it.
As for my experience so far, I have three Alliance characters and a Horde character. On the Alliance side, I have a Human Protection Warrior, a Dwarf Beast Mastery Hunter, and a Gnome Mage that I have not done a ton with. On the Horde side, I have a Forsaken Warlock. Currently, my Warrior and Hunter are tied in progression, with my Hunter getting into a new dungeon and completing it. My most-progressed characters are questing in Redridge and Loch Modan currently.
So far, everything about the Beta appeals to me. In particular, I appreciate the grind. There is something nostalgic about not having flight paths everywhere and needing to hoof it to different zones. It feels nice to get excited about rare-level gear and not immediately find yourself decked out in epics.
The experience on the Beta is not without its particular frictions, however. Due to the population, some early-game experience is dragged out. For example, single-tag mobs are back, meaning that a hunter will go around tagging multiple monsters and you’ll get no EXP or credit for helping kill them. Quest items in the world have a line of players aiming to loot them. A lot of these things will become less impactful once the server population stabilizes, but I am sure much of this is going to carry on through launch.
I was particularly enamored with a quest that took me across two continents to unlock a sleeping bag. It really feels like coming home. The fact that one of my characters, Aluia Ravenmane, is showing up in an upcoming Fang chapter feels like a sign, weirdly.
Back to Work
I should have a fiction update in some capacity next week. This semester of teaching has been fine, but I am just slower at everything. Hopefully, Knotts Scary Farm next week puts a little spring in my step.
Currently, we’re six weeks into the semester, so about 1/3 of the way through, and I feel like I am still trying to get my head into it all. Most of my work is sitting by myself, grading papers. I much prefer the nearly 4 hours a week when I get to lecture and actually talk to students.
If you’d like to play World of Warcraft with me in the future, please add me on Battle.net: CosmicDash#1446.
