Cataclysm? What Cataclysm?

Since Blizzard was desperate kind enough to offer me a free weekend in World of Warcraft Classic, it seemed rude to refuse. Even if I couldn't see any real point to it. 

I can totally see what Blizzard stands to get out of it. More players for Cataclysm Classic, of course. And what do players mean? Money! From a player's perspective, though, what could four days in the dying embers of Wrath of the Lich King Classic under the Cataclysm pre-patch offer? 

Don't look at me. I haven't been following this thing. I have a vague idea there are some tweaks from the original Cataclysm in the pre-patch but that might just be me getting it mixed up with something else. There are too many of these retro servers to keep up with nowadays.

I'm not even sure what version of "Classic" I have access to for the next couple of days although character select clearly indicates Cataclysm is already with us. Last time I played Classic was several years ago, just before the boycott. Back then, there was only one Classic. Now there are loads of them. I may not have been playing but I've been reading and I remember reading about Seasonal servers, Hardcore servers, Classic-Classic servers, Burning Crusade Servers and WotLK servers.

I remember there were deadlines when you had to do something or not do something to avoid or initiate server moves but I wasn't subscribing so I missed all of those. I remember Shintar explaining what would happen to my characters if I did absolutely nothing but I don't remember what she said it was. 

I am still on the EU/RP server Hydraxian Waterlords, I'm pleased to say. I thought I might have been relocated. I know, since I last played there, the server has at various times been everything from a ghost town to bursting at the seams. In the hour I was there this morning, I saw not one other player but it's hardly a representative sample. Still, you might expect to see someone in Ironforge on a Saturday morning.

As I said in a comment on Wilhelm's post on the free weekend offer, I didn't get anything from Blizzard to let me know in advance it was happening. The email inviting me finally turned up this morning, about a day and a half after the doors opened. It doesn't give you much confidence in the marketing department, does it?

Getting my Classic characters up and running again was both very simple and unnecesarily complicated. I opened Battlenet and the launcher immediately offered me an update, which I took. Unfortunately it had nothing to do with Classic. It was a 13GB download for Retail.

I worked out how to swap over to Classic, technically very straightforward to do while at the same time being very obscure. That, naturally, needed another download, although a much smaller one, thankfully.

One thing Blizzard does do better than almost anyone else is get you in and playing once you've worked out what version you want. The Play button lit up green in a matter of seconds even though the download had only just started.

I logged in to character select, where I found my Classic characters, tapping their toes and twiddling their thumbs, still waiting for me - all seven of them. I'd completely forgotten I had so many. 

I picked my highest, the Level 52 Dwarf Hunter and woke him up. He was down by the water's edge in Feralas. God knows why. Several notices popped up telling me various things including the surprising news that talking to other players is now an opt-in preference. Chat is disabled by default. I think we can all draw our own conclusions there.

A lot had changed, including all my Talents, which had been reset. I also had no combat abilities on my hot bars for some reason. There was no doing anything until I got that lot sorted.

It took about fifteen minutes. It's the kind of admin I don't particularly mind but it's surely not the best way to welcome back the prodigal. If nothing else, it did give me a moment to think about what I might want to do with my gifted time. Unfortunately, even after a quarter of an hour pondering on it, I still had no idea.

While I was re-assigning Talents and replacing hot keys, I did notice I was now entitled to a whole load of new abilities, some of which I was probably too mean to pay for last time and others that have no doubt been added to the game since I left. In the absence of anything better to do I ported back to Ironforge and made my way to the Hunter trainer, where I bought everything I was offered.

After that I headed out into Dun Morogh in search of the ranch where they train you to ride and sell you something to ride on. I was quite pleased with myself that I remembered where it was, although I did go to the Gnome riding school first. I'd also forgotten that Dwarves gad about on rams, which was quite a pleasant surprise.

I had 84 gold on me, which was more than enough to buy everything including a fast White ram. I even had some change left at the end. Whether I have more in the bank I have no idea because after taking a few screenshots I logged out. I just couldn't think of anything else worth doing.

I suppose, if I was serious about coming back for Cataclysm, I could carry on levelling up but I'm not even sure if I'm on a server that's going to be updated. The icon the launcher plonked on my desktop when it started patching is named "Burning Crusade Classic". 

I thought I remembered reading there weren't going to be any permanent BC servers but I was hardly paying full attention. Anyway, I thought that if you did nothing to stop it, you automatically carried on along the progression rails to whatever expansion station came next. Maybe I got shunted into a siding.

I'm thinking, though, that the whole point of Cataclysm was the remaking of the Old World. Wouldn't you want to start a new character to play through that anyway? I'm pretty sure that's what I'd do. If so, it makes it even harder to work out what this free weekend is supposed to do for me.

The danger with please-come-back offers like this is that if you don't actually come back, they can be a waste of a perfectly good weekend. In this instance, it was good to check in with my old Classic characters again, see they were still where I left them, wherever that was, but I don't think I'll be doing much more before the gates clang shut again on Monday.

Unless, that is, anyone has any ideas. Is there anything useful I could do now that would help, should I decide to try Cataclysm Classic in a couple of weeks? Answers in a comment, please...