World of Warcraft used to be a huge part of my life. It was one of the few games I could ever say I was truly addicted to. Some friends convinced me to play about a month before the original Naxxramas patch dropped, and though I worried my vision problems would keep me from enjoying the game or being any good at it, they helped me learn the ropes and work around most of the issues.
Considering my disability, I fell in love with the healing role and played well into the Mists of Pandaria expansion. I was logged in all the time, found an incredible guild of friends called The New Scourge, and even did the raiding thing for a while, but eventually, I wanted more time to write and play other games. So, I weaned myself off of it, as you do with any drug. Now, years later, someone asked if I wanted to cover WoW: Forever for work. Mistakes were made.
What does “Forever” even mean? Well, for WoW, it’s a trip back to their classic material, focusing on original content, the heart of Azeroth, when the level cap was 60, and everything seemed new, fresh, and undiscovered. This time, Blizzard is seemingly not raising that number or shuffling players off to other worlds with large expansions, but rather growing horizontally, adding more to what they already have. This isn’t just another version of WoW Classic. It’s almost kind of an alternate path for how things could have gone, and it’s already making changes in the right direction.
As expected, there are way more quality-of-life choices included in Forever, not only things to make playing more enjoyable, but a few that just seem irresponsible to play without now. There are HD models that players can toggle on and off (though sometimes they look odd). We can hold more quests in our log, and many rewards are account-wide now, including some permanent advantages that may be unlocked.
And though it still has some of that old-school, rough-and-tumble brand of thinking tied to it, the game is a bit easier and much less stressful. Tracking quests and finding information is better in general, as many features are simply built-in without over-crowding the original UI — and whatever isn’t there likely has an add-on at the ready.
There is more to do, too, as this new version of the level climb has added over a thousand new quests to fill out areas, additional zones, and nine unconquered dungeons. I’m really digging the new race and the fact that I can play an Undead Paladin or Dwarf Shaman now, which helps balance out the two warring factions.
Hell, I’m even interested in trying out the controller support.
But then the test period ended. I was cut off from the character I’d been working on — missing something. I found myself looking at the Retail servers, curious what the game felt like now, what had changed, and that curiosity got the best of me.
First, though, I’d have to rename most of my characters because of my extended absence. My Paladin, the one with all of my mounts, toys, gear sets, and accolades, was named Mercy. Since I was a healer, there weren’t many better names. Frustration set in as I tried to come up with one. After many pop-ups telling me that clever name I just thought of was already taken, I started typing in random names and phrases. I happened to be watching SmackDown at the time, so now my… great, plate-wearing, scholarly, Blood Elf healer goes by the name… of Wwe.
It makes me want to throw something. I need to build up enough gold to get that changed.
After that serious rookie mistake, I saw the “Catch-Up Available” tag for most of my characters. The last time I dipped my toes back into the game was to play Burning Crusade Classic briefly, but before that, my most recent experience with Retail was at the beginning of the Legion expansion. So, needless to say, a lot had changed.
The catch-up barely scratched the surface of just how much I had missed. A ton of things that may seem small, put together, were leaving me feeling stranded in the familiar. I went and ran my favorite raid of all time, Karazhan, to make myself feel better. Thankfully, some old friends and new allies were there to help me out, to answer my questions and show me around, as well as run some dungeons when the Timewalking event hit. I have a much better grasp on most of it now, but there is a ton of content I’ve missed, and I’m still getting used to things that simply aren’t here anymore or don’t seem important now.
What the hell happened to Archeology?
When I started asking those types of questions, I realized: I had made a big mistake. Suddenly, I’m logging in every day to do the Headless Horseman event and a dungeon, but now I’m looking at how I can get better gear, work on my talent spec, level my professions… And you can buy WoW game time with gold now. What?
The grind is real. Real fun. I knew it was over when I re-downloaded Healbot, and I’m back to doing what I love in this game: healing dungeons. I’m really back now, addiction and all. I want to stop writing this article to go play more, because I’m so close to level 90 and I have alts that need my attention. You have to understand, I need one max character of every class and each profession at the highest level or I…
Deep breaths…
Okay, maybe it’s not quite that bad yet, but honestly, I’m having so much fun. I’m leveling one of these fox things, a Vulpera Mage, with my wife, and we are both loving running through The Burning Crusade (it is absolutely my favorite) content again. We talk about it every day and are both stoked for WoW: Forever. I cannot believe I’m letting people convince me to go Alliance; I’ve always been Horde for life.
I’m getting distracted again. Maybe this is a honeymoon period of going back to something I used to love, or simply having my wife and friends tag along with me is skewing my judgment somewhat, but the other night I died in a dungeon because our tank was a level ten and I didn’t even get upset — I was just happy to play and get lost in the moment. WoW: Forever is going to bring back a beloved structure, the core of what got me so into this game in the first place, and I want to be there for this again. But I never thought you’d catch me back in the main game, this invested in it all over again. I’m not sure if World of Warcraft will last forever, but something about it is so magical and alluring.
I hope I can still find time to write…
Writer’s Note: Special thanks to jtbrig, Spud, Zyn, Gore, FQ, and Vitali for answering all my dumb questions, running dungeons with me, and not letting your healer die.
