This is a post that was inspired by two things. First, a video that was sent to me by my boyfriend. Secondly, a post over at HoTs & DoTs.

You may be wondering what those two things have in common, but the way I see it, they’re both about the road that you took to get somewhere. In the case of the LoadingReadyRun video, it’s a comedy about how it’s not just “one thing” that makes something what it is, and in the case of the HoTs & DoTs post, it’s about how something little, like logging on at juuust the right time, can change your WoW life.

I look back at my first WoW character ever and see a lot of weird little things that all conspired together that brought me to where I am now. Rolling on the server I rolled on, cause a friend had characters there and decided we’d prefer to start out on that carebear RP server than on his other server, a PvP one. Rolling hunter cause a friend told me to. Learning herbalism because I wanted to pick a Peacebloom. Learning alchemy because seriously, as if I would have any other profession. The fact that I then had both herbalism and alchemy? Beginner’s luck.

There are a lot of what-ifs, too. What if the WoW free trial hadn’t worked on my Linux install? I was using Linux fulltime when I installed it. If it hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t have even tried to make it work. My personal reasons for using Linux were– are— more important than a game.

What if the friend that got the boyfriend and I into WoW had us roll Horde on his PvP server instead? Would I still be inventing stories and backstories for my characters the way I do now that I’m spoiled with the RP server mindset?

What if the person who told me to roll a hunter, told me to roll something else?

What if I’d never stumbled across the WoWWiki “fansites” page that introduced me to the (at that time, much smaller) WoW blogosphere?

And then what if I’d never decided to bite the bullet and make my own little blog? I put off doing it for a long time, you know. “Why use up valuable internet space that I can’t even put to good use? I’m no BRK,” was my reasoning. And yet for some reason I finally did it anyway.

My latest little “what if” comes in the form of joining my new guild. All I did for that was go to the official forums (where I never go) for my realm, found the first “Recruiting!” thread that I could find, went to the website, liked what I saw, and applied. A few weeks later I was in Ulduar, and now not only is my main in ToC25 but my alt is, as well (though I admit she is probably not geared for it, but it’s fun anyway.) You gotta understand, prior to joining that guild I’d been puttering around in PuGs and Naxx10. I figured I’d seen all the WotLK content I’d ever see. But the WoW gods apparently disagreed with me.

Where am I going with this? Truthfully at this point I think I’m just rambling; I’m trying to write a book, see, one that’s been stewing in my brain for thirteen years and I’m just now trying to get serious about it, and because I’ve been writing that all day, my brain is fried. x_x

BUT! The moral of the story, maybe, is don’t be afraid to take risks, like I did when I joined my new guild. It might be really good, or it might be really bad, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

The other moral of the story is that alchemy is clearly the superior profession because our flasks last twice as long. I miss four hour flasks though. /cry

If you are anything like me, if you see a low level character running around, you instantly assume it’s an alt. Oh, now there are heirloom items that are a dead giveaway, but even the characters without said items still convince me. They don’t have to say anything. They just instantly register in my head as “alt”.

You can’t blame me, really. And I’ll bet a large portion of you do the exact same thing. And there’s nothing wrong with that– you just sort of get into that mindset.

Back in the day when I was leveling Tawyn, my first character, people assumed I was an alt as well. I’d get people telling me about what they were doing in Eastern Plaguelands, sprinkled with phrases like “as you know…” and I’d nod my head and smile even though I’d never stepped foot in Eastern Plaguelands because I was level 40. It amused me that people assumed this about me, but it never bothered me, because I felt terribly new to the game.

Things first started to change when I did have a max level character, and my alt, the druid Tamaryn, was level 50ish and healing BRD. This was about, oh, a year ago. I was in a group for BRD and it didn’t take long before the truth came out that not only was I was the only person there who had been in the instance before, but I was the only alt. All four other people were people’s first characters, discovering WoW for the first time and seeing this amazing, sprawling dungeon that is Blackrock Depths for the first time. Suddenly I felt very… old.

Things would, of course, continue to change as Wrath of the Lich King came out not long after that. Months went by and as they did, I found myself more and more in that position I’d been in when I was healing BRD. Suddenly, people didn’t understand when I said “This fight is like Romulo and Julianne” or “This fight is like Gruul”. Suddenly, people didn’t laugh at my “HOLY FIRE ON TAWYN” jokes anymore when we got to the chick that looks like Maiden in Halls of Stone. Because suddenly I wasn’t the token WoW newbie anymore. Suddenly I was a veteran who had done raids “back n’ the day” that other people hadn’t.

I’ve had people on Twitter were tell me they’d never tried Beast Mastery before because it had never been raid viable in the time that they’ve played the game. Now, Beast Mastery didn’t stop being “viable” (quotes because I could go off on a giant tangent on this, but I won’t) until a good chunk of time after people were clearing Naxx. There are people who started playing after that? I mean, it’s obvious when you put it like that and think about it– of course there are new players– but this absolutely blew my mind.

