Citizen Azeroth: Welcome, Ursalla, Achievement Experiment

Welcome, Ursalla, to my stable of experiment toons.

The experiment: How many achievements I can get at level 1, level 5, level 10, level 15 and level 20.

Purpose: Part of it is to find out how many achievements are doable at low levels. Part of it is prove my theory that the achievement system is not set up with low levels in mind.

Parameters: I am not going to do achievements where I simply see how much money I can spend. This lets out achievements such as My Sack is "Gigantique", Safe Deposit, or any of the pet collecting quests beyond those purchaseable from NPC vendors or easily gathered by my other toons. I don't plan to be shelling out 7500g for a Hyacinth Macaw anytime soon.

I will also not do experiments where I need a high level character to clear mobs for me. If I choose to do ones that take me into high level areas where I am likely to be brutally killed, so be it. For example, in the achievement Well Read, some of the books are located in places like Scholomance and Stratholme, but may have locations in other areas not normally accessible to Horde toons. The book Kil'jaeden and the Shadow Pact is available in Scholo, Strat, and Duskwood, so clearly, going to Duskwood is my option there. I realize this means I may or may not be able to complete the achievement, but I will do as much of it as I can.

I will not use warlock summoning to get me to places I should not be. For this reason, I am not planning to do the world exploration achievement. My understanding is that someone has already done this one at level 14, but he almost certainly had to have help of a high level warlock and group to summon him to some areas. Some areas in Outlands and Northrend are only able to be explored by flying mount, so he'd have to have used warlock summoning. I plan to use no warlock summoning in the course of this experiment.

I will use some of my high level character's talents and definitely use some of their money to help me get items I couldn't otherwise get. I'll explain those below in the "achievements achieved" and "achievements in progress" section. I also plan to get a high level mage to port me to Dalaran so I will be able to work on the Higher Learning quests. I will use the portals in Dalaran to attempt to move myself as close to objectives as possible, more to slow down experience as anything. For that reason, I plan to complete as few quests as possible during the course of this experiment.

I will try not to leave a level until I have completed as many of the quests as I can at that level. This may be difficult as some exploration experience will be necessary as I move to areas needed to do my achievements, but I will do my best to slow down my experience at all times.

I will also be perfectly candid about how I got the achievement and how much outside help was required to do it.

The experiment thus far...

Ursalla is now level 1 and has completed four achievements:

Can I Keep Him? Ursalla now has five pets: a Baby Blizzard Bear, three snakes purchased in Orgrimmar, and a Tickbird Hatchling. The Baby Blizzard Bear is an account-bound pet so I just mailed her one from one of my other characters. I got the Tickbird Hatchling from the Oracle egg from my rogue Magahli, since she has gotten four of these since she started opening eggs.

Represent: Ursalla bought a guild tabard for 1g. Obviously she's received some money from my other characters.

Shave and a Haircut: Curiously enough, a restyle is free at level 1. All that required was running to the Orgrimmar barber shop.

Second That Emotion: The emotion foods (haunted herring, et. al) are all edible at level 1. My rogue baked her a set.

She is currently working on the achievements Tastes Like Chicken, where you have to sample 50 different foods, and It's Happy Hour Somewhere, where you need to sample 25 different drinks. At level 1, she has managed to eat 22 different foods and 15 drinks. I've been quite surprised how many foods and drinks are available, particularly when you have a rogue who is only missing the Kickin' Chimerok Chops recipe, as well as the new Thanksgiving recipes they're going to introduce later this year. Also, surprisingly, much of the booze sold in Dalaran is edible at level 1.

She has also started To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before and Pest Control, but hasn't made that much progress in either. She'll need to do a bit of travelling, as both require trips into Northrend. Also, as soon as I can get her to Dalaran, I'm going to start the unhappy business of camping for the books for Higher Learning.

So I'll keep you posted. I can't start any of the quests requiring professions, but you can bet I'm going to be catching my 2000 fish and cooking as much as I can. I am going to do my best to try to fall 65 feet without dying (lowest character I've managed to do that with so far was nearly 30 and that was an accident). As soon as she's 10, I'll post an armory link, but that may be weeks in the future as I'm going to try to avoid experience whenever possible.

Citizen Azeroth: Why I'm not a team player

There are times when grouping is necessary -- raids and instances are perfect examples. While you can do instances alone, you have to be so much higher than the useful range of the instance that you have to be farming it for different purposes. If you want to do an instance at level, you have to group.

But when I'm questing, mostly I am Greta Garbo: I want to be left alone*.

