The Summer Wind ...

... came blowin' in from across the sea

Time has moved on since the summer and we’re now smack in the middle of autumn. My summer this year was simply marvellous. I attended a conference in London in the last week of July and I was able to bring the family along. That was a magnificent experience. I always enjoy visiting London, having spent a year at college there. After that we had a two week vacation in Italy, followed by a week each at both my wife’s and my parents. Working in the educational sector in Europe is rewarding in more ways than one. Speaking of work, I’m back at the university, still pursuing my goal of becoming a tenured professor. So, personally and vocationally, all’s good.

I stopped all gaming over the summer to focus fully on my family. Upon returning home, however, I felt the urge to revisit some of my old-time favourites, namely three instalments of the Heroes of Might & Magic series. Heroes of Might & Magic III was the first turn-based strategy game I ever played, and, after a brief introduction, both my wife and I did play quite extensively. I might even go so far as to proclaim HoMM III my favourite game ever. Strangely enough though, in all my time playing this series, I had never even played the campaigns as I agree with TotalBiscuit that the true value of the Heroes series can really be found in the custom games. So it happened that I finished all the campaigns of Heroes of Might & Magic III to V including their respective expansions. Unfortunately, the series ends with HoMM V for us as there’s no way we’re going to succumb to Uplay. All in all I have to say that HoMM III remains my favourite despite its dated look. I know that some die hard fans will shout heresy when I state the following, but for me it is, in fact, a close call between HoMM III and IV. I must be one of the very few people who genuinely enjoy HoMM IV and consider it to be a very good advancement of the Heroes series. I’ll gladly admit that it has glaring flaws but I don’t think it’s nowhere near as bad as some people make it out to be. HoMM V on the other hand really feels like a cheap rip-off of WarCraft III (e.g. story and cut scenes) and plays like a 3D port of HoMM III. So I’m kind of torn here: I like many gameplay elements but found the story, in particular, to be rather lacklustre. I do, however, enjoy playing all three instalments, especially together with my wife.

Much has changed on the MMO front. WildStar went free-to-play and after reading what Bhagpuss had to say about the game, I decided to give it a try. I finished the tutorial and afterwards started exploring Nexus. I must have played for about an hour when I had enough. That game is just not for me. I remember when I first heard about WildStar I was rather intrigued. That changed quickly when I learned about the action combat and the telegraph system. I seriously hate twitch gameplay, so naturally I uninstalled the game right away. But at least I did give it a try and tested it for myself. Many voices can be heard as to why WildStar tanked and with it yet another MMORPG had to resort to a free-to-play model, most of them claiming that the game was too hardcore and that this is the sole reason for its failure. As I don’t believe in mono-causality, I wouldn’t want to fault any single aspect for the demise of any game. It usually is a combination of several factors. Consider e.g. that WildStar was indeed marketed as a hardcore game (40-man raiding) with a cartoony exterior and action combat. Any combination of those basic pillars could both attract and repel potential players. I for one would enjoy a cartoonish look and a hardcore approach, but I cannot come to terms with twitchy gameplay. Couple that with the fact that WildStar’s idea of “hardcore” means (or meant, not sure if that’s still the case to be honest) time constraints (Gold runs, Explorer path), count me out. Even if WildStar was the perfect MMO otherwise, combining all the elements that I want to see in an MMO like a game built around crafting with strong social ties and interaction, in a living and breathing world, those two elements (time constraints and twitch) would drive me away. I can imagine many people feeling similarly or altogether differently.

No comment on the next WoW expansion. I’m simply no longer interested in retail WoW and instead get my kicks from the Nostalrius project. They have launched a PvE server most recently. YAY!!!

The 4.0 patch of Knights of the Fallen Empire has almost completely ruined SW:TOR for me. I was hopefully optimistic after the koffee announcement, but all that is left now is disgust! More on that some other time.

Personal MMO History

One of the hot topics in the recent past was the announcement that both WildStar and The Elder Scrolls Online will be employing a business model based on subscriptions. The former also offers an alternative payment method similar to PLEX in EVE Online. Bhagpuss has a very good post about how payment models generally do not matter all that much.

