Taking in the World of Warcraft

I recommend you listen to this while you read this!: https://youtu.be/OMRI8tY_uuk?t=88

So, here's the thing. I like World of Warcraft. Not to the point of me saying "oh, one of my favorites". I'd say its a bit in the boring side, however i still played it back in the day mainly because of the other people playing the game and helping each other, clearing dungeons and raids, and hell, just shitposting on the guild chat.

The thing is, each time i made a character in that game, I've always had this feeling to hurry up and level through all of the content as quickly as possible to get into raiding and PvP; something that kept me from taking in all of the world, the quest text, and music. You know, an integral component of the RPG part of an MMORPG.

Those last couple of paragraphs were more of a retrospective kinda thing i realized through playing the game in a Wrath of the Lich King client by a local server i made with TrinityCore (and a little bit of custom coding to make the entire game's dungeons and raids soloable).

This time i decided to make a Death Knight cow. It was always nostalgic to see Arthas giving you directions to commit war crimes on a tiny little Scarlet Crusade foothold; The writing on Ebon's Hold has always struck out to me as pure, unbridled teenage angst which you can use to make an entire corn field. WoW's writing in general never really struck me as particularly good, even though there are a few quests here and there with legitimately good storylines that made me feel something sometimes, i guess.

After a lengthy quest line that builds up towards an assault towards a Chapel (a very important foothold for the Alliance and the Horde in the Plaguelands), we find ourselves fighting against a giant horde of Paladins that are dead set on killing us for being ugly and stuff, complete with silly voice acting!

Now if there are some WoW WotLK fans out there: I am not poking fun at this part! There was a time where i thought this cinematic was the coolest shit ever, too. But there is a part in this entire cinematic that has always ruined the build up to this moment, which in turn made me not take the Death Knight's story as seriously. 

After the fight, your commander gets incapacitated by a very powerful paladin, and somehow he does a spell that shows your Death Knight commander's childhood or some stuff, and your commander's third eye opens and doesn't wanna kill civilians anymore. Some other stuff happens, but eventually you just end up either going to Stormwind or Orgrimmar to integrate yourself into normal society after killing hundreds of civilians and other anti-Scourge forces.

This walk of shame through your new capital city does feel really good, and it is thematically fitting to see everyone in town throwing rotten food and spitting at you for being in the undead's side at some point (also a war criminal). This all gets hand-waved aside as soon as you give your faction leader's some letter that gives you a bunch of reputation points and then suddenly everyone likes you. This sucks, but that's just how it is with these games.

Now it may sound silly to say that while i show you screenshots of me playing the game with the graphics turned down so my computer doesn't go up in flames. But you gotta trust me, the world is still interesting and fun to look at.

While levelling a character just to raid with it, sometimes i'd look at little nooks and crannies while walking from quest to quest and just go "man, i wish i could just go there without wasting too much /played time". Now that i am playing this for myself, i realize that there is so many awesome details in the overworld if you just pay a little attention and forget about the quests for a little bit.

A few examples of these are the unused Hyjal, the Caverns of Time (that you usually don't really pay too much attention in normal play, since Looking for Group exists), some little clearings and valleys in Ashenvale (one of my favorite zones) and the decaying ruins in Feralas and Azshara.

Every time i play WoW i just turn on the option to loop the music. the tracks from the classic world (Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms) have always been low-key enough for me to condition myself to listen to the soundtrack constantly. Congratulations, me, i now have the Barrens' music perpetually playing in my brain.

 I also have to write about the ambient sounds. I have to commend the sound designers for the game by putting all their effort into making every zone, dungeon and raid sound like it is supposed to be. When you're in a desert, you can hear the wind throwing the sand across the place; When you're in a Night Elven forest like Ashenvale you can hear wisps and small tingles of magic stuff flying around and when you're inside a goddamn volcano, you can hear the lava flowing through the walls which in turn feels like you're about to die of heatstroke.

Some of my favorite tracks in the zones are Ashenvale, Tanaris and Dun Morogh.

Now, i am not a writer, nor a graphic or world designer, nor even a sound designer, i am just some dumbass nerd in front of a computer playing a stupid 7 year old MMORPG made by cubicle crawlers. I just wanted to write about how i felt while paying attention to a fantasy world that i usually do not have the time to sit down and observe. I am also talking about an older version of World of Warcraft, NOT the current expansion which is just a mess.

Anyways, has anyone found that breast milk bag yet?