Whims - 17Sep26
00:00:00 Chris Golden: Hello. It's Thursday afternoon and World of Warcraft Forever has gone into beta. I played WoW way, way, way back. Not at launch. I was not one of the the people who played it at launch. Um, the idea of an MMO was something I was familiar with. I had played, uh, EverQuest, Asheron's Call was another game. I had played a little, but World of Warcraft wasn't one that I thought I'd be interested in, which is odd because I had been playing the RTS Warcraft games, played some Diablo. Um, but yeah. WoW. Didn't really, you know, grab my attention. And it was actually my younger brother who, who convinced me, uh, to, to create an account, uh, get a subscription and, uh, and play a little WoW. He had said how he was connecting with our, our cousins who happen to live in Australia. And I thought that was actually a pretty cool concept, being able to game with family who lived on the other side of the planet. And uh. Anyhow, long story short, I finally signed up, dove into the game, and uh, unfortunately for me, my brother, he was well ahead of me. Obviously he'd been playing for some time, so he left me to my own devices and I ended up joining, uh, Ursin, I think was the server name at the time. And, uh, just started playing. I, I looked at the different classes I had decided I was going to go with Alliance because in my mind, I thought Alliance were the, the good guys, obviously far more complex than that. Um, in fact, one might suggest the Alliance are not the good guys and be, you know, quite valid to, to say that. And then I was like looking at the different classes and I thought, you know what, I'm going to go with human. And I went with a human mage. Now the reason I went with the mage is in my mind, it just seemed cool to be able to dish a whole lot of, like, damage from a distance. And uh, yeah, that's just how the decision making process went. So the human mage Lyteforce on the earth and server in the way back times started, uh, doing what he needed to do to, to make a living, uh, exploring Elwynn Forest, uh, learning how quick, uh, a mage can easily get dropped if he tries to pull one too many mobs at any given point. I also discovered how much damage I could dish, which in turn would pull aggro left, right, and center when I was in groups. So I had to learn how to manage that. But one of the first in-game connections that I made was with the another guy who I don't can't remember the circumstances, what he had joined, but joined around the same time. We were of about the same age, and he was a priest. And so the two of us, when we would partner up and play together, did quite well. I did a lot of the damage. He did a lot of the healing and we as a sort of a pair work well. And, you know, a few days or a few weeks later, I can't remember the the exact timeline. He mentions that he's joined this guild and would I be interested? And I'm like, oh, I've never been in a guild before. What's that? And he's like, oh, it's just a bunch of people. We help each other out. We, we party together in the sense of getting in the game. Growing up, though, who knows, maybe some of them actually party together in real life too, I don't know. And I'm like, yeah, sure. So Lyteforce the mage. Uh, he joined Peeps on Patrol. That was the name of the guild. Um, it was a good group, I have to admit. It was, it was large in the sense that, um, anyone could join for any reason. Uh, at some point in time, the population of the guild was like over one hundred and fifty, two hundred, which I know is not huge, but like very few people really participated beyond their sort of group within the guild. Um, but to the group that I ended up, uh, playing with, uh, we all sort of lived in the West Coast. We really got along together. And it was an experience that I still look back to fondly. Unfortunately, as, as with many, you know, video games in general, but the live service and the, the online experiences, uh, the people that you connect with and play with, with will often change. And that's what happened. Um, the, the priest, he, you know, ran into life. That's, you know, something that occurs, uh, I ended up playing less and less. And then eventually he just became last login over a year ago. And the guild that I was in similar situations were happening to others, our guild leaders, um, it was a couple who unfortunately encountered some difficulties within that relationship. So that dynamic was a little bit, uh, awkward to put it easiest, but I continued on for a little bit And then eventually, I guess it would have been probably after Burning Crusade, I found that I wasn't as maybe interested in the game as much as it once was. Uh, the people that I had been playing, uh, you know, with for some time had moved on or gone to different games. And while I did occasionally drop in to a few expansions over time, um, I just, you know, I lost the itch. It didn't feel like the Warcraft or the World of Warcraft that I remembered even classic when I gave classic a try for about a month. Classic felt like the OG experience that I had sort of grown up with. No denying that. But it didn't feel quite right. And I think that was because there was many quality of life experiences that I did, like in retail that obviously didn't exist within the classic experience. And again, barely scratch that itch. So when I saw the trailer for World of Warcraft Forever, I was hooked. And I am not one to pre-order for the sake of joining a beta, but I did end up dropping some money on the. I think it was called the Forever Pack or something. It was like one hundred dollars Canadian. Um, it included the world or sorry, Warcraft three reforged, um, as well as the DLC for it. Uh, it included thirty days of, of WoW gameplay, a bunch of cosmetics. And I sort of, you know, done the numbers. If I were to get the Warcraft three reforged and DLC in thirty days, I was going to be about one hundred dollars Canadian. So really, at the end of the day, if I was going to spend that much, it makes sense to to go this route. Now you might be asking, well, why did you get reforged? I've actually kind of wanted to play reforged. Um, RTS were the games or game genre that really connected with me. I enjoyed um, you know, playing many of the Sierra titles, um, King's Quest and uh, police Quest and the like, but it was, it was doomed to. That got me hooked. And then when I started playing Warcraft and then eventually StarCraft II, RTS was was my jam. And I just sort of want to get back to that, that vibe. Anyhow, I've created my character for forever. The data so far, I've not done anything more than load into Elwynn where a hundred or so people are just chillin. Um, I imagine all the boars are now dead. Um, if there is a limit to the number of boars that can be generated in game, they're all gone. They're probably extinct as a species within the, the, the frame of World of Warcraft. But I'm going to probably dive back in, you know, enjoy myself while I do, um, for you, a listener, did you ever play World of Warcraft? Do you currently play World of Warcraft?
00:08:26 Chris Golden: Will you be diving back in or simply in to World of Warcraft Forever? I'm genuinely curious. Let me know either on socials or by email.
00:08:37 Chris Golden: Whims is recorded on the traditional and unceded territory for the Semiahmoo, Kwantlen and Katzie Nations. You can email me at whimsfyi@proton.me, that's W H I M S F Y I at proton.me, with a casual hello, comments, questions or the winning lottery numbers. And no, I don't need your help with SEO. You can find all the links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes on the website, whims.fyi. And the song you hear at the start and the end of the show is "The Homestead" from Logan at musicformakers.com.