My First Day Back In Azeroth

If you read my previous blog you know that I was worried about returning to World of Warcraft. I've done it, and now I want to tell you about my first eventful day back in Azeroth.

First off, I owe my reintroduction in part to Miller and Joe. I also owe much to my best friend Dave. The man sent me a “refer a friend” invite, so that he and I might enjoy triple experience points with our new characters, instantly teleport to one another, and get a special two-seater mount. It’s as awesome as it sounds, even though it means I have to repurchase a few expansions.

My character choice was heavily influenced by my current obsession – Dracula. I’ve been reading and loving Bram Stoker’s original novel, and I wanted to craft a character as similar to Count Dracula as possible. The result? An undead warlock named Wampyr, Stoker’s original name name for his monster. I figured that siphoning mortal’s life essence, summoning demons, charming foes, and stealing souls was all too similar to Count Dracula.

I haven’t played an undead since my first character, an Forsaken warrior back from when Vanilla WoW launched. A little has changed since then, including Valkyrie-like beings which reanimate new undead, new quests which require you to round up dead bodies for rebirth, and some minor aesthetic changes. All in all, it’s a good starting spot, but I didn’t stick around long.

My friend Dave rolled a tauren druid named Orinus, and I decided to warp over to Kalimdor to grind the early levels on his turf. We hopped in the tree-harvesting machinations of Horde newcomers, the goblins, and began our work. The shredders were a fun distraction from the usual cursing and shadow bolt-casting I was becoming accustomed to. I loved launching grenades and saw blades at packs of foolhardy Night Elves.

The levels were flying by like mad with the triple xp and before we knew it we were in the mid-teens. I decided to focus on speccing Wampyr for affliction, because I love loading up mobs with oodles of crippling curses. After selecting our professions and training up, we entered the random dungeon finder.

Our first stint in Ragefire Chasm was fun, if not a bit rocky. Almost everyone was attempting their classes for the first time. Fortunately our tank only perished once. I had a blast tabbing between enemies and rocking them with afflictions, then raining down shadow bolts and fireballs from my wand. I scored a lot of nice blue gear in my time there, and didn’t do too poorly when it came to dealing out damage. After that we tackled the Deadmines which were even more fun. I only accidentally pulled extra mobs once, but I resisted my urge to flee or use fear, tapped my healthstone, and weathered the storm while the tank saved me.

When we finished our two dungeons Dave and I had been playing Warcraft for 9 hours without pause. We were each level 20 and as it stands I am only a handful of silver coins from having my first mount already. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity I have to commit to the game for such a long stint.

As of now I am feeling the itch to log on, but I believe I’ll restrain myself. I don’t want to get too far ahead of Dave or else Wampyr and Orinus won’t enjoy the triple xp (they must be within four levels of one another). Anyway, I’m fairly certain that I’ll be continuing my excursions, especially with my new computer around the corner. I am still a little worried about this game leeching time from other awesome games, but I hope I have enough discipline by age 25 that I can juggle WoW with greatness like Dead Space 2, Portal 2, the 3DS, and a life.

Also, any seasoned warlocks out there want to give me some tips?