I'm a member of the apparently increasingly rare breed of gamers that likes to devote all their gaming time to one game, so a subscription is great in terms of value for money. -- Shintar

Since I agree with this statement entirely, I am more than pleased by this shift away from a misleadingly named F2P model. While I am not that interested in TESO, WildStar on the other hand leaves me hopefully optimistic – at least judging by what has been revealed so far about both games.

Considering the commitment and devotion I deem necessary for real MMO gaming, it should not come as a surprise that I have not played that many MMOs up to now. I am not a very creative person and I find describing aesthetics and art design (in video games) rather difficult. The following is a chronological overview of my experiences with different MMOs.

World of Warcraft

This was the first ever MMO I played and the one I played the longest. I was deeply invested and the decision to abandon ship so to speak did not come easily. I still think that WoW is the most polished MMO where everything feels natural and in place. Some people are pondering a return, but I am not one of them – even if Blizzard were to revert the game back to a state that I would enjoy. To quote Shintar yet another time: “I think I hit a "point of no return" in WoW, having been disappointed too many times... even if Blizzard changed it into the perfect game for me tomorrow, I'd still be suspicious of it”. Maybe I will revisit my old characters when WoW goes F2P at some point in the future.

The Lord of the Rings Online

It must have been about a year after LotRO launched that a friend gave me a trial pass to test the game. The world Tolkien created has shaped the fantasy genre in numerous ways and the opportunity to enter that world, to be part of that gaming experience – developed with adherence to the lore – was a dream come true. The brutal reality, however, was that I felt almost immediately repulsed by the game. There was no sense of awe or wonder upon entering and I cannot quite point my finger as to why that was. It might have had something to do with the character models, particularly with their movement and with the UI. Everything just felt clunky and out of place. I wanted to give the game a chance so badly that I pushed on until I simply could not take it any more. The level of polish was miles behind what I came to expect. WoW had certainly spoiled me. My wife and I tried again some time ago (long after LotRO went F2P), but we could not force ourselves to like it. My wife is usually very calm and thoughtful, but she ranted on for quite some time about how unfathomably bad that game was and how she was at a loss for words that our friend actually bought a Lifetime subscription.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This is my current MMO and I have been playing it pretty much since launch. The game feels very clean and everything falls into place quite neatly. The level of polish is second only to that of WoW – just ignore the many, many, many bugs. Despite what the haters claim, this game does not suck and its drawbacks are primarily rooted in the limitations of the Hero Engine and certainly do not lie in voice acting or in story-driven content. In fact, it is voice-acting more than anything that has spoiled me yet again for future MMOs. I do not even want to imagine reading quest texts again. Nevertheless, the transition to F2P has hit my commitment and my dedication to SW:TOR very hard and I seriously dislike the direction the game is heading in: more and more daily hubs and an overemphasis on the Cartel Market. I do not know how long I will keep on p(l)aying.

The Exiled Realm of Arborea: Rising

TERA prides itself on introducing action combat to the MMO genre and I felt like giving this idea a try after the game went F2P mainly due to Liore’s positive comments. I have about 14 hours of played-time over the course of a weekend and I can safely say that this is not the game for me as I have come to realize that I genuinely dislike action combat in MMOs. More importantly, however, I simply do not care one bit about the world. I have no prior relationship with the IP and the whole setting feels very generic and exchangeable. This post offers some reasonable explanations as to why TERA is not that successful among western gamers.

RIFT

This is part of my summer project. I created two characters shortly after the game went F2P and I did have a blast for some time. However, while the game does have potential, especially regarding the soul system, it also suffers from the absence of a compelling IP or lore. There is just no immersive reason as to why players should care about the world, its inhabitants and their conflicts. One thing I will say though, is that RIFT’s F2P restrictions are very unobtrusive, which is in stark contrast to SW:TOR.

WildStar

WildStar is my new hope on the MMO horizon, though I am only hopefully optimistic at best. The video footage looks quite appealing but who knows what the actual gameplay will feel like. The game seems to be whimsical enough to make me care. However, Syl already adequately demonstrated that the developers have clearly misunderstood and misinterpreted the Explorer archetype. While I do have plans to give it a try when it will be released next Spring, I cannot help but feel a bit uneasy about their intentions.

