They're a What, Now?

Well, that was my reaction to Nixxiom's latest video on ranking Allied Races from Worst to Best.

Okay, just to get the obvious out of the way, I am aware that the concept of Allied races popped up in Battle for Azeroth (if not all of them), but beyond that I was rather blissfully unaware about anything beyond a couple of names. (::cough:: The Vulpera ::cough::) 

Vulperas. You know, the fox people.
From Facebook and Disney. (Naturally.)

At least in terms of races, I've run into Kul'Tiran and Highmountain Tauren courtesy of Kamalia's blog, but beyond that* a lot of these allied races were kind of just lore points in the past. They were NPCs and whatnot that you encountered along the way, you saw them in an expansion, and then left behind.

Or they were turned from "good" to "bad" (or "bad" to "good") in some weird soap opera-esque manner.**

I guess that means that the Zandalari are the Millhouse Manastorm of the WoW races.

Et tu, Millhouse? I should have just left you
in The Arcatraz to rot. From Wowpedia.

Still, watching this video left me confused. If all they are is simply reskinned other races --Vulpera notwithstanding-- then why not have them as cosmetic options from the get-go? If they are more than a simple reskinning, then hasn't Blizzard made their balancing attempts all the more difficult due to all of these new races to work with?

Eh, whatever. If it works for people, it works. I just look at it as the Paradox of Choice writ large.

From LinkedIn about The Paradox
of Choice by Barry Schwartz.

*And Void Elves, because I can see at least one of them in every graphic concerning Retail's current expansion.

**I'm looking at you, Marlena Evans from Days of our Lives. Am I still salty about that? Uh, kinda, yes.

When Exploring is the Expectation

Not that much to really talk about for this update, aside from the fact that all of the toons involved with Operation: Spread the Love are now at L30 or L31. Which makes it just past the halfway point in levels, but in terms of the leveling process, it's likely more along the lines of 1/3 of the way through to completion. 

Nice to see you, Az. At least you're not threatening me
with bodily harm for the lack of good daggers you've got.
This listing is as of May 7th, 2025.

Why do I say 1/3 of the way through?

Because the amount of XP per level increases by a lot from here on out, and the corresponding speed of leveling slows down quite a bit. Back when I leveled Briganaa for TBC Classic, I did have one great advantage over Vanilla Classic leveling: the mid-30s and mid-40s doldrums were smoothed out in TBC Classic by the addition of more quests and a quest hub in Dustwallow Marsh and an enhancement of the quests in Ashenvale.* With those additional quests in place, and a couple of extra Flight Points sprinkled throughout the two continents, it became easier to get around the world. 

I'm of two minds on the speed of transportation around Azeroth with TBC Classic: a few places that from a game perspective truly needed Flight Points got them --Emerald Sanctuary in Felwood for one major example-- but with those additional Flight Points came the drumbeat for more FPs to be added to the game, which ultimately led to what feels like 10 million of those things in the post-Cataclysm revamp of the Old World. The world shrank and became less about leveling being a major part of the game as the focus shifted strictly toward whatever the current expansion was and explicitly toward Endgame.

I'm also at the level where ranging farther afield becomes the norm, as quests take you all over Azeroth. Sure, you could spend your time in limited locales on the Eastern Kingdoms or the Kaldorei lands of Kalimdor, but beyond the run to Gnomeregan (for the Horde) or to Shadowfang Keep (for the Alliance) you don't have to get out much until quests push you into exploring the opposite continents more thoroughly. 

I remember back in 2009 when I got my first quest to visit Booty Bay and I thought "Where the hell is THAT?" I was determined to figure this out on my own, so by the time I actually got to Booty Bay for the first time it felt like I'd stumbled across this near mythical place. In reality it was very much less so, but nobody told me I could take a boat from Ratchet to head to Booty Bay, so I never knew that. I mean, the Horde used Zeppelins, it was the Alliance that used boats. Hence, I never put two and two together that Goblins of the Steamwheedle Cartel would allow all players to utilize their ships to travel between continents. Given that when I visited Ratchet there typically wasn't a ship there, so it never occurred to me to loiter around to see what happened when one arrived. I mean, I had Mankrik's wife to find, and on a PvP server I very much avoided any contact with Alliance personnel.**

That spike in tension whenever you saw a member of the opposing faction --particularly if they had a Skull where their level number would be-- can only be likened to being ambushed in a survival horror game. Such as what it's like if you get blown up by a Creeper from behind in Minecraft.

