Monday, August 24, 2009

Torn about World of Warcraft.

When Wrath of the Lich King was released, I deleted my rogue. He was the first character I had created, and there was some fun stuff about him, but it just wasn't enough. For the way I play - a little pvp, but mostly pve, in a casual raiding progression guild - there was almost nothing he could do that my main character, a feral druid, couldn't do. Sure, my main was going to be changed to balance, but still, doing the same quests wearing similar gear without the option of all the other druid stuff like healing or tanking didn't appeal to me. Stab, stab, stab, stealth, eat, repeat 31,254 times. Then do some daily quests. I created a Death Knight with the same look, name and professions, and it was like my old character all over again, but with new and different methods of combat.

But I also found I really like achievements (a new feature added in the Wrath expansion) on my main. And for one important achievement, (Insane in the Membrane, if anyone is curious) a rogue is required. So I rerolled a new one. The new one wouldn't be a serious character, just designed and specced and geared for soloing and supporting my main for his achievement. Leveling him here and there in my free time has been fun. Along the way someone suggested asking Blizzard to restore my deleted character, but after thinking about it a bit, I shrugged that off.

Recently, I got him to level 54 and stalled. That's because level 54 is close to the level where my main could use his help with the achievement (but not quite there yet), but my main still has a lot more to do before he needs that help, so there's no point in getting him past that point yet. And, recently, the next expansion was announced. It's still a long way off, but one part of the announcement said that many of the old zones of the game would be revamped. New towns, new landmarks, new quests...

When I read about that, it hit me that I only own one character who leveled through vanilla WoW. "When I was your age, I had to walk through two feet of snow every day to get to school! And it was uphill. Both ways!" people say stuff like that because it's fun to say stuff like that - and I lost half my chances to say stuff like that when I deleted my old rogue. The new rogue has been taking a more streamlined approach to leveling, skipping everything he can, and more importantly there's already a lot of stuff that you can't do anymore. And when I deleted the old one, also, I didn't realize that achievements would become a big part of the game, and he had a lot of achievements from back in the day. So almost on a whim this past weekend, I put in a petition to get the deleted character restored, and I also restarted leveling a low-level character I haven't played in a while, a shaman. She was created after vanilla WoW, but still, it's leveling through the world before it changes, which is the point.

Earlier tonight, I logged on, and there was my old rogue, back again. Undeleting works, yay - except he's naked. That's right, when I deleted him, I figured I shouldn't waste all his stuff. So I sold everything I could and mailed the gold to my main. Heh, um, oops. So now I have to choose: level my recently undeleted rogue, penniless and clad in really crappy gear, or continue with the new rogue, or level the shaman, or what?

To summarize for people unfamiliar with the game and for my own internal editor: I have too many options, none of them are really enticing at the moment, and the promise of interesting stuff is still way in the future. Oh well. I suppose I'll pay attention to real life for a while. :)