So recently I have actually been playing something other than World of Warcraft at times—namely Terraria. It has been a surprising amount of fun really, I mean I’ve played Terraria before and gotten to the start of hardmode¹ but not really much farther than that. This time I and a guildie actually played through the game on expert² managing to kill all of the bosses though I believe there are still a few events we haven’t seen but doing those would be mostly for completionisms sake as we don’t really need the rewards provided anymore.

So what is Terraria?

Basically 2D Minecraft with bosses to kill and RPG elements in the form of loot, gear and spells and a tiny bit of one might say leveling. Now let’s break that down a bit.

Why do I say 2D Minecraft? Well, the most recongisable feature of Minecraft is being able to mine and gather things and use those things for crafting and this is a central feature of Terraria as well, but Terraria is a 2D game where Minecraft is 3D. This is the central progression system in Terraria, as getting better materials feeds into the RPG element of loot, gear and power progression. The better the gear, the more one survives and the more damage one deals.

However, these materials are not only found through mining or the like, it also requires killing mobs and bosses—especially bosses for the more powerful things. Sometimes the bosses drop straight out equipment, other times crafting materials which are used to craft the more powerful equipment.

So in essence, the goal of the game is to mine some ore, smelt some bars, get a decent set of starter armour and weapons and take down some bosses in order to get better equipment to take down the harder bosses or maybe just harder monsters out in the world. Or just being able to mine the better ores, there’s also a progression of pickaxes enabling one to mine better ore.

Why is this game actually really awesome?

It combines the whole creation aspect of crafting not only gear but structures into the RPG mechanics really well, to the point where for most of the bosses one actually creates custom built arenas in order to have a better chance of defeating them. Sometimes these arenas are really simple, take for example the Wall of Flesh—a big wall of flesh that moves from one side of the map towards the other and one does not want to get stuck inside of it. So the arena is really simple, just a long straight path along one can run and shoot at the boss as the terrain in Hell where the boss resides is usually dangerous—due to lava—or simply otherwise hard to navigate due to housing.

Other bosses, like the Moon Lord or the Destroyer are better defeated by building a small cage barely big enough to fit the player where one sits and shoots at the boss from, giving protection from some of the bosses attacks but far from all as they tend to go through walls.

And lastly, there are the simple big cages with platforms³ allowing one to better dodge the bosses abilities, especially useful against something like Skeletron. These usually have solid walls to allow player spells to bounce around inside the arena so that they may hit the boss several times.

This ability to mould the world along with the wide selection of weapons and spells makes the game really diverse when going from start to finish. One is also forced to keep changing weapons and spells as one progresses, meaning one has to adapt to a slightly altered playstyle. This is most evident with spells, since spells usually have very different effects meaning one really gets to change how one casts as the game goes on.

As the game progresses one also gets nice utility items like grappling hooks which allow one to much more easily move around the caverns of the world and wings improving one’s mobility even more. Both are also rather essential to kill many bosses, since dodging without these accessories becomes difficult if not impossible.

Closing words

All in all, the game is a really enjoyable experience with lots of diverse weapons and I’m kind of sad that it’s over. Now I suppose I need to find something else to do along mythic+ and raids, especially since we’ll probably slowly be raiding less with progress being over. Right, that’s a thing, Argus is down! Not for me, but for the guild, I’m looking forward to taking my own poke at the boss when the time comes.

Classic servers were announced a long while ago at BlizzCon along with the Battle for Azeroth announcment. But I think that slowly my thoughts on them are starting to crystallize as someone who played on a private Classic server.

In the end I’ll probably check Legion out as well, though as usual it’ll probably be mostly to see the leveling experience and checking out the dungeons a few times. Sure, maybe I’ll poke my head in to LFR as well, but eh, it doesn’t really seem all that interesting. Might as well watch some of the livestreams for that.

Me, 2015

How little I knew at the time.

Are Classic servers a good idea?

I think so, yes. There’s clearly quite a lot of pent up demand from them considering how much the community has been clamoring for them for a long time. Also considering that new private Classic servers keep popping up as old ones get closed clearly shows it’s something people are willing to work on to keep alive and something people want to play.

They also provide an outlet for people who love World of Warcraft and want to keep playing it, but have gotten tired of the current content or mechanics. Being able to play the original form might very well re-ignite their love for the game—looking at the quote above, that’s certainly what it did for me. Playing Classic on Nostalrius was what made me have another proper go at Warlords of Draenor and actually try to like it and learn the new mechanics. Here we are a couple of years later with Legion accounting for something like half of my /played on my main that I’ve had since Classic.

Sure that’s also down to Legion being a really good expansion and the people I’ve met while playing, but without Nostalrius and being able to play something I know I love I’m not sure I’d given Legion (and Warlords) the same chance.

What could go wrong?

The implementation. This is something Blizzard is extremely aware off, but it might still go wrong. The question is: what, if anything, do you change? Now with StarCraft: Remastered, they changed a few things: the lobby system for multiplayer (from what I know) is now integrated with the new Battle.net, Battle.net friends are now to a degree accessible in-game through whispers and the like, and finally the big obvious thing: the graphics.

