Best Saturday Yet! World of Warcraft on 7 Apr 2007

This morning my humble abode was graced by five wonderful guests from SABG, arriving at the early hour of 0800 AM despite rather nasty weather. We resolved to take on a 6-player game of FFG's World of Warcraft, with the Shadow of War expansion set shuffled into the mix.

Rob did a masterful job at rules explaining as the two teams formed up: Rob, Kevin, and Steve were the evil and smelly Horde, while Jeff, Amy, and I were the shining examples of purity representing the Alliance. The fact that I had to play a female dwarf priest did not in the least bit deter my optimism for our chances at total victory.

Unfortunately, being slain three times during the succeeding turns did that job quite nicely! Both teams had various glorious victories and bitter defeats on the path to the endgame. Steve proved himself to be a particularly mighty opponent, reaching level 4 while most of us were still struggling through level 2! Eventually though as the game progressed to the final turns, both teams seemed closely matched.

Because Steve was so powerful, we (the Alliance team) thought we might have a better chance taking down the Overlord boss in a 3 vs. 1 fight rather than taking on the Horde in a 3 vs. 3 PVP battle. We were almost right... but not quite. Just a bit less sucky luck, and we would have congratulated ourselves on our masterful skill and strategy! So, after resurrecting at the nearest church, we were teleported (with the theme from Mortal Kombat playing in the background) to the final PVP match. As we expected, a major beatdown was then administered, with the evil Horde leaving hoof marks all over our formerly shiny armor!

Good game! I'm really happy with how the expansion set both adds a lot more opportunities for PVP (i.e., player interaction) as well as making killing the blue monsters more fun. I think the game needs one more good, solid patch (aka expansion set) to further enhance interactivity and reduce downtime. I still think WoW is the most beautifully produced game I own, and more than once today I just sat back and marveled at all the pretty bits!

Best of all, of course, was the great fun I had in playing games with five great people. I can't wait to do it again! One good game that might be fun if we get another 6-player group together is Dune...