There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvish!* (Another “zzzzz-inducing” WoW post featuring orgiastic naked elves**, trips to Outland and other mediocrity.)

After the trials and, well, trials of the painstaking process to get the expansion installed, I decided that I’d start by creating a new character; a female Blood Elf priest. Log in, watch the opening racial description movie (am I the only one to watch these?) and begin a new adventure in a familiar world.

Logging in, I felt like I was in the middle of the Azerothian equivalent of the future earth in Y: The Last Man, where females rule and every single male mammal had died out. Just about all the player characters were female blood elves, half of them naked (or as naked as the game allows them to be) and loitering around doing nothing except spamming the dance emote. I confess, I felt somewhat ashamed that I’d stooped so low to be another sad, pathetic male gamer with a predilection for the demeaning portrayal of females in fantasy games - but not ashamed enough to delete the character and reroll a male version.

Typically, every other member of my (entirely male, 30+ year old, married with kids) guild had rolled female Blood elves too. Can’t say I was surprised. The immediate downside to the plethora of this sad, pathetic, pre-pubescent (and mid life) obssesion with slutty, pointy eared elves was that General chat was filled with inane babble: Eversong Woods Chat is the new Barrens Chat and having been there done, that and got the T-Shirt, I exited the of general chat channel in less than 60 seconds.

The second thing I noticed was the spectacular scenery of the starting area. Compared to other horde starting areas, Sunstrider Isle is stunning. The undead get a cemetry and decrepit old village, orcs and trolls get a cave and a tent, tauren get a little tribal settlement and blood elves get a jewel encrusted, glittering, polished building with fountains, crystals and magic brooms (a la Fantasia) doing the cleaning. You soon realise that the thing about the Blood Elves is that they are vain, arrogant and extremely decadent. When you get to your first inn in Falconwing, you cannot help but notice the difference between this and the other, spartan and more functional racial inns in the game. The entrances are draped with blue translucent curtains and inside there are cushions, throw pillows, sumptuous decorations and elaborately decorated tables.

You begin to realize at this point that the Blood Elves are more like the elves in Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies than anything that Tolkien ever wrote about. And when one of the pre level 10 quests have you running around collecting food, drink and fireworks for an eleborate, never ending party being held in spite of imminent danger, you also know that being a Blood Elf is going to be far more fun that being one of those namby pamby, tree hugging, hippychick Night Elves.

On Saturday night I logged in my warlock and joined a couple of guild members for a trip to Outland. I know I shouldn’t have expected it but when I stepped into the Dark Portal I was half hoping for a trippy, Stargate like effect as I jumped dimensions. Unfortunately, no such luck - all you get is a loading screen. Hey ho. Still, it didn’t detract as I stepped out on the other side into the middle of a great big battle between the combined ally/horde forces of Azeroth and a fuck off big Pit demon and his summoned cronies (the screenshot below doesn’t do justice to quite how big this guy is). All that it lacked was a sign saying “Welcome to Outland (Population 27098)”

Filled with relief at not having to run the gauntlet of the demon hordes straight away, I caught the wind rider to the Horde base of Thrallmar and hooked up with my guildies. Unlike most zones back in Azeroth, even those supposedly on the front line, you get the real impression that you are in the middle of a war. Brutish Orc generals make like the Drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, berating the slackness and ineptitude of the troops lined up in front of them while not far away there’s a tent filled with injured NPCs and priests tending to them. Quests are easy to come by and even the basic quest rewards provide equipment better than most stuff I’d gained in the run up to level 60.

I didn’t stay long - the joys of having a child who’s just had the MMR jab and is teething again - but saw enough of this opening area to be stunned at the scenery. We assaulted an encampment of dodgy red orcs (we needed their blood for a quest I think - I have no idea, I’m just a mindless grunt who does what he’s told when it comes to being in a group) and watched and wondered at our Warrior who engaged and was killed by an ally player. (We, of course, retaliated and slaughtered him and did so again when he returned to have another go, toasting him in his Judgement armour.) I was blown away when I first saw a Fel Reaver go past. It towered above us even though it was going through a canyon below us. It reminded me how much I love the scale in WoW and how you can feel dwarfed (not literally - that would be awful! Imagine waking up with a long beard, bad temper and unquenchable desire to sing about gold!) by a monster or a building. It’s a feeling I never really got in SWG or in EQ2.

I did have a quick wander around the Draenei starting area too, enough to notice how quiet it was relative to the Blood Elf area but not enough to write much about it. So far, this expansion gets two thumbs up from me, even with the installation problems. I’m looking forward to exploring more of Outland but I’m also enjoying playing with my elf. Still undecided about priest as a way forward but the difference in playstyles between that and my usual staple of warlock is a welcome change.

*With apologies to Kirsty MacColl and Terry Pratchett
**Not really.