Friday was my last day at work. Given the circumstances, I’d tried to keep it very low-key, and only told a few people…who told a few people, who told a few people. :) I had a very lovely Italian girls-only lunch, and then at the end of the day I was presented with a cards and flowers and a 60 day game card for Warcraft. (Everyone knows that I do a lot of gaming, but not that I’d cancelled my Warcraft sub.) Leaving was quite difficult, and I almost managed getting through all of the goodbyes and hugs before tearing up.
Anyway, so today I used the gamecard to re-sub and have a look around to see how it felt after playing Rift exclusively for so long.
It was lovely. I expected to think that the graphics looked terrible in comparison with Rift, but it was beautiful. I’d upgraded my graphics card since I last played, and with a high resolution and all graphics on max it was stunning. I’ve always liked the very stylised look of Warcraft; I think the game is only let down by some of the older racial models.
There were a lot of differences, of course. I kept wishing that I could AOE-loot as you can in Rift, and I really miss having a mount right out of the gate. On the other hand, I love having starting areas that really make you connect with the race that you have chosen to play – Rift is greatly lacking in that area. I don’t feel any different as a Bahmi than I do as a Kelari. In Warcraft, however, if you start as a troll you damn well feel like a troll, mon. I miss rifts and other opportunities for easy grouping. Werewolf invasions in Gloamwood, for example, feel like epic battles – even if everything has slowed down to a slideshow due to the amount of lag. Ogrimmar is SO confusing! I found it confusing even before it was all changed, and now I spend ages running around trying to find things on the various levels.
So Phil and I are going to do some casual playing on our baby Horde characters while the gamecard is still in effect, and see the new content that we haven’t had a chance to see yet. And I very much appreciate the chance to re-visit a place that I’ve spent so much time in over the years…thanks, guys. It was a great gift, and I’m really going to miss you all.
I went back to WoW about a month ago and I *still* miss AoE looting and public grouping.
That was actually thoughtful and sweet of your former co-workers, really.
And no matter how hard people whine, WoW is good at the moment. I doubt you would be satisfied with non-hardcore raiding with your competitive nature, but as a casual player raiding only twice per week I enjoy current endgame tremendously.
(Btw, I KNOW its not going to happen, but my raidgroup is screaming for a talented hunter, we have single hunter alt raiding every other week or so, heaps of agi epics are getting de’d every week and Cho’gall is giving us hard time:-)