HOLY CRAP do I hate these monsters.
From Exitlag.

Oh yeah, I've been noodling about Minecraft lately, but that's neither here nor there. The "Normal" survival game world is the closest I've been to those early days playing WoW, where you're minding your own business and then BOOM you're dead, and there's some Rogue teabagging your body.

It's a nice complement to me fishing to end my game time on the Anniversary servers, as if my heart needs the exercise or something.

Now, where will I end up in two weeks' time? No idea, but I doubt I'll be much farther along than what I am right now. I've got until Q1 of 2026 before TBC drops on the Anniversary servers, and what I'll do once that happens is pure speculation at this point. Maybe I ought to do more speculating while I fish a bit.

*Particularly at the "alternate" locales for quests: Forest Song for Alliance and Zoram'gar Outpost for Horde.

**Remember, I played Horde back then.

Meme Monday: Playing with Family and Friends Memes

Oh, I have my share of stories playing games with the family. Sure, there's the MMO runs with the mini-Reds, but there's also the times playing games where things go crazy or people get upset. Because you family knows how to push your buttons, after all. Then again, playing with friends can end up the same way...

From Pinterest.

Uh, my warm summer nights would be spent
with mosquitos biting me. From Imgflip.

Okay, that was a bit much.
From Reddit, of course.

I have never flipped a game board. However,
I've been playing games where someone DID
flip a game board. That was NOT fun.
From Memesmonkey.

I'm Just Playing With My Dolls Again

Okay, I don't have any dolls, or what adults would call "action figures".

From TheGearPage. And Spaceballs.

But I do have MMO toons. 

I spent a bit of time yesterday visiting some of my old characters, just to check them out for a bit. Such as Dalaak here, my original SWTOR toon.

Hello, big fella.

Or my original LOTRO toon, Aranandor, when he's not lounging around Bree.

There's also my GW2 toon, Mikath...

I still think that the toons and NPCs in GW2 all look
like the Beautiful People, with flawless skin and
impeccable grooming. The beat up outfit notwithstanding.

Or my friendly Vulcan from STO...

And his entire officer corps, too!

And there's also that crazy Dunmer from ESO...

Those loading screens show the actual armor
worn, not the outfit she actually has on. That's one thing
that Retail WoW does better, at least.

But I guess that this wouldn't be a post about MMO toons if it didn't include the instigator of this post, WoW:

Hey, Lady. Long time no see.

Or even longer, really.

Okay, that wasn't the actual version of WoW I was talking about, but this one...

I occasionally go to the loading screen just to see how long it's been since I last logged into Retail. If I see "Gear Update" listed on all of these toons, I know it's been some months, and likely at least one major/minor patch in the interim.

Those are four of my most played toons on Retail --the original Azshandra isn't there-- but given how things progressed in Classic WoW, it just didn't feel quite right. Therefore, I tweaked the composition a bit:

There. That's better.

The gear (and levels, to be honest) are all wrong from my perspective, but I'm not planning on doing anything about that. At least now the names are correct on that Warband.

There are other toons I have from MMOs I no longer play* such as Age of Conan, Rift, or Neverwinter, that would require me to install the games again to simply take a screenshot of the loading screen. And then there are games that no longer exist, such as Wildstar, ArcheAge, or TERA. I do miss Wildstar, but not the other two.

Even though I really have no desire to play some games (or specific toons), it's nice to pull them up on screen every once in a while just to enjoy how they looked, and the memories they recalled.

*Again, I'm surprised that Age of Conan is still hanging on after all these years.

EtA: Corrected grammar.

EtA: And corrected some more grammar. Sheesh.

When Thought Experiments Get Out of Hand

Speaking of anachronisms...

Given how Retail WoW has developed over the years, why is leveling still a part of the game? 

That has been one of the items I've been pondering over the past several days. It's not a new opinion by any stretch of the imagination, but the leveling experience ceased to be a focus of Retail WoW players for as long as I can remember. 

