Back in the day – Cataclysm – I loved running dungeons. Those three Hour of Twilight dungeons, I never got tired of them. I ran them on all my alts and I liked it. I’m on record as saying this before, I could dig in the archives for proof but I can’t be bothered. Anyway, the two reasons I give for why I found this seemingly repetitious content compelling was that I got to play the different class, and get into the class fantasy of it all AND I got to make incremental progress so my playtime felt worthwhile.

I’m talking justice/valor points here which went the way of the dodo right after.

I’m pretty sure I’m also on record as saying that Mists killed alts. I’m pretty sure I wrote complaining posts about it, about how blizz had gutted my playstyle, how everything had become raid or die thanks to the reputation gating etc. I wasn’t happy basically but it was ok because I was raiding on my main, so I just got my alts up to level to use the farm and get mats and then produce stuff re: professions that my main wanted. However once I stopped raiding, that’s when I took my first break, and then Warlords felt like more of the same and that’s when I quit for 2.5 years, which I thought was for good at the time.

INVASIONS

That’s my thought really in that they are my new dungeons. I’m taking my alts 100-110 through the Legion invasions. I get to play the class, it’s slow incremental progress, and it’s also discrete progress. There is a beginning and an end to the invasion, just like a dungeon. That means I can feel that I’m ‘done’ with the session.

The only problem is of course that they only last/exist between 100-110. Battle has the assaults which seem to mechanically work the same way, but I haven’t tested whether they work while levelling like the invasions do. I think there might be an issue with the other factions continent. However, even then we’re still talking crawling to max level and what happens at max level?

To be honest right now the class gets abandoned. I’m getting everything to 110 and then I’ll cycle through to 120. I have a lot of Allied Races to level, and I want to do it Horde-side because I never have done their quests and I want to see their side of the story, like I have done all through Battle. Anyway, it’s not a consideration right now because I have far too much to do in game to worry about classes sitting at max level. I’ve not levelled any professions after Warlords, I only have one class at max level!

Which brings me to a funny point to end this ramble on – part of my brain still considers 110 to be max level /facepalm. I was reading about the Gnome heritage armour. I haven’t thought to take my Horde Demon Hunter to get the Blood Elf armour (I probably should!) and I don’t have a max level Dwarf, but I have two Gnomes at 110 and I was considering which one I’d use, when I realized that they have to be 120 so that’s not going to be happening for a while. I think it’s a shame because apparently there’s story info re: faction leader fate on both sides (my Tauren is only level 90).

Actually one last point on this ramble – story! I love story and again I’m on record as having wanted class quests forever and then blizz delivered with class halls. I still love it, still think it’s really awesome, but with class quests and race quests – that’s an awful lot to level and have in order to access the material. Especially! Because the levelling is all through old content. I mentioned that Horde-side is new to me but it certainly won’t be once I’ve taken the half dozen alts that on the slate through it. Alliance-side has been done, some of it more than others as thankfully not all material is necessary to progress so there are alternate paths, but still I have 11 level 100’s, plus three more around the level 90 mark.

The last post I made about Warcraft I think was regarding a potential level squish, and instead I suggested that all characters were basically boosted (which they’ll never do as it means they won’t be able to sell level boosts anymore, although side note: who the hell buys them? They are £50!!!). Anyway if all characters were taken to 110 then the content wouldn’t have such a high gate on it. Like I said in the post, they could signpost people to “experience the story of the Lich King” or “the expedition to Outland” etc. because new players should know the content is there! It’s still really good content, but older players who have done it a few times already, don’t then have to do it again unless they want to, in which case it’s there for them to do anyway. I mean there are certain quests I love to repeat.

Anyway I do love Allied Races. I think unlocking them is super cool. Although I think blizz missed a trick by not making the scenarios repeatable. I really loved the Mag’har one and would have done it several times over. However, there’s no getting around the fact that it is really just cosmetic, plus some flavourful racials. The actual content to play through is the same.

Now it’s still different from max level. I mean obviously the downside to boosting everything to max level is then there is a tendency to stay there, which has the potential to be boring. At least levelling offers a varied environment and enemies. So there are benefits to playing through the older content, might have done it a lot back in the day, but it’s an alternative to the current content. I don’t really know what I’m saying here except that I think there is an issue. I have a lot of characters to level and I’m not doing it and I’m not really sure why. I played very laser-focused in order to unlock my dino-druid and I haven’t touched it since creation.

Maybe it’s down to discrete play sessions. Levelling doesn’t really have a definitive beginning and end as it’s a journey. I mean sure you can try and say “play until rested runs out” or “do x zone” (unless x zone is huge). I guess you can also say, “play until the next level” but maybe I do have what they said in the article – level intimidation. Once I get to level 85-90 or so I feel more comfortable, but until then it does just feel like more of a grind. Perhaps it’s because once I get to level 90-ish, it does feel more like it’s all downhill, like I’m getting there, whereas at level 30, there’s still the mountain to climb. This is somewhat ridiculous because there’s no point in having these characters at max level to be honest, so the point of playing them is the journey. I guess I just like to have targets to meet, and I’m not so good at the journey.

Does this make sense? No. Am I contradicting myself? Probably.

You see with a game it IS all about how it feels, whether it feels good or not. It’s like intellectually I know one thing, but I feel another. Like my wants and my feelings aren’t properly aligned.

Dino-druids are still cool though 🙂