Concluding WoW

I subscribed to World of Warcraft in the summer of 2006 and unsubscribed at the end of December 2011. I played for quite a long time and saw all the highs and lows. At one point (for roughly three years) I was a hardcore raider and I turned more casual in Cataclysm. Concluding all this time is certainly not easy and cannot be done objectively. I did enjoy the game a great deal for a very long time but I found myself disagreeing more and more with the direction the developers were going. Suffice to say that classic (or "vanilla") World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade were vastly different from Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm and I am not even remotely interested in Mists of Pandaria.

Personally, I leveled every class to the level cap, some even multiple times. That means that by the end my wife and I had 17 level 85 characters between the two of us. My wife was never really interested in raiding or any kind of endgame activity. We only ever did (heroic) dungeons during The Burning Crusade. As soon as one of her characters reached the level cap she basically lost interest in them. She also did play a lot less than me anyway and was responsible for three of the 17 level 85 characters. My main character up until Cataclysm was my Druid – the first character I ever created. I successfully raided as a Healer and I was deeply disappointed by the removal of the permanent Tree of Life Form. But then again this design decision made it a bit easier for me to abandon my Druid and to create a Death Knight Tank on a new server to team up with my brother-in-law.

The constant design changes make it really difficult to select an all-time favourite class, but I think that overall I enjoyed the Paladin Tank, the Druid Healer and Mages in general most of all. I liked Hunters in Cataclysm. I think that Focus was the right thing to do and pets also behaved a lot smarter. I never really cared for Shamans or Rogues. Somehow they never really "clicked" with me. My Undead Rogue was more or less my departing project. I wanted to experience the revamped old world content and he hit the level cap shortly before I quit the game. I have to say that although the leveling speed was ridiculously fast (even without any kind of XP-bonus) the questing experience was generally rather pleasant. The progress through the Forsaken lands felt truly amazing with lots of exciting and hilarious quests.

My plethora of characters was scattered across multiple servers. I have a professional interest in psychology and linguistics and I wanted to experience the differences among the player base on different servers. Therefore, I had characters on several EU-servers (English, French, German and Spanish). I have to admit that my Spanish is rudimentary at best which did not really help my plan to observe player behaviour. However, I feel safe to say that the atmosphere on the Horde side of at least one Spanish-speaking realm seemed to be quite relaxed. The biggest surprises for me were the two French servers. The people there were extremely polite and very helpful. A common question in trade chat was: "I am sorry to bother you all, but could a Jewelcrafter [insert other profession here] please link their profession. Thank you." If someone tried selling a BoP item on trade he was kindly reminded that this was not possible. Compare the usual: "ffs, u cant sell bop u noob". Being a stranger on a French realm was among the most positive experiences I have had in my entire time on Azeroth. The German servers, in contrast, are very, very frustrating. They butcher the English language and their own language in ways that are beyond good and evil. There is a term for this phenomenon called Denglisch where an English word is morphologically adjusted and integrated into the German syntax. (This could almost cause eye cancer; I'm sure of it!) The atmosphere on those servers was also highly toxic and very unforgiving. Try selling a BoP item there, I dare you! I am more than certain that one can find pleasant people on German realms, too. I just have not met that many.

