World of Warcraft: Playing an MMO Priest

Today has been rather uneventful. For one I had to work from 12:30 till 9pm ET, so that took up most of my time. Thankfully I got double pay due to it being a holiday. Anyway, enough of that.

I got an email from Eskil Steenberg today, answering a few of my questions. His answers of course prompted me to ask a few more questions, so that should be up within the next day or so. Rawr for my epic video game journalism.(Ok not really.) Moving on..

I finally got World of Warcraft + The Burning Crusade installed and patched(again). Then to save some time I passed my WoW folder over to my wife's computer to save her the horror I just experienced. However I finally got to load up the ancient addiction that is slaying people left and right.(Mentally at least.) So what did I decide to play?

His name is Vharaun

A Blood Elf Priest. There were a few reasons behind my choice. For one, I've not played a healer since the days of yore of EverQuest in it's prime. It's an entirely different playstyle than what I've been doing in recent years.(Rogue, Hunter, Fury Warrior....yeah..) While there was an excellent suggestion to do a melee hunter for laughs(Thank you, Tesh.), I decided to help out all those PuGs by being a healer. I expect to keep my evil attitude by enforcing the " You want healed/resurrected? Pay me =) ".

Maybe not.

So after being bitter with World of Warcraft so many times for reasons mentioned in previous posts, what was some of the first things I noticed upon returning? Well one, the latency icon is utterly gone. As if Blizzard no longer wants me to know how bad the server is lagging on a particular day...hmmm

Conspiracy theory! Dun dun dunnnn!

I noticed other things as well. The addition of the Xbox 360 Achievement tab..urr..I mean the World of Warcraft Achievement tab! Though probably the most pleasant change was the new Arcane Torrent. The fact that now I never have to constantly check on my Mana Tap charges was a nice little addition, as was making the mana return a % instead of a base amount. Smart move there Blizzard, I'll give you that grudgingly.

My wife and I. She's an evil Warlock..and I'm a holy priest..We ....uhh..compromise.

I quickly rediscovered how much I hate the low levels in World of Warcraft. By low level I mean anything prior to level 20. The game just seems so boring and tedious during this point. However I was thankfully too busy talking to old friends to really care about that particular issue. It's interesting to me how the camaraderie of just talking to people(Either through typing or voice chat) makes you not care how utterly boring the game is that you're playing. Then I got level 4 and with it...

Shadow Word: PAIN!

I finally had one of the staples of a priest. The spell didn't "WoW" me,(See what I did there? Sorry..on going joke with Tipa from Westkarana. hehe.) but I enjoyed having an instant cast clickie to destroy all those fluffy rabbits that could at any moment massacre everyone in sight. Aside from that, only two interesting events occurred in my initial return to World of Warcraft.

The first was my wife and I doing the "final" quest in the initial quest area. You have to go up a tall spire and fight some decrypted Blood Elf having withdrawals.(Who eerily enough looks like someone that plays World of Warcraft for far too long...) After we slain him with a few quick SWP and Immolates followed by a mace to the groin...My wife backs up...and keeps backing up...

My wife is that small speck of gore that you can barely see from up here. If that helps.

I couldn't help but chuckle at her brief little mistake as she said behind me " Oh crap..." and then went splat. I then, in my moment of infinite wisdom, said she should have aimed for the water. That way she would have lived instead of ...well...not living. In retrospect, this was probably when the great powers of Karma looked upon me and cackled with glee. Which is never good.

To demonstrate my serious "jumping from high places into a pool of water" skill, I decided to take the plunge...

All that yellow text is the Alliance attacking the Blood Elf Starting Area...Jerks.

I get a brief moment of vertigo which I've always found strange. In any other game where I plummet several hundred feet I'm fine, but with any MMO I get a strong sense of vertigo as if I was actually jumping. I can't explain it. Anyway sorry for going off on a tangent there. This is the result of my bravado.

I probably deserved this.

So that was my World of Warcraft experience as a Priest. If you were very observant you would have noticed that I had very quickly got the addon QuestHelper. I'm "on the fence" with this addon because the majority of WoW players seem like they're having withdrawal systems if QuestHelper isn't working. The biggest example of this was the chat in the DeathKnight zone when it was first released and people were trying to figure out the very easy initial quests.

Oh well. I promised myself I wouldn't rant too much tonight.