There are times when it's handy to do small short-term groups. I'd rather group up quick with some handy folks to get down a common mob, rather than compete for spawn. It's necessary to do most group quests, though the vast majority of the time I'll get my husband to help me rather than ask strangers.

This is proving to be a difficult concept to get across playing a priest.

To explain: there's a new server out, and I'm playing a blood elf priest, just for the fun of starting on a brand new server. It's so new that the AQ gates aren't even open. Transfers will be closed for another two and a half months. There are already 80s but not many. Copper ore and bars still sell for 1s each. People aren't putting up low level greens at twink-with-an-80-sugar-daddy prices. There are groups going for instances like RFC and Wailing Caverns, rather than lowbies begging for rushes. It's kind of fun.

However, everywhere I go, people are inviting me to group up for normal questing. Most of them are polite or at least don't answer when I refuse and tell them I'm not interested in grouping. Some actually get snotty. But they're the exception.

So why don't I group for normal questing?

Pure selfishness.

I want to decide what I am going to do on my own time, in my own order.

I want the loot. I am level 15 and have just over a gold to my name. The downside of copper selling for 1s apiece is that there isn't a good money scheme for lowbies and you're relying almost exclusively on small-profit sales and quest cash. Tip for lowbies on new servers: do the Draenei and blood elf newbie and secondary newbie zones; the money is a LOT better. I don't want to have to share drops.

I will see an herb node and I want to go pick it. I'll dash off in the middle of something else to pick flowers. Worse, I don't want to be grouped with another herbalist where I will need to share.

There's only one person I group with as a rule, and I married him.

So, instances, okay. Group quests -- okay, only if I am sure I can't do it myself. But normal questing? Let me run off and do my own thing.

It's nothing personal. It's not about you. It's about me. Honest.

*Greta Garbo never said "I want to be alone." She said "I want to be left alone." It's a common misquote.

Citizen Azeroth: Rarity is a virtue

Back when I played Everquest, I played a gnome cleric. Not just any gnome cleric, but a cleric of the god Bertoxxulous. This is significant because gnomes could choose from three different deities: Brell Serillis, god of the mountains, and Bristlebane, god of mischief, and Bertoxxulous, god of disease. With Brell and Bristlebane, you didn't encounter faction problems with the so-called "good" races, and both deities had good armor and a lot of deity-specific things and quests. With Bertox, however, you screwed up your factions with a lot of the good guys and didn't have as much gear or as good quests to choose from. So why did I do it? Simply put: it amused me.

When Wrath of the Lich King came out, I had a choice of several different 70s to concentrate on, and I had fully intended it to be my undead warrior, Renatta. However, late in TBC I had been playing my rogue, Magahli, and was just having way too much fun with her -- so much so that she has become my new main.

Magahli is an orc.

Orcs aren't quite the least popular Horde race; that distinction belongs to trolls (probably because of consistently weak racial abilities). In my opinion, orcs have among the very strongest racials in the game, with broad applicability to every single class they can be. However, they still only represent about 5% of all characters over level 10 in the game across all servers (they are popular as auction mules simply because of the close proximity of Durotar to Orgrimmar).

The reason is simple: orcs are not pretty. My rogue would be very offended to hear this, since she considers herself quite a beauty among orcs. However, to human eyes, orcs are not at all attractive. First, there's the matter of the skin, ranging from a grey-green mossy color to almost a virulent ... well, distinctly mucoid shade. There's the teeth and the mouth breathing. The eyes are kind of small. The hair options for the females ... well, most of them don't really involve much of any hair (although there are some paid options at the barber shop that have more hair, and curiously enough, I didn't like any of them). The females are built more on the female powerlifter model and less on Brittany Spears, with bubble butts and huge thighs and arms -- but then again, I've always been more of an Anja Langer fan than a Brittany one. Though they are rather glorious, in a Lursa and B'Etor kind of way. Unless they're the type who read women's bodybuilding mags for the pictures, most guys wouldn't find their butts interesting to watch over long periods of time, and most women I know seem to find their roughness and crudeness offputting. I think it's funny.

When I was looking for a rogue character to roll up, I specifically looked at all the races to find out which was the least common -- on the Horde side, of course, since I primarily play Horde. On Whisperwind at least, the orc was the least common by nearly 2%. Plus I had been playing my orc warlock (chosen because of the great racials for demonology locks) and knew that I liked the female orc model.

Maggie the rogue was born.

