How to seriously have fun (no... seriously)

In Warcraft, I think I'm a Type A Personality. What I mean is that I need a goal for everything I do in the game, preferably everything I do should have at least two goals. Ok, so I work in the Quality Control field, I'm concerned about efficiency, I'm concerned with things being done a certain way (my way? Ugh, I hate to admit it, but yes. But it isn't that bad- I don't expect other people to do things my way, but I need to do things my way). So, this is a guide, not instructions.

How to be efficient while WoWing

1. Set your major goals- What are your goals in the game? What is fun for you? Personally, I want to be a raider and see new content as soon as possible. PvP gets to be so boring for me because I get set into a pattern (whether it's the right pattern or not); in Eye of the Storm I always go to cap the Blood Elf Tower then either ride to the Draenai Ruins if other people are going, or I go to fight for control of the center. Very rarely I'll go to try and cap the alliance side. Do that twenty times and I'm ready to either fall asleep or rip my eyes out.


2. Identify the steps needed- So, raiding is my goal. What are the steps I need to get there? Attunement to Karazhan (done), gear up, get enchants. Now, this is where you'll see how anal I am. I have two (so far) spreadsheets that help me track things. One is for the mats needed for the Ebon Netherscale armor set, the other is for the mats for the enchants I want. While farming I update the spreadsheet as I go. This helps me have a sense of accomplishment and mitigates the boredom of killing the same air elementals over and over and over. I always know where I'm at in fulfilling my goals.


3. Be efficient- If you can farm for your enchants or craftables or consumables while questing, do it. If you can level your Leatherworking while doing the Nessingwary quests in Nagrand, do it! Make sure to check if you can quest in an area where you need to farm, then, while you're going back and forth questing, stop and farm in the right area. Right now I need some cobra scales and I have a lot of quests in Shadowmoon Valley. Every time I fly near that Naga village, I'll stop and kill the snakes and then continue on.


4. Prioritize!- I want a Netherdrake Mount so bad that I can taste it. I wanted it on Amantara bad enough that I dropped everything just to try for it (and I did the same for the special Wintersaber Mount) to the point that all I was doing was farming rep, only that; just that. I wanted to raid with Amantara, too. But all my time went to farming rep for something that, really, would be nice to have but not essential to what I determined to be my priority. On the flip-side, if you need to farm and there's no quests or your not going to get any mats for anything else... well, bite the bullet and do it. If you REALLY, REALLY need the Sonic Spear and there's nothing easier to get that's almost equivalent, well, run Shadow Labyrinth over and over until you get it. You'll get sick of seeing that bastard Murmur, but you'll get your Spear. BUT, you'll also get reputation for Lower City, and if there's a reputation reward you want from them, all the better- you're being efficient with your time and effort. But, if you don't really need the Sonic Spear and there's no reputation reward, why are you going to see Murmur for the 872nd time?


5. How do your goals fit in with other's?- So, since raiding is my overarching goal and you can't raid alone, I need to see where my guild is in progression and help out as needed. We want to run Kara but not everyone is keyed. When a person needs to run Steamvaults for the frag, I'm in. I'll drop everything and go. Because, you see, this is efficient for me and my personal goals- I need Cenarion Expedition reputation for my Nethercleft leg armor pattern (which I'll be using myself and the guild for raiding). But, more importantly, the closer someone gets to their Master's Key, the closer I amd in going, too. The best way to interact with the people in your goal is when everyone's goals dovetail and everyone can work together towards them.


6. Recognize when something costs too much- This is where I'm going to come off as a bastard, sorry. Deal with it. When someone asks you to help, you must weigh the costs and if they're too high, don't help them. Apologize, help them out some other way, be cordial, but don't bother spending your valuable time where the pay-off isn't going to be high enough. Ok, if one of your goals in WoW is to help people, hang out, become friends, that is awesome, you're a better person than I am, but I'm not one of you. Too many times I've helped lowbies only to have them leave the guild, be ungrateful and generally take for granted the time and effort you put into your own toon as if you've leveled to be there for them. I will not help people when they've not leveled into Outland yet; the time it takes going from Nagrand to Winterspring, STV or Un'Goro helping with a quest that will take 25 mins and then waiting for my hearthstone's cooldown to pop just isn't worth my time. And I'll even consider who wants my help. If someone is leveling a healer, I'll drop everything and run them through Ragefire Chasm if they need me. We need healers that bad. If a rogue needs me to run them through Sunken Temple, sorry, find a group, you'll get more experience without me and why are you running it when the time spent could be done questing for more experience and any gear you'll get out of there will be replaced at level 58.
   And, this is even more honest (no names), but there are people that I won't help no matter what. They're morons, they don't know their class and are unwilling to learn, they're obnoxious in party chat, they play so badly that if you weren't there on your 70 they would wipe the group. These people are lost causes and unless their attitude changes, I have no time for them.
   I'm a bastard, I'm elitist, I'm selfish.

