world of warcrack

as expected, world of warcraft is a tremendously addictive game. i’ve spent at least an hour or two each day playing since i got it, and have even given up a couple of weekend days to it.

the world is big. even though i feel i’ve played quite a bit, i also still feel like i’m just barely getting out of the newbie neighborhood. i have three characters going (so far), and managed to choose them such that the areas they explore at the lower levels don’t overlap at all. (all my characters are on the draenor realm server.)

my first character, gnimsh, is a gnome rogue. i got a little frustrated when i felt like i had gotten to a point where each fight was practically a fight to the death (which i didn’t always win), but i backtracked a little bit and found there were areas i hadn’t fully explored, and quests i still could accomplish in those areas. now that i’ve done that, the area where i had gotten “stuck” should be more fun to explore.

my second character, thrimsh, is a troll mage. there was a period when i almost felt guilty about the can of whoop-ass i was pulling out against some of my opponents. this is definitely a character that fits well into a group, since most of the spells are ranged attacks.

my third character, trimsh (sense a pattern here?), is a tauren hunter. he’s still too low-level to have a pet, so i haven’t even really scratched the surface of the possibilities with this character. the tauren is a new race to me in the warcraft world (maybe they appeared in warcraft iii, but i didn’t get very far along in the campaign in that).

that’s all for now, although i’m thinking of creating a couple of more characters down the line, to try out different areas and classes. one reason to have multiple characters going is the “rest” system that means that as your character rests in an inn (whether you are logged in or not), you gain time during which you get twice as much experience for each monster you kill. it’s an interesting game-balancing element that is mainly intended to help out people who play together — if you miss going out with the group one time because you have some sort of real life, you’ll be able to catch up more quickly the next time.

i will stick with my original impression and say that this game exhibits what is the standard blizzard polish, which really puts what a lot of other game developers put out to shame. that is a game development shop with enviable dna, even despite having lost some of the core programmers at the company.

it is almost absurd how like myself i act within a multiplayer game. for the most part, i just run around ignoring everyone. i will occasionally get invited into a group in areas with particularly high concentrations of enemies (like dungeons), and basically tag along for the ride not saying much. and then just take off when i’ve fulfilled whatever goals i need to in that area.

back to the fray!