Because the internet needs another gaming blog.

Wrath of the Lich King continues to impress me.  It seems that each zone I’ve quested in has been better than the last.  I started the expansion in Borean Tundra and thought it was amazing.  The expansion was freshly released at the time of course, and it was an exciting time in general.  The Howling Fjord was my next stop and it didn’t take long for me to conclude it was a much more interesting zone than Borean Tundra.  It did start to drag on however and I stayed there a little longer than I should have (curse you achievements!), but in the end, I much preferred my time there.

Next up for me was Dragonblight, and this zone blew me away as I talked about in an earlier post.  The quests in that zone pertaining to the Wrath Gate were very well done and kept me engaged throughout my entire stay there.

My next destination was Grizzly Hills, which I just finished the other night.  I wasn’t expecting much from this zone, for whatever reason, and prepared myself for a let-down after Dragonblight.  I was more than pleasantly surprised however.  From a questing standpoint, there’s not a whole lot new, and in fact, most of the quests are the standard fetch/kill x number of foozles.  What I loved about the zone was its look and atmosphere and in that regard, it has become my favourite zone in Wrath of the Lich King.  I love forest zones and this is one of the best I’ve seen in any MMO.  The music is fantastic as well and helps set the mood perfectly.

I’m now just a sliver into level 78 and will be heading to Sholozar Basin next.  There’s still quite a lot of content left to explore in this expansion and if it keeps getting better like it has been, perhaps I won’t be cancelling my account as soon as I thought I would be.

I play on a PvP server because there’s just something that I find exhilarating about walking along, minding my own business, and suddenly stumbling upon an enemy player.  I like the immediate moment of uncertainty that sinks in, wondering whether they’ll attack me or leave me be.  Most of the time I pass the other by because I understand the frustration of just wanting to finish whatever quest you’re working on, but sometimes I get in a mood where I engage every Horde that I come across.

Lately, I’ve been in that mood.

Blame it on hitting level 77 and getting my Northrend flight training.  It didn’t take me long to discover just how fun it is to fly high above the ground, swooping down on unsuspecting Horde below.  I get such a rush from taking them by surprise and executing that perfect kill.  Unfortunately, I’m really quite horrible at PvP and often get my butt handed to me despite my element of surprise.  Even more frustrating than that though is when the other guy runs away; Rogues are the worst for that.

I’m no expert on all the different classes, but based on my limited PvP experience, here are my top three most hated PvP foes:

3. Druids – it seems that whenever I fight a Druid, I get off to a great start and it looks as though I’m kicking the crap out of him.  Then I’ll blink and the next thing I know I’m dead.  This class has so many tricks it’s just stupid.

2. Prot Warriors – it’s like trying to knock down a brick wall by slapping it with a feather.

1. Death Knights – I thought Druids had a lot of tricks.  This class is just ridiculous.  I normally won’t go near them. 

It turns out that I didn’t enjoy questing in Howling Fjord as much as I thought I did.  I certainly enjoyed it more than Borean Tundra, but it seemed to drag on a bit too long for my tastes and I eventually grew bored of the content.  Given that I was level 74 while questing there, I could have easily moved on and left it behind, but I just needed to get that quest achievement.  Once that was out of the way, I moved on to Dragonblight and experienced some of the best questing I’ve ever done in any MMO.  Ever.

For the first time in months now, I found myself drawn fully back into World of Warcraft, especially once I had started down the Wrath Gate chain of quests.  The lore that this line of quests, and the zone in general has, is insane.  On top of re-living a few moments from Warcraft III, which was totally cool, I got to wage war against the Scourge, fly with dragons, and hang out with some of the biggest characters in Warcraft lore.  More importantly, there were a few instances where the phasing technology kicked in and I made actual changes to the game world.

At no point during my time in Dragonblight did I feel like the quests were a chore.  I was so captivated by the over-arching storyline going on that the time flew by, and without realizing it, I discovered I was only one quest shy of the achievement for the zone.  When’s the last time that 115 quests just flew by?  The bad thing now of course, is that my expectations have been heightened, and I’m anticipating a letdown in my upcoming questing experience.  I’m going to be heading to Grizzly Hills next and I’ve heard some unfavourable reviews of that zone.  But hey, I want that achievement.

The New Year is here, so that means it’s time to make some resolutions.  Of course, the majority of us never live up to our New Year’s promises, despite all of our best intentions.  The following resolutions however, are all gaming related, and should therefore be fun, making it easier for me to follow through on them.

Cancel World of Warcraft:
I’ll start with this one because everything else sort of depends on this.  My current subscription will end on March 26, so that gives me more than enough time to hit the level cap (I’m currently level 74), and see all the content I’m interested in seeing.  I have no desire to do dailies, arenas, or battlegrounds, so once I’m at 80, I’m done.  I want to do other things with my computer time, so MMOs are out until something compelling comes along… or my friends suck me back in, whichever comes first.

Become competent with the Source SDK and make some levels:
I’m absolutely loving Left 4 Dead at the moment and it’s lit a long-dormant fire within me to get into level editing.  The last time I made levels for anything was back in the Doom days.  I know a lot has changed since then, but I’m not looking to develop award-winning levels or anything, I just want to play around with it.

Learn to program C++ or C#:
I’ve been meaning to do this one for a while now.  I’ve already got a functional knowledge of Java so I don’t think the learning curve will be too difficult, I just need to pick which of the two I want to learn and find a project to apply it to.  I consider this gaming-related because I want to apply it towards a simple little time-wasting game.  It will not be a triple-A MMO.

Finish the following games:
My pile of incomplete games is growing.  I need to stem the tide somwhat.
Oblivion – I’m close.  I just need to get it done.
Baldur’s Gate 2 – One of my all-time faves which I never finished.
Fallout 3 – Super pumped for this, but haven’t started it yet.
GTA IV – I’m least likely to live up to this one, it just hasn’t grabbed me.

Now that this list is out there in the public domain, you can all hold me to them, right?