I realize some class/race combos are fixed -- like druids, blood elf paladins, and draenei shaman -- but next time you're choosing, try the road less traveled. It's fun and adds a little difference to your toon. You may not be the only one, but you can be close, like being one of only 8 level 80 orc rogues on a server of over 32,000 (that's 0.025% of the population for anyone who is interested in the math), and only one of 55 over level 10 (0.17%). With those odds, you might as well be.

Citizen Azeroth: Are people more bloodthirsty on PvE servers?

Fact: On a PvP server, you can (and do) run around flagged for PvP combat all the time.

Fact: On a PvE server, you run around unflagged unless you flag yourself, by (a) turning on the flag manually, (b) attacking another flagged character, (c) exiting a battleground or arena, or (d) taking on a quest that requires you to flag for PvP.

Fact: On a PvP server, you can run around flagged and a lot of the time, nobody bothers you. I've run into opposite faction players a lot of the time out questing, and much of the time, we just /wave and go on our merry way.

Fact: On a PvE server, people automatically believe that you are flagged for PvP because you are begging for a smackdown, and they will ALWAYS attack you if the think they have even a snowball's chance in hell of doing any damage to you. Heck, I've seen characters without a snowball's chance attack a flagged player on PvE servers. PvP players are too canny for that.

So, given that at lest two of the reasons one might flag on a PvE server -- exiting battlegrounds/arenas and taking on a quest where PvP flagging is required -- are not cases where the person really wants to engage in "real" PvP outside whatever it is they are doing, why do all people on PvE servers assume that they have a giant "Kick Me" sign taped to them?

And why is it that on a PvP server, where presumably you're there because you're interested, at least in part, in engaging in PvP on a less casual basis, do many (not all, but many) people assume that perhaps, once in a while, you really DO just want to complete your quest/run to your flight point/do whatever else it is in the world you want to do, rather than duke it out for no reason other than that you're two opposite faction people?

It sort of reminds me of the difference between Hollywood perception of wars and what I've read about actual behavior of soldiers in war. During the Civil War, it was fairly common for pickets (camp guards) on both the Union and Confederate side to exchange goods (coffee, whiskey, cigars, etc) and chat, or at least let one another know that they're there, rather than shoot each other on sight. Most of the time, they didn't just draw their guns and start blazing away at one another. They both knew the other was there, and many pickets claimed to have had opposite side pickets who became "almost friends" since they encountered one another so often.

I've been finding similar behavior on The Venture Company. There are people you run into on the other side who are questing in your area, and you may run into them several times. With some of these folks, it's almost like both sides give a big sigh of relief, /wave, and go off farming up their 20 satyr horns or whatever we're doing that day. Try running around flagged on a PvE server and see what kind of treatment you get.

Citizen Azeroth: There is a cure for the summertime blues...

I hit the three-year-funk.

I hit it when I played Everquest. About the time I'd been playing three years, I hit a stretch of time where I just didn't feel enthusiastic about the game. I kept playing more out of a sense that I should rather than because I felt I wanted to play. I played even when I didn't want to.

At that time, I was the guild's second in command and raid leader, and this was not a guild full of people who wanted to lead or would step up to the challenge. If I didn't play, raids wouldn't happen, period. I knew because I tried it early on and organized play just kind of fell apart. Everyone seemed enthusiastic to run what I organized, but no one stepped up to run anything if I didn't do it.

So I kept playing through the three-year funk, and my resentment toward the game just grew and grew. I ended up playing for another year without really taking a break. And I burned out, bad. I quit playing the game altogether. The guild continued for about a year after I left, though by the time they folded, most of the active players had moved on to other guilds. I talked to a couple of them later and they said that for them, the sign that the guild was doomed was when Cryler and I left and quit the game.

I suppose that was flattering, but on the other hand, it was a lot of pressure and a lot to live up to. And it's had lasting effects on my gaming experience. First, I still don't play a healer class; my main was a gnome cleric and I was the main healer, and to this day I'm not interested in playing a healer again (probably the reason my paladin is stuck at 69). Second, I have never, ever volunteered to be a raid leader. In fact, four years after I left EQ, I still feel burned out on raiding.

This is not the situation I am in now. There are differences, but I have learned from my mistakes on how I handled my last three-year-funk.

