Now that our guild has gotten the Lich King down, the last of my pre-Cata goals has been accomplished. I've done pretty much everything on my 3 80's that I really, really wanted to before the expansion. And while I'm pretty happy to jump back onto any of them to go run some raids (any of them) at any time...if there's no group stuff going on, I'm just not that interested.
So instead I've been spending a lot of time recently over on the Horde side. I have a Tauren Warrior--Hotahinahu--that I've slowly been leveling. He just dinged 22 last night. I'm working my way through the southern Barrens quests.
I've been leveling him Arms. While I know it's not the fastest or most efficient spec, I'm not really concerned about that. This guy is all about change of pace and trying something different. And I'm wholly enamored about the idea of spending my time swinging around a giant two-handed weapon.
One of the things I've really been having a hard time with, though, is slowing down and reading the quest text. I've been Alliance for so long that I've pretty much seen everything there is there. And most of my time spent going through the quests since the initial run were either rushing to get a character to the level cap or grinding my way though Loremaster. I've become completely programmed into the "grab the quest, check the objectives, get it done" mentality.
But one of my biggest reasons for rolling a Horde is that I want to know the story. I want to finally see Azeroth through their eyes. And one of the best ways to do this is through the quest text.
I remember sometimes. But a lot of times I'll be running along and I'll suddenly realize that I've just blitzed through half a dozen quests and I have no idea why I just did the things I did. I missed out on the lore. And with Cata right around the corner, it's probably lore that I'm never going to get the opportunity to see again (since I'm probably not going to start a second Horde character prior to that).
When you've been playing a game one way for so long, it's really hard to change your mentality on the fly. And it's not like questing through the Barrens is something completely new and unique to me. I've been there. I've seen it all. I've killed 10 hyenas and collected x-finity razormane snouts and all that fun stuff. I've just never done it for the Horde.
I'm half tempted to turn on the scrolling quest text option for a while, just to force myself to slow down and take some time to really soak up all this stuff while I still can. It's what makes WoW fun for me, especially when I'm separated from most of the people I usually play with.
I also want to give a quick shout-out to one of my friends, Unshackled Fenrir, who got a piece of art posted to the Blizzard Fan Art site this week. WTG, man. :-)
Warcraft is old (and so am I)
4 years ago
Posts
I've played horde through WOTLK and I have to tell you that the Undead storyline is amazingly well done from level 1 up through the Tarren Mill quest hub. If you get the chance start something from there just to do the quests. It really might be the best continued race theme in the game.
ReplyDeleteNothing will ever be as good as the orc starter peon quest. That's at level 4. Do it you won't be disappointed.
The one where you have to whack them with the club to wake them up and get them to work. Yeah, I've done that one. It's still one of the best.
ReplyDeleteI've started Horde characters on more than one occasion, but between having too much stuff I wanted to get done on my Alli toons and feeling like I was avoiding duties when I was Horde side, none of them ever made it very far. Usually 10 or 15. I've played every Horde race at least through their starting zones, though.
The undead carries a nearly full storyline through the mid to late 20s which is rather unheard of outside of the humans. Plus they have the Oingo Boingo quest
ReplyDeleteI started doing the exact same thing. I rolled an orc hunter so I could see the orc storyline. He's also in his 20's... in Stonetalon Mountains right now I think.
ReplyDeleteI really stopped playing him because I had no guild and my friends list on horde side was too short. I realized then how much the social part of the game meant to me. So I dropped him due to lack of chat.
Too bad. Me and my wife were supposed to level horde together. She has a mid-30's belf. I haven't caught up to her.
Maybe we need to make a horde guild called The Other Dragons.
Honestly Din. I like that idea. The reason I haven't been on my horde much is because the guild I am in is kinda.... Eh. It's a guild with a RL friend I have. But he only really logs on when we want to pvp. I would add more but break time is almost done. So eh.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I did (except mine's a Troll) and he's... in the same place. :D
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately they also have the New Plague storyline, which is why I gave up my undead a long time back. I just never felt 'good' about the character. :-/
ReplyDelete