I’ve owned WoW since March, 2005. It was no more than a pleasant occasional distraction for the vast majority of the time since then. For the first few years I’d roll some character, play it up into the 30s, and get distracted and leave it behind. The only thing I remember from that time is being in the Penny Arcade Annarchy guild. We managed to melt servers a few times with our giant raids, which was something, but I eventually lost interest.
I started to get hooked when TBC came out. I had just found out that some old friends had picked up WoW and had a Horde guild. I rolled a Blood Elf Pally (Seriously, what’s with the eyebrows?). I got him up into the 50s but I still didn’t know what I was doing. I leveled with some awkward combination of prot and holy, I think, and boy was it slow going. Everyone else in the guild was up at 70 having fun with the Outland instances, so I was kind of lonely. Then something happened and I lost interest, yet again. I’m guessing that I went on vacation and that absence, in that case, made the heart go yonder.
A few months ago those same friends splintered off into yet another Horde guild. This time I rolled a Troll Hunter (Seriously, what’s with the slouching? And no shoes? Come on.). It had since become the age of wowhead, wowwiki, and wowinsider. Backed by years of light familiarity, I soaked up WoW info like a sponge. I came to enjoy both the content and design of the PvE game. I had a fantastic time leveling up to 70, gearing up for Kara, fiddling around with shot rotations, chain-trapping Moroes adds — being a generally capable BM Hunter.
That brings us to Wrath, and the present. I always had an affinity for the fundamentals of the pally class — healing, plate, bonking things with maces — but so much of the TBC mechanics were tedious. It turned me off. Fiddling around with gear is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game for me but the the prot pally tanking itemization in TBC was just too much. Uncrushable? Caster weapons? Ugh. It was a relief to learn that Wrath was fixing all this. It made playing a prot pally sound like fun again.
I decided to roll a new pally to try out the Wrath mechanics. I also took this as an opportunity to finally see the Alliance content and rolled a Human Pally. And lo, Zabery was born.
I’m happy to say that leveling as a protection pally in 3.0 has been an absolute treat. I’m now up into the 50s and am having a great time with it. I can’t wait to hit Northrend and end-game progression.
So, what can one hope to find in this blog? Well, remember all that fun I mentioned having with that Troll Hunter? I’ve long suspected that BigRedKitty’s blog played a huge role in my initial interest and continued enthusiasm for the Hunter class. All too often WoW blogs are preachy, or whiny, or — well, you know. Not so with BRK’s posts and movies. For me, he manages to bring out the fun of the game. Good, honest, fun.
That last bit is what I want the over-arching feeling of this blog to be. Fun. When I find myself having fun learning and playing the pally class I want to share it. It sounds corny, but there you go.
So, welcome. Grab a cup of tea. We’ll see how this goes.