No matter how hard I try, the World of Warcraft somehow finds a way to pull me back in. Back in the beginning of October, I had this extremely plentiful amount of energy and free time, which I spent on working on a new site powered by Joomla, and it was going to be great and all. (For a sneak peek, and shameless plug, it’s located here: http://www.ninenines.net/portal)

And just when I thought things were well on its way to becominga full-fledged site of awesomeness, WoW came around and released the new Wrath of the Lich King content patch, which has sucked the life out of me for the past 2+ weeks. Why has it done so? I’ll tell you why. Here are some of the things:

1. New Talent specs
Did they nerf my rogue or beef him up? I need to know goddammit. Only way to know is to work out a new spec on a talent calculator and see what I’m doing against mobs in the real game. Conclusion? I feel buffer all of a sudden. With 10 more talent points to come, even more buff.

2. New life for my alts
With the new talents, my alts are buffer too, which gives me the motivation to blow the dust off their shoulder pieces and get back to leveling again. And from the expected server issues, I discovered how uberly OP my lowbie alt Paladin has become. Incredible.

3. Change in Game Dynamics
This has breathed life back into my guild. We were stuck on some hard-ass bosses, but with the new game dynamics mixed with new talents, steamrolling an instance had never felt better. 4 new bosses down in a single night? That’s unheard of.

4. Achievements for the ePeen
Of course, I couldn’t leave this little gem off the list. Whether I like them or not, or whether I have a choice or not, these little statistic tidbits are keeping everyone on the server just a little more busy than before. And for good reason. The reason being my next and final point:

5. Wrath of the Lich King expansion (in NOVEMBER!)
Ohmygod, you mean 2% of the WoW population will get a chance to get pwned in the face by Arthas himself? And 1% of them will pwn him back? I want in on some of that! But not just that. I want to try out the goddamn Death Knights!

With all the above points, Blizzard has successfully drawn me in along with millions of others to continue playing the game and for some, to return to the game. All in time for the expansion because Blizzard wants MILLIONS of people buying Wrath of the Lich King when it comes out, and they sure as hell want MILLIONS of dollars pouring into their already fat wallets. All the better too. Our economy is sucking right now. Maybe the surge in monetary movement between consumers and retailers will perhaps make everyone’s lives a little better by Thanksgiving and Xmas.