Hmm, there were a few other real life thoughts that I wanted to blog about, but I’ll put it on hold. They’re all pretty negative, so Imma talk about some fun World of Warcraft stuff to get it off my mind for a while.
World of WarCraft: Wrath of the Lich King was released on November 13 2008. So yeah, it’s Nov 15 ‘09 today, it’s been a year. A lot of forum posts everywhere are talking about this 1-year anniversary, so I’ll pen down my own thoughts about it.
I started WoW back in 2007 during the Burning Crusade era (specifically during The Black Temple patch). Started off as a Horde Blood Elf Hunter, but switched to Alliance Dwarf Hunter to join a friend. Since then, for a solid 2 years I was Alliance. Towards the end of BC, during Patch 2.4: Fury of the Sunwell, I ditched my Hunter and started a Priest. My Hunter was on a US-PvP server and didn’t made much progress/friends. I rebooted my identity in WoW as a Priest on an Oceanic-PvE server. Chose Nagrand server cos it’s where I had 2 friends there from back during my MapleStory days.
Krenig the Dwarf Priest on Nagrand server would later be who I am to many people. I wholeheartedly enjoyed myself there. WotLK was released to the world and it was at level 80 did I started my life as an end-game player. Joined an all-Singaporean guild called <Paradox SG> that gave me a lot of opportunity to start off my heroics and Naxx raiding. In case some of you players didn’t know, back then Naxx/EoE were the top tier raids and us raiders had to actually WORK and put in EFFORT into gearing up our toons by doing heroics before we even dare to attempt Naxx. Now you ppl join in ToC raids with shitty gear/experience and doing 3k dps wtf. Not saying you guys are bad, but come on, it’s hard to respect ppl who expect to get carried. Don’t QQ about hard to find groups, put in the effort to find the tanks/healers/dpsers yourself.
So yeah, I hit level 80 on Xmas Eve 2008, did my first ever 5-man Heroic (Nexus) 5 days later. Like I said, as a healer, back then when the best gear quality is lvl200-213, we had to prepare ourselves before even attempting heroics. I cleared the first quarter of Naxxramas by the end of Jauary ‘09. The entire Naxxramas was cleared by mid-March.
Patch 3.1: The Secrets of Ulduar came and it was another major turning point for me. By then <Paradox SG> became <Renaissance SG>. A lot of the people I was thankful for had left and the management/leadership was changed. While I enjoyed their company, I myself had a lot of objections with how the new leaders run the guild. So I left. Best. Decision. Ever.
I joined <The Initiative> that later merged into <Decemviri Procinctu>. It was now that my social network significantly increased. Got to know a lot of lobangs here and there to help out one another progress. Seriously, if you play WoW and you only stick to ppl you know in real life or SGeans, you’re missing out on a LOT. Being a loner and then expanding your social network smartly is awesome. My accomplishments just jumpstarted with patch 3.1. Totally had a blast all the way till the current Patch 3.2: Call of the Crusade.
Haha, they should totally call it “Call of the HORDE”. Faction change was introduced and a lot of my friends, genuine friends that I played/chatted with in-game, on MSN (and now Facebook) moved over. Took me a while before I changed and return to where I really belong, the faction where I started off in this game 2 years go, the Horde. Hesitated at first not just bcos I didn’t had a credit card, but I really did came to unexpectedly love Dwarves. All the other Alliance races are hypocrites. Honorable my ass. Dwarves are the only honorably badass Alliance race and are respected by the Horde.
Well I returned to Renaissance SG for lulz (Decemviri guild broke apart due to ppl leaving for real life matters). Thought about raiding casually with them but saw that the quality of raiding had deteriorated…HORRIBLY. The players had no clue on what was going on and pretty much every raid was being carried by only 3 people, Sanny, Jason and Microplague. I wasn’t a matter of lack of experience, but I’m disgusted that people joined raids without even the bare enchants/gems. And seriously, if you’re a raider worth your weight, you WILL enchant/gem even your BLUE quality gear with the best enchants available. Even if you had to pay 500g for an extra 10 points of spellpower.
LOL That was pretty much the final straw for me. Alliance just was CMI. A friend of mine in New Zealand managed to get hold of a free master gift card (why doesn’t SG have those) and gave me the codes to faction change. In exchange I bought her 60-day time card. Horde is now a new turning point for me. Zero regrets. The player quality here is just of a waaay higher calibre. We’re not elitists. But we’re casuals that actually put in effort to do our best in this game. Like I said in my previous post on WoW, if you’re doing ok-ok in raids, you do’t put in the best gems/enchants, you’re not being a casual. You’re just a lazy asshole getting carried. WotLK raiding is shit easy as compared to BC, where according to Blizzard, only less than10% of the entire WoW population at that time managed to pass Tier 4/5, let alone Sunwell.
World of Warcraft is a social cooperative game. It’s not shitty games like Aion and stuff that are all graphics and game mechanics. That’s what make this game so popular and why Blizzard controls 50% of the entire MMO Market. Precisely why I really am not interested in PS3/Wii games or that lol ‘game’ called DotA that isn’t even Warcraft related and just uses Warcraft III graphics cos they’re all just graphics & gameplay mechanics with little interaction.
Lore-wise, the story of the Lich King in Northrend has been incredible. Another reason to WoW’s success is the fact that there is a LOT of story in it. It isn’t like other games where the story is just slapped on briefly on the website. Players start off in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, where they fight off the first few signs of the Scourge. Dragonblight had the dragon aspects take center stage and the Wrathgate was where the Horde and Alliance both lost our leaders that had led us through Northrend.
Ulduar saw the awakening of the second Old God, Yoggsaron, and ToC now we’re in a tournament arc fighting for the right to be the best of the best in order to face Arthas, coming next patch.
Overall for a year, WotLK has been an eventful expansion and I seriously look forward to raiding Icecrown. Even more now as Horde, cos I can be assured that me and my fellow raiders have actually put in effort to do our best and be entitled to raid Icecrown without worrying about carrying Alliance noobs and bads that call themselves casuals. I’ve met a lot of stellar people from all over the world and from many walks of life. Traditional people can just say I’m wasting my time with computer games, but it is bcause of the people I meet in WoW that I’ve been shaped to be a very open-minded and better person than the average Singaporean.