I don't miss the "Good Old Days"

Taking a break here from "I iz feral, hear me rawr", I've been reading a few blog posts about those "Good Old Days" of TBC.

You know what? I disagree. Those weren't "Good Old Days", they were "Miserable, Boring, Stressful Gear Grinds and Nightmarishly Hard Instances Days".

Let me explain. In these "Good Old Days", even an instance on normal could make your party grind to a halt in a horrible 3-hour wipefest. Instances on heroic were nigh-impossible for me and my team of three intrepid guildies. The Swift Flight form quest chain was the hardest thing I've ever done.

You see, the Stars of Azeroth only had 4 accounts with 80s. There was me, the bear tank, Gryff the druid healer, Whisder the boomkin, and Idoneus the hunter of pure amazingness. We clawed our way towards Heroic Sethekk Halls over about 5 months.

5 months to get me the gear to survive the pounding I would take. 5 months where Idoneus and I would 2-man the Lieutenant in CoT: Durnholme Keep until he gave up 2 Iron Bands of the Unbreakable for me. 5 months of 0 -10 arena scores every week, to try to get the PVP epics that I needed. 5 months of even more BG grinding for every precious piece, 5 months grinding to exalted with the Cenarion Expedition for Earthwarden, 5 months of scraping copper coins together to afford the best enchants and gems.

It was brutally hard work, boring work. Not fun, not anything even CLOSE to fun. It was work. And in World of Warcraft, a MMORPG labled as a game, I don't think that we should have to work for 5 months to get our epic flight forms.

It almost made me cry when they made it trainable. Cry, I tell you.

Not that there wasn't a few fun bits, like winning our first arena match, or the time that little Eyowyn took on a rogue and a warrior by herself and lived to see the sunset. But they were flecks of gold in a whole mountain range of granite.

I don't miss the "Good Old Days" where tanks would go squish! when you threw a paperclip at them. I never even got to finish a heroic. Ever. We only even made it to Anzu in Sethekk Halls. Raids were laughably out of my reach.

I like being able to take on 12 mobs at a time and come out at full health. I like seeing Icecrown Citadel, being able to actually participate in the whole game.

I once had a PUG raid where when we killed Lord Marrowgar, the other tank had been dead for the last 20%, everyone but 3 DPS and I had bit the dust, and a priest in Spirit of Redemption form keeping me alive. That was fun.

And you know what? I still can only barely field a heroic with the level 80 accounts in my guild.

Thank you WotLK, for making World of Warcraft fun to a casual like me.