Casual Huntering

Posts Tagged ‘leveling’

So, I’ve taken a break from everything else to level toons (well not everything else because honestly I’m not playing that much). Like I said before, I figure this is the best time to level, in the shadow of a looming expansion. Then again, this expansion is going to make leveling more fun, so maybe I have my priorities mixed up.

meh. Gotta take advantage of RAF leveling bonuses. Now I have an army of 20-40 something level toons. Don’t tell Brigwyn, but I’m really enjoying playing my warlock. I like soloing my rogue (not so much playing in groups), and the unholy priest is so bad.

Anyway, its been a little while since I’ve written anything. I just thought I’d drop a line. I would have blogged on Tuesday, but my server was never down for the normal Tuesday maintenance, so I played all morning instead.

Anyway, nothing much to write about right now. We’ll just keep plugging along.

Alright, I finally hit an accomplishment that many people will think isn’t much, but it was totally a big deal for me. I got my second character to level 80.

The funny thing is that my second character is a death knight. Shouldn’t they be the easiest class to level to 80??? Yes, I’m afraid so. So, how long did it take me to get the toon to level 80 though? Well, I rolled her the night Wrath of the Lich King came out, when everybody else was rolling death knights as well. So, it’s been over a year. I remember the death knight starting area being crazier than hell. My wife and I rolled death knights at the same time and went through the death knight begin area together.

Now my wife and I ended up parting ways at level 58. I really wanted to level this death knight. I know my wife is still a little mad at me about that. Well, we do have a pair of death knights that we are leveling on the Feathermoon server at least. Originally, the death knight was going to be my farming toon. So, I leveling mining and skinning on her. By the way, leveling mining can be a pain in the @ss! It took a good deal of time to level that high enough just to take it to the outlands. Since then I’ve enjoyed playing the death knight so much I’ll probably try to get her geared enough to do some raiding, and maybe someday I’ll try to learn how to tank with her.

Well, with my attention deficit problem it has taken awhile to get my first death knight finally leveled all the way. In the mean time, I’ve taken four other death knights through the beginning area to level 58. I don’t keep rolling death knights cause I love the class (I do actually love the class don’t get me wrong), but mostly because whenever you go to a new server, well you ought to roll a death knight. It’s the quickest way to make money and get established.

So, how long did it take to level the dk? When I checked the /played feature it said I’d played this character for 6 days and 13 hours. That’s nothing compared to my hunter, but its still a freakin’ lot of time to be playing a game. My next highest leveled alt is only level 36, my druid on Deathwing. Now getting the druid to level 80 will be much more of an accomplishment. Of course I think just the fact that when I leveled my hunter it was still back in the day before Blizzard increased the speed at which you could level. I tell you, by golly, back in the day the grind from level 40 to level 60 was really bad. And leveling in the outlands took a lot longer as well. So, in my opinion leveling a toon in vanilla WoW was much more an accomplishment than it is now. Leveling from 70 to 80 still takes a good long while, but much easier and more fun with LFG. I would quest while sitting in the queue and then I’d jump into a group and take out an instance somewhere. Keep going if they would or jump back to questing. It’s the ultimate help while leveling. You get good gear while getting a ton of XP.

Well, there you have it, I’m probably one of the most casual guys in the game you’ll know, of course the very fact that I’m writing a blog means that I’m probably not quite that casual, but now I have my second 80. Well, neither of them are geared very well, so I’m still rather pathetic.

Well, I’ve had the opportunity to try out the new quest tracker that came out with patch 3.3. Well, since I was a questhelper user I’ve welcomed the idea, but it got me thinking. Are we too lazy as players? Do we have to have everything handed to us on a platter? I remember playing before without questhelper. Back in my day you actually had to read the quests text and figure out where you’re suppose to go. More often than not what we ended up doing back in those days was look up the quest on Thottbot, which was annoying and time consuming. I guess we were lazy back then too. There were several quests that I was so frustrated with that I just dropped. At times I just killed things and grinding while leveling just so I could get to the next area.

You know the feeling when you are in the middle of leveling, there’s an area that’s a little bit too difficult for you character, but you’re done with the last area you were in and most of the mobs there are gray to you now anyway. I gave up on a shaman when I was in that situation a couple of years ago. It gets frustrating, you don’t know where to go, and the game no longer is fun. I like that quest helper made leveling fun for me again, even if it did make me lazy. Well, now Blizzard has put their stamp of approval on my laziness. And I’m very very happy about it.

But I know some that aren’t so much. My guild leader at the Can of Aggro, will always read his quests (I’m doing better these days, I really am) and I highly doubt he uses quest helper. I think there is a few people out there that view it as cheating, dumbing down the game. A lot of people have felt that Bliz has been doing just that, dumbing down the game, making it too easy and too accessible for everybody. They’ve been catering to the casual player. Well, I appreciate that for obvious reasons, but I can see where they’re coming from. Leveling is about 10 times easier and faster now. We know exactly where are quests objectives are and we get to ride a mount to get there. No more running around at level 25 for us. Everything is getting faster and easier.