Now the (supposedly) English-speaking servers are a whole other issue. It is obvious that anyone who is not French, German or Spanish (-speaking), but wants to play on a European server will choose one labelled as 'English'. That does, however, not mean that this person has even a basic command of the English language as such. Most of the time this did not pose any problems and I guess that those people are a small minority. Things will become interesting when one realm is chosen as the "unofficial" server for people from that region. I was lucky enough to experience this twice. One server was populated by lots of Turkish-speaking people, many of whom either did not understand English or simply refused to communicate in English. This made grouping very problematic. At least before the Dungeon Finder it was possible to manually select ones comrades in arms. After that it became increasingly difficult to form pre-made groups (not counting Rent-a-Tank) and on many occasions I would join a dungeon group via the Dungeon Finder and find two or three of the participants talking in a language other than English. I would then politely remind them to please communicate in English but, alas, I was mostly ignored. Seeing this, I would immediately add those people to my Ignore List. The old World of Warcraft website actually had a passage that explicitly stated that the server language was binding for all public communication on that realm. This page, however, cannot be found on the new Battle.net website. With the Dungeon Finder dungeons not being on the world server, but on an instance server, it would not matter anyway. I encountered the other example of an "unofficial" server when I joined Gevlon's Undergeared project on his home realm EU-Arathor, which had a very large population of Hungarian players.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way: I have absolutely nothing against people from any nationality (in fact I consider myself European, maybe even Cosmopolitan) but I think that in the interest of fairness, we should all at least make an effort to communicate in a way that includes everyone and allows for a broader understanding – participation being the operative word. If someone wants to enjoy group content with their friends who are unable to communicate in the realm’s language, they could at least be polite enough to use the /whisper chat-mode.

I already mentioned the Undergeared project. I wanted to take this up in this post because it certainly was one of the most memorable experiences for me. The project had many haters right from the start which might also have to do with its highly controversial leader. Nevertheless, the atmosphere while raiding was very relaxed and highly professional. The set-up was always unstable because we had to take whoever was online that evening. There were at least three people in the Icecrown Citadel runs who had never been in there before – one of whom has never even raided before and we managed to defeat the "unbeatable" Festergut with that group. This project could have gone a long way and I felt rather sad when it came to a sudden end.

Despite my dislike for PvP there was a time when I was a member of a 2v2 Arena Team with a very good in-game friend. He was in fact a very mature teenager – quite a surprise for me when I found that out. I suck so bad at PvP it's almost criminal and I should really feel ashamed basically having been boosted by him. One night we were teamed against two Rogues and unsurprisingly I died after about 20 seconds. How my Mage friend managed to defeat those two Rogues on his own is beyond me. That was truly amazing! Other times we did some Battlegrounds together with some more friends and non-guildies which was also fun, but I never really enjoyed it that much – it was more the social aspect of it that I liked.

The reasons why I no longer enjoy World of Warcraft are manifold and have all been exhaustively and eloquently described by others. Have a closer look at my ESSENTIAL READING page, this post by Zellviren is particularly relevant.

In addition, the one thing that caused me to quit more than anything else can be summed up by saying: "GOGOGO!" Rushing through mindless content, fast-paced action, requiring ultra-fast reflexes (twitch) and basically instant gratification and speed above all simply do not appeal to me. I enjoyed the slower, more tactical approach of classic WoW and The Burning Crusade where one false move could basically mean a wipe for one's group and where 5-player content (at any level) was seen as an alternative to raiding and not a mere stepping stone on the way. Designated pullers and pull spots, group composition based on class and skill and most importantly a strong community where ones reputation truly mattered – I cannot find any of this any more anywhere in World of Warcraft.

In conclusion, I can say that I did greatly enjoy the game for a long time, but by looking at the current design and future plans, I feel that I am no longer among the target audience of this game.

WoW: Cataclysm

I did not expect much from the third expansion and I was not really looking forward to it all. Nonetheless, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the initial content. Normal dungeons were still easy as pie, but at least the heroic versions did require some degree of strategy, e.g. crowd control and interrupts. The Grumpy Elf has a series of “Cataclysm miscues” in which he addresses several problems such as the fast leveling speed or the state of professions. I highly recommend reading this insightful nine-part series.

My very busy raiding schedule from The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King had taken its toll and I wanted to slow things down a bit. Therefore, I decided to leave the hardcore raiding scene and move on to pastures new. My brother-in-law asked me to join him on the Horde side (on a different server) and we founded a casual raiding guild together. The aim was clear: we wanted to raid about two to three nights a week with a fixed roster and flexible hours in a casual and friendly atmosphere. This worked for the first three months. After that it became apparent that the casual approach in Cataclysm was just that – very casual. People rightfully prioritised other things over gaming and we had difficulties getting regular groups together. Our server was very active, so we were able to pug the occasional raid member. However, the guild perks system required us to have at least eight members from our guild as raid participants in order to receive the guild bonus. This was very problematic at times and let to the fateful decision to merge our guild with a group of friends who were looking for a new guild to call home.

