jame
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Interview: Jame of WoW-Pro
Jame is someone whose work I've enjoyed for much of my WoW-playing career. For those of you who might not be familiar with the name, he is the author of a series of leveling guides hosted over at WoW-Pro, which currently cover levels 30 to 77 on both factions (the rest of Northrend will be coming soon). Most recently, he's posted an addon version of the guides, so you can play along without even having to tab out. And did I mention this is all free? I recently got the opportunity to interview Jame on his guides, how he plays, and what he thinks of recent changes. Come on behind the cut to find out what he had to say.
Jame working on an addon, guides for other games
Gamespy has an interview up with Jame of Jame's famous leveling guides, which are the how-to of choice if all you want from your character is to get to 80 as fast as possible. I have to admit that I've never used them -- while I do use Questhelper quite a bit (which takes lots of the guesswork out of where to go next), I also like exploring on my own pace, and Jame's guides turn Azeroth into a list of to-dos rather than an actual game. Still, they do work -- if you're leveling an alt or just don't care about the content, following the guides to the letter works fast.Jame says his wife was the major driving force behind the site -- she needed help leveling, and he found that he had most of the major steps memorized. His site is run completely off of advertising, which he says keeps him from competing with other leveling guides that you must pay for to use. He's also working on an addon, and he says that it actually works faster than Questhelper, so that should be something to see.Finally, he says he's working on putting together guides for other games -- "Diablo III, Starcraft II, and other MMOs" all get mentioned, so if you've already been following Jame's advice, you might be following it for a while longer. Good to get a little insight and background into the man behind the gold standard for leveling guides.
Is this guide the answer to the leveling problem?
Lately, we've had some good discussion about the possible drop in WoW players lately, as well as one important reason for some players' frustration with the game: 1 - 60 leveling boredom.Michael over at MMOG Nation struggled a lot with the same issues many of us have been having, including the leveling bottleneck in "Stranglethorn Hole," but he seems to have found the answer that works for him -- and it isn't new content, new features, or "new" anything from Blizzard! He just follows Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide. (There's a Horde one too)In his post, Michael writes: With my laptop open and my game running on my main machine, I don't even have to alt-tab. I just turn my head, reference the guide, and then do what it says to do. By chaining myself to this experience as written down by Jame ... I've found it to be incredibly freeing. Don't get me wrong; I completely [think] the first time through a Massive game [like WoW] should be a period of exploration. But ... I've quested in STV with three different characters now. I've braved the deserts of Tanaris before; having someone tell me where i should be and what I should be doing is actually exactly what I need right now.I feel stupid saying this, but it's the most fun I've had playing WoW in a long time. I only pick up groups when they're running the same quests I am, and I just generally plow ahead with the well-laid-out instructions. It's like having a tour guide to Azeroth in some ways, and I'm really enjoying playing Tourist.Is such a guide the answer to all our alt-leveling woes? Have any of you had a similar experience?
