Posted by Spooner | 10 Comments

The more things change… (on alts)

I was thinking today as I spent a little time getting my Warrior alt (that’s the 5th now) to Lv 25. A lot has changed. I haven’t really taken the time to go back through the old photo album so to speak, and revisit all the places I first leveled. I started playing this game as Alliance and so when I trek through zones like Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood; they evoke some real emotion from me. I started to think back today on how much really has changed versus how much we feel has changed since the game was released.

• I remember when people actually ran Gnomeregan to quest and level, and that there’s actually something like 5 different quests part of chains involving the dungeon for Alliance.
• I remember when my Warrior’s Execute ability could only be used when the target was at 20% health and you had to be behind the target and it would dump all your rage in that one attack.
• I remember when Fury was a 2H weapon tree that revolved basically around chain killing targets, and hitting Lv60 in the Burning Steppes off black dragon whelps as a fury warrior.

With all the advancements and changes it’s still a very similar experience. There’s still the agonizingly horrible drop rates for animal parts in Westfall, Redridge, and even Duskwood. Apparently, Alliance really like to eat boar parts and through the years all the pigs on Azeroth have stopped being born with livers. Or snouts. Or ribs. Spiders don’t have ichor, or legs it seems. You can ride a 60% speed mount at Lv 20 now which is pretty fucking obscene. Going through zones on foot for so many years and then suddenly being given a mount is a little hard to adjust to at first. I’ve found myself running so much when I could easily mount up on my Blizzard Bear instead.

So if you’re doing what I’m doing, answer me why. Why’re you going through the game again from Lv 1? What changes from the first time you leveled have completely surprised you? What are you enjoying, what do you miss, what do you remember?

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