So you want to get into World of Warcraft.

 Hello, welcome! Please, take a seat. Yes, this is Sarah's blog. Yes, you are meant to be here. Besides, you wanted to start playing World of Warcraft, right?

No? Well, get the fuck out then.

Nah, I'm kidding. Hey there, welcome back. The last time you were here, you most likely read about me screaming about the first few hours of Dice Roll the game. Yeah, well, today is different. Recently, I haven't been playing that because Blizzard dropped the new Pre-patch for WoW's next expansion, Shadowlands. While this patch does not add much of Shadowlands (well, other then the fact all the Alliance leaders are missing now and people have taken their place), it does pretty much implode the base game in the best way possible. 

A lot of people have asked me if now is the best time to get into WoW, and I decided I'd make a whole blog post explaining 'YES, IT IS THE BEST TIME.' Now, more then ever, is the best time to jump back into the world of Azeroth, because let's be honest, they need heroes now more then ever. Here in this little blog post, I will be explaining three reasons why now is the best time to jump into WoW, and why you need to jump in now as possible. 

I promise this isn't sponsored because let's be honest, I will never be popular enough for that. 

1) OH MY GOD, THE CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION. 

What, did you not think I would talk about this? So before, for those who didn't know, there was maybe close to 8-9 (I'm exaggerating, but there really wasn't a lot) of customization options for human characters in World of Warcraft. You basically could make the same human as literally thousands of other players, with the only thing different being your transmog and even your name. But now? Oh my god, now it's amazing. They have actually added better hairstyle, better eye colors, scars, THEY EVEN HAVE MORE SKIN COLORS, GUYS. Here, go ahead and appreciate my badass Worgen. 

But anyway, the character customization doesn't just stick to human characters. You even more options for pretty much every single species in the game. Everywhere from gnomes to night elves to orcs and blood elves. It's absolutely insane what they have added to character's and how they can look like, it's honestly severely impressive. You can make characters basically anyway you want now, and it's great for new players jumping in. Besides, who doesn't want an elf that actually kind of looks like them?

2) OH MY GOD EXILE'S REACH.

Yes, all of these will be in capital letters because I am so excited. So before, characters that were brand new basically started in Stormwind (if you were Alliance) and Orgrimmar (if you were Horde) and worked your way through the expansions past the starting area. Now, this is completely changed. All characters who start at 1, gets to ten through an area called Exile's Reach. What this island is, is basically tutorial island. You learn about abilities and subclasses and everything in between.

Basically, Blizzard has smushed the 1-10 experience to it's own isolated bubble. War-mode cannot be turned on, you learn how to do your class specific abilities and even do your first tutorial dungeon to end the area. It is the more comprehensive leveling experience that the game has created, and honestly, the best way for newcomers to jump in. 

((image; PCgamerN))

Now, the best part of the new pre-patch actually comes in a crazy new leveling feature that's even better then exiles reach! 

I give you...

3) OH MY GOD LEVELING THE WAY YOU WANT TO! 

Wow, okay, let's dive into this. So before, for those who first jumped into WoW, you had to follow the game in expansion order. Which, let's be honest, wasn't that fun. The game basically forced you to go through all of the expacs to get to max and do end game content. And let me tell you, as someone who did a lot of leveling alts and doing the same content over and over in the same order...

Whoa, sorry, lost me a bit there. 

Anywho, YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THAT ANYMORE! Now, the new leveling experience is done however the hell you want it to go. You can go into any order you want, however you want it, with whoever friends you want to run with it. Here, let me give you a quick rundown/example on how it works. 

So when you finish exiles reach, you will see a small hourglass on the map. Go to it, and you'll find a Dragon gnome named Chromie! There, you can choose whatever expansion you want to level up in, You are given, literally, free reign to start wherever you want! 

((image; WoWHead))

The image above is everything you are going to see when you start the leveling experience. That's right, exactly like I said, total freedom! You want to start at Wrath of the Lich King? Go ahead! Why not Warlords of Draenor? Right on! Honestly, WoW has never been better then it is now, giving you as much freedom as it has. 

As of now, it is absolutely the best time to jump back into World of Warcraft. From making better looking characters to the leveling experience and the total freedom that brings, you can't think of a better time, honestly. 

I was never an MMO person before I started World of Warcraft. I fell in love with the world and the endless back and forth of the Alliance, the Horde, Azeroth and the space they all occupy. I would love to see brand new players jump in and learn about the lore their own way, and slowly fall in love with it as much as I have. 