Now the graphics along with better resolution support were the obvious change that people wanted with SC:R and that’s what they got and from what I know people are quite happy with that. With WoW however, the situation might be different since we have already gotten new textures and character models with expansions and they are not universally loved and would quite significantly alter the feel of the game. Resolution support is already up to par from what I know, since WoW is a 3D game anyway so resolution restrictions aren’t a thing in the same extent as with a sprite-based game. I personally would hope for updated textures in higher resolution with no model changes.

Another innocent seeming change might be Battle.net integration, I mean who wouldn’t want to be able to talk to their friends? At the same time, that was unavailable in Classic and actually really encouraged server communities. And if we have Battle.net, do we get cross-server group support? While it is a really nice feature to have, it does erode the importance of the server and the reputation one can build there. So seemingly innocent changes can come with big consequences for the feel of the game which makes the whole thing something of a mine-field which is probably why it has taken Blizzard so long to start working on this. I would like Battle.net integration in order to be able to keep chatting with people who aren’t necessarily playing on a Classic server but any cross-realm features beyond that I don’t think fit.

Then we come to the less innocent changes, like LFD and LFR. Both of those seem like a somewhat obvious “no way” to me, but at the same time they might be something people expect. And what about the LFG-tool, does that belong in the same category? It’s a lot more convenient than spamming chat channels but it also doesn’t allow for the same kind of spontaneous activity. Most of my dungeon runs in Classic came from chilling in a city and seeing some group going somewhere looking for more and me just deciding to join. That doesn’t really happen with the LFG-tool in the same way as I have to actively open the tool and decide what I’m looking for (the category if nothing else). I don’t really see a place for any of these tools on a Classic server, but we’ll see what Blizzard comes up with along with the community.

Am I going to play on a Classic server?

Now for the real question. I think the short of it is: no. That comes with some caveats however—am I going to at least try a Classic server? Yes, almost definitely. However I do not see myself playing on a Classic server long term at the moment as playing two MMOs at the same is just a huge time investment and I have kind of done most of the things I wanted to achieve in Classic.

Sure, there are things I never did that would be nice to achieve—like clearing the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj and Naxxramas—however the path to those things would include doing all of the content I’ve done which would require regular raiding which depends on a guild. And I’m really enjoying only having three raid-days at the moment, introducing another guild with more raid-days is not really something I’m planning on. Now if the Classic servers get released at the end-lull of Battle for Azeroth where I only have one day a week of farm left, that might change. But I highly doubt Classic servers would take priority over the current expansion servers for me which would make it difficulty to do the content I’m interested in and enjoy.

Unless maybe I decide I hate the current direction of the game and decide to go back to something old and familiar again, but I hope I have grown past that and that I can be a bit less stubborn these days. Sometimes being stubborn is good, but when it’s preventing one from enjoying something one wants to enjoy it’s not very helpful.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to seeing how Classic servers turn out and at least taking them for a spin—I’ll let future-me be the final judge and keep an open mind for now.

The first week of raiding with the new guild has come and gone, though there wasn’t all that much raiding in it for me. I participated in the farm up to and including Kin’garoth, meaning one new official kill for me. After that however, I got to sit out. Not necessarily surprising since they would have been new bosses for me and presumably they wanted to finish the farm quickly in order to get back to progressing on Argus—but nonetheless slightly disappointing. In good news they seemed to like my play so the decision wasn’t motivated by bad performance. I was out for the rest of the week as well which was to be expected with Argus progress going on and us running only three healers. Which meant that for the rest of the reset I was mostly following the progress through either streams, Teamspeak or both. And now it seems that will continue for this reset since we have extended the ID. I’m hoping they kill the boss soon since it sounds like some people in the raid are getting very frustrated with the progress.

In other news I suppose, slowly getting back into doing some mythic+ with one guildie, so far no more of a steady group than that and not many intersting keys but it has been fun. I think I might just end up reorienting my expectations regarding mythic+ since lately I’m feeling my desire to play higher keys is preventing me from actually enjoying the keys I am doing as much as I should. This I think goes for raiding as well, I’ve taken on an undue amount of stress from a desire to perform and participate that has led to great frustration with not being able to and that is frankly unecessary. So I’ll keep working towards my goals but try to readjust my attitude regarding the present since I think I’ve done the old mistake of comparing myself to others to much and becoming disappointed with what I have even though it is pretty great and when I am doing stuff I’m enjoying it greatly. So now just to look forward to some more mythic+ hopefully in the near future again and enjoy the sounds of raiding if not the experience of raiding.

Speaking of things that are great, I came to a surprising conclusion lately: I am actually really enjoying being Horde. I had rather expected to miss being a Night Elf a lot but aside from the few moments where I really want to Shadowmeld I’m actually really enjoying playing a Blood Elf. Maybe it’s just the variation after all these years, but it has been oddly enjoyable. I’m still learning proper use of the Blood Elf racial for mythic+ though that is slightly difficult running which such uncoordinated groups. Since it has a long cooldown using it at the right moment is rather critical, but when it gets followed up by a stun or another player using a silence the effect that it has is somewhat diminished. But that will come with time I’m sure, though I’m not so sure how much more time there is since there was some indication in a recent Q&A about the racial potentially being a bit too powerful which could mean changes. That’s for the future though, for now I’m enjoying where I am and actually looking forward to getting started with Battle for Azeroth when the time comes, I think I’ve found a good place to do that if they’ll have me.

