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I’m extremely excited to announce Inventory Space! A new video series in which Ed and I spend our precious free time with massive live-service games to see how much they demand from our schedules. Are we able to truly experience everything these games have to offer without sacrificing the bits of our daily routines that keep us from withering away at our monitors? How many hours do you really need to invest in order to fully experience a game? And is it even worth it, in the end?
Inventory Space will – hopefully – give you a better idea of whether mammoth games will slot into your life neatly, or not at all.
Our first episode focuses on World Of Warcraft (not Classic), an absolute juggernaut in the “Big Game” category and an MMO that we both had very different histories with. Ed was the one with great nostalgia for past WoW and someone who used to spend countless hours in Azeroth, while I hadn’t played it at all before. We set some loose goals, like reaching the endgame and doing our first Raid, because we were naive boys who believed that, yes, we’d be enamoured with WoW. In the end, our experiences with the game aligned in a way we hadn’t expected. And, in a strange meeting of many complex thoughts, we came to quite a beautiful conclusion.
So before you dive in the game’s Dragonflight expansion, why not see if your inventory has the capacity for a game as hefty as World of Warcraft.
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What game shall we play next? Let us know!
It's (kind of) a shame you missed the launch of classic, as it recreated the original experience all over again; both the highs and the lows 😆. I thought I'd play it for a couple of hours but ended up sucked in for a couple of years, before the same issues started to re-emerge. I hit my goal of finishing the TBC raids and realised I didn't want to do the whole thing over again for WOTLK, But it really leaves a void when you stop.
Does the game not have names visible by default? Jaina was there in the throne room with you. Also, did it not play the cutscene showing the alliance navy getting destroyed by the zandalari trolls, which is why they go to kul tiras to ask for help, since they're famous for their navy?
You can go back and do quests in old expansion when you are high level, its just not going to give you xp/be challenging.
Also 3 hours of dailys? is he walking or something?
Also raids (looking for raid) is really not 100s of hours away at that point, especially late in the expansion.
Really the problem is the new player leveling experience sucks, because the fun and reason i play is once you hit the level cap, either the exploring/collecting there or the group content with friends/guildies.
I've never played WoW, but this episode was so enjoyable! I think in some way or another, we are all trying to recapture our experiences with games from our early years. And this video shows that while it might not be possible for a lot of us today, we can still appreciate what games can and have offered us! Great work guys, really looking forward to the next episode!
I feel exactly the same about wow. I still play classic some but I won't play retail ever again. It's about the nostalgia and all the old forgotten places that retail skips you past that made me love wow so much
As somebody in their late twenties running into some of these same struggles, finding this to be a very relatable series.
I don't play WoW and can't say this video has really sold me on the idea, unfortunately!
I played a bit of WoW way back in the days before Discord when I had to hold the phone on my shoulder to talk to my friend while we played! I never got super into it, mostly due to the monthly sub. I didn't try MMOs again until ESO (big TES fan here), and now I'm absolutely hooked on FFXIV! I think it would super cool to see you guys try FFXIV after this and compare your experiences. Where WoW throws you into a disjointed story, FFXIV realllllly takes its time leading you into the narrative. It has a very different philosophy when it comes to preserving old content – sometimes to its detriment. If it's hard to get into WoW because it tries to push you to endgame so quickly and doesn't try to get the player invested in the story, it can be hard to get into FFXIV because it takes so long to get to endgame and it places its story above all else.
We can also watch videos like this one! 😀
I lived WoW. I maxed every class, cleared every dungeon, created guilds, and led them through raids. I experienced everything Wow had to offer multiple times but when I think of Wow now, it's the people I miss. My memories aren't about content they are about experiences with friends. Friends I made playing the game. Just like UO, AC 1&2, EQ 1&2, SWG (before they broke it), and many others, the games only provide a place to meet people with a shared interest in escapism through gaming. The content is just something to do together while you chat and get to know people you'd never normally have met. Those friendships lasted far longer than the games themselves and the memories of successes and failures together will live even longer. I miss my life in MMOs but life doesn't allow for that time commitment anymore. I'm in my 50s now with kids still living at home who think a couple of hours playing the latest multiplayer shooter is the pinnacle of online gaming. Who knows maybe when life slows down in my 60s or 70's I'll retire back to MMOs and recapture some of that old adventure. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Great piece, really enjoyed that. It's the nostalgia thing that keeps me dipping back into wow, even though I don't have time for raids, etc. Elwynn Forest will always be the essence of warcraft for me.
