So, like, I’m one of those players who only ever has one character. For the vast majority of my WoW-career (probably about 4-of-6 years), this has been the Shaman, Ulfrun. She’s technically my second “serious” character[i] and I’ve kept here all this time because, goddamn it, I just freakin’ hate levelling so much. Which is weird, because I can’t stand end-game, either; at least, not after burning out on 40-man raids back in vanilla gave me a chronic aversion to any kind of group-based activities.[ii]
So, like, I like solo questing content… but I can’t stand levelling. How the hell does that work?
It’s probably telling that my “second main” (who’s actually now my main-main, but whatevs) is a Death Knight, and has both the Loremaster and Seeker titles. So yes, I went and did all the old-world content when I was in my late 50s to early 70s, then Outland until my late 70s, then most of Northrend at 80.[iii] In fact, I explicitly rolled a DK just to do this. Why?
Because old-world content sucks.
It seemed awesome at the time, but you have to remember this is like circa-2004 and up until that point MMO design was pretty much, “Here’s a field of level 10 mobs. Grind them until you hit level 99.”[iv] The idea of actually, like, having level-appropriate content that, like, you only had to do once and could constantly move through without having to kill 10,000 of the same mob to make one level was this huge-amazing piece of innovate game design. I know, right? And I still do honestly believe — particularly after grinding all that Skyguard and Kurenei rep — that’s there’s a big psychological difference for most players between “kill 100 mobs” and “kill 10 mobs 10 times”.
It’s worth fessing up that in the intervening years between vanilla and now, I didn’t go back to the old stuff much (my highest-level alts are, like, in their mid-20s), so when I started to get reports of people finding the levelling content a “boring grind” I would scratch my head wondering what the hell they were talking about.
Anyway, a couple of months ago, I got sick of “OP Druids and Paladins” in Battlegrounds and 5-mans, so decided to go roll my own to compete. I shelved the Druid after the Cataclysm announcement for obvious reasons, but kept trying on-and-off to level the Paladin.
She’s currently level 17, and in Westfall. I think it’s no exaggeration to say that Sigyn has died more times in Westfall than Ulfrun has in Icecrown Glacier. I mean, seriously. The content is hard. And not “skill hard”, just… getting-mobbed-by-12-guys hard and everything-takes-twenty-minutes-to-get-to-and-also-you-have-to-run-through-mobs-of-12-guys hard. Actually, hard isn’t the right word; let’s try “boring” and “frustrating” instead and see how they fit.
Yeah. Yeah, actually I think that works a lot better.
Because, a) I don’t give a crap about the “plot”. I mean, the Defias Brotherhood? Come on! I’ve pushed back the minions of Arthas and freed an entire race of dragons from enslavement. Don’t talk to me about the fucking Defias Brotherhood. And b) in retrospect, the game doesn’t give a crap about the plot either. I mean, for all that I think phasing was criminally under-used in Wrath, at least it, like, actually existed. The Icecrown quest chains — where you beat back the Scourge one flight-path at a time — are still a great example of how a MMO should work. Or, at least, the beginnings of it; obviously I’d like to see more. A lot more.
Tangent: Like everyone else in the universe, I recently played Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, possibly the most over-punctuated game title since Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines. Anyway, in between playing DA:O and DA:O-A, I’d reformatted my computer. I had my old saves, but in the end I decided, “What the hell…” and re-played the entire DA:O[v] before moving on to DA:O-A. I was massively shocked to find out just how replayable DA:O was, despite the fact that I took pretty much exactly the same quest path as the first time I played.
The “replayability” of DA:O is something I’d like to see Blizzard go after in Cataclysm and — after watching a couple of those quest-line videos that’ve been coming out of the beta recently — it looks like that’s exactly what they’re aiming for. It’s no secret that early-game player retention is Blizz’s main motivation for revamping its old world, particularly in light of the fact that contemporary competitors to WoW take “plot-driven solo-questing” a lot more seriously than your standard MMO circa the early naughties.
My dad is a case-in-point; WoW was his “first modern videogame” (he used to help me play through puzzle adventures back when I was a kid, and was big into casual games before they became a multi-million dollar market) and for a while he played it religiously. Like, “mum-complaining-he -wouldn’t-come-to-bed-until-4am” religiously. Dad was never an endgame player; he just used to obsessively get alts to the level cap. He was also (amusingly) a forum troll who’d occasionally start sentences with, “Well, as I’ve said many times on the forums…” and (less amusingly) has even been invited to more betas than me.[vi]
Anyway, dad got hugely disaffected with WoW. It started with BC and peaked in Wrath, and basically boiled down to an opinion that Blizzard spent too much energy catering to “hardcore” endgame players (by which dad mostly means his nemeses, “raiders”) and not enough energy on providing accessible casual content.
Dad currently plays Conan and LotRO, and heaps praises upon their every mechanic[vii] while simultaneously scorning the ground WoW walks on. Dad’s current beef is WoW’s focus on “forcing everyone towards grouping”, by which he essentially means the LFG tool and, yes, I realise the irony of someone who wants to “accessible casual” content accusing a tool designed to allow easier access to end-game of “forcing grouping” but there you have it. This is the voice of Blizzard’s casual player-base we’re talking about here; the ones they want to retain and to win back with Cataclysm.
I think ultimately I have two personal yardsticks for the success of Cataclysm. #1 is will I have the patience to be able to get my Worgen Druid to level cap, with extension homework of will I then be able to stomach doing the same (or at least until the end of the old world) with another character (I’m thinking Warlock). And #2, is whether Cataclysm will be able to re-attract my dad.
So far, I’m moderately positive about on both counts. I’ll get back to you on it.
- My original main, the Rogue Noxxul, managed to get up to level 50 before being deleted. ↩
- With the exception of Battlegrounds, on account of their fairly loose interpretation of the word “group”. ↩
- It’s worth noting I took a “detour” back to Northrend at 70 just to pick up a set of Northrend level 70 questing plate, because the Extreme Ugliness™ of Outland plate was giving me hives. ↩
- Yes, Ragnarok Online, I am looking at you. ↩
- As a mage. Seriously, you should never play any other class in this game. ↩
- One, for Burning Crusade, as opposed to my none. Yanno, in case you were wondering. And yes, I do keep score, why do you ask? ↩
- And also their art direction; something I will always find totally baffling. ↩