Tales From Azeroth 2: Levels 1 - 10

My first 10 levels in World of Warcraft were, for the most part, fairly boring and even frustrating.

All I seemed to do for quests in the first 7 levels were repetitive, “Kill X number of Y and bring back X number of trophies” or tedious FedEx quests which entailed NPCs asking me to “Deliver X object to Y NPC and report back.” The relatively slow level progression, compared to what I have experienced (bearing in mind that I do not have loads of experience with playing CRPGs) , in World of Warcraft makes it more tedious. Having said that, I read that the level progression is even slower in other MMORPGs, so perhaps my complaint is unwarranted.

Levels 8 to 10 were made less boring because Id was helping me with my quests, and it was nice to roam about, quest, and chat at the same time. I felt slightly less satisfaction from my quest completion, though. He is more than 10 levels higher than my character, so enemies were killed faster. I didn’t feel very satisfied with my accomplishments. If a game is too hard, I get sick of it and want to stop playing. If a game is too easy, victories are emptier. Having said that, the company of my significant other more than made up for the low difficulty level.

A friend of Id’s was very generous and gave me some gold and bags, and bags make item management so much easier. Before having additional space in my inventory, it was irritating having to freqently return to a merchant to sell off unneeded items after slaughtering monsters. I wish I could mail the gold from my other character, who is on a PvE server to this character, but even character transfers from PvE servers to PvP servers are not possible.

I chose two Professions, Herbalism and Alchemy. I collect plants and then make them into useful potions, which I can sell. Initially, I was interested in Tailoring, because being able to make clothes seems pretty cool, and Warlocks wear cloth armour, but I was advised against it. Apparently one earns money more quickly at the lower levels with gathering Professions than other sorts of Professions. Herbalism and Alchemy are synergistic Professions, anyway.

Collecting flowers is kind of irritating because although they appear on the minimap, you have to pixel-hunt for the herbs in the world itself. This aspect makes me feel like I am playing a point-and-click adventure game almost. However, with practice it gets easier.

I had been in a couple of duels during this period. One duel was against a Mage of the same level; I think I was at level 7. I defeated him. The other one was against a level 2 Warrior with a fiery sword. I was level 10, and I died horribly, though I did manage to take out half of his hit points. I was surprised that this level 2 person was able to defeat me, but his sword was glowing and probably very special. He also seemed to be an experienced PvP player. I have decided not to duel anymore because it is too stressful and people seem to be ultra-competitive.

During my first 10 levels, I still had mixed feelings about World of Warcraft, though they were more positive than negative. It was a change from the last time I played back in January, where the balance was in favour of negative feelings.

Previous posts in this series:

Tales From Azeroth 1: Return