Video: Five old WoW hands try to remember how to dungeon
Timewalking down memory lane.
When Blizzard announced that it was introducing a new special weekend event to World of Warcraft called Timewalking, there was a ripple of excitement in the Eurogamer office - one that, for once, reached beyond the corner where crusty old diehards John Bedford and yours truly sit with our fingers permanently hovering over (and sometimes accidentally slipping onto) the resubscribe button.
How come? Well, Timewalking is a neat feature: it allows high-level characters to revisit classic five-player dungeons from the game's 10-year history, scaling their power down to match the challenge, and then scaling the lovely retro loot back up to something suitable for a level 90 to 100 to wear.
It's also a feature custom designed (like so much of the recent Warlord of Draenor expansion) to appeal to lapsed players nostalgic for their time in Azeroth - and there are a few of us on the EG staff who fit that description. Bedders, Bertie, Aoife, Wes, Chris Bratt and I all played the game at its 2004 launch; some of us have never fully shaken the habit, despite some dark episodes (years after his multi-boxing nadir, Bedders got lost in a fishing hole). Bertie healed raids in the bad old good old days of Molten Core before quitting, only recently returning after nine years away. Wes is never allowed to play the game again on pain of divorce.
That still leaves five of us - coincidentally, just enough for a dungeon party. We decided to give Timewalking a go. After bitter argument about which faction we'd play, Alliance scum Bedders and Aoife had to concede that they were in a (pathetically uncool) minority. Neither had a Horde character at all - showing loyalty as commendable as their judgement is awful - so had to roll new ones and boost them to level 90, which had some unforeseen consequences for John, our designated tank...
Which vintage dungeon would the randomised playlist spit out? Would we remember anything about it? In fact, would we remember how to play at all? Or would we wipe repeatedly on the first mini-boss? Guess! And then watch the video below to find out if you guessed right.
