Month: July 2025

I’m struggling with a purpose and direction in World of Warcraft right now. I’ve fully finished The War Within’s campaign and sidequests (to date) and have my gear as maxed out as I’m going to get from level 8 delves. So what to do? I kind of lost interest in instance farming for the Collector’s Bounty, and Patch 11.2 is still a little ways away. So I’m half-heartedly logging in to do a delve here and there, but it doesn’t feel like forward momentum.

Like a lot of other people, I’m probably more excited about Legion Remix (this fall?) than 11.2. Rolling up a fresh character and storming through one of WoW’s all-time best expansions for tons of great transmog, mounts, and pets is like catnip to my mind. I miss how we got remix last summer but don’t have it here, but I can see how it would be disruptive to 11.2 if they shoehorned it in earlier.

To fill up some time, I’ve been fooling around with a new Forsaken Death Knight as a possible replacement for my Draenei DK. I want an undead character in my main warband roster, and after some consideration of the options available, this class seemed like the best combo. Plus, if it works out, it is a replacement more than an addition, so I’m not trying to pile on more and more. Oh, her name is Gwenuine.

It’s nice that they have cross-faction guilds now, because Horde-side on my server is practically empty. I had a decent time pugging dungeons with her while I tweaked a more optimized build than what I had on my prior Death Knight.

The more I hear about WoW’s upcoming housing system, the more I’m impressed that Blizzard isn’t doing the bare minimum in this department but rather is putting in a crapton of effort to make this as full-featured as possible. The recent article on neighborhoods impressed upon me that there’s a lot to be gained by focusing on settlements as well as individual abodes — community, guild connection, and common projects through the endeavor system. I like hearing how easy it will be to move one’s house or get settled into a guild-specific neighborhood. That latter is going to be a huge boon to fostering more connections within guilds, I think.

After a week with my Druid, I flipped back to my Hunter in WoW Classic for some more level 40ish adventures. The scuttle is that Burning Crusade is coming maybe by November, with the pre-patch in October, which really isn’t terribly far away. And I still don’t have a single level 60 — I’m just *barely* at the midpoint at level 43, XP-wise, so I need to knuckle down and commit rather than flit back and forth between alts.

Doing some catchup questing in Desolace and I almost automatically attacked this rather famous dude and his pet bear. That would’ve been a pretty bad day for me, I reckon.

It’s not high-fidelity or super detailed, but WoW Classic has a beauty to it nevertheless. It’s comforting and very pastel-infused, and every so often I find myself gawking at the scenery as I travel through it.

I wasn’t really planning on keeping a raptor pet as long as I have, because it kind of feels stereotypical for a hunter with a raptor in this game, but I’ve started to grow attached to ol’ Turquoise here. He’s a great killer and looks pretty suave as he does it.

Our guild was debating the merits and drawbacks of STV the other night, and the discussion revealed how complex this zone is. Yeah, it’s way too long and has too few flight paths

I am internally struggling with the thought of what I might do when TBC’s pre-patch comes along, because I know there’s going to be fierce temptation to go ahead and do what I always do, which is roll up a Draenei Shaman and utterly abandon this Hunter I’ve dumped hundreds of hours into. Yes, I can pass along bags and gold, which is helpful, but that does feel like a waste in a way. But for now, I’m going to forge ahead with the Hunter and see if it might prove to be so sticky that it overcomes that future temptation.

Not wanting to get too much into a summer rut, I’m slightly changing things up this July by tagging in my enhancement shaman Sypsonia to give her some much-needed love. At the start, she’s only level 41 and obviously undergeared, so my plan is to utilize the timewalking dungeon event and, eventually, delves to get her up to par. And happily, the timewalking thing is PERFECT for this sort of activity! By the end of the first night of a handful of dungeons, I was already up to 57.

I had fun putting together an everyday combat outfit for her. I might still tweak this, but it’s a fun start, and I am happy to finally incorporate the nunchucks from the trading post into an ensemble. I’m still iffy on the overlarge shoulders, but I do like the little pink leaves that it causes to float by.

It barely took two days to go from 41 to 80 and get started in The War Within. That’s just as well, since there’s no real benefit to going slower through the levels at this point. Blizzard deemed that everything happens at endgame, and so it shall be.

On my Warlock, I am CRANKING OUT quests in this last zone. I have a purpose, and that purpose is to not be in this ugly purple spider place one more minute than is necessary. I kind of made a game out of it, seeing how many quests I could knock out in a half-hour here, half-hour there.

The Collector’s Bounty event upended any plans for a normal July and turned this entire game into a giant treasure hunt. I started to make a point of running a few raids or dungeons every day, not with any specific goal in mind other than to see what sorts of extra pets, mounts, and transmog would drop.

Feeling the call once more to return to WoW Classic — thanks to the warmer, slower pace of summer that usually beckons to old stomping grounds — I dusted off my level 24 Druid and attempted to pick up the thread of her questing journey. Something something Wetlands, I think. Surprisingly, I was still in my guild and there continued to be a strong presence there, which was a good sign.

It’s actually been REFRESHING to get back into my Druid. I was very much on again/off again with her, but now that she’s mid-20s, her kit is starting to come together and is less frustrating to level. The most enjoyable part of this is slowly leveling/questing while hoovering up a lot of loot, herbs, and leather to go sell for big profit.

I officially transferred my main over to this Druid, selling off everything that my Hunter had. No regrets there, and it’s nice to have over 80 gold in my pocket even before I hit 30. Following the Wetlands, I adventured in my old favorite zone of Duskwood. I don’t just love the vibes — the questing and farming here is generally excellent. My only complaint is that it needed one or two more flight points. Most of these zones do in Classic.

In contrast to the everything buffet at retail, WoW Classic is almost zen-like in its simplicity. Log in. Do quests, grind mobs, and level. Inching that progress meter forward a little at a time, being spoon-fed rewards, and enjoying the old school landscape is the icing on top of that cake.

Hitting level 30 was a very nice milestone, not just for the round number but to finally get feral faerie fire (alliteration!). It’s a super useful ability with no cost that acts as both a ranged pull and an armor debuff on mobs. I also got my travel form and a raft of other skill upgrades.

I do keep thinking about two major upcoming future events for Classic. First, there’s the promised opening of Burning Crusade on the anniversary servers by the end of this year. That’ll be nice, for sure, with a surge of community excitement, better specs, and a much better endgame all around. Back during the ’19 WoW Classic run, TBC is where I petered out about midway through. I don’t know how much my interest is going to stay or not, but I’m willing to see if I can go further this time around.

Then there’s the growing chatter around Classic Plus. Let me tell you, THIS is what really has me the most excited right now. A vanilla-era server where Blizzard keeps adding new content, refining systems, and evolving the base game in a different direction? That’ll feel so fresh and different, rather than be yet another progression server or Classic Era server suffering from arrested development. But we’ll have to wait and see what the official word is about this when and if it comes. Maybe Gamescom? That’d be cool.