Tips for the Casual WoW Player
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pixiestixy on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 19 Comments Tags: Addons, Addons, RL, backpack, balance, gear, housekeeping, northrend, quests, tomtom, wow
pixiestixy on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 - 19 Comments Tags: Addons, Addons, RL, backpack, balance, gear, housekeeping, northrend, quests, tomtom, wow 
Here at Project Lore, the last week has had us evaluating the balancing act that is playing WoW and still maintaining a social life. ITZKooPA pointed out the difficulties of doing just that, and how indeed, RL should always come first. So for those of us who readily take on this challenge of balancing the two, I thought it'd be fun to talk a bit about what challenges casual gamers face when playing WoW, and what steps we can take in-game to maximize our limited playing time.I've never been able to commit to playing WoW, or any game for that matter, on much more than a casual basis. On my relatively obligation-free days, like on the weekends, I can maybe play for a few hours. Most days during the week, I'm lucky if I can play at all. Since I'm working on leveling my main, one of the most important aspects to keep up with is getting that needed experience through quests. When I log off for a few days at a time, I oftentimes forget what I'm working on by the time I log on again. This past weekend, I went back to the Borean Tundra to catch up on some easy XP quests I had skipped over when I first made it to Northrend. But it takes a little while to get on the ball again. I read back through my quests, and refreshed my memory on several that I had awaiting in the dreaded mist.
Then there's the matter of remembering where everything is located. Maybe I just have a poor memory, but when I log back on after a few days and am in an area where I haven't been for very long, I have a difficult time finding my way around. Especially in areas where I still haven't discovered a significant portion of the map.
Thankfully, both the problem of not remembering quests and a poor sense of direction can be assisted with AddOns. My favorite quest and direction helper is TomTom (which you can see in use in Dorkins' soloing escapades). Not only can you read comments that give specific instructions for each quest, but the addon also puts an arrow on your screen pointing you to different quest objectives. Also, don't forget to read up on comments that let you know if you can complete any other quests in the same area. That helped me complete four quests in the mist in only one trip and, in the end, I got a fun parachute ride back to Warsong Hold after beseiging the Scourge army.
Now, there are other plenty of other difficulties with playing WoW on a limited basis, and I find a lot of that comes in the area of housekeeping - keeping track of your professions and reagents, listing your auctions, remembering to use your new abilities or items that you may have gotten just before logging off a few days before etc. I have a few tricks beyond addons to keep it all straight - mainly in the way I sort my bags. I group all my leatherworking together, all my quest items together, all my gear for guildies in one spot, all my unwanted BOP to vendor in another, and any BOE items to auction someplace else. My main backpack is strictly for the items that I must keep with me always. And whatever isn't sorted tends to be grays that I can sell to the nearest vendor. And anytime I get a level, I take a few minutes right away to spend my talent point, get any new skills and put them on my action bar so I don't forget about them. With a little organization, I find that my time playing is more fun and less confusing. What could be better?
So does anyone else have trouble keeping up with the wide World of Warcraft? What addons or tricks do you use to keep track of everything?
Reader Comments (19)
questhelper!
I am finding WoW more and more depressing now that I am at level 80. Before it was easy, log on, quest, level, skill some professions, you're done. Now, at level 80 all I see is a plethora of things I want to do that I know I'll never have time to accomplish while they are still slightly new. I basically just said screw it and decided to play for the RP aspect and not get into a rat race. I do that 10 hours a day already.
Qh cartogropher and auctioneer :) make my life esier :) an i enjoy end game so much more than leveling, even if it is doing something random, i remember doing AQ 40 with 10 ppl ( we didnt finish lol), kara again and onyxia, but i know when to stop an so i have never been addicted to WoW
I'm only in school, but honestly I get mabye 2 hours at most, on most weekdays to get in some fun time...unfortunetly at level 80 acomplishing anything in 2 hours is rather unlikely, by this I mean the PvE aspect. I LOVE raiding, but all I ever have time for is vault (yawn), a quick OS or if I'm really lucky a pug EoE...Naxx is really out of the question (I refuse to pug..I die more then its worth). At this point Vault gives me nothing and only the really rare drops in Nax and OS are even worth while...I want to play more but I also like my 4.0...
"What addons or tricks do you use to keep track of everything?"
Addons to help: Carbonite. Fubar with various addons to it dependent on what class I'm playing.
Tips/tricks to help: Keeping bags organized always, so I don't have to search to figure out what to keep, what is a quest item, and what to sell.
I use carbonite quest. also i just play when i can. currently im working on grinding up to 80 so a couple hours here and there is great. i just shove my paladin into an inn or homecity and get my rested experience. makes my leveling more fun.