Great video! I just resubbed to WoW with my fiancee as we were feeling nostalgic. I would love to see a video on Warframe next…I love the gameplay but man is that game confusing to me as an outsider.
for the unemployed they have an amazing gaming opportunity
great video that captures a lot of these nuanced feelings (runescape was my poison)
This was really a great watch, guys, well done. I played WoW alllllll the way back at launch for about 9 months, and then not again for years, and by the time I dipped my toes in again (years ago, now) I already felt the tension you encountered throughout this experiment where it felt like the game had just moved on and catching up wasn't something it wanted to help anyone do. Still, I have nostalgia for those early days and you've done a great job of capturing why. I'll be watching whatever you do next, but as somebody who loved Guild Wars 1 and never got into 2, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about the sequel since it seems to still be going strong.
My first thought after watching the first 5 mins of this video is, you're right – do I really want to spend time watching all of 46 mins of this long video. 🙂
Very entertaining video. Guild Wars 2 was an MMO that was friendly to casual play. I'd be very interested to see this series revisit that MMO in the future as a comparator to WOW.
I started playing WoW back in 2007 and once WoTLK wrapped up I was pretty much done, the leveling, raids and constant struggle to keep up just became too much. I have played through each expansion since but only to see the new stuff and leave. Investing a thousand hours in each expansion is just way too much for an adult with a job and family. BFA and Shadowlands were horrendous with time sinks and I can't imagine the amount of time needed to maintain a character within a high level mythic raiding guild.
I played WoW during the beta and then for a couple of months after launch, but it was playing with friends I enjoyed more than WoW itself. I get the same feeling from Fortnite or Destiny now, without having to pay a monthly fee.
I would love to see this series cover Guild Wars!
Usually a "get-to-the-point" viewer and a current reluctant WoW player, I really enjoyed this "documentary" as I would call it. Very well documented process and explanation of the feelings evoked while playing, as well as the complimentary interviews from the people that sank some good hours into it. While dragonflight is fun and hopefully better than the last 2 expansions, I also sometimes feel I would rather be back in Elwynn forest or watching my back for a T-rex in Un'goro crater. Thanks for the trip 🙂
I really feel for you guys – if you'd just been told to play Classic WotLK I think your feeling towards wow would have been completely different.
I haven't bothered much with the last 2 (now 3) expansions and have no idea why they would throw you into BFA without warning. That just seems like a terrible idea, not least because BFA was pure crap.
I do recommend scrubbing that experience from your mind and having another go, just play classic and pretend it all stopped at lv 80.
I too started wow recently, as a working family father, and one of my goals is to teach my 5-y.o. to use the computer. I share your frustration about being locked in the battle for Azeroth expansion, but I feel like you didn’t take your gaming experience seriously. The first thing I did when frustrated about the horde pyramids was to return to Orgrimmar where I found that we could move over to Pandaria were both me and my son had more fun. Right now we are traveling so I can’t try but while on the road I read up a bit and apparently there is a way to create a trial character who will be level 60 and once you have done that the game recognizes that you have had a high level so Chromie is unlocked and you can play the early expansions without finishing BfA or manually completing a character. So while Blizzard needs to work on friendliness to new players, there seems to be ways around not liking BfA that you never even tried to find (it’s not that difficult to just look around a bit). Like the concept of your series but you fall short due to lack of imagination.
I honestly feel classic would've given you a better experience, at least in some ways. Love the sense of awe from the world and locations, and I find the leveling experience great, especially early on. Man, you could've experienced the night elf starting area!
Great video, thanks!
I'd personally like to see how you get on after a month in league of legends.
