TBC Again: Baby Steps

The pre-patch for The Burning Crusade Classic dropped on the World of Warcraft Classic servers this week. Although I never really could jump on the Classic train too much, I stalled out around level 23 on my Warlock, I have a definite soft spot for The Burning Crusade. It was the expansion where I started playing WoW and I think I was max level on my Warrior right after the Black Temple came out, so pretty late into the expansion’s lifecycle. I got into raiding via a small Dutch guild where we would clear Karazhan every week but that was about it. My computer was absolutely terrible at the time and I remember vividly how many times I crashed while trying to level up and later on while trying to play some endgame. I got a new PC and managed to play a lot more and even managed to get into a progression guild and push through the Sunwell raid when it came out. I think we stalled on Brutallus and the guild fell apart shortly after that. I’ve always missed the time where WoW was a completely new experience to me and I was still very much in love with playing the game.

With retail stalling a bit, my guild gave up on raiding for the time being and is waiting for patch 9.1 to drop so we can start the next raiding tier, I decided to jump on the TBC hype train. I’ve made a Draenei Shaman, very original I know, and I’m slowly leveling her up. Because I have no endgame obligations in this game I’m just taking my time, working through all the quests that I can on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isle before moving on to newer zones. Right now I’m level 18 and I still have quite a few quests to go on Bloodmyst so I should be good for the next couple of days. I definitely won’t be ready for the actual launch of the Dark Portal but I’m not too fussed about that. I’m just enjoying the scenery and the level up experience, which has been significantly improved from the Classic server. I’m looking forward to hitting level 20, so I can learn Ghost Wolf form and run a bit faster, and then level 30 so I can get an actual mount. I forgot how many totems Shamans used to have and how many weapon enchants. Lightning Shield is an expensive spell and weapon skills are still a thing. I’ve taken up Mining and Jewelcrafting and am having a blast just slowly leveling everything back up again. I can’t wait to go through the Dark Portal and re-experience Outland again for the first time. I’m sure it’ll trigger a lot of nostalgia.

On the Final Fantasy XIV side of things I’m mostly doing my crafting dailies every day. I’m currently working on Culinarian, which is sitting at level 74 and after that I only have three more to go. I’m also trying to make a list of what other content I still want to/need to tackle. I’ve made my way in the main story up until the latest patch but I can’t go forward because my item level is too low for the dungeon. I want to finish off the final wing of the Eden raid and the final wing of the Nier raid. Then I can still focus on leveling up Blue Mage or work away on the Shadowbringers Relic weapons, something I’ve not really done yet.

There’s plenty to do in both games but I’m taking it easy and taking my time. I’ve had to deal with a lot of work stress and as such my brain feels like it’s heavily overworked. I have a very short attention span so I’m just taking any game time I can get, even if it’s only for 15-20 minutes at a time. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve been doing so far though so I hope I can carry that over into June and the rest of the summer.

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