Posts with tag rookies

I played WoW on dial-up for a while, and during that time, it was close to impossible for me to raid anything but add-light 10-man content. So I did the only thing that seemed doable: leveled alts. A lot of them. While previously I had vowed to only level my rogue (my original main) to max level in any given expansion, I was suddenly the proud owner of six level 80 characters.

Even after I got back on actual broadband internet, Cataclysm's introduction of new races (especially Races That Are Worgen) gave me some more incentive to bring my number of max-level characters up to, well, its maximum level. So I finally listened to Matt Rossi and made a worgen warrior. He's awesome. And he tanks, a first for me. I've been leveling him almost exclusively through the dungeon finder, taking advantage of the instant queues for a dog what wears plate armor.

I'm still pretty new to tanking, but between new talent trees, heirlooms, and questing/dungeon gear with better stat balance, most low-level instances are a breeze. So I move fast. Sometimes a little faster than other people. The same kinds of people who attack from the front as a melee class or hit "need" on spirit weapons as a mage. And I would make snide remarks to those kinds of people.

Then I realized something. I was being kind of a jackass.

When I got my recruit a friend account it came with two lovely, full-color Bradygames guide books. Each is a 24.99 16.49 value with the Battle Chest purchase. The books have descriptions of all the races and classes. They go into some detail about the zones and many of the monsters in WoW. The guides contain tips on game play and various mechanics. I found them to be completely useless. They're outdated. They guides don't really give any tips on the nuances of the game. At times they are wildly inaccurate.

Granted, they may be helpful to brand new players, though not entirely more useful than small, black and white Game Manual that also comes in the box. As a rookie I never turned toward printed guides. I asked a lot of questions from resources like Thottbot, Petopia, and of course WoW Insider. Most of what I've learned, I've learned on the fly. The beautiful, colorful images must cost a small fortune to print. It all seems very excessive to me.

Most folks are probably at least aware of Shamus Young's DM of the Rings series. It was the only web comic I've ever religiously checked every day, on the off chance the creator was feeling kind and had put up an extra comic. DMotR has long since finished, but Shamus is still out there blogging on various gaming topics.

Shamus started playing World of Warcraft about a month ago, and has been having the same growing pains many of us rookies did in our younger levels. But since Shamus is something of a name in the pen-and-paper gaming Internet circuit, it's interesting to see what he has to say in his review of WoW.

His first complaint is about low drop rates for quest items -- yeah, the eyeless Murlocs of Westfall spring to my mind. Most of the other issues are pretty familiar (bag space, respawns, res sickness). But one that did really stick out for me was a complaint about the in-game day/night cycle. Shamus would prefer a four-hour cycle to Azeroth's day, so that he could actually see the change. I think it's a fair point, even if we have heard it before. So, Shamus's list doesn't really bring a brand new light to how we view Azeroth, but it's still an interesting read.