Life continues to be interesting in World of Warcraft, and progress is steady. Most remarkable of all, my usual Level-Buddy is still actually my level, which is quite a departure from the norm in my experience. We’re approaching 30, which I realise is not an especially arduous feat, but the options for different sorts of evenings online are continuing to open up.
There is the bread and butter of course; the thousands of solo quests available, and one thing I’m having trouble coping with is that I don’t have to do them all. I’m usually quite obsessive about the Quest Journal, and tend to end up going round and meticulously ticking them off, even if they’ve gone grey and the reward is worth far less than the time it takes to finish them. The idea that I can just throw some away is a difficult one for me, but what with the associated mob-bashing each needs, the xp you get tends to make you level far faster than the poor old book can keep up with.
Then there are the Instances, which frankly, are a genius idea. I’ve seen the odd debate raised on the nature of the ‘MM’ in MMOs, and how instances are degrading that, but I often wonder how many of those other players are actually relevant to any given player anyway. EVE Online is a good example, boasting around 15,000 players online in the same game world. It's nice to be popular of course, but really, how many of those are you going to actually interact with in any given session, let alone see in the same bit of infinity as yourself?
I also quite like the culture of the Pick-Up Group, which is much derided by the more hardcore guildfolk, and regrettably probably not sustainable for the top-end game. (As if I'll actually get there...ha!) I’ll confess to viewing these outings as ‘material’, rather than in the spirit they’re meant, but to be fair, despite the odd blogable Bad Expedition, on the whole, many of these random strangers do seem to at the very least be competent and businesslike about the task at hand, and often quite friendly people as well, and the very fact that it is a task, a specific heroic endeavour, rather than a vague ongoing drive for continual self-improvement through xp, makes the Instance Crawl stand out as a memorable event in an otherwise pleasantly unremarkable life online.
Then there are the usual staples of alternative play, exploring, trade skills, the ever-popular fishing; all fine distractions for a change of pace. And then there’s the whole PvP thing. My own views on PvP are probably quite well known to regular readers by now, but the WoW system really does present fights where you have nothing to lose, except maybe pride and a few silvers for equipment repair. Again, I’ve seen a lot of people being quite negative about the idea of riskless PvP – ‘what’s the point?’ and so on, but it’s exactly that kind of freedom from consequence that has allowed even a fuzzy little carebear like me to occasionally flag up and go flailing about the Crossroads - with no hope of winning, but no fear of losing. I wonder how many other lowbie green-names would be there, being extensively trampled by the usual hourly Lv 50+ Alliance Crossroads ‘Raid’ if the penalties were harsher?
It’s fun, a bit of a giggle, and a ‘now and then’ alternative to grinding quests, but not really a primary gameplay style for me. So when my Level Buddy noticed that we were now eligible for the Battlegrounds, I made various non-committal noises. I’m sure the words ‘..in theory..’ were used as well. It’s one thing to willingly throw yourself in the path of the raid, as fodder, not expecting to win, but faced against an equal and balanced team, it becomes a lot more difficult to find a reason for losing other than ‘u suck’, which doesn’t do wonders for my already ravaged self-esteem.
My main source of trepidation though, is not so much their team, but ours. I laud Pickup Groups, but would have to agree that some times you get real muppets along for the ride. In a PvP situation, that kind of thing is a lot harder to compensate for with exceptional play of your own, and much more than being just killed a lot, I fear being the one that makes our team lose. I am quite likely to be that one for a good many matches to start with.
But I guess you only learn by trying, so I took my Level Buddy to an out of the way spot and we duelled a bit to get the feel of things. I doubt the Battlegrounds are anywhere near as simple as a friendly one-on-one, what with flags, and team tactics, and all the rest, but as I’m always telling my Instance groups; ‘Don’t worry…everyone has to start somewhere! :)'
I find my own advice is always the hardest to follow. Look out for the harrowing story of a Warsong Gulch Deflowering next week!