For many players, the air has gone out of World of Warcraft recently. But for a few days now, Cortyn from MeinMMO has been having a lot of fun again – thanks to a small change.
If you know me a little, you know that I have remained relatively faithful to World of Warcraft. Not only have I been writing about World of Warcraft for MeinMMO for almost 7 years, but I have also been playing it intensively for over 14 years. While there have been months where I took a break, I’ve never really escaped Blizzard’s Azeroth. Patch 8.3 Visions of N’Zoth really put me to the test as a long-time fan. But a small hotfix change has ensured that I now spend many hours a day diving back into Azeroth.
Patch 8.3 had little to offer and hardly any incentives
I won’t hide it: I am still disappointed with Patch 8.3 as a whole. There are too many aspects that annoy me and where I had simply hoped for more. The most important negative aspects for me are:
- Slow conclusion of the story around N’Zoth
- No really new areas
- Disappointing rare mobs without special drops
I enjoy collecting things – whether pets, toys, or mounts, and the current patch offers very little of that. The few pets are caught quickly, and the toys are also nothing that I can really work towards.
Whenever the current content in WoW has bored me or was not interesting enough, I switched to twinks. After a long time playing as a priest, the demon hunter was a cool change, and now seeing the dungeons and raids from the perspective of a fire mage is also appealing.
But WoW has not allowed that in recent months. Because the essences for the Heart of Azeroth were difficult to farm for twinks. The reputation grind had to be repeated in full on every character. As cool as I found Nazjatar, it would not cross my mind to do all the dailies every day for a month – especially, when everything is overcrowded with multiboxers.
The end result was that I actually only played properly for a few hours on two days a week to go on adventures with my “Mythic+” group.
WoW developers have finally listened
But the developers of WoW have listened, even though it took a very long time. Since last Wednesday, twinks can now obtain essences significantly faster that a main character already has. This is done through a new currency (Echoes of Ny’alotha), which can be exchanged directly for the desired essence – without RNG elements and without much extra effort. How exactly to obtain the Echoes of Ny’alotha, we have explained here.
Just as the community predicted for weeks, this has led to exactly the change I wanted to see: I am having fun again with World of Warcraft and have a strong desire to play twinks.
Along with my demon hunter and mage, a rogue and a warrior have now joined the ranks. After just a few hours of gameplay, I already have two of the necessary essences, and the flow of the game is much more enjoyable. You can clearly feel the impact of the right essences on your first visit to a Disturbing Vision of N’Zoth, not to mention in mythic dungeons or even in the LFR version of Ny’alotha.
I even feel like playing completely new characters and perhaps finally leveling a mechagnome or a nightborne to max level. Just because I know that I won’t have to face the “essences wall” in endgame.
In addition, Blizzard has currently activated a 100% XP bonus due to the whole “Corona situation”.
In summary, WoW managed to “hook” me again with this small change. Thanks to the Echoes of Ny’alotha and the associated essences, everything I am currently doing with my twinks feels relevant in some way. Everything gives me meaningful progress. This will continue to be the case for another 3-4 weeks until I have unlocked the perfect essences with all characters.
Whether the enjoyment will last over this period remains to be seen, as the upcoming content drought until the release of Shadowlands will be long and, due to the Corona situation, probably even longer than expected. But even then, I would at least have a number of decent alternative characters if I thirst for a new role. Maybe I’ll try one of the 5 hardest achievements in WoW.
And if in doubt, I’ll just log on to my demon hunter, because you can also have fun without thinking.
We wanted to know from you whether you play more after the change.
