World of Warcraft - Three Years Later

Thursday, November 15, 2007

So I play WoW on again off again on a regular basis. When ever I get a little bored, I take a break for a month or two, or if my finances need a little breather, I just freeze my account till I’m ready to venture into Azeroth again. I do play more than not though and now, three years later, I’m still as addicted as I was that first day I brought home my very own copy of Blizzard’s online sensation, World of Warcraft.

So you’d think that in 3 years, a person would get bored. I’ve met a couple of other players who did. One stopped because he got his character levelled to level 70, which is the highest at the moment and got full epic. Heard from a fellow guild member that a friend of his stopped playing because his wife was having a baby and to be honest, it’s probably best to stop playing WoW for a while, if your offline world needs your undivided attention, as it tends to really bring you into it. My better half and I have been playing WoW for the past 2 or 3 weeks, almost non stop. To such an extent, that I’ve even let my blog slack There really is a line you need to draw, so that it doesn’t consume your whole life and you start neglecting other important aspects of your life. But still, it’s nice having something to immerse yourself into, it’s always been a way for me to get away from an unpleasant situation, TV games.

As for getting bored with WoW, well firstly, as you pay for a monthly subscription, when ever the urge to play dies down a little, a break is a very good idea. That way, in a month or two, when the WoW bug bites again, you just re-activate your account. This process is terribly simple too, you simply log on and either use your existing credit card to pay or use a prepaid game card and you can start playing again immediately. Of course, the only problem you’ll sometimes run into is if there’s a large patch which needs updating. For those of you who are WoW newbies, the game is usually offline once a week for a few hours, this is done on Wednesday mornings. Bugs get fixed, game gets updated and sometimes new patches are available. Basically, this weekly maintenance makes the game run smoothly.

As for stopping WoW altogether because you’ve levelled your character and are bored, well I think that’s pretty silly. The difference in game play not only between the different races and classes but even between the Alliance and the Horde, well, it’s a pretty big step. For example, I have always played on the Alliance and have recently very actively started a new Blood Elf Warlock which has me feeling like almost a new game entirely. It just happens to be a race and class I’ve never played before and also, first time playing Horde. I gotta say, I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve taken to it. I also have a very low level Tauren Shaman which I recently started, which has me enthralled. I guess that is one of my biggest problems, I get bored easily and absolutely love building up a new character, which is why I have around 20 different characters on about 15 different realms… lol and most of them are still low to mid levels.

And as for using these ridiculous services like buying WoW gold or using levelling up services, well they’re just silly. Why on earth would you deliberately make the game that easy for yourself? This friend of mine, the one who got bored after his first epic level 70 character, well he had also purchased some gold and well duh, if you cheat you make the game too easy and you’ll end up getting bored faster. Oh yes and I should mention that the use of these outside services are against your terms and conditions with Blizzard and could result in the termination of you WoW account. But even if it wasn’t, I personally wouldn’t bring myself to do it, it kinda takes the playing out of the game, don’t you think?

So basically, World of Warcraft, 3 years later, well it is still going strong. Even my better half who isn’t much of a gamer can at times totally immerse herself in the game. We each still bought ourselves a copy of the game when it cost £35 each and when ever I start to wonder if we bought it too soon, instead of waiting for the price to drop, all I have to do is log on and go gank a night elf Most definitely not!

Happy Shopping!

PS The most recent patch has added some fun new features. My favourite, other than the easier levelling from levels 20 to 60, is the new guild bank feature. If you’re in a decent guild, you’ll have access to the guild bank, a place where players help each other out with useful items. A decent guild knows though, that you need not only armour & crafting items there, but also quests items. Like the elusive blunderbuss’s and trolls blood potions.