Getting Back Into WoW After a Long Break

The good old days

It's been a long time since I've played WoW (and it's by no means the first time this has happened). So long, in fact, that when my account lapsed I considered not renewing it. Mists has been a hard expansion for me, though I don't know how much of that has to do with Mists itself and how much of it is a lingering effect of Cataclysm. That being said, I still only have one level 90 and my second highest character is level 86.

Coming back to WoW is hard. Logging into old mains means coming back to bags full of items which you don't remember what they're for, abilities which might not (or definitely will not, depending on how long you've been away) work the same way they used to, you're behind on content, and you're definitely rusty, potentially having lost some of the muscle memory of how to play your class. My level 90 Priest has all these things in her bags and all these abilities I don't remember how to use and there are all these dungeons and scenarios I have no idea how to run. I'm worried that if I tried to run anything I'd be terrible and everybody would hate me. My level 86 Druid is primarily Guardian but the class/spec changed so much in Mists that I don't even know how to play him anymore.

WoW isn't alone in this issue. Any game-as-a-service that updates its content and systems is going to have this problem with returning players having trouble catching up. They've certainly worked on making coming back into the game easier for players over the years. Simplifying the talent and abilities systems have done wonders for that. But the baggage of items, quests, and being behind on content is a harder problem to solve. I could just vendor the items but that's sub-optimal in terms of profitability and my brain tells me, "No! Don't do it!"

The game is complicated now. It may be (debatably) easier now than it was in Vanilla but it's far more complicated. With daily quests, normal and heroic scenarios, normal and heroic dungeons, normal and heroic raids, justice and valor points, LFR, and reputations (some of which are gated) PVE is incredibly more complicated than it has ever been. PVP has evolved significantly from what it was in Vanilla as well.

So I've been eschewing my high-level characters since coming back to WoW and have been leveling some classes I haven't leveled to the level-cap before. I've got a Draenei Prot Warrior (yet ANOTHER attempt at doing so), a Human Affliction Warlock, and a Night Elf Assassination Rogue. None of them are level 30 or above yet but I've really been enjoying the experience. Starting a new character lets me forget about all the things that have changed that keep me from playing the characters that are at higher levels. It lets me forget that things used to be different and that I don't know how the game works anymore.

I haven't really leveled a pure DPS class before, and leveling these has so far been really fun. I hope that this will help me get back into the game and really get back into endgame activities, which I haven't done since early Cataclysm. If you're having trouble getting into WoW lately, or haven't played in a long time, I highly recommend rolling a new character, it's very freeing and I haven't lapsed as quickly as I have in the past. I'm really looking forward to what these new characters will bring me.

10 Things I've Never Done in WoW

Turn into an ogre and swim in lava? Done it.

Bravetank posted a writeup of 10 things they've never done in WoW, and it has similarly inspired me to do the same. This may or may not have to do with me not writing about WoW in a long time.

Never have I ever...

1. ...cleared any Cataclysm raids. The guild I started the expansion with wasn't capable, and I just haven't made an effort to get that done. This is all despite the fact that my current guild does raid every week. I just have trouble getting inspired to pull the time together to do so. No LFR. I only completed Baradin Hold when it had one boss in it.
2. ...leveled a Horde character past the low 60s. My highest level horde character is a Forsaken warrior who's still in Hellfire Peninsula. I started playing as Horde, but fell out of playing Horde because Sarah and I wanted to level a paladin and a shaman together, and thus we rolled Draenei (since this was before Cataclysm when Tauren gained paladins).
3. ...leveled through the 1-60 content after Cataclysm. I think this is mainly because I took a break during the middle of Cataclysm. I know that there is a ton of really great stuff out there and I really want to see it.
4. ...leveled a plate wearer to 85. I have a level 80 Death Knight from Wrath that just kinda happened? I started it out of curiosity and that curiosity carried me to 80 where he stagnated. I'm currently leveling a Blood Elf warrior who is in his 20s.
5. ...done the Molten Front. I'm working on it right now and I HAVE to do it. I have a thing about hippogryphs and bear pets. I got both of the hippogryphs from the Argent Tournament as well as the bear, squire, and the squire's horse. The Argent Tournament had a TON of great stuff.
6. ...gotten a Amani Bear. I was upset that they removed the bear from Zul'Aman back in patch 3.0 and was so happy that they added the bear back into the revamped Zul'Aman. This is another thing that my guild is doing that I for some reason haven't gotten involved in.
7. ...used a highly customized user interface. I use the base interface (I don't even have a boss mod or recount right now). I don't think I actually have any addons at the moment.
8. ...been an auction house aficionado. I just post my stuff just below where other people have it posted. I've very rarely bought an item and flipped it for a higher price or bought something to make it into something else to sell at a higher price. An AH Baron, I am not.
9. ...read a Warcraft novel. The only WoW fiction that I've read was some of the comics. The Ashbringer series of comics was quite excellent and I highly recommend reading it. But there is no way that you could get me to read a novel.
10. ...gotten any of the Cataclysm drakes. I just realized that while writing this. It seems like it'd be prudent to do so. I think I'd like to do this through the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero achievement. 

