World of Warcraft Forever
After almost two decades away, I've returned to World of Warcraft.
World of Warcraft Forever was released earlier this month, and because I have such good memories from playing in the early 2000s, I decided to jump into it and make a new character to explore the world of Azeroth once more. And I'm having an absolute blast!
You can see my character above, a dwarf hunter who's currently level 13, with her pet wolf. Her name is Tala Snowshear, and her wolf's name is Orome, a reference to one of the Valar (or gods) in Tolkien's lore of Middle Earth. I'm playing on a Roleplay server, which means people stick pretty closely to the lore of the game when naming their characters and communicating.
The game's General Chat, along with the couple of experiences I've had being in a party, have been so wholesome. Everyone seems genuinely excited to be back in the classic game, or to be experiencing it for the first time. People are helpful and kind, and General Chat is full of conversation that's both humorous and comforting. It's honestly restoring my faith in humanity.
I decided to make a dwarf for a very simple reason: I wanted to start in a snowy, wintry area. I adore the dwarven starting locations. It's a winter wonderland nestled in mountains, with the falling snow alternating between gentle and full-on blizzard. I've loved being back in Dun Morogh and Loch Modan. You can also start there as a gnome, but I wanted to be a hunter so I could have a pet, and I love the stocky dwarves.
At the moment, I'm solo questing while on the lookout for a guild. I'm looking for something laid-back where I can just chat while questing and party up with like-minded folk every now and then. I don't know how long I'm going to stick with the game, to be honest, but right now I want to for quite some time. I was never big into raiding or endgame content back in the day. I did participate in some of it, but the Battlegrounds were more my jam. We'll see how things go this time around. At the moment, I'm considering myself a pretty casual player.
It's funny how easily everything is coming back to me. I played through the Burning Crusade expansion and a little bit of Wrath of the Lich King, and playing now is like reactivating long-dormant muscles. I'm a little rusty, but for the most part I remember how to do everything. There have been a couple of basic mechanics that I had to quickly look up, like how to fish, but most everything has come creaking back into my brain.
WoW is the MMORPG that has always appealed to me the most. I just click with its mechanics much better than any other MMO I've played. It's great to be back!