So, there you have it. Define, plan, research efficient methods, know others' goals, don't pay too much for a low pay-off. Then, do it.

L2Forums

Whenever I got frustrated with Amantara I used to read the forums just to see what I was doing wrong. You see, at first I was convinced that I just sucked playing WoW and went there to get pointers. And then I started reading everything and started to buy into the "Druids are underpowered!" posts by frustrated mid-level druids and the "lol! L2Heal! Innervate me, mana-battery!" posts by... well, just about everyone else. I started to develop a chip on my shoulder and the more I read this stuff, the bigger the chip would get.

Then Burning Crusades came out. Well, then the patch before BC came out and I saw what druids could become. We were suddenly the kings of the jungle! People saw us racing by in cheetah form and would cower in fear, hoping that we wouldn't deign to notice them. Yes, we got stuck up, horribly stuck up. Then the nerf bat came and that was enough. See my introduction post to read about the stupid tantrum I threw. No, I'm not proud of it.

So, learn from me, O young cublings, learn from the mistakes of Papa Hirnek.

Mistake #1: if everyone says something, it is true.
No. Just... no. In this case, everyone was saying that druids suck, that they should just heal, that they're ok for solo boss hunting but if you're with a group, just heal. People have a tendency to post with feelings and not with thoughts, especially when they are frustrated with whatever they're trying to accomplish. You need to take that into consideration.

Mistake #2: everyone's opinion is equal
Why on Earth did I listen to the opinions on my class given by people who didn't play druids? Sure, people have druid alts, but until a person concentrates on something and learns about what they're doing, their opinions aren't as valuable as a more experienced person.

Mistake #3: everyone is helpful
Tying in with #2, I would read posts by people and think that they were trying to be helpful. When a priest would post "Druids should back-up heal and innervate, it's for the good of the raid", I would think they were thinking of the good of the raid. No. Priests don't want their mana-batteries to shred faces- that means they'd have to spend money on more mana pots and work harder keeping the raid healed.

Mistake #4: everyone posts
When I read the forums, I thought that they were a good representation of the players in WoW. No. They are a good representation of the people that post on the forums. The really good druids, they're not posting on the forums nearly as much as the mediocre and bad players- they're busy learning more about their class, researching boss fights and playing their toon!. All of the forums are in desperate need of guidance from the best players. They all need someone to come in and say, "STFU stoopid priest! Druids can tank!" or "STFU lvl 26 druid! L2Play!" We need more of these players to answer questions, point us in the right direction and just be there so that we all can know that the druid is more than viable and that the real thing that separates good druids from bad druids is the exact same thing that separates good players from bad players.

Ok- short little lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I suppose that I was lucky that I made these mistakes on the druid forums where the problems aren't as pronounced and good druids do post and are helpful.

Last bit of advice: if someone says that a druid can't do something, try to prove them wrong! Experience outweighs opinion every time.

Leveling as an obsession

I power-leveled Claz to 60 in about seven days played. No, I don't have a life, girlfriend or any other responsibilities other than paying rent and bills. Shut up.

Now, seven days played to 60 is not a record but I'm pretty damn proud of it, especially when it probably took me 40 days played to get Amantara to 60. How did I do it? I'll explain after a bit of a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER

Don't powerlevel if you're new to the game. I recommend this for a couple reasons. First, you will totally miss out on a lot of what makes this game fun (well, for me. More power to all you "twinks", PvP Gods and gankmasters, but that just isn't my cuppa). You'll miss out on a lot of the storylines that were put into the game. You'll find yourself running Scarlet Monastery and not know how these religious fanatics fit into the world, you'll find yourself wondering why Thrall is sending you on a quest to root out some evil warlocks (as opposed to the "good" warlocks?). I really feel that this turns the game into a more expensive-in-the-long-run Neverwinter Nights (and I like that game). You'll just be going through the motions and it will be easy to fall into becoming one of those outraged number-crunching bastards that no one likes but will run with because they can one-shot Ony.

