There are More Questions than Answers...

on the reworking of old memories, the loss of innocence and the need to belong...

The last time I tried Classic I made it to about L25 and found myself questioning the validity of going through the process again. After all, at that point there was no Season of Discovery option, nowhere else to go. So, I stopped. Then it became popular to remaster old shit for financial gain across the entirety of the video games industry, and now suddenly we’re back here, 20 years on, being offered it again.

Except it isn’t ‘Classic’ Classic.

Yesterday it was confirmed additional changes were coming due to ‘player feedback’ which includes instant mail between characters, the removal of the buff/debuff limit and crucially the introduction of dual specs, making it considerably easier for healer and tanks to level more easily. There is also an experimental feature announced today to restrict layer hopping in an attempt to balance faction loads on PVP Realms.

Despite all this, I am still thinking about playing PvP this time around.

My biggest single issue playing at all currently is Time: it’s why I haven’t looked at the game since Sunday night. I intend to spend some of my precious resource this evening cleaning up my Character List and deciding who gets to 80 next. I think the only way Classic is going to work for me is if there’s no rush to make 60, but I know this player base well enough to understand that this isn’t how it will work for many of them.

Somebody ‘out there’ is already planning to get to 60 as soon as humanly possible, ignoring both sleep and common sense (and undoubtedly doing it for VIEWS). There will be people planning to max everything for VIEWS. Mostly this is going to be a content-driven event that will capture the imagination for a few weeks before the new interim patch drops on Retail, and we all need to farm for new shit again.

In two decades, very little has changed in that regard except the reporting.

What used to frustrate me so much about the game has passed, it must be said. Not having to worry about finding a Guild removes the biggest single obstacle to progress, and I’m confident I could easily end up somewhere decent if I committed to a grind, but honestly there is too much else going on in reality to get to that level. This is where it becomes apparent that there are more important things to do.

A part of me is sad about this as well, but not sad enough. Instead we’ve spent some time today organising a path for the poetry, and tomorrow we’re gonna write some fiction, based on a piece of music I first heard back in Warlords of Draenor. If that all works out well? Who knows what we’ll do next, but that’s my Roadmap Post for the start of December. Well, if ActiBlizz can have one, then so can I…