So what have you never done? My list is pretty decent and I really hope to accomplish some of these some day.

20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 17 - My favorite spots

LMAO if you don't love this music


In game
Ummm...I don't know if I have one. I don't think I have a place that is the one place that I just like to go hang out. If I had to pick a place that I particularly liked, it would be the Twilight Grove in Duskwood. I leveled through that zone a couple times before I ever actually explored it and was amazed at what I found when I went there. I definitely have some favorite zones.

For classic WoW, I definitely loved Ashenvale the most, even if I was initially afraid of it. The music and the locations are just my favorite. There are some fallen trees that you could get on that went over the road that I loved to climb on. I still haven't actually leveled there since Cataclysm came out (I'm way behind on things) and am eager to check it out, even if it will make me sad. Duskwood. For Outland, I love Nagrand with its scenic beauty the most. In Northrend, the Grizzly Hills were my favorite. I love the Furbolg. The music for the Grizzly Hills was what really got me excited for the zone before Wrath even came out. In the Cataclysm content, I'd have to say that I like Vash'jir the most. The zone has great history, views, and it's just so big and mysterious.


Out of game
My parent's house has this one room that I absolutely love. If you never looked in it you'd probably just think it was a closet. It's a narrow room, probably 5 ft wide by 7 ft long. It has a narrow entrance at one end and at the other end the room narrows into a little alcove that has window. On one wall there is an old desk with a couple shelves above it and a light attached to the bottom of the bottom shelf to light the desk. This cozy little room has always appealed to me, and I spent a good amount of time studying in there.

In the future, I'd like to live somewhere that had one room that was no more that 10 ft by 10 ft, with windows covering half the room and bookshelves covering the other half. There'd be a window seat in front of the windows with pillows on it, and possibly a small, simple desk somewhere. It would be my favorite room.

When I have a house someday, I want it to have a bunch of small, intimate, specifically designed rooms instead of a handful of large, general purpose rooms. It's probably because I'm such an introvert.

20 Days of WoW Blogging: Day 16 - Things I miss post-Cata

Cataclysm brought many changes to World of Warcraft. Many of those changes were great!. Very few were bad. Some of them were unwelcome, but ultimately necessary. Here are some of the things that I miss.

Southshore
I would generally always make my way through Southshore on my Alliance characters, but I can't anymore. They've all been turned into goo.

The Wrathgate
I know that it's in the past now and wouldn't make sense to keep, but it was absolutely one of the coolest things they ever put in the game. I mean...damn that shit was cool.

Understanding Orgrimmar
There once was a time when I played a Horde character or two. I understood Orgrimmar very well. Then I spent a very long time playing Alliance characters and in the past couple weeks I logged back into my Horde characters and Orgrimmar is a foreign place now. I don't like it. Then again, I'm not a Horde player so I don't really have to deal with it.

Being in Northrend
I just liked Northrend, alright? Northrend didn't have fucking trees everywhere. Old world's got trees all over the damn place. Fuck trees. Outland is also good for this. No trees.

The potential for Uldum to be awesome
I was absolutely fascinated with Uldum. It was just this mysterious hole in a wall that you couldn't get through. After hearing/seeing all the cool stuff in Uldaman and Ulduar my mind was full of possibilities. I wanted more than almost anything to explore Uldum. Then, it wasn't really that cool and we spent half the zone in a joke. It was better as a mystery.

And some more things:

• Magni Bronzebeard
• Keys! I loved collecting keys. I actually had the achievement.
• CoT: Stratholme drake runs. I remember my first successful run of that. We fought for it.

Fighting Back: Getting Revenge for the Loss of Theramore

I know I used this recently, but it's just so damn good.

It's come to light recently that in a pre-Mists of Pandaria event that Theramore, in Dustwallow Marsh, will be destroyed in a Horde attack. This is meant to ignite the preexisting Alliance/Horde tensions to launch us into the story for MoP. To be clear, it hasn't been clarified/indicated if the Alliance will be losing Dustwallow Marsh as a question area or if Theramore will just be rubbled. Regardless, many people are crying out over this, claiming the Alliance lost enough in the transition into Cataclysm and calling for similar Horde losses. If it's done, though, then where?

It wouldn't suffice to just say that I have ideas.