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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Via an overzealous nerd with shoes from the 80s

Generally speaking, watching another person play an MMORPG can be incredibly boring. PvP matches and raiding aside, the audience always knows what will happen, the avatar will kill the mob with plenty of HP to spare. World of Warcraft is no different in that respect; thank god for WoW's customization. Rather than watching the shining graphics on the screen, I watch a player's hands to see how they have mapped their keys for their personal settings.  It has proven to be far more interesting.

For every type of player that exists in Azeroth, there is a type of play style. One of the best warriors – one of those people you'd hate on Ventrilo though - I have had the privilege to play with moved around with the arrow keys, mapping his abilities to keys in the area.  A hunter from our guild didn't hit any hotkeys, relying entirely on mouseclicks.  A pair of my druid friends are a clear case of convergent evolution, mapping all of their healing keys as close to WASD as possible, including Q, E, R, F, G, C, V.

My brother, a Holy Priest from the beginning and a RTS master, only used 1-5 for his spells. Five spells isn't enough for any class, let alone a Priest.  He simply would hit Shift 1-5 to change his bars as needed, effectively giving him 25 keys to play with. His “uber-micro” from his Red Alert and Warcraft III days are what enabled him to keep up with the required speed necessary to be a main healer.  Those frantic keystrokes and movements to flip his bars to the correct spells at precise moments was stunningly beautiful.

And here I am, a fourth alternative to the default layout. I have applied a few tricks from my RTS playing days as well. The ability to hit CTRL, Shift and Alt with ease – years of training - frees up the rest of the keyboard for use with macros. In an attempt to give 1-6 as many uses as possible, I chose to map CTRL 1-6 and Shift 1-6 to additional bars instead of their default actions. The new keybindings allow me to keep spells, abilities and macros on my top and side bar, but avoid the need to mouseover to them. Mousing is for newbs. My personal attachment to palming CTRL has lead me to only purchase keyboards with raised keys and after I have played with them in meatspace.  On the flip side, my mouse requirements are incredibly basic.

Do you guys go about your business with the default layout, or have you changed the title's key layout as much as your User Interface?  Are you a mouseclicker or do you have a gear out mouse with as many inputs as a keyboard?  What is the craziest play style you have witnessed or heard about? Heck, I even use ` (the key next to numero uno) for Stealthing.

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