Video of the week: Which version of Wow should I play in 2023?

 

Force Gaming's video on Wow is my pick for video of the week, considering I am planning to play wow again in the coming year. First up, apologies for the very infrequent posts this season, but when RL gets in the way, social media becomes an easier way to communicate and to get my message across, especially when my Youtube hasn't been updated.

So I got the itch to venture back into mmos, specifically Azeroth. The main reason I had stopped playing it was due to the fact I was getting too many disconnects at my new place where the internet is not optimal. 

That and the fact I found a regular gaming group IRL for a weekly D&D table top role playing game session.

Prior to this I had been playing hardcore in non-official servers but Blizzard finally realized how popular (and lucrative for them) that game mode has turned out to be and they finally created official hardcore servers.

On the retail side, I leveled up my undead rogue up to 18, but I am interested in trying out Chromie time and replaying some of the old content, even though in order to do so you need to have at least one character at max. Nevertheless, despite having to start on Battle for Azeroth, whose starting zone is my least favorite one for horde, I managed to have fun chatting my friends on discord and enjoying some game time on Christmas vacation.

So which game will I play moving forward? I am thinking classic hardcore, even though it requires a subscription, that game mode is great for the same reasons I think D&D old school is great: A more dangerous game and therefore more of a challenge than easy mode. What gamer doesn't love a challenge if given a choice? In fact this type of permadeth gaming has been around for a while, I remember blogging about it in the past for games like DDO, for example.

I also heard that it was announced in this year's Blizzcon that the next three expansions of the retail version of the game will all be interconnected in terms of story. This is a mixed bag as far as I am concerned. For the little I played of BfA, the story wasn't great, it was just OK. The jailer is only a meh villain, even though what they did with Sylvanas was interesting. I don't admit to be very knowledgeable about that, although I really like the lore of the game, especially when it comes to the horde, that was never the sole sticking point of venturing in Azeroth for me. The interactive experience of figuring things out and later seeking out a guild to play with, that is the social aspect of mmos is what I mostly look for in these types of online activities.

"Season of discovery" mode is also interesting to me because I have not tried it out. The idea of discoveries in game is not new, I have encounter similar experiences in other games, but the way Blizzard is implementing with open world pvp events really appeal to me because I love pvp, but not necessarily pvp servers. Not to mention the open world pvp zones in classic and the progression servers where you can play Cataclysm and older expansions. 

I want social interaction in my mmo? Weird I know. I will have more to say about this in future videos. Happy Holidays to all. 

The Lich King rises again

My dealings with the Lich King as a faithful servant in game in 2022.

 

World of Warcraft was one of my favorites mmos in the 2000s, starting with 2007 but I never really got to experience the full impact of Wrath of the Lich King because even though I started playing after TBC, I was mostly a casual and doing low level newbie stuff and content. I played on and off from 2008 to about 2014 and then didn't really log on again until classic dropped in the summer of 2019. 

I distinctly recall playing a good chunk of it in 2007-08, staying up late on weekend nights doing dungeons or world and pvp. I recall how fun it was to make alts of the different races on the horde side. Even though I did buy Warcraft 2 when it was new, I never really got into the RTS as much as I did the mmo. 

This is a good time to get back into wow, or at least that is what Blizzard wants us to believe with the upcoming release of WoTLK classic later this month. 

So it is the hopes of the developer that they are banking on nostalgia when they had (arguably) their most successful expansion and they want us all to experience it, especially those of us who didn't experience it to the fullest. They are certainly making it easy as they gave me a free level 50 boost and have made Shadowlands free content, which they usually do before another expansion drops. Thus I have been playing Shadowlands and trying to get my warrior to max level, but really it is just biding my time until Classic WotLK drops. 

I have been thinking a lot about classic versions of games versus their modern counterparts because of my involvement with D&D 5e and the ongoing debates about game mechanics of old and new ones being added to that game, especially with the recent announcement of the One D&D playtest. 

And let's be honest, what is wow but a better version of the official D&D video games and mmos? I think DDO is great, but it never really captured the mainstream's attention or became part of the zeitgeist quite like wow did. DDO and Neverwinter are fun mmos in their own right, but wow was virtual D&D done right, if you don't believe me, remember how influential mmos and wow in particular were to the design of D&D 4e in 2008? That was not an accident. 

I suppose as long as there is legacy content in any medium, there will always be the possibility of debates about which version (or in the case of D&D which edition) was actually best. While I am not an old gronard or hating on 5e like many people do online, I do realize that these type of arguments will always exist and people will have their preferences about which version of whatever game they like best.

I will admit that I am a bit excited about another expansion launch, no I am not talking about Dragonflight, I am talking about Wrath Classic, we all knew it was coming after Blizzard made Classic TBC a thing. I really like the feeling of a full world and servers teeming with new and returning players and I think Wrath Classic will bring that kind of excitement back to wow. 

For the horde!!!