For the end of this post, I will be putting in my unboxing of the Shadowlands Collectors Edition! If you do end of trying WoW, do post what your characters look like in the comments section! I'd love to see them.

Putting my faith in the dice - a quick summary of my first two hours with Baldur's Gate 3.

 Hello friends. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Well, I have a habit of loosing interest in things pretty fast. Don't take that the wrong way, I love this little corner of the internet I made myself, where I get to scream into the void and the only answer I get is utter, total silence...

Okay, that sounded a lot more ominous then I thought it would. 

While, coincidently, fits in with what I want to talk about today! 

Yes, if you haven't already read the title, this post will be a quick summary/personal hot take on the first 2.5 hours (if Steam is anything to go by) of Baldur's Gate 3! The new Larian Studios (of  Divinity fame) title that launched in Early Access on October 6th. For those who are not aware, Baldur's Gate 3 is a RTS/Turn-Based RPG that basically plays like a virtual DnD game...which, honestly makes sense, as Baldur's Gate itself is a game that takes place in the Dungeons & Dragon universe. An already established RPG series, it has been 20 years since the last numbered title in the series. So, for a title that has pedigree behind it, and one that had many people excited, how did I, a person who has a tiny bit of DnD logic and who has never played the original games...how did I like it?

Well, how did I like the first two and a half hours, anyway.

Please keep in mind, I am not trying to review the first two hours. This game is in earl access, and I don't want this blog to become a review blog either. This is just for fun and to talk about me, a total newbie to this genre, is enjoying my time! :)

0-30 Minutes. 

Alrighty, opening cutscene. Tentacle squid-face monsters (I only know their called Mind Flayers, funny enough, because World of Warcraft totally rips them off) is seemingly putting a worm into people's eyes. Yeah, no, not a fan. Nothing to do with eyes. First it was Dead Space 2, now this??

Goddamn this character creator kicks butt. Not surprising I spent close to thirty minutes or so on it? I normally have a habit of making myself in RPGs like this, but I decided against that, as lets be honest, I don't look super fantasy-like in real life. Class selection personally took a few minutes to figure out, but I ended up going for a Half-drow elf Warlock, with the subclass of the Great Ones. I don't know, I think seeing the Mind Flayer at the beginning made me think of the terrible irony of my character getting captured. 

Here is the final character design I ended up going with.

Then as I went to finish the character creation, it sent me to...another character creation screen. 'Who is it that you dream of?' the game haunting spoke to me. Now that was an open ended question. Is it a lover? Some random, swoony romance novel guy that my character sees in her dreams? Well, sadly, didn't get too long to think because I got my first in-game crash right at that screen. Great. So, restarted the game, then cue my grumbling as I realized I had to recreate my character again. Not the end of the world, but still annoying. 

Where were we? Ah yes, the swoony romance novel man. Praying that the game didn't crash again, I quickly made him. Who is he to my character? Her warlock mentor? Another fellow magic user who she suddenly got the hots for? I am not far enough to have him pop up yet (At least I don't think so?) so we'll see. 

Here he is...no name yet, I haven't gotten that far. 

30 min - one hour.

I am, what some say, in the action. Ship gets under attack, my character most likely freaks the fuck out, and here we are on the move! Movement is done by either left-clicking spots or just holding it down, camera is controlled with WASD. Different for me, but it didn't take me long to get used to. 

Come across my first body. Poor elf literally has brain exposed and it's...talking to me? But it sounds like a child?? I'm given character prompts to talk to it, and I'm so far passing every dice roll to get more info just by looking at it. Off to a good start I guess. So I ask it questions, and finally given the prompt to not trust the damned thing. 

I mean, honestly, would you trust a talking brain? Nah, I hope not. So I'm then given the option to try and surgically remove it. Alright, cool, I don't remember giving my character the ability to do surgical procedures, but why not?? Pass that dice roll.

I'm imagining this is what it looked like (iStockphoto)

Sarah; 10 or so points 

Dice roll; 0.

Pretty good streak so far. So my character surgically (and by that I mean very softly rips his brain out. Ooff) takes his brain. I'm then given a prompt to try and wound it, to force it to help me. Feeling my roll streak, I say 'to hell with it' and roll again. This is the first of my many fails. Brain runs away. Great. Cue me running around confused until I find my way out.

