Nami Goes South

While photos spread across gaming forums of crushed customers and shattered store doors from the midnight launch rush at German electronics shops, I slept. I picked up World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade the sensible way—drove out to Kaufbeuren with Eniz first thing Tuesday morning, walked into my regular dealer, walked out with a copy. Eniz was barely conscious; I’m fairly sure he still thinks the whole outing was a dream.

The install took forever. Patches loaded slowly. I sat there hoping to finish character creation before every server in Germany went down under the weight of a thousand identical blood elves. In the end, my realm—Echsenkessel, last choice for PvP but the only one still holding my preferred name—held up better than expected. Almost no lag. A minor miracle given what was happening elsewhere.

Nami, blood elf paladin, stepped out into Eversong Woods and it was immediately clear the design team had done something right. Saturated colors, warm sunlight, architecture that’s ornate without being oppressive. The quests have actual variety. The blood elf movement animations have personality—there’s a little hop they do that reads as character rather than just locomotion. Silvermoon City is still half-empty while everyone grinds through the starting content, but you can feel what it’ll become once the population spreads out.

I passed on the Collector’s Edition—couldn’t justify the cost for the exclusive pet—so I spent my in-game silver on a dragonhawk hatchling instead. It flies behind me now on its small wings, very serious about its responsibilities. And since the name demanded it, I joined the guild Die Strohhut Piraten the moment I could. Nami, the Straw Hat Pirates, Eversong Woods. It was always going to be this.

The easy part is done. All the starting quests around Silvermoon are finished. Now she heads south—where the trees go dark, the air thickens, and the wildlife is diseased. That’s where the real work begins.