When I Want to Annoy my Wife, I Play ABBA

When someone in Trade Chat said "This isn't a true Vanilla experience because nobody is dancing on a mailbox," I took that as a personal challenge.

Sorry, I'm not planning on making a gif out of this.

"There," I said. "I'm dancing on the mailbox in Darnassus."

"It needs to be in SW for it to count," was the reply.

Challenge accepted.

EtA: No, I'm NOT planning on making GIFs out of these. Corrected the caption.

Old Friends Reunited

One nice thing about getting back into WoW via WoW Classic is running into old friends.

Yesterday I logged in to take care of some items*, and found Ancient, from the blog Tome of the Ancient, online and playing in Classic on Myzrael-US.

"Ancient!"

"Red!"

She was questing in Darkshore, waiting to ding L20 on her Druid, and also waiting for Therylune to respawn in The Master's Glaive area. I was in nearby Ashenvale, so I quickly ran over and had a short but great reunion in-game.

Ignore the dreary atmosphere, that's just
Darkshore for you.

I'm a few levels higher than Kitwynn so I offered to help out, and we spent the next 10-20 minutes talking and killing Twilight's Hammer flunkies, just like the old days.

Therylune took a long time to respawn,
so we had ample time to chat

I couldn't stay long, as I was going to be a taxi for the youngest mini-Red (marching band competiton) while our exchange student was hanging out with some of her fellow exchange students and hosts, so the reunion was definitely short. But since we both play on the same server, I hope we'll group up more often and just have a fun time relaxing. And killing baddies.

Because WoW, you know.




*And I finally got into a Deadmines run!! Two actually, but I'll post about those another time.


EtA: I was so excited to post this that I forgot the title. Oops.

Let's not Overcomplicate Things

It seems that when it comes to video games, I'm a bit snakebit right now.

I haven't been able to play any video games as much as I'd like, and no, this doesn't have anything to do with work.* It does, however, have to do with our family being a bit larger for a while: we've an exchange student residing with us**, and she's been here since the end of August. She'll be leaving in another week or so, but since that takes priority over other items around the house*** I've been gaming less and spending more time on being a good host.

What that translates into is that I've fallen behind in leveling along with the initial wave in WoW Classic, but there's still plenty to do with people who are my current level.****

But alas, my biggest desire --outside of Alterac Valley-- is that I would like to get into some 5-man dungeons, and I simply don't have time for that at the moment.

I keep thinking I'm going to outlevel the content in the Deadmines shortly, so I really need to get there and get in a group. But I also know that a full Deadmines run, particularly given the likelihood of at least one wipe, would take about an hour of complete dedication, and given the intensity of the first part --fighting your way through the mines-- there's no way I could do the 5-man without interruption. And that means really early in the morning or late at night.

But not all is lost: I've been spending some time creeping along, gathering flight points.

Oh yes, I've been a bad Night Elf, sneaking along in areas not meant for an L22 character.

Such as trying to figure out if I could sneak through Burning Steppes just enough to pick up the flight point at Morgan's Vigil. Spoiler Alert: you can't, because there's an Obsidian Elemental parked in the lava just past the (busted open) door to the zone.

Another spoiler alert: doesn't matter if you're stealthed, because a baddie who is high enough level to get the skull icon instead of a number will aggro on you as soon as it gets a line of sight on you.

And based on that result, I didn't try to reach Feralas, although I was really tempted.

However, I did creep up to the Arathi Highlands and picked up the flight point there at Refuge Pointe, and I took the easy route (boat from Menethil Harbor) to Theramore and acquired a flight point there.

Yes, Theramore was still very much non-bombed out, and Jaina Proudmoore had her original hair color (and disposition).

Since I had a flight point for Dustwallow Marsh, the next step was to go get one for Ratchet.

