As you might guess from the logo, Tales of the Aggronaut has passed the 40,000 unique readers mark on Google analytics. As a result, I decided to steal from the iconography Warhammer 40,000 logo, in honor of the milestone. Over the last few weeks, real life has slowed my postings down to a crawl, but I thank all of you out there for sticking with me. I continue to gain readership each day, and I am completely amazed that anyone is willing to read my half-baked rambles on a regular basis.
This week has been busier than most. With a house guest from Mississippi I have missed more raids this week than I have ever missed during the lifespan of the Duranub Raiding Company. As fate would have it, I managed to make both of our 10 man outings, but completely missed both of our 25 man raids. So between last week and the cleaning/home improvement ramp-up to having a house guest, and this week the actual act of playing host… I am completely worn out. Looking forward to a long weekend of doing a whole lot of nothing.
In the past I have posted a few emotion wrapped rambles about how expendable I was feeling at the beginning of Ulduar. Prior to that, I posted about the bittersweet feeling of when your raid group does just fine without you. Because of the insanity of this week I have to say that I was thoroughly thrilled that my raid was able to pull together and perform extremely well without their main tank. From what I hear we saw some pretty phenomenal performances from various players as they stepped up to fill the void left by the raid mascot… me. Awesome job to everyone.
You can’t go back… can you?
Expansions are an exciting time, with the advent of new content to conquer, but with each also comes a certain sadness for me. I know in the back of my mind that I will never again experience the content in the same way as I once did. Sure I can go back and run Molten Core, but it is rather sad and wrong that I can now solo what once took a group of 40 players working together to conquer. We can never again experience the camaraderie of 40 players focused on one singular goal… or can we?
The 3.2 expansion brings with it a new feature to the game, the ability to for a fee lock your character so that it will no longer receive experience in any fashion. The goal of this addition is without a doubt to be able to create PVP twinks at the various brackets, and there will be much rejoicing amongst players as they know that they can safely run instances to acquire gear without ever pushing beyond that much vaunted bracket. However this feature also allows for an unanticipated option.
Real Retro Raiding
With the new feature we will be able to lock characters at level 60, and experience the older content in a similar fashion to the nostalgic days of WoW. On Argent Dawn, one of our regular community organizers Wargallow, has suggested just this. His plan is to create a group of 25+ level 60 characters for the purpose of running old world content the way it was originally meant to be experienced. For the time being, any level 60 character is welcome, and I am presently planning on playing my dwarf rogue Gloam.
Will this usher in the era of “Twink Raiding”? I guess only time will tell, but I feel this is a brilliant way to experience content that either you are nostalgic about or managed to miss the first time around. While it is enjoyable to push through the older content with a group of over-level and overpowered friends, for me at least it has always been bittersweet. I remember the epic feeling of experiencing molten core for the first time, and the joy I felt when I completed my Giantstalker set. Maybe we can recapture a small bit of this.
This weekend I will be spending it pushing my rogue to 60 off and on, and looking forward to the hopefully good times to come. I look forward to meeting new players, and helping to nurture this fledgling group as it gets off the ground. The only sadness I feel as I look forward is the fact that my gnome warrior Bobbinn is ineligible, as on a whim I dinged 61 all so many months ago.
I’m one of those that missed all the old content. I didn’t get into WoW until after BC. Didn’t even think of the idea of locking at 60 and doing these old raids the right way. Heck I may even try to set up a guild just for it. Thanks for pointing this idea.
Ok so I find this hilarious that once again, you and I will be playing the same class in the same raid instances. 🙂