Role Playing in Classic WoW

Hail and well met traveler. I've been thinking lately about an aspect of the game that I've never really focused on, role playing. I've always played on a role playing server, but it's mostly to play with friends who go me started in the game. I never really role played in the game, and since playing more D&D, I've been more interested in the fun aspect of putting myself in the mindset of my character as I play.

The main character I intend to play in this way is my Paladin. My current plan, to make it more seamless with my gameplay, is to use a set of macros. The macros would cause my character to say certain things that would correspond to the spells and abilities he is using. For example, if he casts Blessing of Might, he'll say "Light give you strength," or something like that.

I'm only going to do that for abilities that have longer cool downs. So abilities that have cool downs longer than 15 seconds or so. It would get kind of annoying if my character was saying something every time they attacked.

I do plan on doing this for all of my characters not just my paladin, and I'm looking forward to making the things they say fit with the characters that I'm creating. I'm not great at typing things quickly in chat while playing, and having these macros will help me add a little flair to my game plays.

I'm excited to start playing next week on the RP realm Bloodsail Buccaneers, and I'm looking forward to playing around a little with my characters and their stories. I've got a backstory for each of them, and while nothing is set in stone, I think that it's a good start.

Classic WoW Beta Stress Test Part 2

Last night I was able to log in during the second round of the Classic WoW Beta Stress Test. My main goal with my play time last night was to create some more of the characters I intend to play if I get the chance to play in the beta, and to see if I can even log in.

I got into a 3800+ queue, and it said that it would take about a half an hour to enter the realm, but it seemed like it only took about 10 - 15 minutes. I didn't pay too close attention, but I did feel like the wait was not too long. Once in the real test would be to see if I'd be able to log in to the dwarf that I had already made last week. The first attempt failed, so I created a human to see if logging into a different zone would help. I was able to log in without a problem, and I was surprised by how few people there were in the starting zone. There were still plenty of people, don't get me wrong, but since the level cap had been raised to level 10, the starting zone was less congested compared to the screenshots I had seen from last week.

I didn't really play much on the human, and swapped to the dwarf. I had logged off in the Gurubashi arena last week, and upon logging in, I didn't see anyone, so I hearthed back to the starting zone. Since my dwarf is only level 2, I want to try getting to a higher level before trekking back to Stranglethorn. I will definitely park an alt in the area, but I have low hopes of ever getting the chest from the middle of the arena anytime soon.

I didn't have very much time to play last night, but I was able to get online this morning. When I played this morning, my goal was to test out how macros and keybindings could work on my paladin. I tried out using a mousewheel keybind for casting my Devotion Aura. The idea is that by using the mousewheel, I can quickly swap between auras in a pinch. My thought was that a quick swap to Concentration Aura would help my be able to cast heals with less pushback when my health was low.

I also tested equipping a one handed weapon and a shield macro, and I also tried binding that to my mousewheel. If I need some extra defense that might be a useful option. The main testing I was doing was to see how Seal of Righteousness behaved with one handed weapons versus two handed weapons. It seems like it does about twice as much damage per hit with a two handed weapon. I had a hunch that the faster weapon would be more procs and would out pace the two hander, but it looks like in most cases the two hander will be more damage. I plan on doing more math on this in future testing. To see how fast the weapon would need to be to pull ahead.

I got to level four just grinding mobs. I didn't want to do any quests, so I can save that for when the game launches, and I mainly wanted to see what I could handle as far as level disparity. Grinding was a slow go for me, but I wasn't really rushing. I did find that the mobs dropped some useful loot for vendoring and getting enough silver for training, If the starting zones are congested early on, I might just grind to until I can train professions as a way of leveling.

All in all the stress test was smooth and fun. I'm looking forward to more bite sized testing as the beta continues.