A little while back, I figured the new sub-level 20 “free” World of Warcraft to be a way to get a taste of the vaunted “endgame” of an MMO, since a level-capped free trial character is effectively progress-locked on the ol’ leveling treadmill. Their only progress comes from gear hunting, reputation grinds, PvP honor grinding, collecting, achievements and other assorted busywork. Since then, I’ve been playing intermittently with my new Dwarven Paladin, Thumpin.
Home is where the hearth is
Perhaps ironically, Thumpin’s best weapons have only rarely been maces. He has gotten the most use out of axes, and indeed, his present weapon of choice is an axe; either the Cold Iron Pick or the Razor’s Edge. It’s been fun having a Dwarf whose apparent “best in slot” two handed weapon is a mining pick. It just feels so right.
Fish outta water
At any rate, perhaps half the time I’ve been playing this character has been when he’s at level 20. I’ve been chasing incremental upgrades to his gear, some from quests, some from world drops, some from dungeons. It’s been an interesting scavenger hunt, driven by the Wowhead database, inspired by Psynister’s “Trial Account Twinking” commentary. It’s been interesting… but ultimately kinda, well… dumb. I could never persist in the real“endgame” raiding scene.
PvP not so much, either
It’s all about the ends; finding the stuff that make my numbers go up. I’m just not all that motivated or entertained by that quest (though I’ll readily concede that it’s a perfectly valid way to play, it just doesn’t do much for me). The actual gameplay hasn’t been anything inherently different from just playing the game (including occasional dungeoneering as I usually do), except that it’s a bit more targeted now instead of just playing as the flow takes me.
Onna boat
One notable exception has been hunting for the “best in slot” Foreman’s Leggings. It’s been pretty mindless, as they drop from one baddie hiding in an armpit of the pre-dungeon Deadmines. That’s where I got the Cold Iron Pick (and a Petrified Shinbone and the Skeletal Gauntlets, several copies each, actually, as well as a fair dose of ore that the ghouls drop… a potentially viable alternative to mining, actually), but since the ‘Leggings only drop from one unique, semi-rare foe, it starts to feel like a quarter of Thumpin’s life has been in that little pocket of the world. I gave it a good shot, I really did, but I can only do that for so long.
Freedom!
So, I’ve gone back to my world-traveling ways. I’m making the rounds in Darnassus and Darkshore, then I’ll go to the Exodar and the neighboring islands. I kinda want to get a Night Elf kitty to ride (hence the Darnassus tabard for reputation grinding in dungeons), as I love absurd mount/character mismatches. I feel like I’m adventuring again, going where the action takes me, rather than hunting for numbers. Of course, I’d rather be flying, but hey, free players can’t have it all, or so they say.
Not the same
I also almost wish I’d done this on a Role Playing realm, so I could really play the “one-eyed miner Dwarf” schtick to the hilt. Then again, I have a lot of other games I’d rather play, so I’m really going to just leave Thumpin in limbo and imagine that he’s off, having grand adventures, making his way through the world with his pick in hand, belting out a hearty drinking song as he crushes skulls and collects ore. What more does a Dwarf need?
Bring it.
If you’re not too big on PvP, then the trial account twink will probably get mindnumbingly boring real quick.
I don’t think you’ll get any feeling at all of what the end game feels like. PvP is really the only thing remotely close to end game at a lower level, and even then if you’re not up against similarly skilled and geared opponents then it’s just another unbalanced portion of the game with little benefit to participating.
If I were to put myself in your shoes, and remove my love for low level PvP, I think with a trial account I would seek out that best in slot gear and see if I could solo some dungeons. Achievements would probably come next, seeing what all I could manage to get at that level. Ambassador and Explorer both come to mind for that.
Without the PvP, I just don’t see much point in twinking a trial account. If you really love the low level dungeons, then I guess you might be able to use that as your motivation, but otherwise it seems more a waste of time to me.
I hope you have fun with it, regardless. And good luck on finding those stupid pants; low drop rates suck.
Nice write-up. Is the post title a reference to Chumbawumba song Tub Thumpin’?
I’ve really gone off best in slot gameplay. I used to think I liked endgame but I’ve realised that what I thought was end game was still a progression game when I actually got a character to full best in slot and thought what’s the point turning up to raids now?
The games I’m playing (Diablo 2, Eve) and the games I’m looking forward to (Diablo 3, Prime BFD) are all blissfully BiS free. Take it from me: BiS is BS!
