I have a love and hate relationship with World of Warcraft. Twice I’ve quit and returned to the world of Azeroth. First time I quit was in Cataclysm, out of boredom of grinding dailies but not having much else to do. I was not raiding actively back then, and logging in and out for a few heroics and dailies, especially with a few close friends having quit, stopped being fun. More than a year later, I got back in the game, when Mist of Pandaria released two years ago, due to a promise of a fun expansion. And it was! I loved that expansion, but had to quit last year due to work stress and declining health.
I kept away from world of warcraft after that until now, but the latest expansion Warlords of Draenor and my friends enticed me in coming back. I renewed my subscription and I played the game, pretty much all of last week. While there are many things in this expansion that deserve to be praised, the mini-game in garrison with followers and sending them on missions is very well done. It is very reminiscent of the follower game-play from Star Wars – The Old Republic MMO, when it had released, but unfortunately it didn’t do as well as I had initially hoped.
My initial post, when I started blogging, had listed my paladin and priest as my primary characters. But Mists of Pandaria changed that. I created a Monk character, and loved playing Windwalker monk and occasionally healing throughout the expansion, replacing both of the previous characters as my primary character. I’ve already leveled Rollingpin to level 100 and looking forward to raiding with the guild this week.
Having learned from my previous wow experiences, my goal this time around, is to not spent all of my time playing the game. I’ve experienced burn out, which ruins the game for me. Also, after having quit wow twice, I’ve realized that when I’m playing WoW, I focus on it completely, and I ignore all of my other hobbies and even forget to play other games. My to-play list on steam has grown immensely, since most of the last year, has also gone in playing Diablo – another one of Blizzard’s addictive games. This time, however, the goal is to take WoW in strides, having fun playing the expansion and raiding, while enjoying all the other hobbies. With the new flexible raiding feature, I’ve been told that the game now makes it easy to join and leave a raid group anytime, so I’m hoping that it will not stress me out by conforming to raid times and preparation day after day.
Here’s to another exciting expansion…
The score so far ... 