I found my receipt for Wrath of the Lich King. I bought it on July 23rd. Before this weekend I’d logged into WoW once since installing it. And had stayed logged in for all of 10 minutes.

Last night I finally got around to going back, trying to run my level 60 hunter. The last time I played him, Burning Crusades was brand new. The last time I played him at all seriously was months before that. Trying to pick up where I left off, with a default UI, was…challenging.

Today I canceled the account again, but it doesn’t run out until the 26th. Since I’d spent $40 or $50 on WotLK (and $30 on two months subscribing) I figured, what the hell, time to roll a Death Knight just to see what that’s all about. So I did.

There’ve been some neat convenience features added to WoW since I last played, like the quest info on the maps and the neat little details on what stats will go up or down if you change gear. But otherwise, WoW feels like WoW.

If feels old to me in a way that, for example, EQ2 does not. Early in the Death Knight campaign you have to go into a mine, and it easily could’ve been the exact same mine I went into to kill Kobolds at the North Abbey back in 2003 or so…whenever they added the human race to the alpha/betas. The buildings are the same buildings, the peasants the same peasants.

Now, that’s fine for the old content but this was the newest, coolest content Blizzard could deliver? The one real improvement I noticed was audio; there were some really first rate screams.

Hopefully Cataclysm includes a graphics update along with all the other goodies. (Does it?)

In fairness, I should say that WoW still has the best ‘feeling’ melee combat of any MMO I can think of. There’s just something impactful (I may have just made up that word) about hitting an enemy with a sword that makes it feel like you’re really letting them have it.

Ah well, I always said you can’t go home again. I did get my last evening sitting at the dock in Westfall, watching the lighthouse. And y’know what? It really just wasn’t the same. For me, WoW no longer holds any magic, I guess. Sad, really. I hope Cataclysm can bring some of that magic back.