Wednesday 5 December 2012

20 Days of WoW blogging #4

No no, I haven't abandoned this challenge. I started it in November, but a ton of other stuff happened and I ended up posting over 20 times over the passed month, so I placed this one aside temporarily. But now blog stuff has calmed down and I dive back into the depths of my hazy mind to ponder this WoW thing.

Check out Spellbound to learn more about the challenge!

Day 4 – Your best WoW memory

After giving it a thorough thought I came to the conclusion that it's not a concrete event or anything like that that I want to talk about here. It's an emotional experience that occurred over time. It's the feeling of having experienced something, conquered something, learnt something. For example, we lacked maps to most instances until Cataclysm. Back when we didn't have the maps, I had to learn to navigate through those places with my visual memory. It was a challenge, being quite new to the game otherwise, too, but once I finally figured out the places and found something - or someone -, it was a very rewarding experience.

I'm not saying that I miss the time before instance maps, or that they should be removed from the game. No. They make a very good addition and should have existed longer than they have. It's very similar to people who claim that vanilla was the best era of WoW. They don't really think so, but mix up game features with their own feelings. They don't miss the server crashes, class imbalance or incompetent specs. They just really liked the feeling they had when they finished that grind that once seemed endless, or finally found an instance group after requesting one for three hours.

So, the World of Warcraft without instance maps was more annoying for a newbie than the World of Warcraft with instance maps, but looking back at the learning experience, I realise that the endurance it requires to crawl through phases like that is an important part of "bonding" with the game. I'm not happy that WoW has been tuned for people that prefer to have things handed over to them, but instead of complaining about them having it easier than I had, I rather reflect on my own experiences in the past and rejoice that I had to learn things the hard way... for I am the lucky one there.

4 comments:

  1. I'd just like to say that the new background and header is very nice. I especially like the header :)

    Your best WoW memory was surprising, since I was expecting a concrete event, but I also like the idea of the best WoW feeling.

    I'm not sure what my best WoW memory was... maybe the first time on my frostsaber with a WoW friend, that was cool. And let me just say... Utgarde Pinnacle! And a kill on Zon'ozz after thousands of wipes, the euphoria or 'mental orgasm' was exhilarating.

    The are so many aspects with this game that it's hard to narrow down just one memory.

    But yeah, get rid of maps and making things too - for what it's worth, when people had to work together, they enjoyed it, even though they complained... eveything on a platter tends to become boring...

    Wow, my longest comment ever!

    :*

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    1. Thank you thank you! I especially like the header, too, 'cause ma babycakes is there!

      I agree about those events - well I wasn't present at frostsaber but the others. Utgarde Pinnacle was quite legendary, and Zon'ozz was a great achievement, as was Elegon. But I felt I could tell a lot of memories like that, where this one can be applied to so many different things. And it is a 'memory' after all, because I don't really feel that way anymore... except a little bit in Blackrock Spire, simply because I've spent so little time there. :D Which is quite awesome. I love it when I don't know how to do something!

      Even though people complained, it was easier to recognise the nice people and those that are worth spending time with, through those experiences.

      I'm always happy when you comment <3

      :***

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  2. Oh goody, you joined this event... I already done mine last year and its a really good event. Keep it coming! =)

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    1. I love blogging challenges and it looked like a good one, where I could really think about stuff. :) I'll have to search for your posts and see what you've written in it!

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