After my last post, I made a last-minute call to take a vacation from work. Not a fancy trip to somewhere exotic or anything like that. Just me, choosing to relax for a bit.
So naturally, I loaded up Final Fantasy XIV expecting the usual comfort. And instead I was hit with boredom. Hard.
Maybe it was my subconscious reacting to what I wrote last time. Maybe it was just reality kicking in. Either way, it hit me. Dawntrail, for all its promises, didn’t really give me what I needed. I liked it. I appreciated the attempt at change after Endwalker, but it’s been feeling empty. Content’s slow, gameplay’s flat and the devs seem scared to take actual risks. That’s not just me complaining, everyone’s talking about it. And it sucks, because this game has been mine for over a decade.
If you know me, you know FF14 has basically been the only game I’ve ever truly played until around 6 months ago. But now I’m bored. Cosmic Exploration was fun, until it wasn’t. Occult Crescent had its moment and then got stale just as fast.
So yeah, I think I need a break. Not forever. I love this game too much for that. But for now I can live without it. I’ll come back when the next expansion hits.
But it left me with a big question: What the hell do I do now? How do I actually unwind and enjoy this time off?
Sure, I’ll go back to Dragon Age eventually. I haven’t forgotten. And yes, I did go clubbing with my roommate. Once. Never again. We are not talking about that night.
But what else? What could I try that I’ve never touched before?
Then I figured it out.
It was finally time for me – Little old “never-played-anything-else” me – to give World of Warcraft a shot.
And uh… ooof. Let’s just say it’s been an experience. AND SO MANY MOUNTS TO FARM!!
Keep reading.
Thrown In, Dragged Around, and Somehow Hooked
Coming from Final Fantasy XIV, which is a game with one long, linear, unskippable Main Scenario Questm, World of Warcraft sort of threw me.
I log in, and suddenly I’m facing dragons. Like… right out the gate. Sure, there’s a basic tutorial first, some weird little starter zone that doesn’t really do much except exist. But once that’s done, it just drops you in. There’s no real structure and not much of a guiding hand. Just “good luck, figure it out.”
And I’m standing there like: where’s the story? Where’s the flow? Where’s the bit that makes me care?
FFXIV builds that for you. It forces you to get invested. You can’t avoid the story because it’s the game. WoW? Not so much. But, once I stopped expecting it to be something it’s not, I started getting stuck in.
There’s a new feature that launched right before I started, which is a lucky break, called “Lorewalking”. It lets you revisit key points in WoW’s history, like a bite-sized “story sampler platter.” That helped a lot actually. I started jumping into those and watching lore videos on YouTube while I gathered mining and herbalism nodes like a maniac. Bit by bit, it’s clicking with me now. The world is starting to make sense.
Same but Different (and Sometimes Better?)
What’s really grabbed me, though, is just how much there is to do. It’s weird, it’s so different from Final Fantasy, but at the same time, not. It scratches the same itch in some places, but does it completely differently in others. Sometimes better. Sometimes worse. Crafting for example is horrible in WoW, but dungeons are so much more fun.
And look, I’m not going to lie and pretend I’ve only been dipping in for an hour or two a day.
I’ve already leveled three characters to cap, and I’m working on a fourth while doing dailies and weeklies for gear. I haven’t touched raiding yet, that’s coming once I feel more solid on the classes and how they play.
There’s also a ridiculous amount of info out there, and most of it is confusing as hell. Some guides are outdated. Some are just flat-out wrong.
Example: I wanted to reset my mining specialization points, and every search result said it wasn’t possible. Dozens of threads all said no. Then I’m out exploring, minding my business, and BAM, there’s a random NPC just chilling, offering to reset specializations.
So I’m seriously thinking about putting up some mini guides here. Not full in-depth things, just quick posts with information that I’ve found is wrong in other place. It might help someone.
Anyway, I’m off to farm more loot. Priorities.
Until next time!
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