I recently logged in to my Warcraft account to find I had in-game mail. This is especially strange for me as I play pretty much by myself now, and I don’t really make any use of any game features which would trigger mail, so to actually receive any is always surprising. It was from the WoW Dev Team, subject: WoW’s 6th Anniversary. Six years! Has it really been that long? To think that with Cataclysm expected to be Blizzard’s final major content release for the MMO, signalling at least another two years of support from the studio, is there anything the game can actually hope to offer anymore for dedicated players such as myself?

To survive for six years, an MMO has to evolve. I’ve played countless MMO’s where they failed to do just that and even a handful that didn’t so much evolve into something greater, but mutated into something hideous instead. World of Warcraft has been a fairly proactive MMO, providing mechanical changes to both the game’s engine and the core mathematics, alongside its expansion into new playable content between the release of its expansion packs. Whilst the majority of the new additions have been to benefit those enjoying the ‘end-game’ content (high level dungeons and Player vs. Player content), Blizzard never forgot the little guy who hasn’t even bought into any of the expansions.

The re-working of classes and the redefining of their roles have always been retro-active in World of Warcraft. Those who have stayed in Azeroth may not have been able to level beyond 60, but Blizzard have continued to support them regardless with new quest hubs and annually refreshed, monthly world events to keep the players occupied. I can only imagine there to be a handful of the twelve million subscribers who play actively and have never made it to Outland or Northrend. That Blizzard continue to redefine the 1-60 experience is admirable for a company that could happily leave the lights on and take a year off knowing that many would be content with what they already have.

The advent of Cataclysm will be no different to the company’s generosity. That the game is only increasing its level cap from 80 to 85 had always suggested to me that Blizzard were plotting to get more people into the end game content quicker, making five levels seem a lot easier to attain than what has been the standard ten so far. But of course there was the actual Cataclysm itself, bringing with it the changing of Azeroth in its entirety. Keeping myself fairly out of the loop these days, I didn’t fully understand just how Blizzard hoped to implement a whole new world until the night before Patch 4.03: The Shattering.

Put simply, World of Warcraft was to become an entirely redesigned game, taking everything that Blizzard has learned about MMOs over its six years at the helm, and starting all over again. Players would be free to restart the game and enjoy a fresh new experience with new Race/Class combinations on offer, which alone would have been reason enough for players to roll a new character and start the process again. To further provide two entirely new starting areas for the Gnomes and the Trolls (who had previously shared their beginnings with the Dwarves and Orcs respectively), alongside revamped starting experiences for the rest of the original cast list, came as an exciting revelation to me.

Having played the game for six years, on and off, I could happily say that I had levelled one of every race to at least level twenty, and had pretty much seen all the game had to offer at that end of the spectrum, having then experienced everything else on offer in the game with the characters I decided to continue playing as. That I could look forward to experiencing a more story driven and involving sequence of quests that had been similarly played out in Wrath of the Lich King was genuinely appealing, and that it was all going to be implemented weeks before the release of Cataclysm, without me even needing to buy it, was even better.

Alongside the overhauled game mechanics (bewildering to the most seasoned of players, who struggled at first to find a new groove, but friendly, simple and far more rewarding to newcomers), The Shattering was, of course, changing the very face of Azeroth. Areas beyond those first dozen levels, that I had for so long taken for granted, were also treated to a re-imagining, with certain areas expanded and entirely new ones slotted within the zones. Westfall, the area following immediately on from the Human starting grounds of Elwynn Forest has been transformed in both the most drastic and subtlest of ways. Entirely new quest lines have been created, putting the experience ahead of the XP, providing new ways in which areas of the zone were used and taking areas such as Sentinel Hill and updating them to be more in line with events. Previously, Sentinel Hill was simply a watch post, but now it presents itself as a more functional Keep, currently inundated with refugees made homeless by the destruction caused from Deathwing’s arrival. The characters within remain much the same, but they engage with you in a way that makes you actually appreciate them far beyond their ability to reward you for killing ten Defias Pillagers and looting four Buzzard Beaks. The new quests make you central to the events which previously felt rather distant in your personal quest to level fast and hard.

