With nine days of game time remaining I thought that I'd go check out the Alliance half of the game. Which absolutely had nothing to do with the fact some rogue was harassing my troll for twwwoooo zones, refusing to let me quest and thus level up. ~ cough ~

Yeah, honestly. I don't get why people do that.

What's the point in harassing lowbie characters when you're max level? I understand occasionally sapping them just to be annoying, but the kills don't yield any honour, there is no point except perverse enjoyment in other people's irritation. Oh, that's totally what it is.

Anyway. So after rolling my eyes to myself and being glued to the Archeage reddit, twitter, forum, and unofficial oceanic discord for a week solid, I opened up the one oceanic WoW Classic PVE realm and made a little human priest. Who, at level 1, did the same amount of DPS as my troll warrior did at level 14. 😬 Ouch.

She got straight to work clearing the enemies from Elwynn Forest, smiting every kobold, bandit, wolf, boar, and Hogger that dared cross her path, mining every copper that other people didn't steal although clearly I was killing the mobs around it, and generally raising an eyebrow at the distinct difference in attitude that exists when it comes to Alliance players versus Horde players.

My brief experience in the Alliance zones has reinforced my long-held belief that most (not all; -MOST-) people who play Alliance are children, while far more adults choose to play Horde.

Horde Barrens chat has always had a reputation, but actions speak louder than words.

On Horde-side Classic, people were inviting others around quest areas into groups, being friendly, buffing random people who ran past, and I even had high levels willing to stoop to my low level and help out. Random mages would come out of no-where and trade food with me, random enchanters would run over to me and offer free enchantments. Horde is friendly.

On Alliance-side Classic, people ignored other people and reverted to solo-mode despite the game being significantly harder than retail, they needed to kill the bosses before anyone else could, even declining group invites, there was a distinct 'me-me-me' attitude, and hardly anyone buffed others. Oh, and definitely no friendly mages or enchanters.

😬

Polar opposites.

Despite the attitude difference on Alliance side, I'm still playing my little human priest. She's currently level 16 and is roaming around the dwarven lands. Once she finishes Loch Modan, she'll travel back down to the human infested lands and deal with their Defias problem.

It is nice experiencing all of these quests again. 😊

When the Cataclysm hit Azeroth and the world and quests changed, I was disappointed. In Thousand Needles especially, that was one of my favourite zones and then Cataclysm came and transformed it into a flooded mess.

The game feels more "serious" as it is now, the post-Cataclysm quests are deliberately comedic, everything is a joke, every quest-giver is trying to out-funny the next quest-giver; it's ridiculous. ~ "PUNCH DEATHWING IN THE FACE!" ~ But these Classic ones... many have a nice sardonic quality to them, but it's not overdone. They have just the right touch to them.

I have nine more days of game-time remaining, which coincides nicely with Archeage Unchained's release... that is, providing they don't push the launch date back again. But even if that's the case, my remaining game-time also coincides nicely with the next SWTOR expansion's release. So either way, win/win.

I'm more looking forward to Unchained though. I am eager to try it now that it's no longer pay-to-win and see how it lives up to my expectations.

And this time, I'll be the rogue harassing other players. At least the harassment has a -point- in Archeage. I'm coming for your trade packs -- PROFIT!