15 Minutes of Fame: More dings, less killing
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.
The diminutive subject of 15 Minutes of Fame's inaugural profile, back in January of this year, spent a good chunk of change longer than a mere quarter-hour in the limelight. The life and times of Noor the Pacifist, who levels without experience from kills, garnered widespread attention not only here at WoW Insider but in an onslaught of hits from Digg, Stumble Upon, Fark and even the very cool people at Boing Boing. It seemed like everyone wanted to talk about the guy who plays World of Warcraft without actually killing anything.
Naysayers opined that Noor would give up the ghost of the tedious task of leveling without killing long before he reached level 70. But lo and behold, here we are just post-Wrath launch – and Noor's ticked right past 70, plugging steadily along toward the new max level cap of 80. 15 Minutes of Fame caught up with him to see how he was holding up on the long, slow climb to the top.
15 Minutes of Fame: Congrats on 70! How did you find yourself finally at 70? Was it the end of a long, hard campaign, or did you make a concentrated push once you neared the home stretch?
Noor: A long campaign. I've pretty much played every day. Some levels took a month, if I had to do most of it by doing Battleground dailies. Leveling this way is really daily-limited -- I can't decide to go out and push for XP because I can't kill mobs for XP, and I've done every quest that I can do at my level.
What was Noor's total time played to get to level 70?
To get to 70, 59 days and 6 minutes played.
Did you find the going any easier or more difficult once you reached Burning Crusade content?
Easier, as there were new quests with much more XP available. However, there were some easy quests I couldn't get due to reputation. I can't get to Friendly with Honor Hold, which means I can't do their daily quest and a number of other quests. I can't even get to Neutral with the Kurenai.
What became the main methods of advancing your xp once you reached BC content?
Fishing was a main method. Catching a Strange Engine Part gets me 12,650 XP each time (an Alliance-only quest; Horde catch a Broken Engine Part instead, which is just a vendor item). I started fishing in Zangarmarsh around level 49, but couldn't turn in the five parts I'd caught until I hit level 55. When Blizzard announced the reduction in XP per level from 60 to 70 pre-WotLK, I started saving Engine Parts so I could turn them in after patch 2.0.3, and I turned in 21 parts -- over half a level at level 65. Overall, I've fished up 99 Strange Engine Parts, for 1,252,350 XP. With the new dailies I can do at level 70, I don't need to fish for them anymore; they only get me about one-sixth of a bar now, anyway.
Two seasonal event helped enormously: the Midsummer Fire Festival and Hallow's End both had new dailies that awarded a lot of XP. The Fire Festival got me levels (and new quests) so fast I went from level 49 to 60 in less than two weeks, instead of being stuck at level 49 for a month doing Battleground dailies.
I also changed professions a fair amount to do profession quest chains at various levels. I did Leatherworking for the wild leather chain in the 30s and Blacksmithing in the 40s.
Did your strategies in PvP change any as you reached higher levels?
Not really. What I really missed was level 47-49 Warsong Gulch. I was wearing Green Whelp Armor and two Freezing Bands, so any player hitting me while I was running the flag had a better than one in 15 chance of freezing or sleeping.
What about player reaction to you in BGs -- any changes there?
No. Some people think it's neat, some hate it. I've actually stopped doing Battleground dailies (except AV) after patch 2.0.3, as fishing for Engine Parts is generally faster leveling. After the first 3.0 patches came in, Alliance stopped winning AV, so I stopped that, too.
I still build my talents and equipment as a WSG flag runner, though. I was pretty well-liked as a level 49 WSG flag runner. I also use non-weaponish weapons: Mug o' Hurt (with the built-in proc to slow runners) with Icy and Crippling Poison is good for WSG, and now that I have Shiv, I can apply Crippling Poison to an enemy WSG runner with Last Month's Mutton. If I ever catch a Steelscale Crushfish or a Rockhide Strongfish, I'll use that instead of the Mutton.
Did you do any quest lines involving fights that don't kill anyone?
Yes, I just did the Repurposed Technology quest in Borean Tundra, where I have to destroy a Harvest Collector and reprogram it. I couldn't reprogram Harvesters that other players had destroyed, so I used my Gnomish Universal Remote to have one aggro the others and get destroyed that way. That's one of the 20 or so movies I have up on my blog.
Some past quests like that have been Save Techbot's Brain! (which I justified because he, too, would be reprogrammed, according to the quest text); Sunken Treasure, where I let the two Water Elementals beat on me so Professor Phizzlethorpe could work; and some quests like The Deserters and The End of the Deserters, where you beat someone up until they surrender.
