by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

Stone Cairn Lake, the proverbial newbie meat grinder of vanilla Warcraft. Having thwarted kobolds, assisted two young star-crossed lovers and gotten a quick taste of frontier life in Elwynn Forest, a seemingly harmless bounty board asked you to continue your adventuring by teaching a group of murlocs a lesson. If you succeeded, Guard Thomas would reward you with a sorely needed green weapon. The upgrade would undoubtedly bolster your strength and prepare you for continued trouble throughout the countryside.

This simple quest was a nightmare in 2004, and I’m happy to say remains mildly difficult in 2013, assuming you don’t have heirlooms or a satchel of gold to drop on the auction house. Guard Thomas may have upgrades waiting for you, but the reality is that, as a young Paladin, you’re using the same weapon you received for saving the occupants of the Northshire Valley four or five levels ago. That common quality two handed hammer officially sucks, and you’re left in a world of murloc induced hurt.

That was the situation I found myself in quite recently. I had an awful hammer, a terrible mana pool and my opponents were great in number. Adding insult to injury was an absurd murloc aggro range. I’ve been unable to find a hard number on just what that aggro range is, but I can safely assume it is infinite,

something that has also not changed since 2004. Undaunted, I set out to complete my task in order to obtain a well-used greatsword.

Bounty on Murlocs remains just as trying a quest as it ever was. I never, ever got to fight just one murloc, which I had just enough mana to deal with handily. There was always a second that would pull from like, the lake next to Goldshire in order to murder me. The first fish person was no problem. Unfortunately, as it died, so too did my mana. This is where I was able to profit from not only Word of Glory, but also the choice to become an Alchemist. I only survived these terrible low DPS duels with murloc #2 because I enough healing power to be just barely immortal.  God forbid I was fighting the one that could also heal. I had to Hammer of Justice (I am super fortunate HoJ costs 1 mana at level 9) and interrupt it or else I would have to try my luck fleeing from a heavily murloc infested shore.

Halfway through the quest and one death later, a vanilla Warcraft miracle. A green two-handed mace dropped. If anyone had ever told me I’d be excited to receive a green with the suffix ‘of the Monkey’ at any point my Warcraft career past 2005, I would’ve probably laughed in their face. And yet, there it was, my green salvation. This mace bumped my weapon DPS up from 2.59 to 9.10, meaning that, out of mana, murlocs still had to be afraid of me.

The rest of the quest was a cakewalk, and that was fine by me. I’d gone out to Stone Cairn Lake and struggled through the opening part of the quest, gotten an absolutely improbable drop for my efforts and left with better loot than Guard Thomas could possibly hope to offer me. The effort, the unlikely reward and the nostalgia made the experience far more meaningful to me than if I’d simply walked in with 93 heirlooms and performed mass genocide with my heirloom powered shoulder rockets.

Someone offered this comment on first installation of Kickin’ It Old School:

2 words. ELO HeLL.
Even with NO Heirlooms , no Help There is NOTHING aight now something that Reminds you The old WOW. What you mean slowing down ? PLay Half an hour per day ? I dont understand you ppl. i mean i can start a char now and in 2 days be max lvl . HOW SLOW DOWN those 48 hours i need to max lvl HUH? play 1 hour per day and make it 48 days ? the old wow was slow because the lvl up was slow.””World of Warcraft has absolutely changed, and for better in many respects.””
Yep Now an unborned Child can play from its Mothers Belly and be full epic with legendary FREE back ( cause ppl want free things ) before Even born. that the new world of warcraft since Lich King.

It’s true. World of Warcraft has made monumental leaps and bounds in the direction of being a more casual affair. That said, to quote Twizzcast Co-host Reblfleur

, “the game will be what you make of it”. If you want to enjoy an experience similar to the original incarnation of Warcraft, all you need to do is retrace your footsteps. Mine led me back to Stone Cairn Lake for what I felt to be an awesome showdown with the surrounding populace and I had a great time as a result.