Revisiting the World of Warcraft

I don't know, if you know, but a few years ago, I was playing World of Warcraft like 8 hours a day. The Burning Crusade expansion just came out and a friend of me and myself have been playing free to play mmos for a long time. The next step of course was then to upgrade to World of Warcraft. I think we played for a good 2 years with a few breaks inbetween and it was awesome.
Then Wrath of the Lich King was announced. My friend wasn't playing anymore and I got bored, so I quit. Funny enough I got invited to the Wotlk beta, but it was just "okay" and didn't keep me playing.

Fast forward to 2012.
Blizzard announced the 4th expansion Mists of Pandaria. I hear from forums and other places, that the game isn't as good, as it used to be. Now, the friend I was playing with for the 2 years sends me an old picture collage I made, with screenshots of us and other stuff. 

This used to be my wallpaper

NOSTALGIA OVERLOAD!

Luckily, I was not stupid enough, to reactivate my old WoW, or now battlenet, account. I made a new one with which I could play till level 20, which is a nice addition by the way. While downloading I noticed, that you could already start the game and even play. I was confused, but when I created my new Tauren Druid, I knew what was going on. The downloader downloads the important parts first, for example the area you play in right now and the character models, that are there. Another pretty cool addition I must say again. But for the last time.

While playing, the first thing I noticed was the incredible help the game gave you. Back in the day, YOU had to find all the enemies or allies to complete the quest. Now, the game throws it literally in your face. Every enemy is marked on the minimap, so you can just grind all the quests, instead of having to think about it before. The UI is totally different, having adapted lots of addons, which you had to download manually before. Which is bad, because earlier you could choose yourself, what you wanted and the UI wasn't ugly too.

After meeting up with my friend in Undercity and literally just standing beside each other, I logged off again and deinstalled the game. I wish they didn't simplify the game like it is. It was good how it was. And that's not just nostalgia goggles. I played on a Burning Crusade private server for a few minutes after that and it was a better experience than what WoW is right now.

 

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your money. I'm glad I didn't.

Star Wars The Old Republic Review (kinda)

Well yeah, I was invited for the closed Beta last weekend and here are some of my impressions.

After downloading around 20 GB's for 5 days, I was finally able to play the game on friday. After starting the game, you get a really awesome cinematic, which shows some Jedis fighting and then escaping a spaceship. Then you can choose your server, if there is one available, that isn't already full and has a queue waiting time of 4 hours.
The next thing to do, is to create your character. You can choose between 4 classes and races and can then customize your appearance.
After hitting the "play" button, you get a nice introduction to your character, again with a cinematic. This is specified for each class.
The next thing you'll notice, is the incredible lag, because of so many players, which are all in the same area, doing the same quests. Every quest starts with a conversation and ends the same too. While this is nice and the voice acting (atleast in german) is pretty good, The Old Republic shows its first weakness, its graphics.


Even though the character you're talking with might be crying or screaming, you can't really see it in the persons face. The graphics all around aren't too nice either, even though they're not awful.
Gameplaywise everything's still the same, if you played other MMO's. You got your hotbar, with skills on it, you can interact with other players via chat or invite them to groups, and ofcourse the fetchquests are back, which aren't that bad, because of the introductions to it.
I've only been playing a Sith Knight and a Republican Soldier and I must say, I've been enjoying the Soldier more than the Sith. I don't know really why, but it was just more entertaining.

All in all I must say, The Old Republic is pretty entertaining. I don't know if it can kill World of Warcraft, but can you kill, what's already dead?

Peace out, Alucard