Project Lore

As I get closer and closer to level 80 (no, I'm still not there yet. But that's another story...), I've been thinking a bit about my end goals for Locomomo. They started out vague, long ago when I rejoiced at finding a piece of gear that was one measly armor point higher than what I already had equipped. Back then, I could only dream of what my toon someday would become. And as I've leveled and discovered through experience my play preferences for my class, those goals have solidified quite a bit. What I know so far: I like being sneaky, as a proper rogue should. But even moreso, I like dealing the DPS. One of my primary motivations for leveling is the fact that I want to start raiding with my guild. I'll have to start small to get some better gear, I'm sure. Then hopefully after not too long try out some heroics and get down my raiding rotations. I know, they're still pretty general goals, but it's something to look forward to. And while looking forward, I realized that really, the best way for me to play is to have smaller goals along the way. It seems I'm always playing toward something - trying to reach the next level, and the next and the next; aiming to get my stats up; completing enough quests in an area to get the related achievement and moving on to another zone. Each little step leads to another and another. Blizzard knows how to keep its players motivated. But there have been times when I've found myself a bit puzzled at what to do next. For the most part, leveling is self-explanatory. Just go to an area for your level, click on the NPCs with yellow exclamations points, and go kill things. But sometimes there's the issue of having too much to do. Do you level in zone x or zone y? Do you focus on your professions or continue leveling? Ultimately, there's a million decisions we must make in game, and each one will lead to a different experience. Of course, once you're a more experienced player, it becomes easier to picture your future characters. You know what equipment, skills and talents are out there; you have conquered the zones; and you have played either with or against other high-level characters that you can use for inspiration for what you one day will become. And once you reach 80, there's still all the end-game content. I know a lot of players find it a bit harder to keep playing once they reach a certain point and no longer have those little steps to motivate them along. But I think I'm a very long way from reaching that point. I've got dungeons to explore, enemy cities to sneak into, equipment to be had, achievements galore to earn, and only so much time to play. The future Locomomo, as I picture her, will be awesome. But it's the journey getting there that I'm looking forward to. In your own gaming experiences, what drives you to keep playing? Is there any specific goal you're currently playing to? Do you picture what you hope your future toon will be, or let that picture shape itself as you go?

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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?

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A few weeks ago WoW Insider did an article on a pair of users hooking up their treadmills to World of Warcraft.  Yesterday they added to that piece with numerous stories from their readers about how they work out during their WoW playtime.  Apparently a lot of players do the treadmill/walking thing while strolling around Azeroth with some losing 10, 20 even 100 pounds! The stories got me thinking.  What the hell do I do when I play WoW?  Growing up in the age of multi-tasking causes me to get bored with one thing quickly.  Some would call that ADHD but I just consider it being efficient! Most of these things I do while just messing around in World of Warcraft or during downtime.  However, there are many that I have done while raiding, for better or worse.  Some of my more common WoW sidebars are:

• Browsing the web/checking e-mail/WoWHead etc (dual screen ftw).
• Writing/researching articles for my various websites.
• Drinking/eating.
• Working at my day job.
• Playing other games – I played Paper Mario (N64) start to finish during Molten Core downtime.
• Playing with my ferrets.
• Watch TV, movies and sports (especially the NFL).
• mIRCing.

I have never done any exercise to speak of while actually playing WoW.  Unlike the people mentioned in the WoW Insider stories, I usually do mine while waiting for something in WoW.  Case in point, I bought a few dozen stacks of neatherweave cloth to transmute into bandages.  I spent the time it take to make 400 bandages jumping rope and doing push-ups.  I think I managed one push-up... The most fun I ever had with one of these distractions was playing WoW at a party.  And I don't really mean a LAN party, I mean a party with tons of drinking, stupidity and breaking of things.  At this party a few friends and I (okay so we did have some computers hooked up, it was a Guild party after all) managed to raid Molten Core and Onyxia.  What made it fun is that we all switched classes, playing different accounts - after they logged us in of course.  Coincidently, we ended up playing classes we had never raided with before.  We had also been drinking and were distracted by everyone else around.  Hilarity and newfound respect for each other ensued. What do you guys do outside of WoW to kill the downtime?

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