Climbing up the mountains surrounding Dustwallow Marsh isn't an option, and I was low enough level to not make it through the Marsh itself, so I decided my best bet was to sneak through The Barrens' entrance from Stonetalon Peak. If you'll recall, the entrance to The Barrens from Ashenvale is really well guarded by Horde, so you can forget about getting through that way, but Stonetalon's entrance is pretty wide open. Additionally, I'd already been questing in Stonetalon so that I could beef up my level to finish the Ashenvale questlines, so I was familiar with the zone.*****

And I was off, creeping along toward the entrance to The Barrens, and avoiding the Horde players that were running back and forth around Stonetalon. Sure, Myzrael may be a PvE server, but my WoW infancy was spent in Stormscale-US, a PvP server, so I'm more than a bit gun shy about running into the opposing faction out in the wild. That didn't stop the Troll Shaman who made a point of letting me know he saw me by waving at me numerous times.

"You don't see me," I muttered to myself as I crept along.

I maneuvered around the Grimtotem areas, kept to the hills, and "The Barrens" finally popped on my screen.

"Thank goodness. Now I can--"

And then Honor's Stand came into view.

"Uh oh."

The main passage through Honor's Stand went right by the Horde outpost, which effectively blocked the ravine formed from the mountains on one side and the mesa on another, and I had no idea whether the north side of the mesa had a similar configuration.

Doubling back, I turned north, and breathed easier when I saw that those Horde outposts appeared abandoned, so I hugged the mesa and hoped a stray L60 Horde Guard wasn't nearby. A few anxious minutes later and I was into the clear, the plains of The Barrens stretching before me.

Well, except for the roving Centaur and Gnolls, not to mention the Thunder Lizard that had a disturbing tendency to anticipate where I was headed even though I was stealthed, I managed to head south in the direction of where I thought Ratchet ought to be. I turned east on the road and kept on going....

...right into Dustwallow Marsh.

"Oh, you have got to be shitting me!!" I said out loud. "Next time I'm taking the corpse run!!"

Yes, I did (eventually) make it to Ratchet, which was right where the southern edge of Durotar meets The Barrens, but I wasn't very happy with myself.

I should have tried the corpse run first. Or maybe the water route, swimming my way up to Ratchet by hugging the coastline from Theramore.

ANYTHING but stealthing across The @#$!-ing Barrens.




*Well, a little bit, but not nearly as much as in other times.

**She's actually been a lot of fun to have around, but I have to be constantly on guard so that I don't use American slang as often as I do. And to be honest, I've not seen her that much as our youngest has been taking her from place to place, and all I am is the taxi driver.

***No, I haven't used that as an excuse to stop cleaning or doing laundry; instead I've spent a LOT more time doing both than I expected just to keep up with everything.

****Yes, my mantra has pretty much always been "move at your own pace". However, when you're stuck in that questing version of No Man's Land where you can't solo much in Ashenvale right now and you're forced into traveling all over to pick up quests in the low-20s you can do just to get geared up enough to get through those Ashenvale quests, you know what I'm talking about.

*****Stonetalon is another zone that was hit pretty hard by Cataclysm. Not originally, mind you, but in the storyline that followed once a player reached the zone. Even though I'd quested in Stonetalon before in pre-Cata, it was on the Horde side, and I hadn't realized how tilted in favor of the Horde the quests and activity in the zone was, from their flight point (conveniently placed in the middle of the zone) to the surrounding quests themselves. The Tauren-focused quests mimicked a lot of the Alliance/Night Elf quests, and the anti-Alliance quests meant that the Horde were constantly up in Stonetalon Peak, in the Alliance's home territory.

I Survived the Wetlands Fun Run

...at least, that's what I started calling it when the everpresent topic of "how do I get to Stormwind from Darnassus?" popped up in Gen Chat.

You see, the ship from Darnassus' harbor to Stormwind didn't make an appearance until Wrath of the Lich King, so that meant if you wanted to get to Stormwind you had to go the long way: Menethil Harbor in the Wetlands, then a long run around the Wetlands to Loch Modan and then Dun Morogh to Ironforge. Once at Ironforge, you take the Tram to Stormwind.

Given that I cut my teeth on WoW in Eversong Forest and learned the hard way to never go through the Eastern Plaguelands as a lowbie, this doesn't seem too bad, until you realize that the crocs in the Wetlands frequently run across the road in spots.