Even after five years, I had always enjoyed the previous offering, challenging myself to do it faster and cursing myself for having forgotten to pick up quests in the right order so that I could hit each area in one session, rather than backtracking just to grab one item. That Blizzard even felt it was appropriate to initiate a refresh shows their undeniable commitment to the consumer in an age where MMOs are desperate to just take the money off the player in order to keep electricity in the meter and a desk over the staff’s heads. Of course, such radical changes come at a price beyond the monthly subscription: the old must make way for the new.

Excited as I was reading the patch notes on WowInsider.com, it hit me that when I log on tomorrow afternoon, the world will have changed. Whilst I didn’t doubt that it would be for the better, it was twisting my stomach with great sorrow that everything I knew and loved about Azeroth would disappear…forever. In six years, I knew there were corners of the zones I hadn’t touched and places on my maps that I hadn’t ever visited. I had always promised myself that I would set aside a few afternoons in order to rectify that and earn myself the achievements for having explored the two continents. My most seasoned of characters, my first to reach levels 60 and 70, still had 24 zones not fully mapped. Reading this just a few hours before the servers began their scheduled maintenance in order to ready for The Shattering, I knew that I could not rectify my failings with the little time available to me. I had to make a decision about what it was I wanted to see and say goodbye to, only I was really struggling to pick and choose between it all.

I decided that the most fitting thing to do would be to log on to my very first character, a level 27 Hunter who spent the best part of my initial experience with the game running around with the equivalent of his pants on his head. I never fully understood the game back then and most of my frustrations I still associate with his long purple hair. I had attempted to go back to him a few years ago in an effort to rectify my mistakes, having gained wisdom in my experience. Sadly, he was too great an investment, with incredibly poor armour equipped, no money to replace it and entirely the wrong professions to even dream of contributing anything toward fixing that. He has therefore spent the last 2 years standing in a tavern in the human Capital of Stormwind, where he had been escorted some time ago from the other side of the world by a friend, on foot. It was a journey that changed my perception of the game, showing off the diversity of its world as we passed from zone to zone. It made me appreciate so much more about the World of Warcraft and so it seemed that the most fitting tribute I could make would be to retrace my footsteps and retake that journey.

Logging in, I found Stormwind to be in the middle of a world event that had been running in the week leading up the new patch. The city was under siege, the streets were lined with sandbags and civilian NPCs were crying out to be led to safety. This was the first time Warcraft has seen a world event which affects entire capital cities, these have previously been restricted to out of the way places or have occurred outside of the city gates. It was true chaos, most befitting for the advent of Cataclysm.

My planned journey would take me through Stormwind to the Deeprun Tram, connecting the city to the Dwarf capitol of Ironforge. From there I could run through Dun Morogh, taking the North Gate Pass into the South of Loch Modan, diving off the Stonewrought Dam itself, down into the Wetlands and running west to Menethil Harbour in order to catch two boats back home to the Night Elf city of Darnassus. Thanks to changes made by Blizzard, I shouldn’t really have had to make the journey on foot with mounts now available from level 20, reduced from 30 when I last played as the character and down further from 40 when first I created the character. As I have already detailed, Drai isn’t doing so well financially and even if I could afford the, now pitiful, amount of gold for both the necessary skill and the saddled Sabre Tooth to ride, in order to purchase the mount I would still need to be in Darnassus and so I would have to make this journey the same way I did all those years ago: on foot.

Making it through besieged Stormwind, my plan was instantly shot to hell with the discovery that the Tram had been rendered inactive by the siege. I already felt guilty for having opted to take the Tram as opposed to making the entire journey solely on my own steam. I certainly couldn’t sit with the idea of flying to Ironforge knowing that the world passing beneath me was all but doomed, but with two of the connecting zones that I would have to pass through in making the journey on foot being tailored to characters twenty levels higher than me and a third still being especially tricky to navigate, it felt impossible. What greater tribute can be paid to the creativity of world design than accomplishing the impossible?