Psynister, thanks for dropping in! I’m actually not a fan of *any* PvP in WoW. It’s simply too imbalanced. I do love soloing dungeons, though, and it’s one of my favorite activities in Wizard 101. I might be able to solo Deadmines with Thumpin, but that’s about it. Maybe I’ll try that someday. Mostly, though, I just like roaming around and smashing baddies. The progression grind doesn’t do much for me in any form, be it leveling or gearing.
Stabs, it’s not a reference to that intentionally… but that works surprisingly well, so uh, sure, let’s say that’s an inspiration.
The repeated refrain “get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down” pretty much sums up the weird semi-mortality that MMO characters have. And yeah, BiS really doesn’t do much for me. I wanted to give it a shot just because I like to understand game systems, but really… it’s not something I like. Scratch that off the list, I guess.
No no, from a game design point of view it’s actually fascinating. I don’t like it as a game mechanic but I’m very intrigued how games like WoW and Rift are managing this best in slot.. no it’s not… best in slot.. no it’s not… cycle of mudflating every content patch.
The game designer in me thinks it’s amazing. The game player things it’s shallow and boring.
Agreed. “Live” games really do have some weird design issues that come up over time. It’s worth studying… but not much fun to play.
I thought you’d be trying to figure out ways of exploring new ground that, to put it mildly, your not statistically ready for?
so I’m really going to just leave Thumpin in limbo and imagine that he’s off, having grand adventures
Yeah, I like to do that. It’s good to be able to leave the game with something like that! Ah, Tallwillow, I wonder what your doing today in the elven forests…and Eulogy, you naughty warlock…
Oh, sure, I still love to explore more than anything. I *did* take a shot of Thumpin up there in Booty Bay, a place he’s not supposed to be in for another ten levels or so. There are other places I’d like to take him, like Winterspring. Maybe someday I’ll do that, but for now, he was just an experiment to see what a midgame cap played like, with all its shenanigans, since I’ll probably never get into the raiding scene.
I did almost solo the Deadmines last night too, just because I thought it might be fun to try. Admiral Ripsnarl (the “official” last boss) barely beat me, and only because he brought friends. I think I could beat him in Prot spec with some better potions. I could probably solo Ragefire Chasm as well… if I could get to it. As it is, I’m now calling Thumpin officially “retired” from active play, letting the character do his own thing. Maybe he’s bugging the elves.
Anyway, point being that I was exploring the potential game play. It was almost homework, really. Left to my own preferences, ohhhh, yes, I’d just be seeing how much of the map I could uncover and how many great screenshots I could collect. I just wanted to try something different. Now, on to other games for more new things.
I created a Trial account for my son and I but didn’t play it much, and haven’t even logged in now for a month or two. Are all the Trial-restrictions still in place, specifically re: the Auction House? Can Trials use the AH now? Or is it still off-limits?
You can get to RFC as a low level Alliance without using the Dungeon Finder, it will just take A LOT of corpse hopping. At some point you’ll be able to respawn through the walls inside the Cleft of Shadow and from there it should take just one or two more corpse hops to make it to the Portal. I did it on my 70 Paladin and still died a lot, so on a 20 be prepared to spend A LOT of time in spirit form. And unless it’s changed since Catalclysm I do mean A LOT!!! of time, because the nearest Alliance GY was at Razor Hill, and that’s one hell of a Corpse Run.
Yes, the AH restriction is still there. You can search the AH, but you can’t put in bids or anything. Blizz is such a tease. I guess it’s still a counter-gold-seller measure. Still, since the low level economy is so busted because of gold saturation at the high end, I do think it might be healthy *for the economy* to open the AH to one and all. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see what happened.
I thought I might be able to corpse-hop to RFC, I just don’t have the stubbornness for it. It would probably be easier to solo than the Deadmines, though. Admiral Dipstick’s adds are what stopped me, not the boss himself. RFC is really straightforward that way… so maybe I’ll try it anyway one of these days.
I also wish I could at least use the mailbox to send stuff between my characters. I don’t mind not being able to get stuff from fairy godmothers, but I’ve often found stuff that I wish my other characters could use. Seems to me that “bound to account” mail wouldn’t break anything.
[...] not played much since I ran out of game time in March (F2P/Starter Thumpin experiment aside, of course), but recently, Blizzard offered me 14 free days to come look around. [...]