The most important thing is that when I started to feel like I really needed a hiatus, I took it. I usually take July off because evenings are taken up watching the Tour de France, but once the Tour was over, I still didn't feel like playing. So I didn't force myself. I decided instead to apply myself to something that had been nagging at me for awhile -- namely, a problem I'd had finding a good new genealogy program to handle my family tree data (long story, but I've had problems since my old program stopped being supported and importing my old data into Family Tree Maker was a complete disaster), and then starting the process of re-entering my research. This has been an absorbing project that I've been enjoying wholeheartedly since the end of July. Instead of sitting down to play WoW every time I had a block of free time, I've been revisiting fifteen years of research and filling in gaps, correcting mistakes, and re-examining assumptions.

But I have to give the biggest credit to the peace and ease of this break to my guild. They aren't the needy group that guilted me into playing even when I didn't want to play. Part of it is that I've stayed out of the raiding scene, but most of it can be credited to them and their own drives and ambitions. Raiding has gone beautifully without me, and I'm happy for them. When I do pop in to say hello, they're warm and friendly, but they don't pressure me to play when I don't want to play. They are still supporting me on the class roundtables on the show, still helping answer questions when I have something I don't quite understand. They know I'm still around and that I'll be back, and I hope they know they can call on me if they need me for anything. But they are giving me the much-needed space to rest, concentrate on something else, and get my enthusiasm again without hitting a real burn-out point.

I really think every gamer hits the wall at some time or other. MMORPGs are consuming games that take a lot of time and concentration and effort to progress and do well. You can only put that kind of energy into something for just so long before you need to do something else for awhile. Genealogy is actually like that for me -- I may go whole hog on it for months, then get totally sick of it, put it aside for months, and then pick it up again later. Every absorbing hobby has those points. I hit mine with WoW, and this time I'm smart enough to take care of myself. I still stay involved and still stay up to date for the sake of the podcast, but I can easily take a few months off from the game and not get out of touch. And as they say in the theatre, the show must go on.

And as Ah-nuld said, I'll be back.

I'm not going anywhere. I'll still pop on from time to time. I may even play for short periods. But I'm enjoying some time off.

Citizen Azeroth: It's all about the follicles

Pop over to http://www.resto4life.com/ and you'll see something I've been itching for in WOTLK. It's not talents. It's not new spells.

MY ORCS WILL HAVE HAIR!

Yes, folks, the new hairstyles (female anyway) available from barbers in WOTLK have been revealed. Not sure if it's all of them, but I'm thrilled with the orc female choices. All of these hairstyles involve hair. No more styling little tufts. Even the long hair orc model now really seems to be nothing more than a massive combover (or combdown, as the case may be).

But on closer inspection, the thrill of new hair sort of goes away, because ... let's face it, most of these styles ore not very original. For the most part, they're shifting around existing hairstyles.

Blood elf females: There are really only 4 hairstyles here, since the last two models show the same style from two different angles. They from night elf, gnome, human, and Draenei models.

Draenei: Some Draenei must have kidnapped a blood elf stylist, because all four of the "new" hairstyles are all blood elf models.

Gnome: Human, human (both show doubles to show the ponytail and the front), dwarf, dwarf, and ... maybe an original style? I don't recognize the folded up ponies. Maybe it's a Draenei style? Not sure on that one.

Humans: May get two originals, hard to tell for certain. The first one doesn't look familiar, though it's clearly a variation on a theme from the Evil Prom Queen blood elf style, which is the second style here. Again, the first two show two styles, so four models actually equals two styles. The third style shown is also a bit of a guess, but I think it's one of the dwarf braided bobs or the behind-the-back braid. The last one is also clearly a blood elf fashion.

Night Elves: Who'da thunk the Night Elves would be taking fashion cues from the dwarves? Anyway, dwarf coiffure seems to be all the rage. The first, second, and fourth hairstyles shown are all dwarven in origin. The third one is a blood elf style, which seems to make more sense to me for the tall, willowy, and fashion-conscious elves. I believe the last one is also a blood elf style, but it's hard to tell, since the style really doesn't flatter that well and, let's face it, these pictures are pretty damn small.

Orcs: Draenei, blood elf, draenei, undead, troll. Add plenty of hair gel for that spikey, can-do look. (I prefer to think hair gel rather than that they might not take a shower as often as they should). But I'm happy. At least they have hair now. Maybe they've come out with Orc-compatible Rogaine. Even the one long style they used to have for orcs looked like a giant combover.

Tauren: Um ... er ... . ?

I think there's something going on with the horns. I'm not sure.

Troll: Although they're variations on a theme (how many different kinds of ponytails CAN you do?), these actually look semi-original.

Undead: One, two, and six are clearly gnome. Four is probably dwarf. Three and five .. not so sure. It's a bit hard to tell from the angle.

