I’ve been called a sentimental fool in my time, but you know what I don’t care. I recently returned to World of Warcraft after quite a long hiatus and upon returning I applied to the same guild I joined back in 2005.

My relationship with this guild has been up and down over the years however they graciously let me back in and I’ve been very grateful for a second chance because on Wednesday I was a part of the guild first Lich King 10 Man Kill.

Let me digress for a second, I know it was “only” 10 Man, that doesn’t really bother me at all. I know that it was “only” a boss kill – but for me, it signified another end of content boss. It signified a milestone in my long active raiding “career” (for lack of a better word, sure as hell feels like one sometimes!) and it brought about a great sense of accomplishment and pride because I was able to take part in a kill with players that I’ve raided with for the better part of 4 and a half years.

One such player, an undead priest of the discipline persuasion, has been a part of guild first kills with me since practically the beginning. From Ragnaros to Onyxia, Lady Vashj and Kaelthas to Illidan, Archimonde and Kel Thuzad, we’ve done it all (maybe not at the quickest pace) and finally we reached Arthas.

In a game that has made it easy to practically do anything its quite hard to find really rewarding achievements, this was one such achievement, one which had a four and a half year gestation you could say. At the start of the year I had given up on the game and had no intentions of going back, seeing Arthas was out of the question for me which was quite a bummer because I am a big fan of the lore and it was Warcraft 3 that got me into this MMO.. which subsequently changed my entire life… not sure if it was ultimately a good thing!

The question I pose to you, any of you who are strong willed enough to have made it through my trip down memory lane, is this: Do you have any favourite moments or sentimental moments that transcend the realms of the game? Or is it all just pixels and progression? (there’s nothing wrong with players who focus on that by the way).

Because for me (and I’d just like to say that I’m a well adjusted human being and not utterly insane about this game) killing the Lich King is hands down the most rewarding thing I’ve done in World of Warcraft, not because of the purples or achievements (mainly because he didn’t drop anything for me, the bastard!) but because of everything that lead up to the kill and the dedication shown to achieve it. J

I bought Bad Company 2 a while back and it’s been fairly fun. Since then I’ve been convincing various friends and family to pick the game up because I was sure the experience would improve with proper team mates.

And boy did it ever. I wish more games were like this. Last night, myself and two squad mates went in and dominated game after game. Just the three of us working together was enough to turn the tide in most games.

We had a standard set up of Medic, Assault and Recon for the most part (our Recon was being a weirdo using the Type 88 with a red dot) and we were able to hold our front lines pretty well. We’d swap as the games called for it, if there was heavy vehicles we’d all swap to engineers and blow them away within seconds.

When attacking we’d penetrate enemy lines and work together to clear out any snipers or people firing away on gun placements. At one point the opposing team (which stayed largely the same for the four hours we played) swapped to mainly snipers. We did the same and the battle turned into a game of skill and marksmanship.

Playing like this radically changed the gaming experience and I hadn’t had this much fun in Bad Company until we went in as a team. We racked up so many points and achievements, Katajero one of my squad mates managed to rank up to around level 5 in one night, something which took me a while on my own.

If you haven’t already, you have to play the game like this! It is such a different experience, a much better experience than any other big shooters can give you.

Fantastic. It’s just a shame the Playstation Network doesn’t have more people with microphones (Ok I don’t have one yet, but I was in the same room as someone who did – and I’m intending to get one come payday!). Most games played online on the PSN are largely silent, with little team work. Everything changes when you do eventually employ a bit of battlefield camaraderie though!

As a side note: A fun kill, a squad of three enemies were speeding at us in a jeep, I couldn’t take it out with my rifle, but I was able to shoot the oil tanker they drove passed and blew them all to smithereens, I got an amusing "fuck you" private message sent to me after that multi kill.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since its release in the UK and since that day I have enjoyed countless hours of adventures, met many cool people and formed friendships that have extended into the real world.

However recently, I’ve felt that the community has a whole in World of Warcraft has become more and more immature as a whole. Surely I’m not the only one to notice this right?

Maybe it’s a case of rose tinted glasses, sure there’s asses everywhere however there seems to be an abundance of them in the community as a whole now than there ever was. Rather than saying “Hello” or “Hey” or even “Hai”, you get the arbitrary “ach, or gearscore?” response to practically everything. Is it me or does that just seem very, very backwards? Why do I need to have proof that I’ve done something when the sole point in me joining your group would be … to do it?

The game has become a lot more friendly to pick up groups to an extent and because of that, people don’t feel the need to act in a decent manner, get into a guild and do things in what was the normal fashion, these days people can get their purple fixes by recruiting 9, or 24 other faceless people and head butting the boss till it dies.

That just feels wrong to me, surely the whole point of a MMORPG is to create a massive community, where you can work together and get things done, and not just pick up random people where the only interaction you have with them is asking if they’ve got an achievement or high enough gearscore.

Some people don’t even have the courtesy of using your characters name. Sometimes I can understand, if a guy has a name like Éáhalshéáé then I might be loathed to type it properly, but I’d still attempt to call him something similar like “Eahal”. Sadly, no one makes that effort either. Instead of your name you’re now “hunter” or “healer” or “tank”, you get assigned a raid icon so your name is essentially “blue square” to that group.

The Random Dungeon Tool has also made things worse. It’s weakened the bonds of community even more, now I don’t even need to talk anyone on my server to find a group. Sure it’s a handy tool here and there, or to get a quick daily instance done but overall, it hurts the experience in my opinion. It’s akin to playing a death match on a FPS. There are people there, you have your game and you get out, there’s very little community spirit, something which MMORPG’s should have over any other type of online game, something which WoW should promote.

Sadly, the World of Warcraft isn’t really a pleasant world to visit these days.