Newcomer to WoW: Parting Ways with the Caravan
This is going to be my last WoW post for now. I’ve had to think long and hard about whether to continue at a full price subscription come the end of this month or not, and for reasons I’ll talk about later, I’ve decided I’m going to have to put the game on hold.
But I didn’t want this post to be all about saying goodbye! I wanted to detail some of the progress I made on my Monk, who is now level 48.
Part of the Caravan
I traveled to the Eastern Plaguelands, which were aesthetically not pleasing one bit. I know that was probably the the point of the zone, but I was really pushing to try to get through it due to the dull feeling of the area. The exceptions to this were the burned-out villages, that had a ghostly feel – and a ghost story as well! I did enjoy those parts. Even the wildlife in those places are strange and ghostly, which was a nice touch.
Becoming a part of the caravan was what saved this zone for me. The very first person I met when entering the zone was a Worgen named Fiona. She sends you out hunting for her two Paladin companions, Gidwin and Tarenar, who were instantly recognizable as a nod towards Legoals and Gimli from the LotR movies.
I quested with this group. Did errands for this group. And when it was time to move on, they invited me to ride on their caravan. This set the scene for some really funny NPC dialogue between the characters, and I soon find myself happy to be a part of this little group. As we moved across the map, we picked up and helped other NPCs, until the story played out and the two Paladins (and myself) eventually became part of the Argent Crusade.
If not for these characters, I doubt this area would have been very memorable to me at all. But I had a lot of fun meeting them, and felt somewhat sad when I moved on to the next zone.
The Bad Lands
I was prompted to travel to the next area, the Bad Lands, via rocketship. This was at first glance, a desert location mixed up with goblins and their strange inventions. I was amused by the experience, including butting poor goats off the top of the hills near the towns. But what really caught my attention was a storyline that tangled me with dragons.
I didn’t expect the turn of events, and I do hope to find out how the story ends one day. Anything with dragons is of interest to me.
Parting Ways
As I said above, I’ve made the tough choice that I need to streamline my gaming a bit, including subs games. If WoW was any sort of F2P, I wouldn’t be putting it down. But as it stands, I have to make a choice between two sub games, and I’m loathe to put down FFXIV with all the time and effort I’ve stuck into it.
As it is, I’ve hardly picked up WoW this week because my gaming pals are super into 7D2D still. I’m also super interested in seeing where the new Starbound update is taking that game. Plus I have sooo many single player games that need my attention!
For those reasons, I can’t see myself subbing a second game at full price at this point. Also, I’ll be travelling soon, and just won’t have a lot of time to game. So, it’d be silly to re-up a sub when I’m not going to be around to play it.
Now, my impressions of WoW are pretty favorable. So I’m not throwing in the towel because I haven’t enjoyed my time or because I’m frustrated with the game. I do want to pick it up sometime again, maybe when things are a little less hectic for me. It also all depends on what happens with FFXIV in the upcoming year.
My one kinda-negative about WoW is that I’m acutely aware that I’m probably missing all sorts of important things in the story and lore simply because I know so little about the WoW world. I can enjoy the zone’s stories for what they are (props to the writers for this), but I bet I can’t see the detailed meaning of things.
This sort of thing is important to me, in so much as it’s just way too overwhelming to try and tackle. I’ve had plenty of folks put out the offer to fill in the blanks for me if I need it (thank you). And I suppose if I really wanted to put out the effort to discover 10 years worth of lore and game development, it’s possible. But, call me lazy, I’m not really looking to put that kind of investment in any game right now.
It would be like walking into Guild Wars 2 without playing Guild Wars 1 – so much is lost without that knowledge and experience. But that original experience took years of time to build up and being there to see it unfold.
I suppose that’s another reason why I passed on ESO, too. I don’t have a background in the Elder Scrolls universe and I feel quite lost in that world, as if I’m missing those important little things that I should really know.
Again, this isn’t WoW’s fault — you can’t fault a massive game like this for having expansive lore. That’s a good thing! I suppose you should blame me for being a little jaded, and unable to process this huge amount of lore. Maybe one day when I have more time to sit down with it, I can sort through it and it’ll make sense to me.
Until then, I’m content with my experiment to at least try out WoW. After playing 50 hours of the game, I can now say that I have some working knowledge of the early levels of the game, how the game feels, how it’s changed since vanilla, and the kinds of content the game provides. I was pleasantly surprised to see that artistically, the game has aged well. I enjoyed the writing, NPCs, pet battles, and think that Monk was an excellent choice for me to play.
If I ever get the itch to continue exploring this world, I’ll be back!