As I made my way through Elywnn Forest and the Redridge Mountains, I really did feel the nostalgia hit hard. Looking from the road at the areas around me, I found myself recalling all of the quests I’d completed, the frustrations felt and rewards received, along with the good and downright bizarre times had with friends here. On entrance to the Redridge Mountains, the first NPC you encounter is Guard Parker who has forever stood at the crossing of Three Corners, dutifully recruiting newcomers into a spot of Gnoll control with a later quest issued from Darcy the waitress, asking you to take Guard Parker his lunch on the promise of receiving a free lunch yourself.

It’s nothing you give a care in the world for when you’re levelling as all you want out of this is the quest XP. You’re not even going to eat the free lunch – you’re just going to sell it. If you actually pay attention to the quest, you can pick up on the lightest scent of a love triangle here, with Guard Parker asking you to purchase some flowers for Darcy from the florist (providing you don’t mention to her who they are for) as a thank you for his lunch in a following quest. As I ran past Parker, it struck me that I’d never even seen his face as he proudly wears a full suit of Stormwind armour, yet I felt sad to think that next time I return to the area he may not be there. Even more bizarrely, I found myself willing the guy to take the rest of the night off and to go spend the last night on Azeroth with Darcy as I’d convinced myself he so obviously wanted to. It made me sad for him, sad for an NPC who hasn’t moved in six years.

Treading on into the Burning Steppes I found myself laughingly taunting two Orc Sentries that had gotten the better of me so many times, even when I was a more appropriate level. Despite managing to run faster and further than them as they chased me, perfectly capable of annihilating me in one hit, I again felt that same pang of sorrow that this was probably the last time I would experience that, even though I, quite literally, had the last laugh.

In the connecting mountain pass of Blackrock Mountain, leading to the Searing Gorge, I bumped into a level 52 Shaman on his way to one of the dungeons, also paying his own tribute by making the journey himself, rather than using the instantaneous Dungeon teleport implemented over a year ago with the improvements made to the Dungeon Looking for Group tool. He was baffled to find me there, being way too low a level to be anywhere near the place, and we enjoyed a brief, pleasant conversation before going our separate ways.

Continuing on in the journey, I found myself still noticing new things about the zones, opting to take bizarre routes through them in order to ensure I didn’t attract any attention from creatures which would quite happily destroy me in a single hit. Six years on and even in the zones I knew I had statistically explored, I still hadn’t seen everything.

Making one last failed attempt to leap from the Stonewrought Dam in Loch Modan, something I never managed to do and survive without the help of my trusty steed or a few magic tricks, my journey came to its end in Menethil Harbour. I here realised that the boat I was expecting no longer departed from these docks, with that ship’s route having been changed when Wrath of the Lich King launched two years ago, departing instead from the docks where my journey started, in Stormwind.

I called it a night, happy that I’d paid a grand tribute to the wonderful creation of Azeroth. I said one last farewell and logged off. Returning the next day, I retraced that journey once more, amazed as I was all those years ago at the new world around me, with a personal highlight as I reached the edge of Redridge, ready to enter Elwynn Forest. It actually felt like I had become Doctor Who, reaching the Three Corners crossing to find a guard tower, commanded by Watch Captain Parker who stands, ever proudly, at the foot of the tower with his wife Darcy behind him and his daughter Libby running around, as kids do. I was over the moon to see him again and really made up for him that he and Darcy had got it together and was delighted to meet his daughter. It had literally been twelve hours though, for the first time, it felt like six years had truly passed – a feeling that no game has ever managed to evoke in me.

I thank Blizzard for having me in their world and for giving me six happy years of memories there. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this entirely refreshed experience that they’ve given to me and will forever look at the world with a greater appreciation in remembrance of old Azeroth. Building a world is impossible, destroying one is unthinkable but giving it back to the dedicated players who still call it home really is something incredible.

Long live the King.

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