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What is World of Warcraft?
On December 23, 2004, I rolled my first character in World of Warcraft. It seems almost impossible to imagine that this was a little over nine years ago, but I still remember the day clear as a bell. A friend told me where to make a character and what faction to use, and offered me a guild invite the moment I logged in -- an Alliance guild that, to my knowledge, no longer exists. That began a journey that was a long, impossible at times, climb to level 60. Along the way, I made a ton of friends both in the guild and out, and when I hit level 60 it seemed like an incredible accomplishment. But as I shook off the haze of congratulations and cheers, I realized I had little to no idea what came after you hit level 60 -- and frankly, neither did anyone else. Ironforge was the place to be. If you were Alliance it was the only place with an Auction House. Players spent hours upon hours outside the front gates dueling each other. There was no PvP as we know it today -- Battlegrounds didn't exist, so PvP was relegated to long, drawn out battles between Tarren Mill and Southshore. The options seemed to be as follows: Run Stratholme, Scholomance, and UBRS to collect your blue dungeon set. Go raid either Molten Core or Onyxia's Lair. And ... that was it. Needless to say, my next option was to roll an alt and find a raid guild. What other choice did I have, at the time? As the game has progressed over the last nine years, those choices have expanded into a flurry of content that dwarfs everything that has come before it. And that makes me wonder -- just what is World of Warcraft, now?
The Daily Grind: When have you felt superfluous?
Being a low-level Mesmer in Guild Wars is not often fun times. You know that later on the class becomes the absolute master of interrupts and lockdowns, nearly vital in a good party. But when you're still early in the game with few useful skills and few caster enemies to worry about, more often than not you find yourself standing in the back of parties casting a hex or two and waiting for the fight to be over. It makes it a lot harder to take claims of "great group" seriously when you didn't really do anything. Nobody likes the feeling of being carried in a game, but it's inevitable that once or twice the weak link is going to be you. Sometimes it's inexperience, sometimes it's being at a low level, and sometimes it's just the stars lining up perfectly to make your life miserable. So when have you felt like you were a complete third wheel? Was it during your learning phase for endgame content, or in the midst of a mid-game run where you weren't really necessary? Or was it just a matter of teaming with people who all knew one another with you as the stranger? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
