I'm one of those who find themselves being left behind, not for the first time in my gaming life. I'm more or less down to playing Classic on my own at this point. I did in fact predict almost a year ago that if I was going to roll up a character with my old friends from back in the day, they likely weren't going to stick with it, so I can't say that I'm entirely surprised.
And what about my dear husband, who rolled up a tank to level with my shaman? While he keeps telling me that he's happy to continue playing for my sake, it's obvious that he's been enjoying himself less and less in the past few weeks, so I think we'll soon reach the point where I'll stop asking him to log in simply because I don't want it to feel forced.
Fortunately I more or less planned for such an eventuality when I created my hunter, who's been my most played character for weeks now. Hunter is a great class to play when you want to explore and quest on your own, but they are not as popular in group content, so I guess my long game will still be to eventually get my shaman levelled up as well. At least she can only benefit from having a higher-level benefactor to help her out with things like mount money.
Unpopular dps or not, I also still made it a personal goal to do all the dungeons on my hunter while levelling up, even if I have to pug them all, and so far it's been going well enough. I basically sit in the LookingForGroup channel whenever I quest and have a bit of time on my hands, and whenever one of the rare "looking for dps" requests comes up, I pounce on it instantly.
The last couple of weeks have been a bit rough, as Uldaman and Maraudon have been looming ahead of me, two dungeons that I'm not very fond of. I finally finished Uldaman the other night (the quests in there required no fewer than two runs to complete as well) by answering a LFM request at 10pm on a work night... I was shattered the next morning but had no regrets. Now to tackle the challenge that is Maraudon.
The problem with both Uldaman and Maraudon is that they span a huge level range, so regardless of when you go, you'll either be too low level to kill the final boss or too high to get XP from the first half of the dungeon. I just don't like that very much, and neither do a lot of other people based on the lack of LFG requests I see for either of them. If I can make it past that last hump however, I should more or less be good until the cap, as everything after that is a lot more popular again (as far as I remember).
Posts
I can feel you. I created my first character on a EU PvE realm but in a few weeks had to start anew on a language-specific server, cause my friends suddenly were attracted to Classic and they'd like to have a pocket tank. I rerolled, leveled till 40+ and... they lost interest in the game. Well, I kinda expected that, but it's sad nevertheless.
ReplyDeleteSo I've created a bunch of alts on EU-RP and I hope to settle here. The server seems nice, it's a pity I missed the initial wave of players though; most of them are 60 already. At least it's still possible to find a dungeon group.
Friends losing interest in the game you're playing together is just always a bit sad, regardless of whether
Deleteyou saw it coming. I guess there's always a small part of you that hopes that this time it will be different and last just that little bit longer.
It's the saddest thing that I've experienced many times (DDO, LOTRO, SWTOR, Rift, Tera etc.). Ironically, for once, it's me (and husband) who lost interest first this time as the gameplay of Classic doesn't gel with our modern MMO sensibilities. If I want more old-school feeling gameplay I can simply play some LOTRO for instance, with a massive amount of unplayed content. Replaying old zones and quests for nostalgia didn't grab me - not that I really expected it to...
DeleteI'm staring Uldaman (and eventually Maraudon) in the face right now, and I'm not sure whether I'm ready for a multi-hour instance right now. As much as I'm sick of the Scarlet Monastery instances for all the runs I've done there, at least they took about an hour or so to complete.
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel being abandoned, and that's a (small) part of the reason why I held off on joining a guild. I figured I'd wait for the shakedown to happen, and I knew that everybody else would outlevel me, so there was no rush to join a guild.
In terms of dungeon length my Uldaman runs actually weren't that bad, two hours from group assembly to end maybe? It's just a kind of tedious place and few people like going there from my experience.
DeleteFor Alliance, Uldaman and Maraudon don't take more time then SM if you include travel time. :-)
DeleteAnd you die less in these dungeons then if you try to travel through EPL.. (don't ask me why I know)
But I know what you mean, I skipped on SM with my other char. It's a very nice and fun dungeon, but not worth walking there from Southshore. Especially since you have to do it multiple times because you're either to low for library or won't beat cath.
I wasn't even thinking about the long run that SM involves for Alliance every time. :) For Horde it's a great place to run repeatedly, as you can just grab some randoms in UC and off you go. It's not quite as convenient as the Stockades for Ally, but it's close.
DeleteBut Stockades is a boring dungeon where bosses most of the time drop no loot. I can't remember that I ever run it twice.
DeleteYou know what's scary, Shintar? That right after posting this reply, I was in a Deadmines run that lasted almost 3 hours. We wiped three times on Van Cleef alone, and at least three more times on trash mobs where the tank pulled too many people.
DeleteThree hours in Deadmines sounds pretty bad; you have my sympathy.
DeleteYeah, when the Healer is busy doing Alchemy rather than healing, and the tank pulls four Goblin Engineers, it's bad. About the only two people who knew what to do at the end were myself (Mage) and another Mage, who were sheeping the second group of ads on Van Cleef so we could DPS him down.
DeleteI think that just wont happen, you can't bring your friends with you, neither in a game nor any other hobby.
ReplyDeleteWe can't get friends into the game, we have to do the same things we did back in vanilla, find friends that are already in the game.
Not entirely sure what you were referring to with "that" (Did you mean to reply to another comment?) but I guess so. At the same time I'm trying not to get too tied down in Classic anyway as it's the more casual of my MMOs right now and I don't need people pestering me to log in and play more. :P
DeleteGiven that before launch I thought I'd last maybe two weeks, I'm pretty surprised to find myself still logging in every day nearly two and a half months later. The whole Blitzchung thing put a spanner in the works in that although I carried on playing I lost the desire to blog about it and writing the posts was a major part of my engagement.
ReplyDeleteWithout that, the plodding nature of the gameplay becomes a lot more apparent. Also, the travel, which I positively enjoyed at lower levels, begins to reach parodic proportions in the 40s and 50s. Quest after quest involve travel from one end of Azeroth to the other. There have been sessions where I played for nearly three hours and spent at least two of them running along roads or sitting on a griffin.
And then there's the determination of Blizzard to drive everyone into dungeons. I haven't done a single dungeon in Classic and I have no plans on doing any but in the 40s and 50s it gets harder and harder to find any quest chains that don't end (or often begin) by sending you to a dungeon.
Luckily I love grinding mobs for tradeskil mats so I am levelling doing that at least half the time. The problem is, you need adventure levels to craft so I have to level my other characters up just so they can use the mats!
Anyway, I'm determined to get my Hunter to 60 (he's nearly 52) but after that I think I'll take a break, possibly until they add Battlegrounds.
Haha, I told you I wanted that mount for a reason! :P
DeleteAs someone who really enjoys the dungeons I never quite understood people complaining about a lack of quests in the higher levels, but I guess if being sent into a dungeon is a deal breaker, the list of available options does become significantly shorter as you go up in levels.