I waited until I was L18 to make my run, and I even had the advantage of having Stealth, but I had to wait for several intense moments until a croc or two about 4-5 levels above me left the vicinity of the road before I continued on.

And then I remembered that I saw, on the day Classic dropped, a L3 Gnome and a L5 Dwarf running around Teldrassil.

A corpse run indeed.

But based on the jokes in Teldrassil and Darkshore, Blizz should create a t-shirt that says "I Survived the Wetlands Fun Run" in the same vein that 1e D&D players have a "I Survived the Tomb of Horrors".

Yeah, kind of like this.
From d20 Collective, I think, because
I got a dozen links almost immediately
after starting a search.

***

Well, my own personal Waterloo came after I was emboldened by the success of reaching Stormwind (because there was a Rogue quest there), and I decided to brave Ashenvale.

Now let's get something clear: Ashenvale doesn't have the same reaction to me that, say, the Hillsbrad Foothills and Tarren Mill does. When I first set foot in Ashenvale waaaay back in the day, Souldat's wife and I were being escorted to Blackfathom Deeps by Souldat himself, who at the time was on his Death Knight. I was reasonably certain that we were going to be okay throughout the entire experience, because a DK in Ashenvale is really overpowered for the zone itself. And while we were on a PvP server, I still hadn't completely understood what that meant, because I'd largely kept myself confined to the Horde zones at that time.

So, I figured it wouldn't be that hard to Stealth my way into Ashenvale as an L18 Rogue and then reach Astranaar and the other locations where I had quests ending.

Such as the Shrine of Aessina.

I made a point of not trying to cheat by looking online or by using Questie, which is the current hot app for levelers in Classic*, but or the life of me I couldn't remember where the Shrine was. I remembered Maestra's Post, and that was easily found, but all I knew was the wooden post in-game at Maestra's Post said "Shrine of Aessina" following the road south.

"Oh, I know," I said to myself. "It's the place just west of the Horde outpost in the zone."

As I snuck on over to the road that led to Felwood, the levels of the spiders and other woodland nasties kept rising. I managed to put down an L22 spider that aggroed on me while stealthed, but I got really lucky with my hits. And I reached the outpost to discover it wasn't the Shrine of Aessina at all, but Raynewood's Retreat.

Crap.

Trying to remember what things were like pre-Cata, I decided that maybe the Shrine of Aessina is at the Alliance entrance to Warsong Gulch. I wasn't completely sure, however, and if that didn't bear fruit I was going to try in the southwest portion of Ashenvale.

I crept along down the road to the Alliance entry into Warsong Gulch, and took a lot more time going farther around the mobs as they rose into L23 and L24 territory. And then, I reached a point where I could go no farther; the road had too many mobs nearby that were L24-ish**.

Turning around, I discovered that my path was blocked as well, except for a narrow area up a slope and around the top of a small hill or two.

Guess who slid down the hill and right into a mob of spiders and wolves?

This guy.

I died.

I ran back, then respawned in the farthest corner away from that mob, not realizing another mob was right behind me.

I died again.

And ran back again, and tried to sprint away from the mobs, who dazed me and feasted on my carcass.

Multiple times.

I finally threw up my hands and took the Resurrection Sickness option and revived at the Shrine.

And then, once I stepped on the road to go into Astranaar, I was ambushed by another spider, and died once more.

At that point, I admitted defeat, Hearthed back to Auberdine, repaired my gear, and retired to the inn to drown my sorrows in whatever alcohol I could find.

Being a Night Elf inn, there wasn't much in the way of booze, so I just opened a beer from my fridge, sighed, and logged for the night.

Who knew the Wetlands Fun Run would be the easy part of my day?




*Based on the sheer number of people saying they were using Questie in Gen Chat.

**I say ish, because I think some were L23 and some were L25.

Various Vanilla Classic Thoughts 70 Hours In

Well, that didn't take long.

Apparently Blizz has relieved most of the congestion by expanding the number of players who can be logged into a WoW Classic server concurrently.

