I was fortunate enough to attend Blizzcon 2018. One of the (many) demo games that was available for people to try was World of Warcraft Classic. I wanted to share my thoughts about it before I forgot what I intended to say.
The screenshots you see in this blog were obviously NOT taken while I was at BlizzCon. I had time to play the World of Warcraft Classic demo after returning home from BlizzCon. These screenshots were taken on my computer after BlizzCon 2018 was over.
I decided to get in line for the World of Warcraft Classic demo at BlizzCon to kill some time. My husband needed to go all over the conference in order to do some shopping for someone who was unable to attend BlizzCon.
It was the second day of BlizzCon, and I was exhausted. I have several chronic illnesses, including rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. There was no way I was going to summon the energy that shopping trip required. Instead, I took the opportunity to try some game demos.
There were two guys ahead of me in the long and winding line. It turned out all three of us played Vanilla WoW back in the day, and all as Alliance characters. We reminisced about how long it took to run around without a mount, and wondered about how much of that old world would remain the same in WoW Classic.
My first character was a Night Elf Hunter, and I shared my story about running out of arrows and not having any idea of how or where to get more. We laughed about Hunter pets that had moods that the player had to manage. Failure meant the Hunter pet would run away, leaving the Hunter to try and tame another one.
Actually sitting down at a computer at BlizzCon to play WoW Classic was exciting. There is something about hands-on video game experience that makes the things that had been announced seem real. I rolled a Night Elf Hunter, and received a boar as a pet. So did all the other Hunters.
Blizzard planned ahead and gave all Hunters plenty of ammo to start with. I didn’t have to worry about running out. I found it amusing that my pet started to get unhappy if I was standing around for too long – but quickly became super happy again when I sent it into battle.
I had forgotten that Hunters needed to feed their pet to keep it happy. When I tried to give my boar some food, I was reminded that it was a picky eater. If I remember correctly, text popped up that said something like “Your pet doesn’t like that food.” It made me laugh!
Those who tried the WoW Classic demo at BlizzCon found themselves in a server filled with other, very excited, players. Someone invited me into a group right away, and I accepted the invitation. There was a brief moment when four Night Elf Hunters were running around together, trying to slay bandits that were a higher level than we were.
Speaking of levels, Blizzard made a very good decision and started players off at Level 15. This happened in both the demo at BlizzCon and the one people could try at home. It made things move a lot faster than if we all had to start at Level 1 and grind our way upward. Starting at Level 15 allowed players to actually survive some of their encounters with enemies!
A group of players on the BlizzCon server had a fun idea. They urged everyone to go to Deadmines, in as large a group as possible, and kill Elites together. This was manageable because all Alliance players started in Westfall.
It was so much fun slaying Elite enemies in the hallway that leads to Deadmines! We outnumbered them, and the quick respawns weren’t a match for the sheer number of overexcited players who were having a great time.
It turned out we couldn’t access the actual Deadmines dungeon, so we stayed in the hallway, battled to our death, and made multiple corpse runs right back in.
It was announced at BlizzCon that World of Warcraft Classic would not require a separate subscription. It will come with a regular World of Warcraft subscription. Personally, I think this was another great decision by Blizzard.
It enables people who want to play WoW Classic to be able to afford it. Those who were not initially interested in WoW Classic, but who have a “regular” WoW subscription, will have the opportunity to try Classic at any time without having to pay extra money to do so.
Maybe the nostalgia of it will bring in some hesitant players. Or, it could bring in players who were too young to have played in Vanilla WoW, and who are curious about what it was like.
The “Con Crud” caught up to me shortly after I returned home from BlizzCon. I expected this – my immune system sucks and I get sick all the time. Later, I learned that plenty of typically healthy people who went to BlizzCon were also afflicted with bad “Con Crud”.
As such, I was at home playing WoW Classic on my computer while exhausted. The hyped-up energy of BlizzCon had disappeared; there was no crowd of players to interact with in person; and the server I was on felt very empty. It probably didn’t help that I was playing at weird hours when most other people were probably sleeping.
The first thing I did was roll another Night Elf Hunter – who started at Level 15 with a boar pet and more ammo than I was likely to use up before the demo ended. The whole atmosphere had changed. I was fighting enemies by myself, dying more than I did at BlizzCon, and making really dumb decisions because I was playing while sick.
This slowed-down experience was not actually a disappointment. It reminded me very much of what it was like when I played Vanilla WoW. Long story short, I didn’t have anyone to play with back then, and did not join a guild until after The Burning Crusade had launched.
It was quiet, with long stretches of calm as I slowly walked around Westfall. I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out where I was supposed to go to complete the quests that I had accepted.
In “live” WoW, my Death Knight has an easy time killing all who cross her path. In WoW Classic, I had to return to using strategy, thinking hard before sending my pet to attack an enemy, and running away when I accidentally pulled the whole mob at once.
Overall, I’m looking forward to playing WoW Classic. I want the opportunity to level up a brand new character (with the old skills and talent tree) and exploring an Azeroth that has changed so much between then and now. I want to visit the less traveled areas of Azeroth once again.
My Thoughts About World of Warcraft Classic is a post written by Jen Thorpe on Book of Jen and is not allowed to be copied to other sites.
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