For 16 years I've managed the knawing inevitability that I'd end up taking an all-consuming holiday to Azeroth, well over the last month, I've finally caved. Personally, I was curious to see what I would've experienced as a naive pre-teen all them years ago so World of Warcraft Classic was the obvious choice. So I paid the subscription and dived into an experience most gamers first paid witness to back in 2004.
With some experience of Guild Wars 2 under my belt, the general gist and gameplay loop of MMO's is not new to me and I was ready to be guided around the biggest world in gaming, I felt confident going into WOW classic... ignorance really is bliss.
I decided to play dwarf hunter, partly because I live close to Scotland, but mainly because the only other race I liked was the female night elf but this just made me feel dirty. So I chose a stunted walking beard instead and loaded into Coldridge Valley, the dwarven starting zone.
Horrible Gnomes and Helpful Players
After a race-specific introduction showing the dwarves as a race of industrious scots that, just like in real life, love booze and are impervious to the cold. After this intro, I knew I'd made the right decision. As it turns out starting zones are very lonely places and I spent the first seven levels wandering the cold wastes alone shooting wolves and helping some horrific gnomes find their tools.
It was lonely and freezing, but in WOW there are other lonely wanderers around you. It was at this point I met a fellow dwarf called, Cough*... Dysentery. It's no slant on him though, he's anything but shit at this game. He proceeds to help me reach level 10 and takes me to Ironforge where we take an awesome train to Stormwind to get professions, where I decide (I'm told) the life of an engineer coalminer is for me.
Good old Dysentery tells me to help him level in Goldshire for a while till he catches me up, I do so happily; while he explains the game and how it works to me like a child learning to walk... slowly.
I've barely played three hours and I'm already starting to see what draws people to WOW classic, I already feel the power of the community, the scale of the world and the pursuit of some sort of meaningful journey to level 60.
Its already clear that If I'd played this at age 11, as the world obviously intended, I would be writing this from beyond the (man) cave.
The Constant Haunting of Westfall
Our very one-sided partnership finally got on a level playing field my and online buddy told me where we should head next. Westfall. Its a hideously orange farmland filled with things that want to hurt your tiny dwarven frame and kill your new friends in front of you.
We started questing in the cornfields and it didn't take long for me to experience the famed format for WOW classics "rewarding" quests. Find 15 bandanas on a small band of enemies that respawn slowly and rarely drop them, despite them all clearly wearing bandanas.
This first proper questing session was fraught with mistakes and deaths, all because of me, my tiny brain and lack of understanding of how games work. I have a habit of blindly walking backwards while fighting and inviting all mobs around us to a party, a very non-fun party at that. This is where I started to get experience with another pillar of "Classic" gameplay the patented, bone-chilling, humbling experience; corpse walking.
After four hours of collecting discarded blood-soaked clothing and slaughtering wildlife, we wandered up a road to do the all-important quest chain for what would lead me to my first dungeon in World of Warcraft. We just had to find a teleporting NPC takes you all over Westfall on the most depressing merry-go-round... around. I died multiple times but finally (after 2 hours) I did finish it.
A Dungeon Dweller in WOW and Now IRL
My first dungeon run as is I'm told tradition took place in the early hours of the morning with my new online buddy. Only it wasn't a heroic band of misfits taking on a pirate king as it should have been. It consisted of me sitting back and waiting for my good old partner to clear the room using his hideously over-levelled main while I picked up the loot... like the brave, cuckolded, glory stealing dwarf that my character is apparently.
We, I mean he, destroyed everything in the dungeon without losing a slither of health while I was almost mauled by a baby bat at one stage. I got some great loot though.
It wasn't till the following evening that I'd run Deadmines properly. Good old Dys(entery) helped me to not make a fool of myself. Helpfully explaining the rolling mechanic and the ever confusing etiquette that goes along with it... apparently needing for everything's just not the "Classic" way.
We strategically slew packs of mobs one after the other when after killing two guards I 'need' for a great sword and win, then I need for several gems,which i think is justified by me having an engineer profession but as it turns out this infuriated 'Dent' a warrior human who clearly was in need of his Bi-hourly Ritalin dosage.
His temper eased though when we handed him 'Smites Mighty Hammer' then immediately our slightly under-levelled party wipes entirely and is left two mobs from the main boss. Heartbroken and tired our great fellowship snapped as easy as soggy breadstick and I went to bed.
This run of Deadmines took me up to almost level 20, and to what I consider to be the conclusion to my opening hours of WOW classic. As I mentioned before, it's obvious what brings people back and why I'll continue to play this ancient, amazing, all-consuming game. Its the immense, connected world filled with lore, the allotted dopamine fix from levelling and most importantly the strangers that help you through it. It really is a game like no other and despite its quirks and evident aged design ill keep playing and keep writing these silly articles.
GO TRY IT !!!
