Developer: Blizzard Entertainment | Released: 2012 | Genre: MMORPG, Fantasy

So I finally gave in and went back to World of Warcraft to check out Mists of Pandaria – the expansion right after Cataclysm. Curiosity and nostalgia got the better of me. Last I played this game was about 6 years ago. In fact, the last report about it should be right here in the 2011 line of blog posts.

If you’re wondering how it’s like to level from 85 in 2017, in a time where two more expansions may have affected the balance of health and damage, look no further. It was all solo – no dungeons or raids.

And I can say right off the bat that it was too easy, even for a jellyfish like me. I can’t for logical reasons say if it was always like this or if the two later expansions and all their patches have affected the balance. I sure hope it was harder when the expansion arrived in 2012. I played my main Retribution Paladin and I could kill almost all solo enemies in approximately two ability attacks. Typically a judgment and then a follow-up. Solo enemies also did really weak damage to me, typically a total of much less than 10%. I rarely bothered with healing spells, food or bandages. The only place where it felt like Blizzard finally turned the tides was right after going through the wall gate into the north area of Townlong Steppes. There were a few mobs here that actually smacked my health bar down for me to see an actual gap.

But alas, it turned out to be the exception that proved the rule.

This is part 4 in a continuous series about my time in World of Warcraft, from when I started playing in 2005 and onwards. Part 1 is here in case you missed the beginning of it.

May 2005

Izz from our guild (a level 42 Priest) and I went to Arathi Highlands where I managed to close a couple of elite quests. First we killed the stone giant Fozruk (he was easier than I thought) and then we entered Stromgarde Keep to get the artifacts in the tower. Here we found a Paladin and a Warrior had just wiped. I resurrected them both, and as thanks they helped us both get the artifacts. It’s in situations like these that the game really shines and shows when an online game can be really fascinating.1 May 2005

One thing I have skipped so far is that I wanted Bricaard to be a great enchanter. I had increased this skill meticulously by disenchanting a lot of gear and buying materials from the auction house.

I managed to buy the final reagents at the auction house and was ready for a trip to Uldaman to reach the enchanting master. Degaul and Sebastianus from my guild lent me a hand, and we quickly found the inconveniently placed woman. I bought the artisan level and trained from 225 to 250 using the reagents, thereby squeezing all the recipes available out of her. Nice keeping it to just one trip.3 May 2005

After a few short visits here and there in Azeroth, I went to Hinterlands and picked up quests. The town Aerie Peak used new building prefabs I hadn’t seen before. There were planes and tanks inside. I killed trolls and found a lot of feathers. After delivering the quests I dinged to level 51 and was finally able to get the new buff spell Blessing of Kings. It could increase all the attributes of a player with 10%.

This is part 3 in a continuous series about my time in World of Warcraft, from when I started playing in 2005 and onwards. Part 1 is here in case you missed the beginning of it.

April 2005

I bought some plate armor at the auction. My level 40 paladin now had more than 2000 hit points and was getting close to 3000 armor. I redefined the keys Q for my mount and E for Seal of Command.

Along with Danes from my current guild we started a chain of runs in Scarlet Monastery, a big place that was split up in several smaller dungeon instances. The journey there was actually quite a hassle. We started in Southshore, rode past the magical sphere of Dalaran, swam through a lake with small islands, then rode through a low-level Horde zone with a couple of lethal “Level ??” PvP soldiers on our tails.

First we visited the Graveyard (the smallest with no quests) and then the Library. It went well for a while but on the way out we pulled too many. Here I tried using Divine Intervention, a timed shield of immunity to protect another player from harm while the enemies run back. Throwing this spell was always a suicide on my part and the other player was then supposed to revive the fallen party members afterwards.

Unfortunately the guildies didn’t know about this mechanism and we just wiped anyway.

Another not so cool thing was that our pulling player did so using his character instead of a ranged weapon or spell. Nevertheless it went better in the Armory and we even killed the boss Herod. As he died it started pouring in with several dozens of additional enemies, but luckily they were not elite and could be exterminated with area of effect (AOE) spells. We did okay – but there was still a lot to learn.

This is part 2 in a continuous series about my time in World of Warcraft, from when I started playing in 2005 and onwards. Part 1 is here in case you missed the beginning of it.

March 2005

After getting the guild tabard for Bricaard (it made me look like a royal knight) I helped my friend Marc with my priest for a while, but it was boring doing the same quests again that I had already done with Bricaard. It was probably the first good hint that leveling alts wasn’t really for me.

Bricaard then went to Duskwood, the third zone that took place in an ominous dark forest with undeads. I was together with Bulwai most of the time, and he told me about a Scandinavian guild that he was also a member of. All of the members were grownups and there was a friendly tone. Unfortunately the guild leader was on a ski vacation, so I had to wait a while in case I wanted to change guilds.

Questing with Bulwai in Duskwood was great some of the time, but it wasn’t always fantastic.

This is part 1 in a continuous series about my time in World of Warcraft, from when I started playing in 2005 and onwards. I can’t guarantee that I will go all the way, but I’ll try to add parts when I’m in the mood for more.

I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to video games in general. Back in the 80’s and 90’s on the C64 on Amiga, I was much more interested in coding, making chiptunes and being part of the demo scene culture. This continued in the 90’s on the PC where I was into AdLib music. I dabbled a little bit with adventure games and the first couple of Tomb Raider games, but I never considered it serious.

This changed radically in 2001 with an epiphany, almost like flipping a switch. Suddenly I was grabbed by single-player PC games and played them back to back, like I was possessed. Every game was pondered and described in my digital diaries, a writing habit I had started back in 1996 and still do to this day. I now considered it an honorable and fascinating hobby to experience and complete PC games.

I listed my victories in Excel and to anyone else, it might have seemed like genuine OCD.

But burning through single-player video games like that of course made me step up several times to keep the hobby fresh. I started playing RPG, a genre I had never really touched before. I didn’t only play the new stuff, I also went back and played a lot of the classic RPG and FPS. I completed isometric RPG like the Baldur’s Gate series and then Morrowind in 2004, a game I found too overwhelming at release.

After having completed more than 250 games and reaching 2005, I was starting to get a bit bored with a lot of single-player games. It was getting harder finding innovative titles and the novelty was wearing off. To make matters even worse, I was sort of slapped completely silly by one exceedingly impossible mission in Tribes: Vengeance that frustrated me enough to actually make me consider quitting the hobby.

I needed a change, and that’s when I started hearing about World of Warcraft.