Second, you won't learn your class correctly. This is an issue that I'm having with Claz and crowd controlling. I leveled this hunter so fast and mostly solo that I don't really have the nuances of traps down and it was an issue. You're going to learn how to work with a group only by working with a group. I think that PVPers don't have this problem to the extent that Raiders have it. In PVP, you need to know your class and be familiar enough wih the other classes so you know how to team up and how to take down. With raiding you need to know the player as much as you know the class.

Third, powerleveling is painful, at least for me. I wanted Claz to be level 60 so bad that I spent a lot of time working on him, doing quests that are annoying, ignoring the tradeskills and not chatting with the many cool people that play this game. It was a lonely, frustrating and exhausting experience. And god help me, I'm going to do it with a priest...
END DISCLAIMER

So, you've decided to powerlevel, how are you going to do it? If you dare to utter the words "pay", "Chinese levelers", or "I don't need to do it, I'll just buy a toon", kindly go away and please delete my blog from your links. Ok, don't. But just don't mention those words within my range of hearing. Here's what I recommend.

1. Find a leveling guide. I used Jame's guide. It is free, very coherent and he breaks things up in bite-size pieces that are completely solo-able and efficient. Live and breath this guide while you're working your character and follow to a "T" his suggestions on add-ons, gearing up, when to group and what quests are worth doing and which aren't. There are other leveling guides out there, but this one really clicked with me and it was free. I don't know about the pay guides and I really wasn't interested in finding pirated guides (and neither should you!). That is the mechanical side of things.

2. Because you're going to be spending a lot of time on things that aren't going to take your full concentration (I mean, how much attention do you need to pay when you're grinding those earth elementals in the badlands, amIright?) I recommend that you have the game's sound turned off. You're not going to need to listen to anything in the game at this point, so don't get burned out on the repetitious sound of that blunderbuss or your wolf howling every 10 minutes. You will have plenty of time to get burned out on those when you're raiding and having to split your attention between many things. Instead, have your favorite media player playing your favorite music (or podcasts. If you're over 18 Kevin Smith's SModcast is a source of much entertainment while you're grinding. Or, play a lot of DvDs. Notice I didn't say watch a lot of DvDs. You're going to be so braindead from running all over Azeroth that you need to feed your mind. I recommend getting DvDs of TV shows you like (House, Deadwood and Battlestar Galactica for me).

3. Get a comfortable chair! You will be wearing a butt-print into the bottom of your chair with all the sitting and shifting. I have a bad back and if I had an uncomfortable chair I would still be bed-ridden.

4. Tell the people in your life that you will be doing this. I am blessed with many people that love me and worry about me if they don't hear from me for a few days. Learn from my mistake- you don't want your friends and loved ones wondering why you fell off the face of the Earth or them showing up at your door with that worried/pissed off look on their face. You're friends know you play Warcraft, don't they?

5. Take a day off for every three days you're power leveling. No, not a day off from work, you need to make a paycheck to pay for internet and the monthly fees, don't you? Level for three days, then on the fourth go to a movie, take a walk with a friend, read a freaking book. Do something other than Warcraft. You don't want to have a spanking-brand-new level 60 that you can't stand to log into because this painful experience is still seared into your neurons.

6. If you have a boy/girlfriend, pay attention to them if they interrupt you. Always maintain your relationships outside of warcraft. Those 3,419 murlocs you need to kill to get the drop will be there in 20 minutes, your girlfriend may not after considering the priority you're placing her into. And give her a good night smooch when she leaves you for your night of powerleveling agony. Sure, this is a bit funny, but you've heard the stories of people getting divorced over one of the spouse's Warcraft habits, haven't you?

7. Remember this is a game! Yes, you're not having fun from 1 - 60, but you're setting yourself a goal and the fun will start when you get off from the leveling train and you stop to smell the felweed. If you're getting frustrated and annoyed, take a longer vacation from the game. Like I said, those 14,761,991 murlocs are still going to be there when you get back.

There, that is Claz's guide to powerleveling and managing the agony of playing a game in a way that isn't fun for the moment. But when you get to that first raid, you're going to see how it paid off.