5punk

Finally got round to putting down my thoughts on Cataclysm. I'm not feeling it, put simply. I'm surprised considering how much time I've spent playing Warcraft, and I really thought I'd be hooked back into it for another six months or so at least. I've tried to quantify my reasons, although I can't quite put a finger on why I just can't be bothered to log on and play.

1. I don't recognise my main any more. It took me a long time to get an idea of how to play a Shaman at level cap and approach being useful. Now with the entire talent tree being changed I just can't be arsed to learn it all again.

2. The incentive to re-learn the class - level cap instances and raids - have done nothing at all to inspire me to get there. Old instances made very hard are the reports I'm hearing, and I'm not inspired by that. When you need to be a hardcore raider to be able to handle the instances it's not the game for me any more.

3. Playing a goblin is fun, and changes to the Warrior class have enabled me to have another go at that and enjoy it. However, the quests still feel the same to me. They might have made the world look different, and chocolate coated the grind, but it's still grind.

4. There's no 5punk in the game any more. A few of us are playing it, but not together. It the height of my enjoyment we were easily doing instances together most nights and it was great fun. This isn't a criticism of 5punkers, more a return to one of my original criticisms of the game from my first trial account years ago - there's not enough scope for players of differing level and ability (or time to commit) to play together.

Maybe if Cata had come out six months ago I'd still be playing now, but as it stands I think I've got used to a post Warcraft world, and playing it now feels just like going back to an old game. That said, I've got three months of subscription to play so maybe I'll settle back in. When I actually log back in and play it again.

Good points, well made. I'm just playing on my Priest now. Burned through 7 levels in about 3 or 4 days, but I don't know if I'll resub once this month is up. Not only does the thought of levelling up another profession fill me with dread, but then there's the thought of dungeons...

As a DK I could just stand there and hit things (admittedly not very well), but as a Priest, even specced for Shadow/DPS, you constantly get asked to heal - and frankly I don't think I can face being called a noob that many times before I'd get anywhere near proficient. We'll see though.

It's a shame you never got to heal a 5punky party. Healing's very satisfying - you're constantly monitoring your team and reacting to the situation. With healbot is gets described as whack-a-mole, ie you click on whoever needs health, but it's whack-a-mole with half a dozen different hammers. I really enjoyed healing even as my secondary spec with Soncho, but I'd never heal for randoms for those situations where you fuck up and 6punkers just laugh, while randoms troll you for half an hour.

I'm always up for some 5punky dungeoning, normals are relatively easy and great fun.

I feel kind of the same, with my DK I was okay joining other people and enduring a few snide comments about my gear, but I've never done it with my Warlock, or the various healing characters I've started, because I just feel so hopelessly inept.

However, I'm still rather enjoying the singleplayer content and by virtue of the fact that my 80s are pretty much just-dinged 80s, the stuff I'm getting as quest rewards is literally twice as good as what I'm wearing, giving me some sort of smug vindication for not raiding every night. I've always preferred levelling to dungeoning, mostly because you can just do it on a whim at any time.

Also, having explored on my skeleton bird and magic carpet to find all the new flight points, it's clear there's stacks of new quest hubs for low-to-middle level characters, even if the very first quests you get after the new intro sequences (Goblins, Worgen, Trolls and Gnomes) seem to be the same-old.

I find myself wanting to play through the quest chains in Silverpine with all those scourge caravans trundling around and the ones in the newly mashed-up Barrens with the Alliance knocking at the door. Other little touches like Southshore now being horde-controlled, the Needles being flooded and there being a green bit in Desolace also point to new things to do through quite a few levels.

As for professions, I don't give much of a toss. I never made anything worth selling, they were more of a fun distraction for me or making stuff for the guild which I was happy to do for free. If you get to a character level where say 100g is easy to come by from quest rewards, or do same with a bit of auction-house wheeler-dealing you can pretty much buy yourself the first 300 levels in any given profession anyway.

I probably have 3-5 months left on the sub anyway and whether I carry it on is more to do with finance than content, but I think it still remains one of the more cost-effective forms of entertainment for me on a pence-per-hour basis, even though I don't play that much. It remains to be seen how much longer it will entertain me, though.

I can't be arsed fucking about with clever quoting for this, but to reply to DP's post:

1) Everyone had that, it's pretty much run off the mill for an expansion, afaik.

2) You don't really need to be too hardcore for normal dungeons, heroics are pretty difficult, but not impossible.

3) Yep, but at least the grind is fast and amusing now, much better than it was.

4) This is an issue but with a bit of noise, I'm sure we can sort silly dungeon runs out.

I had a go at a free trial, just to see how the world has changed. Not the best way to do it as I have access to very little of the world as a new character. But I did get to see Orgrimmar and the alliance castle city. They've changed quite a bit since I last played, more detail.

Also the initial levelling is less tedious and there's more instruction at the beginning. Nice for players new to the genre.

However it's the same old game and I don't want to get sucked in again as it just takes too much time. I did enjoy levelling a hunter for a while, which I've not played before, but not enough.