If the Old World zones back in 2009 were as populated now as they are on the 20th Anniversary Classic Servers, I'd have likely found leveling incredibly difficult. Remember, I began playing WoW on a PvP server, and if every zone had a crowd like Hillsbrad Foothills had, I'd have spent most of my game time running for my life. 

Or dead. Yeah, I'd be dead.
I pulled this out of my archives just because.

Since those zones weren't that populated --because most people were at max level in 2009-- that made my original leveling experience easier.

Yes, I do love the leveling experience in Vanilla Classic. While I dislike the XP boosts that the Classic team regularly puts out, at least they do pay lip service to the time honored tradition of actually leveling a character.

But that's the pre-Cataclysm WoW environment. Since that time, as WoW's game world has become bigger and the level cap has grown larger, the actual process of leveling itself has become more and more streamlined. Paradoxically, the emphasis placed on the current expansion --and getting players as quickly as possible to the level cap-- has skyrocketed as well.

So that begs the question: why have people level in the traditional way at all when a new expansion drops? 

***

It's not as if what I'm suggesting hasn't been thought of before. After all, Blizzard loves to roll out level boosts late in an expansion --frequently with gear upgrades to help you once you reach the level cap-- for at least several years now. What I'm asking, however, is why are they even bothering with the leveling journey in the first place if the entire focus of the game is at the level cap. 

If people are zipping through the leveling zones to get to max level as quickly as possible --or the actual leveling process is so streamlined as to be little more than a visual novel with a few "kill ten rats" quests-- then why not eliminate the leveling process itself and start everyone at max level when they purchase the expansion? 

I'm not saying to eliminate the leveling zones themselves, but to essentially make them optional. If people are zipping through quests, not bothering to even read quest text, then why not leave the quests for people who actually want to read them and let everybody else just rocket on ahead and do what they really want to do? 

***

Am I playing Devil's Advocate here?

A bit, I'll admit.

There are days when I feel like I'm the only person in the world who enjoys the leveling process itself, and during the last Retail expansion I played --Mists of Pandaria circa 2013/2014-- it actually took an effort to slow down my leveling so I could enjoy the game. It also took a bit of an effort to handle the Mists intro areas when the gear I was wearing were Cataclysm quest rewards and random drops from the mid-Cataclysm zones such as Uldum; I could tell that the development staff expected the average Mists player to have at least a full Heroic dungeon set when they crossed to Pandaria*, and there was at least one mini-boss quest that was effectively a gear check in the Pandaria intro zone that you had to pass before you progressed further in the story.

Nostalgia aside, however, I think the time has come for Blizzard to seriously consider eliminating the leveling process from Retail. If enough people are blitzing through the zones (or really don't care about the story except for the "get gear/renown/etc." part), why not give the players what they want and just let them skip the leveling process entirely? Or, knowing how Microsoft and Blizzard thinks, offer players the opportunity to skip the leveling for a price. Instead of Early Access, allow those players the opportunity to start the next expansion at max level for an extra $30. All the try-hards can go straight into their gearing process while those that actually care about the story and the questing zones can go do those. Blizzard can even institute layering to separate the paid boosts from the levelers, so you can prevent the boosters from farming all of the World Bosses and gathering nodes.

Before anybody brings up the elephant in the room --PvPers and gankers-- institute a simple change to the PvP rules: for the first month of an expansion's release, max level toons can only engage in PvP with other max-level toons. Not with NPCs. Not with lower level toons of the opposite faction. That keeps those who paid for the privilege of skipping the leveling process from interfering with the fun of those who did not. 

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter. As for me, I'll be back on the Anniversary servers, leveling at my own pace.

*It's not an accident that the level boosts provided to players have included a set of basic gear so that the boosted players aren't too underpowered in the current expansion.

Meme Monday: Anachronism Memes

I've been thinking a bit about anachronisms lately, so I figured I might as well lean into it and provide a few memes about anachronisms from all over.

Some anachronisms are out in plain
sight. Such as that the Trojan Horse
was actually a jet. From Memedroid.

Oh, and speaking of The Iliad...
From Imgflip.

/snicker. From the Triablogue Wordpress blog.

Anachronistic memes can be found even in the Bayeaux Tapestry.
From Pinterest.