Anyway, I would have liked to have seen more original models and less recycling. but given that my orcs will now have hair, I can't be too overly critical.

Citizen Azeroth: It's the frog's fault

In the space of a week and a half, I've had to replace both my monitor and my sound card.

And it's all the frog's fault.

When I left my dot-com job back in 2002, I received a gift from one of my co-workers (I also received three resumes on my desk when people heard I was leaving to go into business for myself). This co-worker was another techie, and he was giving me his most prized possession: a small rubber tree frog. "If I keep this on my computer," he said, "I never have technical problems."

And damn it, the frog works -- as long as it's kept on the computer.

Read those words again: as long as it's kept on the computer.

Every time the frog falls off, or I temporarily lose the frog, I have problems. When I had catastrophic issues with my Dell XPS, while moving things around I discovered the frog on the floor behind my desk. I replaced it on the computer after the XPS was fixed, and I haven't had a problem since.

Well, about two weeks ago, I discovered my monitor was on its last legs, so I ordered a new one. And then, a couple days ago, my sound card died.

And you guessed it: while I was under my desk fishing out cables and unplugging stuff in preparation for doing brain surgery on my computer, I found the frog on the floor.

So he's back, sitting on my new 22" LCD high def monitor (well, why not upgrade as long as I have to replace?) and enjoying the sound of my new sound card (thankfully it was the card and not my Bose speaker system, which is a lot more expensive.

My next purchase? Sticky Velcro. That little bugger's going NOWHERE.

Citizen Azeroth: Falling off the wagon

I fell a little off the wagon last night.

I had a momentary "why am I still doing this?" moment, with the Horde reputation experiment that turned into a leveling experiment. I had been stuck a bubble and change from 62 for more than a day. I have had exalted reputation with all the player races since 61. Why was I still in Azeroth?

So, I ditched all my old world quests, completed three quests into Outlands, dinged 62 ...and thought about it again.

This morning, I went back and picked up the old world quests again. The idea that Winterspring, Eastern Plaguelands and (yes, even) Silithus were still there untouched left me feeling I'd left this big, gaping hole in the program.

I suppose when an experiment in a game stops being fun, it's time to stop. But honestly, I can't say it's not fun. I think it was the mental hurdle of being stuck at 61.95 for a day that got me antsy. Yes, the experience has really slowed down, but when has this quest started being about experience? Wasn't I saying earlier that I wanted experience to slow down? Well, apparently, be careful what you wish for.

So I'm back on track, back on the program. I just had a minor problem with my commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Citizen Azeroth: 81% into 61, one goal completed

As of this morning, my rogue is 81% into level 61 and Exalted with all five player factions.

The final reputation ding came from completing the Defile Uther's Tomb quest in Western Plaguelands. I admit I was starting to become tempted to finish off the remaining few hundred points with runecloth turn-ins, but I hung in there and didn't do any repeatable rep turn-ins to finish off Silvermoon.

So am I cutting short the experiment? Nope. I still intend to do as many old world quests as I can and see how much experience I can get just on old world questing. Given that I am just a couple bubbles from 62, haven't completed Western Plaguelands, and haven't even started questing in Burning Steppes (much less Eastern Plaguelands, Winterspring, and Silithus, except for a few quests from other zones that pathed in there), I expect to be at least well past my mid-60s before I call the experiment done.

But if you see a female orc rogue running around on a Swift Pink Hawkstrider, give me a /wave.

Citizen Azeroth: Rep Experiment 2 - Phase ... er, something complete

OK, I've lost count.

But I finished Felwood, Azshara, and Un'goro, and Sunken Temple, and desecrated and honored a whole heck of a lot of fires.

Level: 61 (43%)
Number of quests completed: 1179

The high number has to do with the Midsummer Festival. Every "Honor the Flame" and "Desecrate the Flame" has its own quest. So it really upped the count.

Silvermoon faction: 19548/21000 (1452 from Exalted)

Still have done no repeatable reputation quests.

So, I am now 61 and heading into the next phase of Western Plaguelands and Burning Steppes. Then, last but not least, the last phase is Eastern Plaguelands, Winterspring, and Silithus.

Silithus may be where my resolve breaks. That place is a total pesthole.

As far as instances go -- from this point on, I'll do old world instances as I am able, but frankly finding people to do them with is challenging. I have a couple friends who have been kind enough to offer to take me through many of them, and I will take them up on it to a point, but I don't want to intrude on them too badly. It's about now I need to face up to the fact that hardly anyone wants to do the old level 60 content anymore.