World of Warcraft Classic as a Casual player

My classic toons, much like my first five retail toons

Like I said in my first post, I am using my blog as an exploration of what it's like to be a casual player in a genre (MMORPG) which expects people to spend lots of time in the game.  I'll start with how I got back into World of Warcraft last year and what got me to where I am now.

Even though I hadn't played World of Warcraft (WoW) for more than three years, I was still subject to the hype for WoW Classic.  Blizzard gifted me a free week of retail just before the Classic release (sometime in August 2019) and that was a good enough excuse for me to log back in and see what my guild was up to.  I found out the website no longer worked but the Discord was listed inside the game so I was able to see how they were planning for the release of Classic.  That was enough to get me to subscribe and I had some fun starting the Battle for Azeroth content just as it was approaching the last update.

Classic started well enough.  I waited a few days to miss the rush and leveled my hunter just as I did when retail first went live (including the queues but without the lag).  Before long I started gathering things I couldn't use and so that had me start recreating my other toons since I've always been a hoarder in WoW.

After a while I came up with a plan to level my hunter, Kanter, first and then, level my priest not too far behind so Kanter could provide her gold and equipment and she could heal in dungeons.  That all went well until I took her to the first alliance dungeon, Deadmines.  As a whole, the dungeon went well and we finished it fine but I did not.  I have been having some issues with my internet but I was hoping they wouldn't interfere with grouping.  After three disconnects where the rest of the group did fine (there was a druid who healed when I disconnected) I didn't think I could do it again.

Grouping has always been stressful for me.  I always judge myself harshly and I'm always fearful that I'm not pulling my weight.  In this case, I obviously wasn't.  About this time the World of Warcraft anniversary event started.  Part of the anniversary was a token given you 15% more experience in retail (it didn't work in classic).

I went ahead and made the switch to retail and used the experience buff to finally see the Battle for Azeroth (BfA) content.  More about my experience with BfA and Classic in my next post.

Back for Blapril

Blapril is almost here

Yes, it's been more than three years since my last post.  I pretty much stopped playing MMOs during that time.  I keep thinking I'll find a better casual game than World of Warcraft but I don't think I'm prepared to make the investment in a new game that I've already made in WoW.

That has changed somewhat in the last 6 months.  World of Warcraft classic and the anniversary event inspired me to subscribe again for the event.  The 100% bonus experience offered until April 20th has encouraged me to subscribe again and level several alts that never made it through Legion when I quit.

Still my time is dominated by work and family.  The original idea I had for this blog was to try to find the right MMO that I could enjoy and balance the other things in my life.  It seems the topic still applies.

I will probably target posting twice a week rather than 30 posts.  I'm hoping it'll be a nice way to use my time during the pandemic.