But one thing I think they haven’t cut out is the fun factor. The game is still fun in my opinion. They’ve actually taken out a lot of the frustration part of the game which I like. Which might be one reason I’m leveling like 10 toons right now.

Okay, lets be done with this weekend rambling. Try to stay warm.

Okay so there is a quest called Kicking Nass and something Manes (honestly don’t quite remember the rest of it). In this quest you are suppose to go take an undead guy with you and whenever you are done killing a troll you kick Nass in the behind and make him get some hairs or something.

The best part about this is you get to have a /kick emote for awhile. So, we did some kung-fu fighting. Mostly Kydra was kicking my nass.

I’m still confused at how she does that in a dress. She got me right in the noggin.

Maybe the WoW killer MMO will be a martial arts one. That could be cool. Or maybe we could mix martial arts and The Oregon Trail. That’ll teach us some history and have some cool kick-you-in-the-face kind of action. Something to ponder.

So, while everybody is playing more and more I’m playing less and less. Do I like the game less than I use to? No. Does a father of 3 have time to do anything besides working and Christmas preparation at this time of year? No, not really. So, my toon is still at 73, and hasn’t budged since I posted last. You have to have priorities right?

So, all of this talk about WoW addiction and it being evil makes me laugh.  You can do studies and show that anything is addictive. Heck reading books, watching TV, other video games, taking walks, running through sprinklers, giving dogs baths, eating old hard candies from nursing homes, etc etc could be labled addictive if you got carried away. So, what’s the solution? Balance. I do admit I’m probably addicted, but its not effecting my life too much I don’t think. I am able to stop playing when real life gets in the way. I mean really, my family and my job are more important and should come first. Do I always put them first? Well, no, but I’m a lot better than I was a year or two ago. I think my whole guild is going to hit 80 before I do, and that’s fine. I’ll get there sooner or later.

73!!!! lol
yeah, while everybody is writing about level 80, I hit 73. But that’s okay, that means I’m not playing as much as they are which is a good healthy thing. Now the fact that I’m not to far off from getting my achievement for catching 500 fish leaves something to be said. I have my fishing all the way up to 330. Wooo Hoooo! lol Why do I care? I don’t know, I don’t play my with my mountain lion who would eat fish anymore. The Gorilla doesn’t care for it too much. He’s rather have a bananna or some fungus or something. If I was a hardcore player I would be a geek about getting all of my achievements up and all of my secondary professions up. So, this is my casual playerness being geeky but somewhat muffled I guess.

Most people probably thought that this Thanksgiving weekend was a perfect time to get a little bit farther to 80 (or get some gear for you people who are already 80). Well, I didn’t touch my Hunter at all this weekend. He’s a whooping level 72. But I wasn’t home and I don’t like playing my main anywhere but on my home computer. I don’t have my macros on other computers and now that I have… a lot of macros… maybe too much? idk. But I don’t like playing without them anymore. So, I leveled my wife’s druid all the way to 24 (I know I know, I’m bad@ass).

My wife and I finally got back to our DKs and finished the beginning quests. They are awesome. I don’t want to give any spoilers away (sorry Ryan), but even if you are not planning on rolling a death knight, I would still suggest doing the beginning quests at least then make them your bank alt or something. It was just too cool of a story line.

Anyway, I’m back for all of you thousand of readers (ha ha).

This is exactly what I'm talking about:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12661344288&sid=1
Why rush through everything? I guess I'm a casual player so that's easy for me to say, because there is no way in h3ll that I could ever actually get to level 80 that quickly.

What is the point of speed leveling anyway? I just read this blog post: "ISU vs Wrath vs Twentyfifthnovember" at Arms and Fury blog. The TwentyfifthNovember guild going through the PvE content as fast as humanly (possibly inhumanly) possible seems silly and a waste of time for me. As for me, I may use questhelper, but only so I don't get so frustrated that I quit questing (which consequently is what I do for much of my leveling up to 70 with Aoirselvar). But I've been trying to enjoy the story line this time and actually read the quests. It takes a little time and sometimes the NPC gets annoyed and walks away (which then annoys me, I mean come one I'm trying to listen to the guy), but its so worth it. Of course I'm finding myself wanting to play on a RP realm more and more, but not willing to leave my guild and pay lots of money to transfer.

So, what's the point of speed leveling through all of this new content? If this game starts to feel like a job then its time to go find something else to do, like watch TV or something. I mean come on, why add the stress of getting to level 80 in 4 days (while the rest of your life goes to h3ll). Just relax and enjoy the game.

Okay, we’ve all been busy playing and leveling non stop for the last few days. I’m a little bit slower than everybody. I only play after I’ve put my kids to bed. My wife, Kydra, is a fire mage that I level with. We’re having a blast questing in the Borean Tundra. I’m letting my gorilla, Mungulu, AOE tank tons of mobs while Kydra obliterates them with her AOE spells. But we usually have to call it quits. But we haven’t been very good at going to bed at a decent hour. So now we’re tired all the time (seeing how our kids don’t let us sleep in past 7:30am. Oh what to do…

Anyways, here are a couple of pics of me pretending to have new mounts. I love having lots of mounts, but I don’t do a good job of getting them (lack of time & money). Some day I’ll get that white drake. Someday…