Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Game Diary: July 15. 2009 - World of WarCRACK

After going back through all the old posts on this blog, I didn't realize it had been so long since my last gaming diary. My apologies as my summer has been relatively busy. I was on vacation for the weekend of the 4th in my home state of Washington and didn't get any gaming in. Now I'm back and as far as I know I am done with vacations for the summer, which leaves my weekends open for gaming, gaming, gaming!

After my hiatus of the 4th of July weekend, I spent most of this past weekend immersed in World or Warcraft. I can't deny that I love this game so much. It has been the sole game I've played on at least a monthly basis since I first started playing in late 2004. Granted, there were a few points during that span of time where I was unemployed and poor. This prevented me from paying the $15 a month to sustain my addiction, but other then those few breaks I've been playing this game pretty consistently.

Everything you've ever heard about WoW is absolutely true. I encourage anyone with a PC/Mac and an extra $15 a month to try this game out. It may seem tedious to some and honestly, from time to time it is, but it's oh so addicting. I'm not even sure why as most of your time is spend running around the world, doing quests and killing mobs, but it still maintains it's addictability (I think I just invented a word).

This past weekend I ventured through Outland. For those who know little about WoW, Outland is the area that was added with the Burning Crusade expansion. You have to take a portal from Azeroth to get to Outland. Honestly, it's quite possibly one of the most annoying things to do ever since there are no auction houses in Outland (places where you can sell items to other players and probably the best way to make money in the game) nor are there any trainers (as you level up, certain abilities become available for your specific class, but you must go to a trainer to learn them). This means you have to take a flight path from where ever you are in Outland to the portal. Then you must go through the portal which drops you off in the Blasted Lands with no flight path to a major city in sight. You have to get on your mount and ride from the portal to the Swamp of Sorrows to take ANOTHER flight path to get to a major city. It has quite possibly been the most obnoxious task since moving onto BC content. The good news is, they are adding a portal directly to the Dark Portal in the next patch, 3.2. Kind of crazy that it's taken them this long to do that.

I've been enjoying my time in Outland. I leveled up to 64 (oh so close to 65!) this weekend and moved from Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh. Hellfire Peninsula was as far as I had gotten with my first main, so Zangarmarsh is a completely new place with new mobs, new quests, new landscape, etc. This is the first time I've experienced "new" content since I started playing in November of 2004. I've never really hated going through old world content when leveling alts before. Yes, it gets sort of boring and old after a while, but the addiction holds strong so I've always enjoyed it for the most part. It's been refreshing to be somewhere completely new and I think has completely revived my love for the game. I won't lie when I say that I slightly yearn to play WoW every day I'm at work. I wish I could take a week off and completely immerse myself in the game. I'm even more excited to move through Outland and onto Northrend (Wrath of the Lich King content). I feel as though I'm one of the few WoW players that enjoys leveling more then anything. After I finish leveling Christilena (my level 64 blood elf paladin) to 80, I plan on then moving onto Walker (my original main, a level 60 tauren warrior) and getting here to 80. End game content doesn't really seem for me as I don't quite have the time to invest in it. I'm probably one of the few solo WoW players. WoW tends to be a relatively social game, but I somehow tend to avoid all that. I think it's mostly due to my lack of time to spend playing the game. I typically only get the chance on the weekends while my girlfriend is at work. This might change a bit come this fall as she's moving to a college that's 2 hours away, but we shall see.

In summary, most of my gaming weekend was spent playing WoW. I've sort of abandoned The Sims 3 for the time being (although I'd like to get back into it) and I also didn't play much Battlefield: Bad Company either. I did find out that I'm only a mission away from beating the game, so I think that's inspired me to play a bit more. With my girlfriend leaving this fall, that probably means I'll have more time during the week to get gaming in so maybe my weekly updates won't be solely WoW related from now on.

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