ben is on the inter.net

I watched the opening cinematic for World of Warcraft for the first time today in at least three years. I’m happy to report that the cinematic still looks incredible, and it does a pretty great job of making you want to really play the game and eventually become a badass. The Burning Crusade one isn’t quite as good, but is still better than the attract mode movies for most games. I remember being disappointed with WoW’s lack of cutscenes after the intro (or the in-engine voiceover plus camera pan that you get when you make a character). Sure, instances have a good amount of well-presented story in them, but over the course of the game your story is told predominantly through your quest log. It took me a few tries at the game before this stopped mattering to me.

About a month ago I was reading about Death Knights in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and I really, really wanted to play one. But there was a small problem; I’d never reached the required level 55 to create one. So I started up again. I created an undead mage named Ouchdown. Several other people, now long past Just 70, show up from time to time to level their Horde Alts and I’ve been genuinely having fun with the game. I know now how important it is to really enjoy playing your class. At first I was put off by my mage’s frail body and his relative simplicity (compared especially to Druids and Warlocks), but after putting enough points into frost (and getting Mana Shield and Blink at level 20), I can say that playing a mage has been the most fun I’ve had. Since I’ve been back I leveled Pewpewpew to 30 and have just had him sitting there accruing rest XP, and as of a couple days ago I’ve got Ouchdown at 30.

But something was still missing. I still didn’t have any way to get a panda.

But Juls did, and he had quit back in 2006 (pre-expansion). He’d gotten a dwarf hunter to 60 and before signing off for good he sold off all his gear and mailed away the money. But he kept his panda collar. And his box for the Collector’s Edition. This past week Juls traded me his CE box and gave me access to his account. I know, I know, this technically violates the EULA, but it’s not like I’m anywhere near the same league as a guy who bots or a guy who buys a fully geared out level 70 character. The first thing I did was make an Orc hunter named Hugman who runs around with his best friend, a panda cub. I also tried my hand at dual-boxing (expect another entry on this later).

I had never seen Outland. And with Jhonen being born really soon, I doubt I’ll get Ouchdown or Pewpewpew to 60 any time soon. And I really want to see that content. I logged in and tried Juls’ character out. He still had a pet wolf, thankfully, but his armor was lower than my level 30 mage. I renamed him from Trygger to Barkbark (Hugman and Barkbark are eternal enemies) and moved him over to Farstriders, the server we’d all played on since Burning Crusade dropped. I had to get him a ranged weapon, and the cheapest one with the highest level was a bow on the auction house. Awesomely, Juls had never trained bows (or crossbows), so I had to find a bow trainer and basically start from scratch in Hellfire Peninsula.

After about two hours of questing with help from my friends Mel and Colin, Barkbark is up and running with about half of the armor he needs, and will hopefully finish off all the pieces with a few more hours. He can actually survive fights now, which is awesome.

I’m going to work on Ouchdown for a while, though. I want to earn that high level for reals. Also, to those of you close to me, I beg of you to force me to buy the Lich King Collector’s Edition, because if I don’t do this we’ll all regret it later. Just ask Jess who heard me complain about the WoW:CE for the last 3.5 years.

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