25 November 2014

To WOW again

Well hello all my great followers who haven't given up on me. I know it has been ... 4 months?!? Wow, I wonder if anyone is going to read this. But I shall write it anyways, read or not.

My blog isn't the only thing that I am returning to this month. I have also started playing WOW (World of Warcraft for those that don't know) again. I haven't played it since just before the Cataclysm update, but I had always thought about playing again. Then about a month ago I saw that Amazon was selling the box set for $20. You would get the basic set along with all the expansions up through Mists of Pandaria. That is a pretty good deal. And with all the talk of the new expansion (Warlords of Draenor) I started thinking about it even more.

So I went one day to Battle.net because I had read that you could play WOW for free up to level 20. I got the starter pack and began playing. It was fun and since Cataclysm shook everything up, the initial quests were different than I remembered. I was debating on whether I wanted to purchase the base game and start playing again.

Now fast forward to a couple days ago. (Yes, I could play for weeks without reaching level 20. I have this problem with continuously restarting characters. Ask my sister, she used to play WOW with me. Now, let me get back to my story. Thank you.) I logged onto the game to play and it pops up an ad saying that you can get the box set I talked about earlier for half off. Interest piqued. I went to Blizzards online store and saw that they were indeed selling it for $10. That was a deal I couldn't pass up. (And just to let you all know the sale is over.) So, I bought the game (all the way through Mists of Pandaria) and now have 30 days before I will have to start paying them to play.

There have been quite a few changes since I last played, not all of which I like. Now I haven't reached too high of level (my highest character is a 12th level Dwarven Hunter) but I will talk about what I have experienced.

Like I said before, Cataclysm shook things up. And so quite a few of the starting quests have changed. Not all, but enough that it is like exploring a new … not sure if world is quite the right word but it is the one that comes to mind. So far I have only explored the Orc, Dwarf, and Gnome starting areas. When I reached Loch Modan I got to see some of the physical changes to the landscape. The lake there is nothing but a mud puddle now and the dam is basically gone.

The change that I am not sure I like very well is the way characters develop now. When I last played, you would get points that you used to select your skills with some of them being able to take multiple times to improve damage and such. This way you would be able to build your character they way you wanted to play. Now as you level, you unlock skill automatically. No more choosing which skills you want to concentrate on. You do get to pick a specialization when you reach level 10, and I have read in the game that you can pick a second specialization later which you can switch back and forth between the two specializations. But I still would prefer to be able to pick my skills.

I suppose that they went this route because they are trying to cater to what most serious, or hardcore, gamers call casual gamers. These are the people who play games for short periods of time and aren't likely to delve into the statistics of a game. They play it mostly for a distraction. Me, I am somewhere in between a hardcore and a casual gamer. I will get into the statistics of a game to a point, in other words just to help me finish the game. But I can, and probably would if it wasn't for outside influences (read my wife and kids), play for hours on end. I enjoy playing games for the story, which is why I tend to gravitate more to RPGs then any other genre.

Overall, I am enjoying the game but I am not sure how much time and money I am going to pump into it at this point. I will probably get a subscription for a couple of months since I did spend to money to buy it. So we shall see where I am at in a couple of months then.

Until next time … Write ya later.



Edit:

I know I hadn't posted this yet so I really don't need to do just an edit. But, I had already written the post and didn't want to re-write it since I had come across some new info about the game.

I was playing my Dwarven Hunter again and got him up to level 15. Apparently they do still do the training points though it looks like the skills you buy with them are enhancements to skills you already have.(ie: with my dwarf I had three different options to enhance my disengage ability. I don't remember what they all were but I chose to add a web to it so when I disengage from an enemy the will get stuck in place for a short period of time.)


Also, I have decided that I am going to create a human Warlock. I really do prefer to play magic types and a Warlock is pretty similar to a Hunter (which I also enjoy playing, just not as much).

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