Preparing for Classic

What's wrong with you, woman? Classic is still at least six months away, what could there possibly be to prepare for?

Well, you're kind of right, but a) I'm excited and b) with how long it takes to level in a Vanilla environment, finding a class and role that you enjoy are not trivial things, as getting it wrong will result in a lot of lost time and potentially having to re-start from scratch.

Faction

Since I'm a goodie two-shoes at heart, it's only natural that I gravitated towards the Alliance when I first started playing WoW. However, in practical terms I actually spent much more time playing the game as Horde, simply because the social circle which I was a part of initially fell apart only a few months into the experience, at which point I ended up re-rolling to join another friend's established Horde raiding guild.

I'm thinking that Alliance will be my faction of choice if I end up levelling mostly on my own, but I guess if I end up in the company of friends who prefer Horde, it won't be any skin off my back.

Classes

I can group the nine Vanilla classes into three groups: definitely want to play, kind of want to play, and definitely don't want to play.

Definitely want to play:

Priest: It's the class that I most identify with, that I mained through pretty much my entire time in WoW (except for a short time raiding as a resto druid when holy priests were horribly broken at the end of Wrath), and it's the class that gave this blog its name. My only worry is that soloing as a priest kind of sucks and both of the priests that I rolled on private servers didn't get very far before I gave up on them. There's also a bit of a risk that me playing priest again might make the whole thing feel like I'm trying too hard to relive the past, which isn't actually what I'm striving for as it doesn't feel too good.

Druid: Druid has probably been my second favourite class in WoW for a long time, and I was having a pretty good time with the one I rolled on Elysium until my journey was unexpectedly cut short. I love both their versatility (even if things work a bit different in Classic) and the whole theme of the class.

Hunter: Hunter is another class that I have a close affinity with, despite of never taking one beyond alt status. I did love all the micromanagement involved with ammo and pets, and it's obviously a great choice for soloing. If I mostly end up playing on my own, hunter might be the way to go.

Kind of want to play:

Paladin: Like the druid, the classic paladin is a class that appeals to me both in terms of theme as well as in play style, but the thing that's honestly putting me off a bit is that I did go through the process of levelling one from one to sixty on Kronos already. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but even though it was "only" on a private server, there's a certain feeling of "been there, done that" to it right now that makes me want to prioritise something else in Classic.

Mage: I levelled a mage in early Burning Crusade and quite enjoyed it. I generally like spell-casting, and I appreciate that for a pure dps class, mages bring a lot of utility to groups, what with their buffs, sheep, the ability to conjure food and water, and being able to send the whole party straight home with a portal at the end of a dungeon. I'm thinking that this one might be a good choice if I end up in a position where I'm not sure whether I'll be soloing a lot or doing more grouping, but then druid is even better for that.

Shaman: This is another hybrid class that I remember with a lot of fondness, but I didn't actually level one myself until Wrath of the Lich King, and I think soloing as a shammy was a lot clunkier in Vanilla than it was by the point I played one, so I'm a bit worried about overestimating just how much I'd enjoy the play style.

Definitely don't want to play:

Warrior, rogue or warlock. The first two are really popular and powerful in Vanilla, but I just never enjoyed the play style or their theme very much. Bashing/stabbing things just isn't really my cup of tea. And warlocks are basically evil mages.

Who to play with?

I've already alluded to it in some of the points above, but this question is going to be the real crux of the matter. I'm quite flexible both in terms of faction choice as well as which class/role to play, but it will be very much dependent on who keeps me company, if anyone.

Old friends? Part of me wants to just re-recruit the friends of old with whom I'm still in touch and go on a big nostalgia tour with the lot of them. However, if I'm being honest I don't expect that to succeed. Basically most of them either stopped playing without moving on to any other MMO (which to me indicates that it was probably just a phase in their lives rather than an true interest in the genre) or they are still happily living the (virtual) life in current WoW. I'm sure I could get some of them to roll up a character with me, but in all likelihood they would soon drift back to whatever they were doing before.

Bloggers? There's probably also going to be the option to play with some fellow bloggers. I'm sure there'll be a fair number of them interested in WoW Classic once it launches. And I imagine that it could be fun... for a while. However, without meaning any disrespect to anyone, my general experience with most of the multi-gaming bloggers I follow, the ones who'll be the most interested in Classic, is that they tend to jump into whatever's the new hotness for a week to a month, and then they get bored and move on. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; I'm just saying it's probably not the best option for someone like me who has the intention of sticking around for a while.

Others? My significant other, who actually played WoW in the past as well, is a Wrath baby and has told me that he has no interest in Classic (the early trauma of watching me play my pally on Kronos probably didn't help). There are a couple of people in my SWTOR guild whom I might be able to drag along as well... but do I even want to risk cannibalising my current online "home" just to have some more people to play with in Classic? Tough call.

I suspect things might become a bit clearer closer to the actual launch date, but I have to admit that a part of me worries that they won't.