Alternative leveling - part one of 3(ish)

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.

Friendly Mooseseses

I’m pretty sure this sums up my blogging style.

I really do try to focus and Crooked had a great definition of causal in the comments of my last post that I wanted to expand upon. Plus I still need to talk about deleting characters, LFR, and such. But a rambling comment on another site became a post. Oh well.

There have been a few discussions about Friendship Moose and all of that and the one got me to babble today was Navi’s.

#FriendshipMoose and Free Moose runs - An example of a great WoW community? Or an administrative nightmare?

I'm torn about a couple of things as far as this topic goes. Not about people offering to help though. I think that is great and as much as I personally would probably never buy a carry, I can understand the logic of selling them. Especially if carrying people (and the effort it took to get the skill level needed to carry people) causes a lot of armor repairs.

When the community steps up to do something a business or group is not doing, it reflects the good in the community. Great. But, for some people, it then kind of justifies the larger entity (business, government, etc) not doing anything to help solve the problem. They can get in the mindset of, "oh, our users/citizens will step-in and solve this issue so we don’t need to do anything". Yes, they likely will, as there are good people out there, but they shouldn't have to. It reminds me of the debate about support* services for the needy versus government programs.

Now, a moose run is nothing like support services. One is just fun optional stuff and the other can be critical to survival, so I don't mean to compare the two in terms of scale. But still, there is an obvious problem in the community (frustration over the requirements to get the moose mount) and the community is solving the problem, not the business.

But aren't people getting their mount? Yes and perhaps new raiders and good will in the server community will come of this. Those guilds and those people that do the carries will be greatly appreciated and likely respected, so there are a lot of upsides. But I still don't know that I like how we are getting there. That the community is taking a "bad" situation and improving it speaks well of the community. In my opinion, it speaks poorly of the company.

The other reason I have hesitation is, of course, the nature of a carry. I don't see it as pride or anything like that, but just a desire to not be a burden on others for something pretty unimportant. I have no problem asking for help when I need it for something important. But for something like this, it just seems unnecessary for me.  Not an opinion on others getting carries mind you.  Just for me.

I know that I cannot perform at the level needed for heroic raiding and so a carry would be my only option. And so while I’d like the moose on some level, and I’d like to be able to help my spouse get it, the effort and requirement just to get a place to be carried are more than it is likely worth to me.

I’m not saying those requirements are unreasonable. They actually seem reasonable to me but I don’t know if they are. I would assume a guild capable of carrying in heroic knows what is necessary. Whatever the case, my thoughts about the requirements were perfectly captured by Crooked:

“...if presented with requirements to participate in something, a casual is more likely to not participate…changing specs, using a certain voice chat, installing addons, doing pvp, whatever, if they don't want to do something, they would rather not participate at all…”

All of this is something of a moot discussion for me anyways, as I don't think I have a 100 on any server running these (although I haven't check recently) and those 100's I do have are not yet 710. So why am I writing on this? Well, where would you be without my wall-of-text opinions?




* or, since this was originally a comment over at Frostwolves, should that be suppourt? :)

Comment-Inspired Quick Post: Davy Jones' Locker

Thorbartin over on my Call me Ahab post has the BEST IDEA EVAR

I finished the Legendary quest line in my shipyard, then sent all my ships out on suicide missions. Felt kinda nice ;)

The catharsis from this idea is already making me smile.  I think the only way I can express how happy this idea makes me is through interpretive dance.

Comment-Inspired Quick Post: Needlessly Loquacious

So after posting to someone's blog, I sat back and looked at the comment.

I am such a Chatty Cathy at times.

What's that?  You said something?  Well here's my opinion on that!  Aren't you lucky I graced you with my presence and ideas?

Also, I just found that site and I know what I'm going to be distracted with.

Also, also, I think that title would have made a better blog name.

An ode to Spellsteal

Grumpy had a post asking about mechanics in raids. I tried to add my little bit but, not being very knowledgeable or experienced, I could only add so much. In my rambling comment, I hit on Spellsteal and realized I needed to publicly profess my affection.

I love Spellsteal.

It is my valentine. It is my soulmate. I am solidly on Team Spellsteal.

When I see that little buff pop up on an enemy that I can take, I get so excited. It’s mine, precious!

Honestly, I love doing that more than anything else my mage can do.

It really can change the nature of a fight. If an add has some buff that heals them overtime and typically makes that fight hell, *zap*, mine! Now, I get healed a little and the fight goes quickly and smoothly. Or perhaps they have an aura that does damage, nope, *yank*, mine! No damage for my tank but perhaps I’ll run to some smaller adds or even up to the original add and give them a taste of their own medicine.

I have noticed how helpful it can be on certain enemies. When I run the content on my mage, I gobble up their buff for myself and we steamroll the add or boss. But when I’m on any other character, it tends to be a greater struggle. It could be a difference in the group or it could be that I’m slightly better on my mage than any of my other characters, but I think part of that being better is my love, Spellsteal.