WoW Journal - 10-October-2005

So as my D&D group started over on a French PvP server, Horde side, I created an orc rogue there and played him all weekend long. As it was a long weekend, I made it to level 18. And playing the rogue was fun, but it made me think about the replayability value of World of Warcraft.

Because the origin of the fun was the different play style of the rogue class, getting new abilities every two levels, and approaching situations differently, e.g. by stealth. But at the same time I just couldn't stand most low level Horde quests any more. Having played a Horde warrior to 60, priest to 35, shaman to 30, plus a bunch of lower level characters, I simply did every available quest at least once. And the Barrens I already did two or three times. The WoW quests are all very nice the first time you do them, but the second time is boring, and the third time round you just don't want to do them any more. So I did some quests that I had looked up for specific rewards I wanted, some quests together with friends, but others I just refused.

I still haven't played all classes beyond level 10. I'd really like to try mage for example. But the replayability for me is not limited by a lack of character classes, but by a lack of new quests. I sure hope the expansion set, long as we have to wait for it, at least adds new low-level zones with new quests, and not just high-level raid dungeons.

The alternative to doing quests is grinding, killing the same mobs over and over. That is less interesting than doing a new quest, but not much less interesting than doing a quest you already know. You don't get the quest reward xp and items, but in return you lose less time running around. So in comparison to a quest that gives some item you can't use anyway, you're not worse off if you grind.

One nice spot I found for my rogue was the murlocs in Silverpine Forest, along the lake. Now murlocs are unpleasant to kill with some classes, like the warrior, because they tend to run away and alert others. But with a rogue they are easy enough, because you can either kill them quickly with Eviscerate when they are low on hitpoints, or backstab them when they turn to flee. Sap takes care of the places where there are several murlocs at once. And because few people hunt murlocs, and they have a high chance of having a treasure chest in their villages, the loot isn't worse than typical quest rewards at that level. I even got a rare potion recipe for potion of swiftness from one of the chests. And as these potions sell for 70 silver for a *single* potion, with the recipe selling for 15 gold, that was quite a find. I gave it to my alchemist friend, who made me some of those potions. Quite useful on a PvP server.

The trick with grinding is to chose mobs that are 2 to 4 levels lower than you are. You can kill a lot more per hour of those than you could kill mobs of equal level to you, and the xp per kill are only slightly lower. As an added bonus the murlocs drop small barnacled clams, which contain either small lustrous pearls, or clam meat. With the clam meat I skilled up my cooking, while the pearls were useful to make pearl-handled daggers. Yes, I did blacksmithing with my rogue, an unusual profession, but necessary in this case. The server I am on is one of the old ones, and on the AH there are simply no items below level 30 sold. So smithed daggers are the best weapons I can get hold of at the moment. The pearl-handled daggers at level 18 are especially nice. Unfortunately the next daggers that can be smithed are from a rare level 20 recipe, and then the next are level 31. So I hope I can get something good from the dungeons in the meantime, there are some nice dungeons in the 20's, Wailing Caverns, Shadowfang Keep, Blackfathom Depths.

I don't know yet how much I will play this rogue. Up to now I had no non-consentual PvP problems, but those will start at level 20. And in the new guild lots of people took rogues, for PvP, so making balanced groups for dungeons won't always be easy. We did Ragefire Chasm with 3 rogues, 1 mage, and 1 druid, not exactly a perfect mix. But for the moment playing the rogue is nice enough, I enjoy being a damage machine for a change.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:00 AM Permanent Link