The Good 'ol Days of Warcraft

I don't blog about World of Warcraft much even though I am an avid player. Partly because I would like to think there is more to my life than that video game. All in all, WoW is actually a very fun, and economical way, to spend (waste) time. I'm going to try and write this post in a way people who don't play WoW can easily understand what I am talking about.

The only reason I bring it up is because today I was talking to my brother and it turns out he's making a character a lot like the one I have, which in itself is flattering. I was telling him about how I play and some of the ins and outs. I'm a Troll Warrior for those of you who are interested. The Warrior class is exactly what it sounds like. There is no magic, it's just simple smack people with my weapon and wear heavy plate armor. I like simple, that's why I went that route. One of the abilities we have is called Intimidating Shout; which is basically where I yell and everyone around me runs away in fear.

Today this ability is limited to only five people. So if I yell and there are six people standing around me, five get scared and one is left to beat on me. This have been done for game balance, which is fine with me. Game balancing mechanics that hinder a character are affectionately referred to as a "nerf" (yes just like the foam balls and arrows made by the company). Warriors have been through many "nerfs" all of which I find understandable. The Intimidation Shout nerf was the first, and so far only, one I found annoying.



Here is a poor quality youtube video of the ability before the nerf. Not the best, but as you can see all the bad guys run away from the warrior for a few seconds. This example was done with a high level warrior against a lot of low level bad guys. The reason this nerf was annoying to me because it took away the fun. The only place you could get away with it the way they do in the video is when you're fighting much lower level bad guys than you. Or when you are fighting a lot of other players. Hence the whole reason for the nerf. Warriors fighting large groups of other players where able to scatter them very easily.

The video sparked a good memory of playing WoW in the past, and I didn't want to forget about so here it is in blog form. Hopefully written in a way I'll understand it many years after I've stopped playing WoW.

EDIT: The first picture is the icon use in game to represent Intimidating Shout. I also added the actual video instead of a link to it because I remembered you could do that.