Fortnightly Classic Update

I haven't been playing Classic very much these last few weeks, partially because the new SWTOR expansion is still keeping me very engaged, partially because Classic has been a source of melancholy for me more than anything else.

About the most interesting thing I did was some questing on my little warrior alt - which is where I ran into what may well be Classic's last remaining mystery: how to get the assassins in Southshore to spawn in order to unlock the quest Assassin's Contract. It's a quest that I picked up on many previous characters more or less by accident, but curiously I never ran into the little event while in town with my warrior.

I started researching it and was surprised to find - as evidenced by the top comment on the Wowhead page linked above - that to this day, nobody really knows how to trigger it. There are all kinds of theories, from timers to it being set off by players starting or completing certain other quests, but at the same time every idea seems to have been disproven so far. I did my own bits of experimentation, going as far as to bring another character to Hillsbrad to do other quests in the zone while periodically relogging to my warrior in town to see whether anything was happening, but to no avail. So much for a "solved game"...

Aside from that little bit of fun though, I've been feeling a bit gloomy. My questing buddy let his sub lapse for no single reason that I'm aware of, and I've been feeling his absence all too keenly. We'd been working on levelling not one but two characters together, my shaman and my priest, and I keep staring at the character selection screen with thoughts along the lines of:

• I really love both of those classes, I want to continue levelling them so badly...
• But we worked so hard to be in sync in terms of levels, I don't want to play without him and mess that up.
• When is he going to be back though, if ever?
• When I think about it, levelling these characters without him would feel very empty, I don't think I'd want to do it anyway...
• I do have his contact details outside the game, I guess I could just ask when/if he's planning to come back? I guess I'm afraid that I might not like the answer though...

That's the downside of getting too attached to someone in a gaming context. It's great to have someone you like and whom you trust to always be there and to provide help and entertainment, but when that partnership comes to an end for whatever reason, it can be hard to go back to the solo lifestyle.

Not that there aren't still other guildies whom I like... one of them in particular keeps asking me to do dungeons with him and I always feel bad when I have to turn him down, because I do enjoy his company too (and I have run a few dungeons with him and others in the meantime). But it's just not the same.

The raiding situation has also continued to be very meh. At first we continued to cancel raids due to lack of attendance, until one such evening led to people having a bit of a chat on voice about the future of the guild. There was still a surprising amount of desire to turn things around somehow, which was nice to see. A lot of people (including me) spoke out in favour of opening up the core raids to community members, because even if that meant sacrificing some control over loot and things like that, it would surely be better than not getting to raid at all.

Then it took the officers a full week to set up these new events, and during that time another bunch of people posted goodbye messages about stepping down from raiding or the game altogether. This Saturday (a change of raid days that was welcome to me as Wednesdays were now out due to work) we were supposed to go to Black Temple, but almost half the group was pugs.

On the night, we struggled to find a third tank, and when we started to clear trash with just two tanks, we wiped three times on the same pull of naga just before the first boss. One of the pugs dropped group silently. It was looking pretty grim from my point of view.

However, somehow we pulled through. Leadership soldiered on undeterred, and eventually we filled the raid and succeeded at killing that trash pull. Nothing we encountered after that was quite as bad either, and we finished the night with four bosses killed, which didn't seem half bad for our very first foray into the instance.

Of course, before I'll even get a chance to go again, Blizzard will be releasing Zul'Aman next week... which to be fair, is a small catch-up raid and not a replacement for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple, but it still feels very soon for them to drop another patch, which in turn provides more evidence that they want to get everyone through the remaining Burning Crusade content quickly, potentially to be able to release Classic Wrath before the end of the year.