Speeding along, I run into my first party member. Her name is Lae'zel and she's well, just a tad bit rude. But, she does more combat hardened then me so you know what, she'll do. This when I do one of my first main combat sections. 

I'm not playing with turn based on, mind you. So it's all forward from here. I am doing my best attempting to stay alive (my max health is only at 10, which I believe is partially my fault picking the class I did) also I seem to be not paying attention to the fact I'm using physical attacks instead of magic, which ya know, I'm proficient in. So far, every combat mistake I'm making is just human error and me learning, which is nice. So far I'm not too terrible?

I realize this isn't 'a quick' summary, so I'll try to speed this up. Combat happens, I kill an enemy and he sky rockets into the stratosphere. I believe that enemy corpse messed my game up, as after the fight that happens, my game begins slowing to a crawl, forcing me to have to stop playing for a bit. 

But, I return around a few hours later. Game is running great. I then continue on, and as I'm slowly killing enemies and making my way to pilot a ship, a Mind Flayer is legit in a fight with what looks like Satan, I suddenly begin to realize this is going to be more then I thought it was. 

Also, a demon's wings freaks the fuck out as well. Off to a great start! 

1 hour - 2 hour mark.

Ship has crash landed...and so have I. Kinda. I now have landed on mortal ground and shit it's looking too good for Sarah, the very concerned  and greatly confused-as-fuck-after-the-recent-hour warlock. Working my way up the darkened map, I run into my first wonderful times of 'oh god I gotta reload because I fucked up'. So far I have counted I've done this around 5 times. And I will list them for you here.

1)Run my way into a group of wiggly brains and get my ass kicked.

2)Run directly into fire like a dumbass once or twice. I honestly forget.

3)Pick the wrong dialogue options and all of my groupmates disliked that.

4)Picked the wrong option, got my head eaten by a mind flayer. 

5)Once again, picked the wrong option and had to fight like, five enemies with three people. 

Obviously, add in between those messing my save up and also, on the bright side, finding new party members! We have a few friends now, such as Gale (I like this dumb wizard man), Lae'zel (again), Astarion (creepy vampire man who, yes, tried to kill me. Trust me, it was a very panicky dice roll on my part) and reads smudged handwriting Shadowheart? Yeah, that's a name. And she's fine, I guess. She has healing abilities though which I can confirm I have used way too much. Other then that, she hates every decision I have made so far so I'm not a fan of hers. 

I didn't take anymore screenshots, so here's Gale. (RockPaperShotgun)

I've fought a few things up to this point, and talked my way out of some great situations (the way i'm playing my warlock, I'm imagining finger guns all the way through) and also finally learned, and have been overusing, the camping system. Vine catches me or a party member?? Camp! I get hit once? CAMP!! Yeah, I have a feeling this might bite me later, but it's working great now. 

Camp is cool, and I instantly try to push to talk to Gale when I can. Since romance options do exist in this title, I've found my target of affection (sorry hot guy I made at the beginning whoever you are) and try to get to know Gale. He loves books, his cat, and a nice glass of wine. Classy. Not so classy is every attempt my character is trying to get to tell him she's a warlock. Maybe don't? We don't know, that could be at turn off for this guy. I'm also just now realizing my dream boy legit looks like Gale. Well, this going to be awkward. 

Also I'm anxiety driven over the 'blank disapproves' text.

Good representation of me before ever making a choice. (depositphotos)

The last fight before I went to bed was, in all honesty, the most stressful. Even with my full party. From what I gathered, a group of adventurers pissed off a group of goblins and are now trying to get back into a village. The same one that might have a healer that can fix my little band of merry creatures with brain slugs. Sigh Guess we gotta help them! 

Now, my favorite part about this had to be just how much one of those adventurers was getting their ass kicked. Since they were NPCs, I weren't expecting all of them to live, but in all honesty it was kind of funny. Until, ya know, all the goblins homed in on my warlock. Excuse me? Thankfully, Gale had a chain lightning ability and Lae'zel can hit stuff really, really well. Ya know, just wished any of them had a good hit rate. 

Again, blaming this on the dice, but also could be my dumbass was aiming for someone on a hill. Anyway, the battle was won, XP was earned, and my party ventured into the camp. Where Sarah the Warlock ended up defusing another fight that was going to start, and all of my party liked that. Mentally giving finger guns in my mind, of course. Seems the dice rolls didn't hate me...this time, anyway.

Off to a great start.