Something I want to make note on, just to assure both old readers and new. This site will NOT suddenly become a shrine to WoW. I still plan on playing other MMOs. (Especially Wizard 101.) I also will insist upon writing things that may put WoW in a negative light when it deserves it, which is most of the time. I'll also try to act like I'm some hotshot journalist and get interviews with people that really have better things to do than talk to me.

Like getting teeth pulled.

I just wanted to reassure that The MMO Experience will be what it's always been. It will simply incorporate the WoW aspect as I share my experiences there, which I hope are as wild, varied, and hilarious as they were when I played a hunter and a rogue. So give this priest your warmest regards and wishes as I boldly try not to show how inept I truly am.

An MMO Adventure : Starting over...Again

I just got off the phone with a few of my old guild members from World of Warcraft. I have been missed apparently, and was asked to come back. I replied no, my account has long since passed away into the ether. Still, I was asked once more.

My answer was no, yet again.

I hang up, and sit there staring at the lovely page where I create articles that no one reads. While I do play Wizard 101, I really don't play anything else lately. Perhaps becauase I've been jaded and bitter toward MMOs of late due to a variety of reasons.

Yet how can I write about something if I don't experience it? How can I justify a website called The MMO Experience without me going out and doing just that? It's a riddle I don't like to contemplate too much. So I thought about resurrecting my EverQuest 2 account and playing with Tipa and my other fellow bloggers that are really a group of extradoinary human beings. I have been playing EverQuest 1 with DulakQuickLeaf, but aside from him I really didn't have anyone to chat with while playing.

So I called them back. I would return.

Danshir is returning to Azeroth with his lovely wife.

Stay tuned...as I spend the next decade patching...

To get some interaction with my fellow human beings, I want to hear some opinions from you. What class do you recommend from someone who has played a rogue and a hunter pretty extensively. Should I do a complete switich and try a healing position? Should I tank? Alliance or Horde? Don't make it thought out, just throw some goofy crap my way(What a lovely idea, throwing "goofy" crap...) and lets get to discussing! Oh. To show off my leet skills at horrible artistic ability, check out my new picture "ad" used to exchange pictures between blogs.!

MMO: At a Loss for Words

You can only ram your head so many times into the monitor before something breaks. I know that's a very unique way to start a conversation(Unless you've been here before.) but for the life of me I've been trying to think of what to right today. After writing about the new law in China where you have to register your real name + ID number to your MMO accounts over at NegativeGamer, I can't for the life of me think of what else to write today. I could be horribly lazy and CTRL+C and then CTRL+V and call myself a genius at cloning..

But hey! When you can't think what to write you can either..

A: Find something someone else has wrote about and state your opinion. A good blogger links back to the source as a way to say thank you.

--or--

B: Write about the process of not knowing what to write, hoping to get pity from the community that they will read it anyway.

Yet I keep deleting whatever I type out, finding it either boring or egotistical. Most MMO bloggers relate their in-game experiences along with some fluffy bunny pictures or they talk about "TheoryCraft" for a few dozen paragraphs. I enjoy the former and loathe the latter. I've never been a big fan of "TheoryCraft" however. I find it utterly boring to try to apply mathematics to the timing of my Slice and Dice, and I really wonder how people find it entertaining to read off a list of the "Best" of certain armor/weapon pieces. However that all goes back the carrot being dangled in front of you, as Blizzard begs you to play through the 2 hour instance just one more time to get that 5% drop rate item.

I'm bitter. ^_^

I rather talk about the former. There are some excellent blogs out there where people simply talk about their in-game experiences. You almost get a vicarious thrill as you read and compare your experiences to theirs. They don't try to tell you how to play your class, or even hint that they are the best at whatever class they are playing. They just talk, tell a story, or tell you a little bit of their in real life situation.

If I wanted a "HowTo: Play a Rogue" guide, I wouldn't go over to a site like WorldofMing and gaze at the paragon of narcissism that is the forum famous rogue. This is the type of site that generally QQs for a few weeks, posts Arena and Duel videos, and thinks they are the "heroes" of the average MMO player. If you want to read how "epic" Ming is, read this.(It's funny)

/EndRant

I'm going to be adding two new polls today. One revolves around the idea of moving over to WordPress.com and using their neat and shiny tools. The other revolves around the site's content in general. I'm striving to find what particular content is enjoyable and what can be shoved into the fires of Mount Doom.

To reward you for reading this entire post basically about nothing except ranting, here is an extraordinary World of Warcraft video that should be viewed by everyone with optical organs. Enjoy. Have a great Sunday evening!


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.