You may be wondering where I’m going with this little ramble. I suppose where I’m going is a sort of– ponder that has been on my mind for a while. I don’t like to think it’s a rant or a QQ, just a ponder.

Namely, I can’t help but think that where the game is at this point, WoW newbies are being rushed into content too fast. And I’m not talking about a “skill” thing here, so much as I’m talking about a “skipped content” thing.

We have all this shiny new badge gear and shiny new heroics that drop stuff that has completely obsoleted Naxx, OS, Malygos, and a good chunk of Ulduar. Now I don’t know, maybe this is just the servers I play on, but nobody runs Naxx anymore. Ever. Remember back in Burning Crusade, those of you who were there– people were running Karazhan up until the night before Wrath of the Lich King launched. And yet Naxx is already dead. I’ve tried putting characters in LFG for Naxx and there’s nothing. People aren’t even doing badge farms of it, because everyone has all the Conquest badge gear by now. There are nights where I’ll do a /who Naxxramas just to doublecheck and make sure I’m not crazy, but I’m not– “0 players found.”

And so I find myself wondering– in Blizz’s bold attempt to get “everyone to see content” in this expansion, did they forget about the people who are just hitting 80?

Or the people like me who were late in the “join a raiding guild” game, and who are now toting around level 232 and 245 gear and yet have never cleared Naxx25?

No, I’m serious. I’ve never cleared more than two wings of Naxx25. And at this rate, I don’t know if I ever will. And I love Naxx.

The badge gear and the stepping stool into higher content is great for those of us who will finally get to “see it all” or for our alts, but not everyone is an alt, and not everyone got to 80 the same time that everyone else did. And I worry that those people are missing some really great content because as soon as they hit 80, it’s “get the badge gear and get into ToC”. You know?

The impending “weekly raid quests” are a step in the right direction, but think about it, how many people are going to stick around for a Naxx full clear after killing Anub’rekhan or Patchwerk? Yeah.

Aaaaanyways, I guess that is just what’s been on my mind lately. As I was saying, this isn’t a rant or a QQ or anything. This isn’t something I’m particularly angry or emo about, nor is it something that would make me ragequit. No, this is just food for thought. Something that’s been on my mind that I’d like to toss out there into the “thinking ring”. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well (or hear that your servers are awesomer than mine and are still doing Naxx >_>)… I’d especially love to hear from you newer people; do you feel rushed into endgame, or am I just completely nuts? (It’s okay if I’m completely nuts; it wouldn’t surprise me =P)

But even if you disagree with me or come to a different conclusion, what I suppose I ultimately want you to take away from this is to look around and realize that some of those newbies running around actually aren’t alts. Feels weird, doesn’t it…?

Guys. I have a confession.

You know all the new badge gear? The stuff that is really really good? The stuff that is a godsend and is gonna let me catch up to my guildies in Ulduar?

Yeah, I don’t have any of it yet.

Because none of it has a story behind it the way the stuff I’m wearing right now does. The stuff I’m wearing right now is mostly from Naxx10, with a sprinkling of stuff from Naxx25, and dropped from raid bosses, some of whom took weeks to see, and when I wore it, I wore it very proudly.

I am having a really hard time convincing myself to replace it with stuff that is being held in sterile confinement in Dalaran and that I earned by doing “chain Heroics”. I feel like there would be no soul in said gear.

“Soul? You’ve lost it, Pike.”

Yeah, perhaps I have. That’s why I put the word “insane” in the title of the post. =P

This issue plagued me before; in Burning Crusade when they introduced all the stuff with the Shattered Sun dailies and Sunwell, remember? Suddenly there was all this gear that you could get with badges that far out-stripped my Karazhan stuff. I waffled on this new gear for a while, too, for the same reason. It had no soul. But eventually I caved and bought it all, topping it off with that infamous “Chocobow”, Crossbow of Relentless Strikes.

But when I got my Figureprint it was with the gear that all had stories behind it… Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle being the crowning piece. Aside from just looking better, it simply meant more to me than the badge bow did.

At some point before Ulduar25 this weekend, I’ll bite the bullet and snag some badge epics. And in the end, I’m glad they are there, because otherwise I’d just end up embarrassing myself in my new guild. And I don’t really have any moral problem with the way “welfare epics” are implemented.

But gosh if there isn’t gonna be a tear in my eye as one by one, all the names of raid bosses that you currently see when mousing over my items turns on Armory turn into simply “Vendor”. =/

Maybe I’ll get something from Ulduar to make up for it…

(Closing Note: I know this is a touchy subject for some people, and as such I feel driven to add a quick reminder that while discussion in the comments would be quite encouraged, be sure to play nice. <3)