The Date Creeps Closer

The currently rumored date for the BC Classic pre-patch drop is May 18th (or thereabouts), which means for the Alliance there will be Shamans as far as the eye can see, and a similar number of Paladins on the Horde side. 

Which probably explains why I'm not going to tinker with being a Shaman. 

I remember when Mists dropped I very frequently found myself as a minority as a non-Pandaren in Battlegrounds. There was one notable Warsong Gulch game in which I was the only non-Pandaren participant on the Alliance side, and while I want to say that included the Horde side too I can't recall for certain. Those were strange days, no doubt. 

But still, reading all of the posts on the various Discords about BC has been akin to listening to a bunch of Pathfinder fans talking about min-maxing their characters. And if you have an hour to lose, you too can listen in on how to create a truly overpowered PC*.

I've pretty much tuned out discussions about BC at this point. From what I've seen so far, BC discussions devolve into such minutae about BiS items, raid compositions, the best way to get raid ready, and grinding out attunements that the interest in BC as a place to explore and experience has gotten lost. I can't help but think that I'm seeing some of the same factors that led to Retail's current state** being played out before my eyes.

At this point I'm wondering exactly where I'll fit in, because while I'd like to experience end game raiding in BC, I steadfastly refuse to power level my way there. I want to immerse myself in Outland and experience the expac when it was new and wondrous. I remember going through the Dark Portal for the first time back in 2009/2010, but back then there were so few players in Outland --everybody and their grandmother was already in Northrend by then-- that the impact was kind of muted. This time, things are going to be different.

Kind of like this, but in Hellfire Peninsula.

 

I certainly hope that my path won't take me away from the friends I've made in the game, but as friends have come and gone within Classic I shouldn't be surprised that things will change. I suppose you could say that change is the only constant in an MMO; after all, look at the names of all the newly created Night Elves on the first minutes of Classic's opening and think of just how many of them remain, playing the game. I know that I don't recognize any of them, and by now I've gotten to know quite a few names around the capital cities and the major guilds.

Anyway, we'll find out in at least a month or so how things stand.

*That min-maxing culture, along with the success of D&D 5e, are likely the drivers for the creation of Pathfinder 2e. The amount of crunch in Pathfinder had gotten so large that you were pretty much required to use a computerized database system such as Lone Wolf's Hero Lab Online to keep track of your characters.

**Well, outside of the Cataclysm rewrite and the direction the overall story of Azeroth went, that is.