After finishing up most of what I wanted to do in The War Within, I’ve been thinking about how I want to spend my time in WoW until Midnight drops. I spent a few days doing the Delve loop, but found myself getting pretty burnt out- this would not sustain me until March. Then something unexpected happened: my wife, after 10+ years of marriage, showed interest in giving WoW a proper try. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and immediately created a new character to play alongside her.
Despite Blizzard’s best efforts to streamline the new player experience, the fact remains that World of Warcraft is a 20+ year old game, which brings all sorts of baggage. After a few hours with the game, my wife has been struggling to see what I love about WoW, facing constant moments of annoyance. I would love for her to stick with the game so we could play together, but I’m not going to push her to do something she doesn’t enjoy.
So all that said, I have this new character, a Void Elf protection warrior tank. When it came time to start levelling her, I knew I didn’t want to do the Dragonflight –> TWW path again, so I decided to set things all the way back to The Burning Crusade and go from there. Then the question was “so what exactly should I do?” and I decided to use achievements as a guide.
I’ve always liked the WoW achievement system, but I rarely go out of my way to get them. But now I was thinking that it may be fun to use them to guide me through some early game zones that I hadn’t fully experienced. I decided to start with the top of the Quests category, Eastern Kingdoms.
This took me to the Arathi Highlands, which was filled with quests I had never done. It was an immediate delight to (re)visit some of these zones that I may or may not have ever been to before. I know this isn’t the most authentic official way to revisit this content, but WoW Classic isn’t what I’m looking for right now.
I wrapped up the Arathi Highlands achievement and am planning on moving to the Badlands, as it’s next on the list.
In between the quests, I’ve been working on some profession stuff. The first being lumber gathering for housing decor, and the second is mining / blacksmithing. Turns out that I’ve also never really done smithing, so that led to another achievement!
So far I’m really enjoying this plan to use achievements essentially as a travel guide. I’m not sure how far I’ll end up going along this path, or if my wife will continue playing, but I’m hopeful and excited to see where both journeys will lead.
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