Making the expansion fun for the family

My wife and I have been playing WoW for 10+ years. I’ve played without a break for that time. My wife has taken long breaks away from the game. My oldest daughter (in college now) has played on and off for a couple of years but never consistently. My son just got his own account this year.

This expansion will be the first time the four of us will all be playing at the same time.

I want to make the expansion a special, fun experience. So, this Saturday we’re planning an all day WoW-a-thon. We’re all saving one of our level 100 toons to start that day so that we can all level up from 100 together.

The plan is:

1. Eat breakfast together. That’s a big hurdle, since the kids prefer to sleep until noon.
2. Watch the South Park WoW episode as a warm-up
3. Play through our Class Order Hall / Artifact weapon quests, which are solo affairs
4. Have Hot Pockets and soda for lunch, like “real gamers” do
5. Play together for a few hours, probably finishing a zone, and maybe run a dungeon as a group. (my daughter has a DK she will use and learn to tank)
6. Order pizza for dinner
7. Play more into the evening

While the food may give us indigestion, the family is all looking forward to the event. I’m just using it as family time and a chance to hang with my kids, even if it is in a virtual world.

 

Legion – Intro Quests (mage, priest)

My strategy for Legion is not to hurry to level 110. (honestly, I have a hard time understanding people who do that, but to each their own)

I went into the expansion with 11 max-level characters in 10 classes:

• Assassination Rogue
• Arcane Mage
• Shadow Priest
• Balance/Resto Druid
• Ret Paladin
• Subtlety Rogue
• Havoc Demon Hunter
• Elemental Shaman
• Demonology Warlock
• Mistweaver Monk
• Arms Warrior

My plan is to do the introductory questlines to get the Class Order Hall and the Artifact Weapon in each one.

I spent about 4-5 hours in the game yesterday. I did some auction house posting to try and grab some gold during the initial rush of players – flasks, potions, flipping some crafting mats. I played my arcane mage until he finished the intro quests and went to the Broken Isles. Then I did the same for my shadow priest. (I started with those because I need their crafting abilities to get glyphs and enchants rolling on the auction house)

Arcane Mage

The arcane mage quest was fun. I thought that going back to the Nexus was a good trip down memory lane. If you didn’t play through WotLK content then maybe less so. I did have trouble with the final boss. Admittedly, I don’t play my mage often and my dps was pretty poor. After failing twice I used an enhancement rune left over from WoD and threw a couple of quick enchants on my gear and was successful. The weapon is interesting, but not as impactful or lore-relevant as some others in the game. It was a good experience.

Shadow Priest

I had less fun with the shadow priest questline, although I think the class gameplay was better than the arcane mage. Heading to Tirisfal Glades was not as interesting to me. As an alliance player I have no real attachment to that zone. I initially thought the quest might take me to Scarlet Monastery, but that turned out not to be the case. I also didn’t know any of the NPCs, which could be because I don’t play the priest much, or because they weren’t supposed to be memorable. I found the final quests and end boss for the weapon to be somewhat underwhelming. The weapon itself, while not particularly notable in lore, is game-changing as it affects your dps.

I will add that I have always been terrible at shadow priest. I usually have trouble completing the simplest quests in that class. I remember with shame when I needed help killing mobs on one of the holiday event side quests in WoD. Not so anymore. I had little trouble blasting my way through the intro quests. With my PW:Shield seemingly always available I rarely took any damage. It was more fun than the mage, for sure.

Tomorrow I’ll probably do my assassination rogue and maybe mistweaver monk.

I am Prepared

My last garrison missions are turned in. I have crafting mats for some quick sales to powerlevelers to earn some fast gold. I have my iLvL 700 gear from Legion invasions on my main and several alts. I’ve played through the Broken Isles intro quests on both Alliance and Horde. I’ve got my limited-availability prepatch items. I’m ready to go.

Invasions were a success. I went into the prepatch with 6 max level characters. After invasions I now have 11 (one was boosted). The event kept me playing daily for the whole month.

My wife and two older kids now also have max level characters. We’re all going to play together in Legion, which will be a new and fun experience.

We face a daunting challenge in the Legion incursion. Having already lost major lore figures, I am excited to see what direction Blizzard will take us. I’m looking forward to the ride.