Even though this was technically not a real guild merger because the other group was not a real guild, it certainly felt that way. They were a group of four real life friends and they had heard of our approach and contacted me to talk about details. We had a pleasant chat and seemed to share similar views on the game. So it came that all of them joined our guild which now had nine (allegedly) reliable players (our previous five and their four). That meant that the guild bonus was secured. We established a solid 10-player (casual) raiding guild and for a time it was good. However, the devil is, as they say, in the details. I was basically managing the entire guild myself – the guild bank and guild website, recruitment and raid leading. I must admit that I am somewhat of a control freak and I really enjoyed being in charge of everything. This led to some problems with the “leader” of the four new members who wanted more competence. I had told this “other alpha” right from the start – even before they all joined – that I would be in charge as guild and raid leader and that my brother-in-law was second in command. Other than that we had a flat hierarchy with everybody else being on equal ground. At first he and the others seemed fine with that but somewhere along the road this was no longer the case. I honestly do not know what their specific problems were as none of them wanted to directly and openly discuss it when asked. I had the impression that the main issues were the lack of certain bank and website privileges, but I do not know for sure.

We had no loot drama since a 10-player raid only offered two items per boss and we also created a “class raid” meaning that we had one of each class in the raid. Warrior and Death Knight Tanks, a Holy Paladin as primary Healer, assisted by either Druid, Priest or Shaman – depending on the encounter – and a Hunter, a Mage, a Rogue and a Warlock as primary Damage Dealers. I was very pleased with this set-up and it worked amazingly well. However, we hit a brick wall on Cho’gall and his very annoying Conversion mechanic. We worked several weeks on this boss with no success in sight. Every time we managed to overcome an obstacle something new came along that broke our necks, e.g. the tentacles in the final phase of the encounter. So, we were unable to defeat this boss before he was nerfed. This was also the time when the new members gradually stopped showing up until they all decided to quit the game for good.

As a consequence, my brother-in-law and I decided to go even more casual in Firelands. We set two specific raid nights (Wednesday and Thursday) and we invited anybody who wanted to come (irrespective of guild affiliation) and who seemed capable according to their armory profile. This meant forgoing the guild group bonus but somehow that did not matter to us any more. I guess one can say that we were already losing interest in the game. That method worked surprisingly well and we cleared six bosses in Firelands within the first two weeks after release. Here we were at the final boss again and we were having the same problems again. Master phase one, fail at phase two; master that one and fail at the next one. Eventually, we did it, but I simply did not care any more. I was glad that it was done and finally over. After that I just could not be bothered any more. We had no Dragon Soul guild runs; however, I completed that raid three times via the Raid Finder – as a Healer, a Tank and on my Hunter. Every single run was boring and felt meaningless with the final “boss” encounter being the ultimate let-down.

Towards the end of 2011, my subscription ran out and I took my very first (and only, and final) break from World of Warcraft – meaning I did not renew my subscription. This might not seem like a big deal for many people but for me it was a very big deal. I had been playing continually since I started back in 2006 without any major breaks whatsoever – i.e. without cancelling my subscription. Unfortunately, the game had lost all its appeal to me and I already knew that I wanted to start fresh in a galaxy far, far away.

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King

Initially, I was very excited about this expansion, as it would conclude the story of Arthas and I was looking forward to seeing how that would end. While journeying through Northrend, I encountered my favourite species, the Kalu’ak. I simply love those walrus people! The scene at the Wrathgate and the subsequent quest to reclaim the Undercity were among the most memorable leveling experiences for me.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the end was already apparent. The “big boss nerf” must have also affected all other dungeons because the common theme from day one in Wrath of the Lich King seemed to be to AoE-nuke everything down. Imagine my surprise when that actually worked! During classic World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade this was unthinkable. Even low-level dungeons required careful planning and pulling. But not anymore! Pull the entire corridor, nuke and move on. This was true for every dungeon, normal or heroic right from the start. (What a shame!) It was even true for the expansion’s entry raid instance, the rehashed and soulless Naxxramas (please read Kungen’s blog series “Ensidia starts raiding ...” if you want to know more about this and have a look here if you want to get a brief glimpse as to why he quit the game).

