If I had to sum up what my WoW Classic guild is doing in these first few weeks of Burning Crusade, it would be “racing to 70, gearing up, and pushing hard to get attuned for raids.” Within days of the launch, we had multiple 70s and people regularly announcing some sort of attunement progress or purple item looted.
Meanwhile, there are those of us still plodding on through Hellfire Peninsula and even the old world with our alts, very much feeling left in the dust of this race. Because a race it is, as World of Warcraft has long since drilled into our heads that getting to raids in the be-all, end-all nadir of the game experience. It’s where all the best purps are at and where people can start to have fun or something.
And for those who are on the raid progression track — hey, have fun! I absolutely mean that. Enjoy yourself and maintain a healthy balance in your gaming life. But raiding is not my goal nor why I showed up to play Burning Crusade. In a real way, I – and other casuals like me – are kicking against WoW’s raid-minded design team, electing to eschew this focus to pursue our own fun.
So what if you don’t want to raid in Burning Crusade? What are we going to do over the next two years?
Speaking for myself here, I’m going to enjoy this expansion at my own pace without giving into the (thankfully dwindling) FOMO of attunements, gearing, and raiding. I haven’t really gone through Burning Crusade in a decade, and I want to experience these quests and zones without feeling like I need to be pushing hard through them. Giving yourself permission to not rush is a blissful thing indeed and something that I try to do in all of my MMOs.
So when you slow down, you find that you have a whole lot more expansion to enjoy than those that devour the bulk of the solo questing content in a week. My priority is simply to level up my two characters — a Warlock and a Shaman — to 70 primarily through questing with the odd dungeon run here and there. Making sure to explore all of the quests means that I’ll be reaping some pretty great gear — occasionally pre-raid best-in-slot stuff — just from doing what I like to do.
At level 70, it’ll become about finishing up those quests, maybe doing more dungeon runs, and accumulating enough gold to buy my flying mounts (regular and epic). I’ve also been diving more into crafting in Classic than I have in retail, and that gives me another alternative objective to pursue.
There are plenty of dailies and reputation tracks out there with a lot of even longer-term goals, although I’m going to be pickier about engaging with those due to how much I got burned out of them back in the day.
It might also be fun and beneficial to pursue some old Azeroth class quests and solo dungeon runs to wrap things up. And let’s not forget alts, which might help to occupy that second year of Burning Crusade Classic as we wait for Wrath.
And who knows? Eventually when raiding attunements are dropped and everyone can Kara to their heart’s content, I might be up for a few casual runs. Just because I’m not raid-crazy doesn’t mean I hate them, simply that they’re not where the fun is at in WoW for me.
So I’ll turn it over to you: What if you don’t want to raid in Burning Crusade? I’d love to hear what you’re looking to accomplish and experience in this expansion.
Stepping back into the MMO time machine of WoW Classic, Justin Olivetti offers up observations and ground-level analysis as a Gnome with a view. Casually Classic is a more laid-back look at this legacy ruleset for those of us who’ve never stepped into a raid or seen more than 200 gold to our names.
