Warcraft

I'm back playing Warcraft, but I don't think I'm staying for long.

The reason for returning are pretty much the standard reasons I end up getting caught up with the game - a bunch of friends (in this case co-workers) all start playing again on a new server, in the case Cenerion Circle, Horde side. A lot of folk say they're building new characters, and we'll all advance together, so I go along with it and reactivate the account.

And pretty much the standard things have happened. You miss a day and suddenly you're three levels behind. Miss another and you're five levels. Miss a third and you friends aren't even on the same continent with you. And then they build alts, and THOSE pass you.

I've tried this time to dedicate a part of the day to keeping up, but it just doesn't work out to my advantage. And some of the players are bringing over characters from other servers, so I'm looking at being the low person in the guild. And this will go until we get a new shiny objects and they move onto it.

Now mind you, I'm enjoying myself. The 1-20 early game experience is pretty nice and diverse, and I'm running a Shaman for the first time, and the specials for that class come together in a nice story line. And I've run a few instances (they have made changes which have made the instances a little more accessible). And playing with a group of game designers has its own amusements in chat (my favorite quote to date is "This EA was spawned by drunken monkey robots!").

And the economy is not broken, but is severely sprained, with a huge drive for ore for the new crafting operations. I thought this would go away after everyone had adapted to Burning Crusade, but there is a lot of money to made in the auction house just from getting your alt to go mining (and mine hangs out in southern Durotaur, which is pretty empty these days).

And I'm not that shabby a player - my exposure to my co-workers is rubbing off a little more. I'm better with my timing and knowing when to pull and when to just run. So that's different than last time, when I always felt struggling with the options available.

So its not that bad, but I'm keeping an eye out for the inevitable topping out, of people drifting off, losing interest, and finding new toys. And then I'll close this one out again. Because the big reason for playing the game is the people you hang out with, and its a pretty good gang.

More later,