Upon hitting level 80, raiding was once again business as usual for my guild and we conquered the content pretty quickly. I think Ulduar was the absolute pinnacle of raid design and I consider the interior area the best raid in the entire game, challenged only by the wonder that was Karazhan. Ulduar had a great story, a beautiful scenery, a plethora of achievements and, most importantly, hard modes that were triggered by in-game events (i.e. player actions during an encounter) rather than by changing the setting via the UI. It also featured two of my all-time favourite boss encounters: Mimiron and General Vezax.

I was still playing with my wife from time to time, although less regularly due to real life commitments and my busy raiding schedule. To be totally honest, the game actually ended for me after I defeated The Lich King. I had finished the story that I wanted to follow and many (game-breaking) changes were already implemented or on their way, most importantly that 5-player dungeons were no longer regarded as a meaningful endgame activity – a view that was facilitated by the great tool that would destroy any sense of server community and accountability: the marvellous Dungeon Finder. That was sarcasm, by the way. The issue of content vs. community is also addressed here and (unsurprisingly) it is Shintar, once again, who hits the nail on the head:

I hope they stick with the focus on community too. I actually haven't met that many completely awful people in LFD either, but even with a decent group the experience is just completely soulless, as everyone just goes through the motions to get to the end as quickly as possible. All the access in the world doesn't do me any good if the content doesn't feel like it's actually worth doing. I'd rather have fewer runs but have them be worthy of remembering.

WoW: The Burning Crusade

Shortly after the launch of The Burning Crusade, I managed to arouse my wife’s interest in the game as well. So it happened that eventually the two of us would share those online adventures together. We created a matching pair of characters – she played a Protection Paladin and launched herself right into the fray, while I kept my sweetheart alive by healing her wounds on my Holy Priest. This team managed to clear all dungeons (normal and heroic) along their way and met many pleasant – and even a few unpleasant – people during their journeys.

The Druid’s quest chain for the Swift Flight Form was amazing and I consider it one of my most memorable moments. I only wished that the [Reigns of the Raven Lord] would have been a guaranteed Druid-only reward for completing the quest. I am still harbouring a grudge because I never saw it drop. I ran Heroic Sethakk Halls almost daily during The Burning Crusade and started soloing it as soon as I could – right until the very end. I even gave it a try on my very last day in Azeroth – but Anzu would not yield up the elusive item.

I never enjoyed gaming more than when I played level 70 content during World of Warcraft’s first expansion set, The Burning Crusade. -- Zellviren

I consider The Burning Crusade as the best WoW expansion, the height of my gaming when I felt WoW was doing everything right. I consider WotLK the beginning of the end for me, especially when it came to the difficulty of 5-man content. -- Kadomi

I wholeheartedly agree, even though I would say that the beginning of the end was already noticeable after Patch 2.4. I think that The Burning Crusade was the best expansion because it offered meaningful content for everyone. Heroic dungeons provided a great experience and (additionally) my group did spend quite some time in that beautiful place called Karazhan. The best part about heroic dungeons for me was that they all required strategy and tactics. Careful planning and pulling was essential and crowd control necessary. This meant that heroic dungeons took some time and that they could be seen as an alternative to the raiding endgame.

At one point, however, I started yearning for the ultimate challenge only 25-player raids could offer. So I applied to a hardcore raiding guild and was accepted for trial. We had four to six raids per week. Monday to Thursday were regular progression raids and on Fridays and Saturdays (or Sundays) we did the occasional “off-raid” – old content to get gear and/or attunements for new members. Once Zul’Aman was released, we did our “bear runs” on the weekends as well. We were able to complete the entire level 70 content before the “big boss nerf”. And for a time it was good.