I started using TomTom, on the recommendation of PL's fave. Huntard (his words, from the Best ep. clip - not mine...), but its' support would seem to have been 'canned' or it has too many conflicts with other add-ons I use.
However, I've found Cartographer has the same functionality as TomTom, and I find that teaming it with QuestHelper & QuestGuru is all I (essentially) need to track my gameplay.
Since having my L80 Fury Warrior demoralised, beyond belief by the Leader of the Guild I used to be in, I've found that levelling one of my Death Knights (I have 2; taking full advantage of Blizzards' generosity) has been significantly more fun.
I play most days and probably have too many toons to keep any meaningful concentration pattern - sure; there's a couple I'd like to get on mounts, but there aren't enough hours in the day to play them all & get the same degree of fun I'm having with said Death Knight.
(additional)
... I'm a tidy freak, when it comes to bags and even have TWO prof.-specific bank alt's on one realm... :-/
OK; maybe I shouldn't have divulged that last part...
Neat trick to keep in mind in bag-space-organization:
1. Keep your main bag (default "B") empty. I keep my DPS gear in my VERY last bag (I am a tank), my second to last bag keeps all my quest items, middle bag keeps my consumables, second bag keeps my extra consumables and gear I need to test out to see if its better than the current one.
2. LET YOUR FIRST BAG CONTAIN ONLY GREYS/SELLABLES! Thus, when running to a vendor, your main bag should open up and Wham-oh! You can easily sell junk, open your bag space, and save time. Always when entering a NPC-area that has a vendor sell all your greys. It saves time, and can give you that much more money in the short run.
3. Try to get the biggest bag you can afford. Yeah, maybe the extra two bag slots (i.e. a 16-slot to a 18-slot, or 18 to a 20-slot bag) doesn't seem like its worth the gold. In the long run, you will get 100x the price you paid back, and the time it takes depends on how often you do dailies, farm, or kill stuff.
NOTE: THe last bag that keeps your gear will be best used as the biggest bag you have. 19 equipment slots total means you'll have a total of 38 (or 57 total, if you are a pally with healing, tanking, and DPS) equipment, 19 equipped, and 19 (38 again if you are a pally) The bigger the bag, the easier bag space can be organized.
@alternate
nice that sounds very organized :).
also for the gray item part there is a mod Autoprofit one of my favorite mods ever, it sells all your grey items in a single click.
Or you can just get the Autoprofit add on, which automatically sells your greys with one button. Very nice.
Oh. I had this comment up for a few minutes and look! Someone beat me to it!
I use the wow-pro.com addon (uses TourGuide) for questing.
I also use ArkInventory for my bag mod. I have it set to sort food, quest items, BoE's, BoP's, grey items, etc into separate areas so that I automatically know what to sell.
I'm able to play maybe an hour or so a day (instead of watching tv or whatever) and a bit more on the weekends. I also have a horrible sense of direction, and can never remember what instance is what. etc. I do have an awesome guild though, so that helps a lot! I keep meaning to get quest helper or something like that so I can find my way around a lot easier.. just haven't gotten around to it.
First of all...there's a lot of people in the "end-game" that are not hardcore players. So, get to talk to them, mabe join a guild that does raids in a proper time that you know you can look forward to. Simple I guess...
Well I'm a fairly hardcore player myself. But I've got most everything I want done on my main. Only a few raids to finish up, 3D on 25 & 10 man and that's it. So I did Refer-A-Friend and leveled up a mage to 56 in one weekend. After 56, I started a Death Knight and am now 67 after a weeks time.
I kind of wish you could LABEL your bags to help with organization. I'm mostly organizing my tank gear against my off-spec gear.
Listen to Alternate. That's a player who knows.
If you don't use any bag mods and prefer to keep your bags somewhat organized you will eventually discover that bags are filled with loot in order, starting with the backpack, from top to bottom. this means if you carry your gear and reagents etc in your first bags they will quickly become mixed up with loot and quest items.
Moving all the crap you are forced to always carry around with you at all times to the last bag, second to last bag, etc will help keep ephemeral items away from more permanent items.
I have a bad talent of remembering names...if this guy is on my freinds list and not important and I dont remember the name...i take him off until further notice...I hate that and I just found you could put notes on, so now i dont have to remember!
I use Carbonite to quest - it takes up less memory than QuestHelper and replaces other mods like Cartographer.
You could use Lightheaded, which sends all the quest comments from wowhead into a panel next to your questlog and allows for Co-ord links.
Bagnon turns all of your bags into one big bag and makes organizing your stuff much easier.