Whatever you do, i'm sure it will be interesting
They really need a whole new Campaign facilitated by the Bronze Dragonflight (masters of all time!) that takes you on a highlight reel of the game, all the stupid fun stuff, the corners where the goofy stories are. Like the log flume in the Grizzly Hills. The Chess Fight in Karazhan. Doing brew quests in Pandaria. Disguise missions in nearly every description. And Shadowlands, with each zone distilled into a pure aesthetic
I played WoW for seven years ending just before the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Two expansions after leaving the game I made three serious attempts to return. Every one of them ended in the middle of the first three month subscription block (wasting a month and a half). The biggest change I've seen is the community. It went from, " Come have some fun with us" to "What's your gear score". The next is the game moving away from exploration and questing. Dull quest grind to get to the cap, dull grind to get heroic gear and waiting around for the next raid day because of the weekly limit. The existing players seem to be trapped in an abusive relationship. I have so much time and emotion invested in my characters. What would I do if I stopped playing? Watches another resub date scroll past. Well I guess I'll play and see if the game get any better with the next expansion. REPEAT
You should try Classic wow, it's a better and more challenging experience
I started playing in 2005, before the first expansion. Two years later, when Burning Crusade was to be released, I remember the excitement during the preceding weeks over the opening of The Dark Portal. The online relationships I had developed were so strong …these were real people I was looking forward to meeting again and again. Unlike today, where strangers come and go for co-ops. Over the years, friends moved on and my personal life took on more and more responsibilities. By the time MoP was released, I barely had time for Wow and everyone I ever new online was gone. Since then I had dropped in periodically over the years — usually around the time of a new expansion release. The experience has been never the same. I have even skipped entire expansions. I had even petitioned the creation of Classic but, by the time it was released years later, I had all but ceased my WoW participation.
I might purchase the Dragonflight expansion this weekend, out of curiosity. I even still have my main…
Yeah, apart being super casual in Wotlk (almost no raid/arena), I played a long period of time from end of Vanilla WoW until Warlords of Draenor (and then few years of Wotlk on unofficial servers). I watched this video because tomorrow I'll buy WoW Dragonflight, because my friend and his friend offered me if I buy it – we'll play together and be serious about it (Raid or Arena, or RBG) 3-4 days in a week, in 3 of 4 weeks in a month, for 2-3 hours per session.
TL;DR, my best memories of it are seeing and experiencing world for the first time (without damn flying mounts), playing/leveling in Vanilla with friends, and ofc raiding with amazing guild Kawhoom.
– after enjoying WC3, I loved seeing this massive jaw dropping 3D world and experiencing everything in it for the first time (WoW was my first MMO), where I seemed to be a champion of some kind, which was an interesting change of perspective after WC3. Using AH felt great,
– slowly leveling in Vanila form 1 to 60 solo and with friends
– absolutely enjoying everything about my beloved expansion Burning Crusade
– Raiding as a team and social unit almost all of TBC (stopped after Brutalus in Sunwell, bcz I had to change work, and could no longer be free for raiding days/hours :*( ). Huge reason for me to enjoy TBC was because I was fortunate to raid with a semi-hardcore and socially nice and chill and awesome guild named "Kawhoom" <3 (Horde, Agamaggan realm).
– Seeing some awesome lore characters during raiding (and questing) like fighting Illidan Stormrage on top of Black Temple raid.
– WoW's awesome music and sounds
Everything after TBC and maybe Wotlk (although LFG was added in WOTLK and flying mounts that made the world so much smaller in TBC), felt more meh and meh. For example dying class identity as a warlock main – now all classes can heal, even rogues had aoe dmg and heal; every class had guild mass resurrect; now u don't need summons and portals due to LFG/LFR added functions; dead world pvp; seeing things like Vulpera weird races in game; forced and ruined WC3 Reforged, all the recent Bliz drama and Diablo Immoral.
How ironic, you play Warcraft , made by the publisher whoring to Communist China with worse track records with LGBT than JK Rowling. Maybe you should stop using Apple Products and TikTok because they are made in China because Chinese government is getting royalties for every product made in China. Also China is ASSISTING Russia's economically and militarily, so every Chinese made good you buy, it harms the Ukranians.
"7 hour workday" spotted the non-American
5:00 let me stop you right there, you don't need that many hours to forge a bond that strong with a game.
Aion was my favorite MMO for a while, after ages of playing other mmos on the spare time I had, It felt like nothing else clicked because everything was just mainstream and offered that theme park experience that western mmos are famous for, pay a fee, max level, play 4 hours, level up from 1 to 30 like its nothing. Aion was great not just because it had a decent progression but because of the flight system, and except for how Asmos got screwed because whenever they fell they ended up in enemy territory, It was perfect at the start.
Then they had to freaking mess with flight adding a ton of restrictions and they literally ruined the entire game for me because of just a single set of updates messing with gliding time etc.
I dropped the game entirely after that, I really thought Aion was going to top WoW etc, but that was all it took to make me drop it entirely.. even though I still think launch version was probably one of the best MMOs ever.
MMOs are simply that fragile, because unlike before devs these days are willing to update and rollback tons of things like its nothing, I blame WoW expansions personally, but I guess you can't have that much content without constant change.
This was fantastic and I love the concept of this series. Looking forward to more for sure 🙂
WoW really was the metaverse, only good