Starting Over

Nope, no April Fool's shenanigans here. I lack the proper creativity. This is actually the BA Shared Topic of the week. It's kind of an interesting one, posted by Pieces of Blasting Away.

If you had the chance to start all over again in WoW, but your char is already level 80, or level 1 depending on if you like to level or not :>. What class would you pick? What race? What faction?
Why would you pick that class/race/faction?

And most of all what would you plan to do with it? Raid, PvP or just hang out in Dalaran?

There's a lot of wiggle room in that question. It's very vague. For instance, to what extent am I starting over? Afterall, starting over is a very possible thing for a lot of people. Just roll a new char and go. You've started over. If I wanted to be an AH player or Arena Junkie instead of a Raider, that just requires a shift in play-style, not a do-over. This isn't Final Fantasy or Mass Effect. I'm not on a guided path.

But let's play the time travel game and assume I am starting over. Do I have the same knowledge of the game I have now? Am I starting over in patch 3.3.3(.3.3.3), or all the way back in 1.11(.111.1111) when I originally started playing? Do I still have the friends I play with now, or have I not met them yet?

It's a complex question and one with a lot of variables. Plus, if we assume I'm starting over clean-slate, then obviously I'd do things the same since I wouldn't know what I know now.

But I don't think that's what Pieces was trying to ask. I think she just meant if you could pick a new Race/Class combo without the accompanying time investment (even though you can already do the Race component), what would you pick?

The truth is, I wouldn't change a thing. Not because I'm not curious or I would mind spending some significant raid time with a whole new and different set of buttons to press. I just can't seem to find it in me to do that. Hell, I kinda want to eventually race-change San to Worgen when the option becomes available, but I'm having a hard time even justifying that to myself.

See, a funny thing happens when you play a game with a single primary character over a span of 4 years, especially in a game with as heavy of a social component as WoW. Somewhere along the line, the distinction between the toon and the player starts to blur a little. No longer is San just an avatar on the screen. He's an extension of me. Not in a creepy, disconnect-from-reality way. Just in a way that he is how I'm known to many of my friends and, recently, my blog readers. There's a lot of history there. A lot of laughs, frustrations, smiles, late nights, songs, and jokes. There's the time I spent leveling with my partner, who got me into the game. Or our grinds through the battlegrounds every weekend for months before we found a guild to raid with. There's my first raid. Our guild-first kill of Magtheridon a mere two weeks before patch 3.0 and our forays deep in to SSC, MH and BT in the weeks after. There's all the experience of Northrend and its dungeons and raids. All of it represented by a dude with blue skin, glowing eyes, and a ever-changing, but permanently mismatched wardrobe.

I couldn't just start that over even if I wanted to. It just wouldn't be the same.

I know it sounds silly. Even typing it, I'm thinking "Dear God, I'm such a dork." But, really.

Let me give a similar example. Back in September I played in a 3-day hockey tournament. It was a rag-tag team put together by a small handful of friends and then filled with "free-agents" (people who registered for the tourney without a team) to give us enough people to at least play.

My family made a trip up to watch one of the games. They certainly didn't have to, but it was a nice gesture. I've been playing for the better part of 5 years now, and they've never really gotten to see it.

During that game I scored a goal (incidentally my only one of the tourney, though I did have a few assists). This will become important in a moment.

The night after the tourney we all got together and went out to dinner. Before we left, my dad handed me a hockey puck with the tournament's logo stamped on it. Turns out he went out of his way to get the puck I scored the goal with and gave it to me.

I'm nearly 30 years old now, y'all. And this was one of the coolest single gestures, ever. The puck is now displayed here in my office, right next to my monitors with my player badge from the tourney right under it. There are a multitude of things this little piece of galvanized rubber represent. The fun time I had at the tourney. The goal I scored. How awesome my dad is and just about every great thing he's ever done for me.

If I lost the puck, could I replace it? Probably. There's even a chance I could find one with the exact same logo stamped on it. And I'd probably still think of those same things when I looked at it.

But would it ever really be the same?

No.

San is just like that. He is a representation of too many awesome things. Even if the awesome things didn't go away with San, they wouldn't be the same.

And now this post has definitely gotten a little to sentimental and (let's be honest) weird.

So in conclusion (thank you 3rd grade English for teaching me proper closers!), if I were given the opportunity to start over, I'd make like a D.A.R.E. kid and just say "no."