In-game Distractions Are Aplenty
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pixiestixy on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 20 Comments Tags: Death Knight, Halaa, Hawkstrider, Horde, Talbuk, distractions, fun, thrall, wasting time
pixiestixy on Friday, February 20, 2009 - 20 Comments Tags: Death Knight, Halaa, Hawkstrider, Horde, Talbuk, distractions, fun, thrall, wasting time  Being a defiled DK is the only thing that makes this OK |
It’s been about five months since I rolled my blood elf rogue, and I’m at level 68. I just made it to Northrend, and I’m starting to get anxious to level up so I can raid with my level 80 buddies. But there’s so much other fun stuff to do in-game that I keep getting distracted. So it’s slower going, but I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing. As long as I’m having fun.
Like last week, when my toon and my husband’s alt, a blood elf DK, were running around slaughtering all the Talbuk in Nagrand. Meanwhile, another Horde group in the area was working on gaining control of Halaa. We were counting down as the number of Alliance guards went from 15 to 0. So when the chat window announced that Horde was gaining control, we both cheered them on in the local defense chat. And although we were in the middle of questing, I suggested that we head to Halaa to help with the final capture of the area. So we dropped everything, and went to chat it up with the other players. Yeah, it delayed our leveling. But it also was a good time.
Or another time was when I dinged level 55 and promptly rolled a troll DK as an alt. I went ahead and played through the first few levels, got all the awesome blue gear, and headed back to Orgrimmar for redemption. But, wouldn’t you know it, I got to the Valley of Wisdom and an Ally group had just raided the city. Thrall was dead, with no hope for respawn for about two hours. And I was still in disgraced status, so of course the few guards who already had respawned were throwing rotten fruit at my pretty blue face and yelling for others to get a rope. No problem, I could have switched characters back to my main and come back at a better time. Instead, I joined a group of fellow DKs who were passing the time by /dancing from Thrall’s empty throne. Silly? Yes. But fun? Abso-freakin’-lutely.
And I can think of numerous times I’ve been in UC as a raid comes through. Each time I’ve been too low level to defend at all, but I head to the Royal Quarter anyways. Just to observe. And try to distract the Allies by squawking up a headache as my hawkstrider stands right on top of Lady Sylvanas. I like to watch those Allies squirm.
Am I the only one who gets caught up in all this random fun stuff? Not that I need anything else to keep me from leveling, but what are some of your favorite distractions?
Reader Comments (20)
I just love it when I enter a big city and I see people talking in my first language! Always stop to make a talk! =P
Well i usually like to stand in front of the Dalaran banks and see how many ppl stop and look at my hog(and hopefully don't get spammed to give rides)or just jump from heights
Other then that i also like to randomly search the AH for stuff even if i dont need it...just checking prices and all...
If all fails after a few bgs (and hopefully punting a few gnomes) everything gets better
I'm forever getting distracted by ppl doing fun/silly/dumb/random stuff.. but hey.. it adds another element to it :D
I fish and cook! On top of the useful buff food there's nothing quite so impressive as beating down furbolgs while wielding my 19 pound catfish menacingly. There should be an achievement for that.
I find it nice to sit down and serenely click fishing bobbers in between brutally gang-bashing elite mobs and rending flesh from boss-bones, plus it lets me catch up on my podcasts.
I think it's this extra 'flavour' that allows such a broad demographic. All the little entertainments on the way :)
Battlegrounds, the ultimate distraction for me. I have a habit of breaking my levelling spree to do one of each BG.
While waiting for raidtime, inbetween leveling toons, while waiting for a pug to form through LFG...
I like to go Horde-fishing. You fly up above the Horde part of Dalaran and land on a ledge (so you don't get ported out) and then - using a Shadow Jade Focusing Lens - go "fishing" by selecting random Hordies and hitting them with it.
Lots of fun watching them run around trying to break the beam or figure out who is hitting them with it.
Sometimes I turn off running and walk around like an NPC.
Sometimes I fish in the Stormwind canals waiting for Little Timmy to spawn.
Sometimes I go mountain climbing where the only rewards are great mountaintop screenshots.
once me and this chick in my old guild decided we needed some cake. so we made a few macros with funny lines, often copying the wretched and their hunger for mana, except with cake :P we were in org, following ppl around pressing our macros and getting no cake :( when we ran into a bank alt named "Cupcake" we could believe it! and after a /yell of victory we promptly /follow and spammed her with cake requests. being the cool bank alt they were, she(he) simply turned, smiled and said "Cool! Vanity Pets!" and kept on with her business. other times included dancing on the lake in tb (with path of frost) with the buff from that fire pole thingy from midsummer festival.
that was a big distraction that took up hours of my time :(
I completely agree that the constant stream of fun stuff to do in game adds to the atmosphere. Blizzard knew what they were doing when they put in all these distractions :)
I'm intrigued by some of your ideas - I'll have to try them out. I'll never reach level 80!
lol i loved lvling 2 80 b/c of all the random fun quest, wat would u rather do screw off in SW/Org or do quest that include u riding a dragon or maybe having an elite npc fight the battle 4 u?
Welcome aboard! Yay for more Hordies =)
Yeah lvling once you're in NR is a breeze, but that 55-68 grind takes me longer and longer each time. I recently changed my 66-68 lvling area to Nagrand, and it's so pretty there I find it hard to stop just stopping and sightseeing LOL. I'm a photographer so I'm always lining up another sceenshot =)
Bejeweled Addon.
How is just dancing with a grp of DK's fun? :)
Dancing with the opposite faction and seeing how many will dance with me. XD I will seriously stand in Shatt or now Dalaran and just dance randomly in the middle of a busy area (usually around the bank or the fishin' hole and /dance. Got showered with petals too quite a bit on my Nelf Priest. But yeah, my fave part of the game is the /dance.
Great theme for a blog btw. Yeah, my friend is widely disctracted. He's been level 71 since like January LOL. Achievements. Achievements, achievements, achievements. That's my disctraction. I try to get as many random ones as possible. I <3 them. Though, the actual ACTIONS I do is rarely BG, but I like to go sight seeing in Northrend or Outland (since I missed alot of BC due to my lack of hitting the cap fast enough). I'm working on Fishing and Cooking while I wait for raids to start, or if there's nothing better to do.
Nothing cracks me up more than the names of NPCs! Spraggle Frock (Fraggle Rock!) , Jhordy Lapforge (Gordie Laforge from Stand by Me) and there are a lot of others I just can't think of. They always make me laugh, but then I feel old because no one in my guild gets the reference unless my sister is online! :)
I can totally relate to watching the random opposite faction city-raids. In fact, it typically doesn't matter where I am, any time I see or hear about some battle ensuing, I leave what I am doing to check out the scene. O.o
I think Jhordy Lapforge is referencing Geordi La Forge from Star Trek.
Call it OCD, but i have trouble leaving a zone untill i have fully explored it. Sometimes that leaves me wandering back and forth over the same blanked out area untill i find the spot that triggers the exploration(I am looking at you northern ashenvale).
Talk stupid talk with my guild. Farm for my next vanity pet. Start a train of walkers around a capitol city. Anything involving an achievement. Standing around for hours scouring the AH for funny grays or way overpriced stuff to mock.
But... my worst distraction will forever be....
...that damned TriviaBot.