Once I Think I'm Out They Pull Me Back In

After a year off, I decided that I would get back into World of Warcraft. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it did. One minute I'm minding my own business, the next I'm installing the game, downloading the patches, and before I know it I'm running around Ghostlands with a newly rolled blood elf priest named Jidai. Having missed out on The Burning Crusade to this point, and some of the patches to have come out since then, it has proven a very interesting little romp through Azeroth these last couple of weeks.

Running around those early blood elf areas was fun, if a tad gloomy. The motif there very much gives the sense that these elves were once powerful magical beings that have now fallen on difficult times. There's decay and twisted magic everywhere, and an increasing gloom as one progresses into the Ghostlands. What was particularly interesting about the area was doing the quests in a small, ruined town called Tranquillen, as huge amounts of reputation points are given out for each quest there. We're talking thousands of points, which is no small feat when one consideres that most quests give anywhere from 25 to 350 reputation points. By the time a Horde player has done all of the quests in Tranquillen, they will have exalted status with the town. It's something neat to see for a player that is only around level 25 or so.

There have been some surprising changes that I've noticed while playing these last couple of weeks. Firstly, there has been some serious inflation in the auction house. Weapons and armor that used to get buyout prices of around one gold piece (high level 20s / low 30s gear) has more than doubled in many cases in the year that I've been gone. I haven't felt the negative impact of this while playing, as I prefer to get my gear via instances whenever possible. However, there are plenty of other players that get a lot of their gear from the auction house, so I am curious if the rising prices have been more troublesome for them. About the only surefire good thing to come of this that I can see is that the situation should make it much easier for players to acquire their mounts if they can sell goods on the AH for a hefty sum.

Questing is the same as ever. Besides running through Ghostlands, the rest of the leveling that I've been doing has been in familiar territories like the Barrens, Thousand Needles, and Stranglethorn Vale. Having been through these zones several times before, doing it yet again can be a tad tedious so it's nice to see some changes have been made with the most recent patch to World of Warcraft (patch 2.3). Here Blizzard have made it so that players are rewarded more experience points per kill from levels 1-60, and it takes less experience points to go from levels 20-60. These improvements are most welcome, as many players who have been into WoW for a while now are on their third or fourth character. The thought of slogging through 70 levels once more can be quite daunting. Also, given that Wrath of the Lich King is due out next spring, steps were certainly needed to address this given that we'll see the level cap raised to 80 with this expansion.

Running instances has been a bit touch and go. If it's mostly myself and guild mates, things run pretty smoothly, but a pick-up party leaves you wide open to all sorts of pushing, arrogant, socially inept malcontents. I have no problem if someone joins the party that is new to WoW and is learning the ropes to the game, or is just getting a handle on a new character class. We all have to start somewhere, and mistakes will be made. It's part of life. However, getting some bossy know-it-all in my party is hugely annoying. I've had the misfortune of being stuck with a few, but have tried to be patient so far. However, there's little that can be done in these circumstances other than slowly but surely flesh out my blacklist of huge jerks. Ideally, though, I much prefer sticking with guild raids.

One area that I haven't participated in too much is Battlegrounds. I've been on a mad dash to level 40 so far so that I can get my mount. Up to this point what little time I've spent in BG suggests that there is still a lot of people rushing in massive groups that make them susceptible to area of effect spells. What I've found particularly mind boggling while playing in Warsong Gulch is how many times that I saw a flag carrier and his defenders running in a tight pack. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I guess I shouldn't complain. Being a priest, this sort of stuff gave me a golden opportunity to run right in the middle of the group, cast Fear, and watch the other players lose control long enough for some of my team mates to come in and peg the flag runner off.

In any case, I've made it from level 1 to 36 so far, and should be up to 40 before long. It's nice to be back in Azeroth with its mix of the familiar and the new. I'll probably report back in a few weeks to yammer more about what I've been up to while playing WoW, but I don't expect it will be as frequent as my old Journeys in Azeroth column. There certain is no lack of things to talk about in this game, even almost three years after it first came out.

Jeff Nash