WoW: Classic or “Vanilla”

Leveling my Night Elf Druid was great fun, even though Darkshore was stretching my patience a great deal. Nevertheless, I could not easily be discouraged and I kept on playing. Everything seemed magical and the little inconveniences that existed did not hinder my enjoyment. There were very long ways to walk and some quests required me to travel to very distant places, e.g. the original quest-line for the Aquatic Form. Yes, there was a time when Druids learned their shapeshift forms not simply by visiting a trainer but by actually performing some tasks in the game world. Shocking, I know!

I died a million times in the barrows filled with furbolgs. I mean, seriously, who designed those? Close quarters, a maze, high respawn rate. It was a death trap for noobs like me. I was in there for literally hours. -- Kadomi

I had exactly the same experience in the Ban'ethil Barrow Den and the related quest asked me to bring back four items when my bags were already full. Life in Azeroth was time consuming and demanding and I loved it.

At some point my Druid hit the level cap and entered into the ominous endgame, where he experienced two massive group dungeons called “raids”. He lent his healing hands to a group that was determined to enter a fiery cavern named Molten Core. There he had his very first taste of what it was like to overcome the greatest challenges with the greatest number of people. It was very invigorating! On a different night some people of the same group asked him to help them kill a horrible dragon hiding in another cavern somewhere in the swamps. Needless to say, he joined without thinking twice. Unfortunately, those were the only two raid instances my Druid did in those days because otherworldly matters kept the real person behind the Druid busy for quite some time. I did stay subscribed, however, and played very casually and started some alts, most notably an Undead Mage.

Overall, I can say that I will be forever fond of those days as they mark the beginning of my journey into the realm of MMOs. The cynics will always attribute nostalgia to “rose-tinted glasses” and that is, of course, their prerogative. It is, however, equally valid for other people remember things in their own way and make different claims. I do not think that some of us are only looking at the pleasant parts of the past but rather that the inconvenient parts were not that unpleasant to begin with.

On My Beginnings in World of Warcraft

The decision to start playing World of Warcraft did not come overnight and it certainly wasn't an easy one. I had read about the game for quite some time and the material included several rather unfriendly voices. Since this would also be my first MMORPG, the whole idea of a subscription to a video game was alien to me as well.

However, when the time seemed right to actually buy the game and create an account, I was already well informed about the payment methods, the setting, the lore, the different classes, their abilities and tasks, the professions and so on. In total, I would say that I knew as much about the game as it was possible, without actually having played it. How wrong that turned out to be. I bought the physical copy of the game in the fateful summer of 2006 (somewhere between Patches 1.10 and 1.11), when the game was already about one and half years old.

After my previous experiences in the RTS games of the Warcraft universe, I was already convinced that I wanted to fight on the side of the Alliance and that my character should be "Elven" (The Lord of the Rings comes to mind again). At that time, the idea of creating a female character for a man honestly had not even occurred to me, so I chose a male Night Elf. To find the right class, however, turned out to be much harder. Generally, I find any kind of magic wielder the most compelling choice, so naturally I wanted to create a Mage. Unfortunately, I already knew that a Night Elf Mage would not be possible – in fact, it should take at least another 3 years until that choice would become available. Though, I did create a haughty female Blood Elf Mage during The Burning Crusade.

Questions over questions: should I create a Night Elf Druid or an Undead Mage? Would a Druid be similar to a Mage, even though their philosophy seemed to be quite different? Would that, at one point along the road, matter from a gameplay point of view? In the end my desire to play on the Alliance side and to play an Elf was stronger and I decided on creating a male Night Elf Druid on an English-speaking European PvE server. This character would be my main character almost until the very end. His accumulated experience signifies my entire gaming experience in World of Warcraft and it was on the day that I “changed mains” (Oh how I hate that notion!) that I knew that my time in Azeroth would sooner than later be coming to an end.

If someone is interested in why I eventually fell out of love with World of Warcraft, they should have a closer look at my ESSENTIAL READING page. Other authors have already – very eloquently – described the same problems I had, so there is no need to rehash the details right here, right now. Suffice to say that it had NOTHING (whatsoever) to do with burnout! If the game had not changed this drastically, I would still be playing.