Kaumaleia, the Underpowered Death Knight that Kamalia had been working on since 2011, has reached 100! And not just that, she got the Voidtalon of the Dark Star mount along the way. Congratulations all around on that!
While I haven’t read the entire journey yet, I’ve very much enjoyed what I have read and it really seems like a fun idea. Well, as Kamalia points out, not a lot of fun in execution but fun as an idea. I like the self-imposed limits and the spirit of the challenge.
And though I do dislike being too derivative, it has got me thinking about trying alternative ways of leveling. In principle, it would be interesting to pick one (or more) of these and try leveling some characters in this way and then writing about it for the blog. I’m not yet a committed enough blogger to do that…although perhaps this is the way I become that committed?
Whatever the case, here are a few ways I can think of getting XP and what I like about each and my concerns. I'm only covering the first 3 today, but I've got the others written for later. Aren't you lucky?
Anything I’ve overlooked or other experiences or ideas are more than welcome.
Pet Battles
Archeology
PvP - Random battle ground finder only
Dungeons - Group finder for random or custom.
Material Collection Only - Primarily thinking herbalism and mining only
Profession Quest Only - Just cooking and fishing in my mind
Holiday Events Only - Darkmoon Faire probably included
Grinding Only - Just killing mobs
Combination of limited number of the above - Pet Battles, Archeology, and Mat collection only - the "out in the world" variant
Quests Only - None of the above. Just the lore.
Pet Battles
I’ve heard of people trying to level doing only pet battles. I’m not sure if I would include the daily pet battle quests. I’m thinking I would for practical porpoises*.
Good – I generally like pet battles and I can beat the computer so it wouldn’t be a total slog. Well, it would in the sense that it would take a long time but I, probably, wouldn’t hate it for quite a while. I have a large stable of pets that I could level to 25 while I level myself. While battleing, I’m sure I’d find time to collect those last few pets on each area that I seem to be missing.
Bad – With the dailies it would be a long way to 100. Without…wow, even longer. Money generation would be very low, so the character would need to be supported by other characters and pay full price for flying or riding. Unless I use heirlooms or just expect to die once in a while, gear could be an issue.
Archeology
Now, I’d need to do something to get up to 20, so that I can get Archeology, however I already have a few characters hovering in that area that I could re-purpose.
Good – Similar to pet battles, I like archeology enough to do it for a while before it would become a chore. I have never finished getting all of the various items from it. I still want that dragon mount, although that would mean I’d need to take alchemy and eventually level that too.
Bad – Travel time. To and fro. Fro and to. Again, they would need to be financially supported by other characters to make it passable in both money and gear. It’d also take a really long time on its own.
PvP
Here again, I think I need to be 15 or so to start? Not an issue on this end, but just a note.
Good – Pretty constant uptime to my memory. When I was doing Random Battle Grounds more frequently, the queue didn’t take too long to my memory. Although I haven’t done it in forever so perhaps I’m wrong? I have heirlooms for gearing already, and perhaps some other BoE gear I could use up. I have enjoyed some PvP from time to time. I might get some of those achievements, mounts, titles, and such by the time I’m done.
Bad – I don’t always like PvP. Not as a matter of skill (although more on that in a sec), but because of the toxicity and attitude that is often part of battlegrounds. Often, but not always. But when it is there, it’s just unenjoyable. As to my skill, well, I’m pretty low. Historically, I have improved as I’ve played more games. Enough to generally account for myself and not be a total carry, but still not great. 99 levels of that doesn’t sound very appealing.
That's pretty much all for today. As I said, I'll cover the others in another post. Not only to pad my post count of course, but since this Comment-Inspired Quick Post is far from quick.
*dolphins are notorious for their whimsy and flights of
fancy.
Levelling via Archaeology??
ReplyDeleteThat would be an absolute nightmare up to level 60.
The travel time alone would amount to days and days, particularly before you opened up the flight paths.
Never mind pulling every mob along the way because they can sniff your lowbie from half a zone away.
Invest in some therapy if you choose this path, I think you'll need it :-)
Ha! That is such a good point. I am so used to doing archaeology on higher level characters (or on lower ones as I come across it) that I didn't even think about it. What a nightmare that would be.
DeleteI leveled my Draenei Mage through much of her first 60-ish levels by a combination of LFD and Archaeology. I'd queue up for LFD, then hop on a flight path to get to the nearest Archaeology dig site. I didn't mind the travel times for the Archaeology quite so much because it was all part of occupying the time while I was sitting in the queue. I don't remember having terrible horrible trouble with pulling mobs, because I only got digsites that were in zones that were at or below my current level -- though digsites that were in relatively higher level regions of those zones could occasionally be problematic.
ReplyDeleteI started out my secondary Monk as a level-by-pet battling character, though as she got higher and higher in level, I started doing more and more regular questing and dungeon-running and less and less pet battling. Part of that was that I got tired of pet battles, and part of it was that there are lots of quests in Outland that reward fun leather gear...
I've done something similar to both of these situations. Not intentionally, just as I'm trying to do one thing, I add on this other and the next thing I know, I'm leveling away.
DeleteIt's funny you mention the quest rewards, as I was just thinking about that in the context of the transmog closet. Since it will be account wide, you'll never have to do some of those quests again as you'll already have access to the items. Not that you won't, but you want have to go out of your way to get them. I wonder if that will change how I play...