If you are anything like myself or Mister Adequate, then you will be well-acquainted with that obnoxious insect that comes around every six months or so and nibbles on you and makes you nostalgic for World of Warcraft and won’t stop nibbling until you actually re-sub. This invariably results in a few weeks of playing little else but WoW until the bug is satiated and flies away– for the time being, anyway.
I was visited by this bug about a week back and after several days of trying to ignore it and swat it away while it hummed the Karazhan theme in my ear, I recently caved and re-downloaded the game. I know, I know.
Now I haven’t played in months and months and one of the things that I always felt bad about was that I left my long-time main, Tawyn, rather unceremoniously dumped in Stormwind in a bunch of greens from the new Cataclysm content– basically I played for about a month after Cata launch and then realized “You know what, I’m still bored of raiding and heroics” and logged out and didn’t return. So poor Tawyn wasn’t retired in her level 70 epics or her level 80 epics– no, she was retired wearing [Boring Uldum Pants of the Whale] and such. Obviously this wasn’t going to do, so the very first thing I did was transmogrify into old stuff from my favorite ever raid instance, Karazhan, and various assorted BC heroics. For the first time in years, Tawyn matched my figureprint of her and the mental image I have when I think of her. I… really can’t express how good this felt.
Suddenly, playing my character was fun again. Because suddenly, I didn’t look like a scrub in greens. Nor did I look like a mishmash of epics from the current content. Rather, I looked like my character— something I was proud of.
Don’t get me wrong. I still don’t feel like raiding or doing heroics or really any sort of endgame. But at least I can deal with dailies and things like leveling once MoP comes out (should I get the expac– I’m still not sure if I will.)
The new patch comes out tomorrow and it gets rid of hunter stat sticks, which means I’ll lose my lovely Sonic Spear and I won’t be able to sport my Legacy in the future. But you’ll have to pry Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle out of my cold, dead, purple hands.
I don’t feel much guilt for wanting to play the game again. There’s enough fun there to make it worth visiting once in a while. I’m just very resistant to *pay* for it again. So, it’s either the “free to 20” account I have or wait for my WoW Visa points to accrue another month’s worth. :P
Oh, and I’m sad about them killing Hunter melee gear. I think they should have gone the other way and made Survival heavy melee, with the Hunter getting in there and mixing things up with his/her pet.
Welcome back to the game. I am glad to hear you have sparked an interest once again after all that work actually getting you back in. I wonder how many other people have renewed interest in the game after doing a transmog makeover. I remember @wowcynwise mentioning something similar happening with his warlock.
Why are all the people I know Alliance? I swear if this Horde guild doesn’t work out in MoP, I’m faction changing!
I totally get that. I’ve noticed more and more recently that I enjoy playing a game more if I can feel an emotional connection to my avatar, and a lot of the time that comes from just having them look really cool.
These days I log on to my Warlock only to access his enchanting profession, but in his Firelands gear I feel so epic and regal just running back and forth between the AH and the mailbox… I’m really looking forward to playing him again as of tomorrows patch. ;)
Yay! I *cannot* tell you how awesome it is to see Tawyn again!! I *lurved* Aspect of the Hare back in the day, and while I love everything you’ve been doing here, it’s nice to see the old girl, to say nothing of Wash!
I’d been away from WoW for awhile myself, until I logged back in again a month or so ago, in pre-MoP anticipation, and found myself PvPing a lot, for want of something else to do, as I’ve never been a raider, or even into Heroic dungeons. It’s been nice, and I’ve been slowly grinding myself a Ruthless Gladiator set, and running random bgs, killing time until tomorrow.
I’m looking forward to actually playing again; leveling and replacing all these two-week-old epics I’m currently sporting (oh, well :-/ ), and just enjoying that new expansion experience we all look forward to.
I hope you (and Tawyn & Wash) have fun, and get to enjoy MoP, and just remember, it’s okay to just play for fun! I’ve been subbed since BC, and I’ve never set foot inside a raid, or arena, or rated bg, and maybe I never will, but I consider it time (and money) well spent, because I’ve always enjoyed it! :D
I hope you have fun exploring stuff (and just in time for the massive 5.x.x overhaul patch tomorrow). Even if you don’t end up getting Mists, you’ll at least be able to level a non-monk panda and see that new content, which I think is nice. <3
Think it must have been a wide-spread swarm cos they got me last Thursday. ^^; Welcome back to the insanity!
I pretty much felt the same way. While I never un-subed, I stopped raiding at the very end of Cata and won’t be raiding in MoP. Now the game feels new again! I don’t have to run at top speed through new content just to level and start farming new mats for new raids. I can pay attention to what is around me. I always loved the lore of Warcraft and now with MoP pending (and no demons to rage against right away except the internal ones), I can quest and explore and enjoy it like new. Hope to see ya ’round, Pike.
I took a time-out for a while during which period my account was hacked. I got the account back and all my gear and was inspired by the decent treatment I got to buy another game card. Then I finally threw caution to the winds and did the year’s subsciption thing. In retrospect I’m not sure how good an investment that was as I find Diablo III profoundly boring and have spent very little time in the MoP beta – that because I made the mistake of creating a character in the PvP realm and found that too many newly forged level 90s were spending all their time going back and ganking every “starting” 85. Anyway, like OGH I am unsure if I will actually buy MoP. Maybe I’ll let my subsciption lapse again and take a WoW vacation in the hope of felling refreshed if and when I do login again.
They did what.
…
Well that killed all my remaining non-existent enthusiasm for Mists.
While you cannot equip a ranged weapon and a melee weapon at the same time, you can still equip them to wear around Stormwind or Orgrimmar. Instead of showing the polearm or staff on our backs we now see our bows, guns, and crossbows there instead.
I’ve been focusing more on WoW again, myself. SWTOR got boring when I didn’t have anyone left to play with. (That and I decided I could use that $15 a month to help fund my Warhammer 40k hobby) While I won’t be playing my hunter anymore, (the change to focus and the new ‘now you need expertise’ really killed my enjoyment of it.) I’m really enjoying my shaman as well as my usual alt-itis.