Free Candy For Everyone

There are a lot of people playing World of Warcraft out there, something like 10 million, in fact. For almost three years, I have been one of them. Which bets the question, why am I still playing after all this time?

Start with the obvious: the game is constantly changing and updating. The second character I ever made was a Paladin. I got her to level 29 and stopped because I just didn’t find her fun. I still haven’t gotten a pally above 35, but the last one I started was an eye opener. Everything was different! So many new abilities and complete changes to the way the class played, it was a completely new experience. Plus, Blizzard is always adding new quests and raids to play in. Getting a whole new dungeon to play in is always awesome.

There’s always another character class. At this point I have 3 70s - a mage, a shaman and a priest. I have characters of the other 6 classes scattered around across the level spectrum and I’m always up for leveling a new alt. Some people get tired of the “level grind” but the excitement of getting new spells/abilities and figuring out how to use them is just plain awesome to me.

But finally, there’s the real reason I haven’t quit WoW: the people. This one seems obvious, but it’s only in the last 6 months that I had any characters that I played purely with people I met online. In the past, I always played with real life friends, which is awesome, but I was always in small guilds of around 10 people and we never did any serious endgame content. My shaman is in a casual raiding guild and I’ve had the chance to experience 10 man and 25 man content. I love seeing new things, and I love being able to log on and see someone I know at any hour of the day. There’s usually someone around to help out with whatever.

All in all, I’m still wrapped up in WoW. I still don’t have a character at 70 who’s for serious PvP, or a character for tanking, so I’m leveling some more. Someday I’m sure it’ll all be too much, I’ll have done it all and finally feel ready to move on to something new. But for now, it’s been a fun three years, and I’m sure Wrath of the Lich King will only serve to feed my addiction more. Here’s to too much time online!

I’m 70! For the third time! That’s right, tonight I hit 70 (the current maximum level) on another character in World of Warcraft. You’d think it’s all been there, done that but somehow, after just shy of three years, I’m still playing the game pretty much every day.

I’ve given a lot of thought to why I’m still playing and I keep meaning to share it hear, but then it’s late and I think it’s time to go to bed… I promise, I’ll return and have new thoughts to relate and soon!