Okay, I laughed. Although to be fair,
I could see this in an episode of Doctor Who.
From Memedroid.

Aye, thou mayest be a star.
From Imgflip and timfall,wordpress.com.

Adventures in Righteousness

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something on my last Operation Spread the Love update: two weeks ago, Linna did complete one Paladin quest chain.

I'd forgotten how long of a grind it was to complete this questline. It's probably half as long as the Paladin mount questline is, but it still takes you far afield for a low level Paladin. The initial portion of the questline, defending Daphne Stilwell from the Defias, does take a minimum level to complete in the same way that a Mage's wand questline does**, but as long as you don't do anything stupid such as hit the wrong button you can complete it quickly enough.

This was before I hit said "wrong button".
It wasn't until I was reviewing screencaps for this post that
I realized that Daphne's hairstyle is the same as Cardwyn's. Go figure.

::ONE DEATH AND SEVERAL DAYS LATER::

At least she doesn't have the same hair color as Cardwyn.

If you've not done the quest chain before**, you'll be pleased to know that Daphne is not some helpless "damsel in distress". She has already been defending her and her husband's farm from the Defias Brotherhood for a while, and during the fight she is alongside you, taking potshots at the Defias with her gun. Given how cut off their farm is from the main rallying point at Sentinel Hill, she has to be tough enough to stand her ground. 

Anyway, once that quest is complete you might be tempted to believe that's the end of that, but your superior, Lord Shadowbreaker, sends you up to Ironforge where Daphne's husband is stationed to inform him of the events back home. In gratitude for helping to defend his farm and Daphne***, Jordan offers to forge you a weapon worthy of a wielder of the Light such as yourself. 

There's only one little problem: Jordan doesn't have what he needs to finish the job.

The solution? Well, you can handle a little shopping trip, right?

Apparently Linna could, because Jordan provided Linna with said shopping list, and she then went all over tarnation, from familiar places such as Dun Morogh and The Deadmines to farther away locales such as Darkshore and the Silverpine Forest.

There's a bit of a crowd at the gates of Shadowfang Keep.
And yes, I took this screencap originally for that
guild name, which reminded me of an ongoing joke
in The Elder Scrolls Online, The Lusty Argonian Maid.

The labors weren't exactly the Labors of Hercules by any stretch, but it did involve some patience. While the Kor Gem you seek can drop off of the naga that roam the underground tunnels before you reach the instance itself, they're all elites and it takes some patience to kill them. To be honest, it's more effective to simply get a group for Blackfathom Deeps and just go run the instance.

Shirtless Kaldorei looks better than
Shirtless Kirk, that's for certain.

Once you've obtained a corrupted Kor Gem and Thundris helpfully purifies it, you can then make the trek back to Ironforge**** and provide Jordan with the entire contents of his grocery list. In Vanilla Classic, there was no option to turn in parts of the list beforehand, you had to get the entire list first and then turn it all in. When your bag space is kind of limited, that's a bit of a commitment.

Still, Jordan is grateful and you do get the satisfaction of watching him work:

Completing an involved class quest is far more satisfying than, say, some of the one-off Mage class quests. I'm looking at you, Jennea, and your insistence on collecting water from Mirror Lake for a reason you refuse to tell me about. (Cardwyn still believes it was a test to see if you'll do whatever you're told to do without question, which irks her to no end.) Yes, you might get a good weapon at the end of it, but the journey is also very much worth it as well.

Now, about some of those Druid and Warlock quests...

*Trudging through the swamp to where Tabetha lives is pretty much a death sentence to any Mage attempting to do it the moment you get the initial quest. In Vanilla WoW, Mages don't have the ability to turn themselves temporarily invisible, so any critter within a mile of you in southern Dustwallow will be coming for you. (Don't ask me how I know that one.)

**I can't recall if it was removed from the post-Cataclysm Old World, but while there are entries in Wowhead it appears that if you bring up Verigan's Fist there's a line that says "This item's source is no longer available/removed."

***More like 'assist Daphne in her slaughter of the Defias', but I digress. If I ever get in a fight in a back alley, I want her on my side.

****I like to take a long trip back rather than use the Hearthstone to return to Stormwind and take the tram. So sue me.