Today, I transfered. New server, new faction, new guild. I have a lot of things to get used to. Haven’t really had the time to do anything with the guild yet—the next raid is on Sunday but I have no idea if they’ll be taking me. Not too many sign-ups so far, but I have no idea about peoples’ roles. In addition to that, I need to start reading up on some bosses as they are a bit farther in progress than the previous guild—which was the whole point: finding a guild who does progress at a more reasonable pace. But it does mean there is a whole lot of learning that needs to be one in a short amount of time.

The biggest thing to get used to though will definitely be the new faction: Horde. I have at times been Horde before, my first character was an Orc even. But I’ve always felt most at home with the Night Elves, which are Alliance. I did opt to stay an elf—this time of the Blood variety—which should hopefully lessen the blow, even though the two races are quite distinct. Unfortunately the Allied Races aren’t available yet, as the Nightborn might have made a good compromise though even that wouldn’t have allowed me to keep Shadowmeld, which is easily one of my favourite racial abilities. Shadowmeld is just so damnably useful, it can be used in mythic+ for trash to sneak a ressurect, to reset a boss when one is the last person alive or just to drop out of combat in the world when the “combat bug” rears its head again. At the same time—for pure performance in progress and utility in mythic+—the Blood Elven racial Arcane Torrent is probably more useful in more situations. But I care more about aesthetics and feel than pure performance, and in those categories there’s nothing that competes with Night Elves for me—Nightborne would just be crude imitations as the feel of the races are extremely different.

Beyond that, I am also leaving someone rather dear behind in my old guild and while we still will be able to chat not having our mains on the same faction will be a blow—he does have alts on Horde but it’s just not the same, especially after playing in the same guild for so long. The virtual closeness can be surprisingly important, especially since he physical closeness isn’t there due to distance.

In good news, I’m not alone on Horde. Two good friends of mine had already transferred over, their guild searches having led them to Horde guilds as well. Hopefully that makes the transition a bit easier, being able to play more with them again.

Good if strange times ahead, we’ll see where this year leads me. The beginning of last year started me on this path and it was the best decision I’ve made in a while, both personally and in the gaming space. Hopefully it continues being as awesome as it has been so far even if the rough times have been very rough.

So Wednesday came the patch, and with it a few cool things like the remade leveling experience—though even that seems to be somewhat broken. Like the rest of the game. There were several bugs introduced into Legion dungeons and raids, among them the spy event in Court of Stars sometimes just kind of leading to the mob standing there, not moving. The beams on Hasabel in Antorus are also broken, sometimes the graphic stays on the floor. In addition to that, Antorus seems to suffer from lag and FPS problems in general, which has led to very poor performance in our raid so far. We ended up canceling the raid about halfway through on Wednesday and it took several tries for us to kill Hasabel. The lag problems seem to have slightly improved, the general performance problems remain. Seems like this week will be mostly wasted from a raiding perspective—sadly—though there is another extended maintenance coming on Saturday. Hopefully the situation improves with that and we get at least one proper raid day.

There was also some talk about potentially having an extra raid day on Monday, will have to see what comes of that. On one hand, it would hopefully be a chance to get some more progress done and maybe even kill Kin’garoth finally. At the same time, having Monday “free” and not having to think about raiding and being able to concentrate on mythic+ instead might also be rather nice. But if there’s progress to be done I’m eager to be there.

In better news, it seems I have found a new guild. The guild is Horde which is good as that means I’ll be able to play with a few good friends of mine again—though it pains me to not be a Night Elf anymore. Hopefully that will mean more progressing and less frustration while raiding, just need to make sure I can keep up. That’s always the most stressful thing with joining a new guild for me—trying to prove oneself, both to oneself and to the guild. What it will definitely mean though is me being able to do mythic+ since I now have a few good reliable damage dealers available again and hopefully a few new ones through the guild. It will be really nice to get to do mythic+ again, though there has been a bit more mythic+ activity in recent times, sadly not so much of the interesting variety of actually properly pushing keys and more just upgrading a key or two a few times and then stopping before anything interesting appears.

There is still a small questionmark with all of this however, as I have an application to another guild open still and I’m not quite sure what I’d do if both guilds end up being interested. The guild I’m currently headed to has the nicer raid days but also slightly worse—or rather, slower—progress. Part of that might be in the raid days as the other guild does raid a bit more.

It’s a decision I might not have to make and I’m currently somewhat unsure which way I’m leaning. I do think I might stay with the current option because of the raid times. At the moment three raid days rather than four and something along the lines of 40% less hours just seems to compelling. The progress difference also seems really small with that difference in mind. Though the group impacts how enjoyable the raids are a lot more than the amount of time invested, it’s still a rather big consideration. It’s also rather impossible to figure out ahead of time how well one will end up liking one group or the other, so the times end up weighing a lot more. But I’ll get to that decision when and if it ends up being necessary.