That explains why I didn't have a 30-45 minute wait last evening to get into Myzrael.* Believe me, I'm not complaining, but I'd actually figured it'd take about 30 minutes to get in, so I logged in and went away to do some cleaning, only to turn around and see Azshandra staring back at me a minute or so later.

"I guess that cleaning can wait for a few," I said as I turned off the vacuum cleaner.**

***

So last night I was told by people in Gen Chat in Darkshore --hey, waiting for your shot at Anaya Dawnrunner means you've got time to kill-- that there's a player who's close to dinging L40 out there. Of course, the slog really starts around that point, so we'll see what happens.

Someone also brought up some numbers that were crunched by Google (or somewhere) that it would take a month straight --at minimum-- to reach L60. I think they were really referencing this article by warcrafttavern.com about leveling. The article does mention that the world record for leveling back in Vanilla was 4 days, 20 hours by Joana, but the one thing it doesn't mention is whether that leveling achievement was done with help or not. For example, Souldat was far ahead of his wife and I in leveling back in Wrath, and to help get his wife to L60 --and into BC-- he basically ran her through Stratholme multiple times so she could get the XP needed to head to Outland. If there's a situation where there's absolutely no help whatsoever, as you're ahead of everybody else, then any advantages of leveling with people who have gone before you simply disappear.

***

I have resisted the urge to go online and hunt for info on finding things, such as the two tablets in Ameth Aran, which meant that it took me a lot longer to find (no sparkles or marks on the minimap) but the satisfaction in finding the tablets was much higher. It also means that I've been considering writing down stuff more often in a notepad, simply because you have to remember more and pay attention to the quest text more in order to find what you're needing. Or you could ask in game; a lot more people are willing to help on Classic (so far) than what I remember especially on my last couple of years in Cata and Mists. If you asked a question in game --assuming there were people around in the zone, that is-- then you were frequently met with either silence or a "go google it, noob".

I'm reasonably certain the outflowing of assistance will die down a bit once people reach L60 and start doing other things, but for now I'll take it.

***

The gear drops are a LOT more whites and far fewer greens; and I'd say of the 6 or so greens that I did get as a drop, only two are usable for a Rogue. Apparently I'm not the only one not getting the drops they want, because the auction house is full of low level greens. Given that I'm saving my in game cash as much as I can, I can look from afar but not touch. Of course, it makes questing that much harder, as you're frequently undergeared even compared to Wrath, but I learned the hard way to cut back on the number of enemies I engage at once.

Classic is a lot closer to Age of Conan than anything else in terms of mobs taking you out, and how easily they aggro on you. This is what I remember the most, especially in the troll city in The Hinterlands, when I was leveling Q as a Holy Pally back then: you defeat a mob at a time, but you progress so slowly (and eat+drink after every fight) that the mobs respawn behind you and make an already difficult job even worse.

One last similarity between Classic and Age of Conan: if you take on an enemy 2-3 levels higher than you, good luck. They hit much harder than you, and you have a much harder time defending against them. Even enemies that are 2 levels below you can take you out if they have the right debuffs against you, such as weakening your armor or making it harder for you to hit. When you finally get an interrupt for your toon, it's a godsend.

***

Finally, the last question: am I enjoying myself?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

Active --and chatty-- zones, old school finding of quests, difficult combat, and random kindness of strangers is a wonderful thing to see. Active guild recruitment is another thing that's nice as well, even though I haven't exactly pulled the trigger on anything yet.

I know, the sky is falling: Red might actually rejoin an MMO guild for the first time since I was last in WoW, 4 years ago.*** That I've been considering breaking my long standing refusal to join a guild after the nuclear meltdown of the Horde guild and the fading away of the Alliance guild is a measure of how different the Classic community has been so far.

But let's be honest, here: 95% of the guild advertisements I've seen so far have all been similar pitches: room for everyone, just having a good time, group or not is fine with us, etc. The rare progression oriented guild advertisement has been polite, but made it perfectly clear they want raiders. I suspect that this guild advertisement imbalance really is a thing, and not just a lot of people happy to be in Classic, because of one big reason: age.

