Crazy Person Hits Level 80 In Lich King
What? How? Why? The fricking thing only went on sale yesterday, and already one player's managed to ding level 80. I've been playing most of today, having arduously just hit level 71 a moment ago, and even that's enough to make my eyes scream and my brain weep. 80?
There's no word from the player her/himself as yet, but Wowinsider theorise they had a pet Priest with them to make the journey that much easier. That I can believe, but it's the actual time involved that confuses me. If they bought the copy at midnight on Tuesday and played solidly, that would have given them 30 hours all-told. Is that possible, WoW mathematicians? It doesn't seem to be shenanigans, as we can all see the dedicated warlock's armory profile. I'm sure she's looking forward to a lonely week of having no-one to team up with up. But gratz'n'all.
My own second day in Northrend's been a fairly WoW-standard one, though it does keep on throwing agreeably inventive quests at me. I turned into a hawk for a while, I wore a golem suit and I took a ride on a giant harpoon. Then I ran WoTLK's first two dungeons, neither of which especially impressed me. There's some nice graphical show-offery in the Nexus, but it all felt terribly familiar. As did the struggles to form a group for it. I know you've got to be precise for the later raids, but I'd hoped the early 5-man instances would be ameanable to a fairly mongrel group. Not so. It's not just a matter of getting the right classes, but the right spec of the right classes, and of course players that pretty on the ball. There wasn't too much wiping involved at least, but it was a right pig to sort out. Yeah, it's a bit more sociable than WAR's anonymous pile-ons, but they're so much easier to orchestrate.
What I have noticed, though, is that Lich King is very much WoW reverting to type. The otherworldly, sci-fi elements of The Burning Crusade have been dialled back in favour of a straighter fantasy landscape, and while that sounds duller on paper, it really suits the game. Forests and ice floes feel a lot better suited to exploration than the more contrived, setpiecey alien environments of TBC.
But God, level 80? In a day?