Grinding
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Breakfast Topic: Ding!
Some dings mean more than others. Across all my alts, I've heard the noise and seen the yellow flashes over two hundred times -- yet few of them are memorable. I find odd-numbered levels particularly boring, as nothing really happens (some armour and quests become available, but even numbers are where it's at).However, some dings are memorable enough to make up for the monotone of the majority. Hitting 60 (see right) isn't an experience most of us forget; my first "big ding" was at 40, after beating up some STV gorillas for those last few XP. What's your best ding memory?
Breakfast Topic: Quest Questions
Love 'em or hate 'em, quests are an integral part of life in Azeroth. However, they come in many different types -- from the "mindless quota killing" sort to the "cross your fingers and hope for a drop" variety. When I'm levelling, I always try to incorporate quests -- travelling from place to place to turn them in might reduce my XP per hour, but it ultimately makes the game more interesting for me and drives me to seek out new places.What's your preferred play style? Do you try to stack up as many quests as possible for efficiency? Sprinkle collection quests in with some errand-running and challenging higher level quests? Or do you grind the night away, staking out rare mobs and good drop areas?I tend to think the different characters I play drive my questing behaviour. My druid always seeks out new adventures and gets bored when in the same area for too long, my rogue tries to do quests that are way above her level by stealthing past most of the mobs, and my warrior just charges in and kills things for fun. It's interesting to push the limits of the different classes, and quests are one way to measure yourself against the game's idea of your skill -- having an addon that shows the quest levels is invaluable for this
Breakfast Topic: Competition Over!
Another Tuesday, another maintenance day, and today's brings with it an end to the Public Test Realm contests as well as patch 1.10. For the last few weeks players have been frantically levelling, grinding, and PvPing in their quest to be in the top 1000. Did you take part, and how did it go?I popped on to the Honor Contest EU realm last night to gauge the atmosphere and I was surprised at how few players were online. When I visited, only one battleground was open, which makes me wonder if Blizzard will even find the 1000 players they need for their prizes. However, that puts anyone who created a character on the realm in with a good chance. Some players were definitely nervous, boasting about their amount of honour without explicitly detailing their achievements. I didn't get a chance to check out the other two contest realms; have you been watching the competitions unfold? Do you think you will win a spot in the Burning Crusade beta?
Work or fun?
Compulsory nightly raids and a DKP system you can't understand without a PhD in mathematics (which, fortunately, your guild leader has)--WoW's endgame can get pretty serious, especially for top guilds. Gaming Steve posted recently on the similarities between WoW and a job, and what surprised me was the difference between these commenters' thoughts:When you end up playing for stats or the satisfaction of getting that one thing, instead of playing for fun, its not worth it. (Varsity, on GamingSteve.com)It can get pretty intense and demanding, but if you are working towards something you want, it makes it all worth it. (Lonin on Joystiq)It depends on whether you find the acquisition of the latest Tier 2 piece "fun" or not, I suppose; what side of the work/fun line do you play on?
Improving secondary skills (and enchanting)
The fishing and cooking guide posted earlier is really useful, although the Horde focus means that Alliance players may have to follow a slightly different route. As it happens, I've recently taken advantage of the war effort quests to improve my skills in fishing, cooking, first aid and also my primary profession, enchanting. Here are a few sites I found useful in my quest for self-improvement, to add to the earlier guide:OverallWorldOfWar.net has a great overview of all the tradeskills, including useful information such as trainer locations. Optimising your skills so you spend the least amount of money possible to maximise them is not a trivial task, so good luck!CookingI'd basically neglected cooking since my earlier levels, so I used this "skill up in 2 hours" guide from Allakhazam, bemusing baby Night Elves asI ran around Darkshore slaughtering crabs and then the Wetlands slaughtering Bluegill murlocs. Farming for raptor meat in STV, I then used the Roast Raptor recipe at skill 175 to get my skill well over 200, as well as the Rainbow Fin Albacore recipe (at lower levels) and the Spotted Yellowtail recipe.FishingDraznar's Fishing FAQ was reasonably useful, and I used the AutoLoot tip (shift and right click your fishing pole) as well as the FishingBuddy tool. As many guides pointed out, levelling fishing is time-consuming but works well in conjunction with cooking, as you can train in recipes to cook the fish. By far the most useful part of the guide was the PDF reference which lists the most common fish for an area, and the corresponding recipes. First AidThere's not really much to say about First Aid, apart from that it's a terribly useful skill to have. If you learn it early, and use the cloth you find to make bandages, your skill should be about 250-300 by your mid forties (if not earlier). Obtaining the book for Expert Level involves a trip to the Arathi Highlands or Dustwallow Marsh (Alliance or Horde respectively) and it's easier to buy it from the Auction House, even with the markup.To get to Artisan level (225-300), you will get a Trauma quest from your trainer, sending you to Hammerfall (Horde) or Theramore Isle (Alliance) for a special Triage mission. Further bandages (including runecloth) can be learnt here -- take enough materials to get to 260 and then make runecloth bandages for your guildmates' AQ turn-ins to get up to 300.EnchantingThe tactic I used for most of my enchanting training before really focusing on it was "if money's not a problem, disenchant soulbound quest rewards and hoard the materials". This worked for a few levels, but not spectacularly. Giving out low-level enchants for free to newbies is one way to avoid the grind of giving your bracers 3 stamina again and again, but most people are surprisingly suspicious of getting something for nothing, so you may well be staring at your own items a lot. This is the guide I used for most of my skilling up, and it seems to work nicely, although you do reach the stage where you may prefer to sell higher-level enchants rather than "grind" your way to 300/300. It really depends if you have money to burn.
The 9-5 of MMOs
Gaming Steve has an interesting piece up about how the endgame of World of Warcraft can be more like work than, well, work. With forty-man raids and guild rules that include a 90-day probationary period and mandatory attendance, the boundaries between work and pleasure really do start to blur.This isn't unique to WoW, though; "uberguilds" have cropped up to take advantage of the most hardcore features of many MMOs, some even spanning different games. Many teams in other game genres, such as FPS clans, also have strict membership conditions, requiring members to put in regular hours or else get the boot. However, WoW isn't a competition game; being in the best guild, or wearing the best armour, isn't going to net you any tournament prizes. Perhaps WoW should be introduced to competitive arenas such as MLG and CPL? Hardcore competitive gamers may look down their noses at MMOs, but with some endgame guild members putting in enough work to rival the most dedicated FPS player, they may be surprised at their potential.