The Gen Chat discussions have repeatedly come back to variations on "wow, this is great to be back, I was ## old when I first played Vanilla, and now I've got kids and commitments." When people in Classic do the "how old are you to be playing Classic?" question, my age**** is never the oldest out there. Frequently I see people saying they're in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Those are all people with commitments, families, and activities outside of gaming, and that means they simply don't have the time for raiding that they used to have when they were much younger. And let's be honest, my reflexes aren't what they were 5 or 10 years ago, and I'm sure that people in the upper half of that age group who'd like to raid might be rejected by raiding guilds as people who just aren't pulling their weight. So the desire to play casual, just enjoying the ride, is likely stronger in the Classic group than in Retail WoW as a whole.

Hmm.... I wandered waaaay afield for that response.

Yes. I really am enjoying myself. And yes, I intend to keep going, but I'll re-evaluate after every 60 days.




*In a case of never ceasing to amuse myself, Myzrael is in the US Pacific time zone, while I'm in the Eastern time zone. The reason why I'm so amused is that Stormscale-US, the PvP server I originally leveled Q in waaaaay back in the day was also on the Pacific time zone, so when I would be getting up really early in the day to play (5-6 AM EST) it was 2-3 AM PST. Never stopped me from getting into a 5-man, but still it was amusing to see I really have gone back to the past.

**Yes, the cleaning did get done. No, I'm not one of those people who abandon all activity to focus on the new hotness, but I will stay up late if I'm reading/playing/whatever and I get hooked. (I think I've mentioned that on more than one occasion.) But thankfully, I've not done that with WoW Classic. (Yet.)

***And really, for the final 1.5 years of my WoW experience I was in what was effectively a dead guild. There'd be maybe 1-4 people ever logged in over that time, although apparently there's been a name change and a bit more involvement since Mists, but I don't know what the guild is like these days.

****It's 50. Yes, I really did cross that threshold this summer. Me and Ancient can go hang around in the Old Folks' WoW Home, I suppose, but it was best put by a person in Gen Chat in Teldrassil: "My mind feels like it's 20, but my body feels like it's 60." There wasn't any magical "Oh no, I lost my desire/virility/energy/whatever" that happens when you supposedly reach that number, and unlike when I turned 40 and gray started popping out of my beard, I don't really feel any different. I'd like a bit more sleep, but I chalk that up to decades of getting up early and going to bed late (kids and work, you know).

Ordered Chaos

I managed to login to Myzrael before the servers went live, so I didn't have to deal with the long queues.

Initially.

Recreating my last main, the NE Rogue Azshandra, allowed me to jump in with a minimal amount of relearning. About the only thing I noticed was a bit of lag due to the sheer numbers of people in the Night Elf starter zone:

Not too bad...

Or from this angle.

People were mentioning in Zone Chat that it was apparently bonkers over in the Human starter zone, which made me wonder whether the Goldshire of old will be resurrected along with WoW Classic. I have an almost morbid curiosity about that, and I might want to login to the RP server just to check that out.

After a break for dinner, I'm now waiting to get back into Myzrael, and the wait time is stuck at around 34 minutes. It was 65 minutes earlier, but it quickly shrunk down to 34 minutes where its been stuck for about 10-15 minutes or so.

Oh well.

Back to the Past

Arctus Wilhelm over at The Ancient Gaming Noob has a post about the odds certain items might happen in WoW Classic. I enjoyed the post a lot, but one stretch of the post made me sigh and shake my head:

• Somebody Gets to Level 60 in 12 Hours or Less – Not going to happen

• Somebody Gets to Level 60 in 24 Hours – Maybe

• Somebody Gets to Level 60 in 48 Hours – Without a doubt

I have to wonder what the people gunning for L60 are planning on doing once they get there. Moaning about how there's nothing to do? Isn't the "the game begins at max level" ethos one of the reasons why the MMO genre is the way it is right now?

But whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Me? I'm going to take my time; I don't have much choice, since I tend to play at odd hours, but I intend to enjoy the ride.