Well, it was an interesting week. We took a virtual vacation together and spent it in Outlands, which probably sounds very nerdy and sad but was actually wonderful. We upgraded and logged in 11:00pm Monday night, and played until 3:00 am. Tuesday morning I had to do a presentation at a meeting, and that afternoon it was back to WoW, where I pretty much stayed until last night.
What did I accomplish during those days? Kitsunecho made level 63, and got her white dragon (warp stalker) pet. Ravven dinged 62. Raevyn, the new Draenei priest, made level 17. I traded purple Nemesis gear for greens. I was totally exhausted last night, but quite satisfied.
Everything is gorgeous, and the quests are good – rather than funnel you towards grouping, the game seems to now favour solo play and small groups, which is much more to my taste. The Draenei quests, although you are still doing the “kill xx mobs and return to me so I can tell you to kill xx mobs again” quests, try to teach you about the lore and give you a reason for doing what you need to do. My new favourite town is Allerian Stronghold – I love it. Nagrand looks gorgeous, but I’m still too low-level to do much exploring. Shattrath is my new home base, and I still run around for fifteen minutes before I can find a mailbox or bank.
The guild become a lot more fun now, as well – it feels like a casual guild now, with everyone helping each other out in quests and doing the 5-man instances. In a couple of weeks we’ll go back to Naxx, of course…but it feels a bit pointless now. Will the drops be that much better than the loot that every man and his dog is picking up now? I don’t know. Will it be as fun as the new instances? Not a hope. Although I appreciate the dynamic of large, hardcore raiding guilds, I much prefer to be more active as part of a smaller group. I think Blizz made the right decision to move away from 40-man raid instances.
I’m looking forward to getting home tonight and playing…