For Once I'm A Hero Instead of An Errand Boy.

The desire for lore and the urge to level have always pulled me apart in WoW. I completely enjoy the deeper parts of the lore to the point that I've spent hours clicking through WoWWiki discovering the story lines of characters around the world. My problem is that while questing I tend to focus on experience gain and reaching the next level, tending to just skim or sometimes entirely skip the quest text in an attempt to finish as soon as possible. In the past I've tried to make an effort to slow down but it doesn't work for me. Perhaps it's because a majority of the quests don't feel important to me, I just feel like I'm running an errand. Working a job to simply obtain a paycheck at the end of the week, the paycheck in this case being experience points.

That has changed somewhat with the release of Wrath. I've actually encountered a couple of quests that drew me in and made me feel like I was participating in something beyond killing a set number of mobs. Granted, many of these quests I've enjoyed were the same setup as before, but they did it in an interesting way. One is a quest where you have to defend an hourglass, only your future self shows up and helps you out. The first thing I thought of when I saw my future self was that it sucks I don't have better gear in the future. I'd hate to think I was still wearing the same stuff.

The best part of this quest is that after you've completed it your future self sends you a few whispers. It's funny for me to see that Blizzard acknowledged that the "I don't have better gear in the future" thought would be one of the first to go through players heads.

The real gem started with the completion of the Dragonblight quests when my screen darkened and I was shown the Wrathgate cinematic. I've seen it before, even posted about it, but having it actually be a part of the game was awesome. Following that I was informed that my home city had been overrun. It was the first time I had an actual emotional reaction to a quest. The home city of my race, my people, the place where I banked and used the auction house was now gone. Not only was it gone but I was tasked with helping reclaim it. It's one of the few times in WoW were I was put in a position of being an actual hero, I had a purpose beyond collecting or killing... the future of the Forsaken was in my hands.


As I stood before Varimathras I knew that Wrath was different. That the future of The Horde and The Alliance would never be the same. In the life of the character Funeral, this was an epic moment.