I hate this time in the game’s lifecycle: that last couple of months before an expansion, where everything you could do is viewed in light of “well, is it worth it?”
It’s not that I’m not playing, or that I don’t want to play. I’m doing weekly Karazhans and 3-5 heroics a week on my priest, for badges; I’m doing dailies a few times a week for the cash injection. I’m still enjoying WoW – I’m not burnt out; I have no desire to stop or take a break.
But every time I think of a goal to shoot for, I can’t help but think “but that will be meaningless any day now”. I know, of course, that every goal is made obsolete sooner or later – gear is always replaced, level caps are always increased – but it’s right now with Wrath looming that it starts to affect my motivation.
There are certainly things I want to finish before Wrath Day, but most of them are, well, tedious prep-work – stockpile Honor and Arena points on my main, build up cash, et cetera. None of them are particularly exciting or motivating.
…I guess it’s back to levelling another alt.
What about you? What are you all doing to keep yourselves involved and motivated, as Wrath Day draws ever-closer?
I just finished my big goal before the expansion, obtaining the Champion of the Naaru title on my main. I will try to go 6/6 in ZA, but it might not happen. We have no geared paladin tank, so Dragonhawk has not been willing to die.
My three other 70s are decently geared, done with all gear and honor grinds. To entertain myself and to finally have tank, DPS and healer, I am leveling a shaman, and also yet another paladin. I still enjoy leveling, strange as it may seem.
But really, with my big goal achieved, I can now relax. :)
I’m in much the same place…except, with five 70s (all of whom have at least one epic flyer), leveling another alt or farming for a Netherdrake just doesn’t appeal much.
While I love running my Priest in raids, I don’t enjoy heroics so much. I do just fine in them, but I’d really rather play my hunter. Sooo…lately I haven’t been playing much during the day, and logging in mostly to raid (except for the weekly Kara badge run; sure wish I could do two each week!).
However, I think I will try to get fishing maxed on the hunter before Wrath comes out…fortunately, both mains are 375 cooking and first aid. I suspect yours are too. Even the healers. RIGHT? ;)
I was just thinking this myself today, as I took stock of my current crop of alts. I play WoW very differently to you — the only badges I’ve earned came in Shattered Sun Supplies and I’ve never set foot in a heroic or anything bigger than a five man — but I still get motivation problems when I think of Wrath coming.
My answer is ultimately the same as yours: I’m levelling another alt; my first pally! I’m also trying not to think of the boring prep work I should be doing: building up a buffer of gold, capping fishing, etc.
Kes – indeed :) Sailan (my main) has 375 in both her professions, plus Cooking, Fishing and First Aid. All my other 70s are the same, barring Fishing, which I ain’t levelling more than once ;)
I have a confession to make… I haven’t logged in for about a month. Just trying to concentrate more on my blog and work, and although I miss playing, everything just seems like pointless grind. I hope Wrath will be worth the wait.
Pretty much I log on for Kara, that’s the only sure thing. I generally log in every day to sell things on the AH but other than that if I don’t feel like doing anything then I don’t, if I do then I do.
Horns – I think it will be. I just started actually playing the beta, rather than doing tradeskills/exploration, and I haven’t had so much fun in WoW in ages. There were quests that just had me clapping my hands with glee over how much fun they were. I’m really looking forward to it going live.
Twink! – and slap around level 10’s in Bg’s..
I’m collecting Blacksmithing recipes and trying to do all the non-daily quests I haven’t completed yet.
The main thing I still want to do is run Magisters Terrace lots because there’s still so much I need out of it (if you include the rep rewards).
For my pally it’s a goal I’d already set, but I have so much trouble getting groups there that it’s taking me forever.
For my rogue I just want the Trinket really because those aren’t upgraded easily by levelling usually.
Everything else I’ve done really. Even my 56 warlock has 375 in both his tradeskills.
I do enjoy levelling him and my baby shammy, but I don’t feel _driven_ to do it.
I will save leveling my last three alts for closer to wotlk when raiding has shut down .
Gear wise 8/8 t6 would look very nice next to my 8/8 t2 but not sure if it will happen. I an working though the last few Outland quests and even oldworld quests and their are 4-5 reps I wouldnt mind maxing out but no hurry. Working on my ret set as well with 2 slots to go.
Alts its hard to find motivation once they are at the full epic or close to it point. Sure I can jump into any t4 content and be a asset but jumping up to timed ZA or t6 is hard.
In the meantime just stockpiling gold/honor.
*waves* to Kin
I’m going crazy about factions with my hunter. Am currently working on getting exalted with all the old world’s main factions (i.e. Undercity, TB, Orgrimmar and Silvermoon). It’s really easy going and kind of fun – at least to me.
Also got the idea to finally get the Bloodsail’s Admiral Hat. I can only recommend it! The outfit looks SO cool.
Only problem is getting your Steamwheedle factions back to neutral afterwards. Still working on that, but if your not in a hurry and pressing things, it doesn’t feel too bad.
Third, I am leveling my sixth character to 70, my druid, so I can learn Alchemy with a 70 character (my current alchemist is stuck at 60).
Started at 67, am now almost 69. Again, with no hurry so it doesn’t feel too painful to be in Nagrand a g a i n.
I actually feel that there’s still so much to do! :)
I’m completely unmotivated!
I’ve been levelling some alts so I have a choice of characters (priest, mage, warrior, pala, druid) to level with when the Wrath reset starts but even levelling is getting difficult:
– Bored with Outland
– Bored with the current class mechanics
The more I read about Wrath and the changes, the less I get interested in playing my current characters…
Over the next few months I’ll at least get all my alts to 68, but Wrath can’t come soon enough.
Even then, it’s starting to be a long time playing the same game so I’m just wondering even how long Wrath can hold my attention – perhaps the only reason I haven’t switched to LOTRO or something is that I have a G5 iMac so my MMO choice is rather limited!
WoW is a great game… it’s just starting to feel quite old. Perhaps this is a seperate comment, but really how many expansions can it go on? I suspect just one more before it really does start to feel ancient. I hope that Blizzard are working on WoW2…
One could say levelling an alt is a waste of time too…i take the view that as much as i can max out my main before expansion, at least it is still progression.
things to do :
see new content
get titles (as you take them with you, and several you cant get after you go 70+)
get unique gear/mounts etc.
stockpile money (as you will always need this)
I have all the Paladin tanking/healing gear available to me for content we are still doing .. with no 25 mans its a mixture of BT/Badges/ZA gear …
So started working on my Druids tanking gear, collecting badges … however I hate 5 man tanking with him so just knocking over karazhan/grulls each week.
Atm am just making gold for WOTLK, however did buy 2 more TBC packs today and when my new PC arrives (in the next week) I plan on quad-boxing some toons … with the rewards for invite a friend I couldnt resist, means I will have 4 accounts, no I am no an addict!
On my main, I just finished grinding out Wintersaber rep a week or two ago. So I am leveling a Frostsaber Pride Watcher to 70 to match my mount. She’s lv 65 1/2 right now, and I’ve been farming primal air in SMV to level her up. So I’m getting xp for her and mats for me at the same time, which is nice.
I’m also trying to finish leveling my pally tank, she just got to 67 over the weekend. She runs with my hubby’s tree, who is level 65 now. We’ve been running 5-mans with some guild alts who are about the same level.
When both of those get boring, I’ve got quite a few baby alts here and there that I mess around with from time to time. I may turn one of them into a twink, just because I’ve never had one before. We’ll see. :)
My server is a little behind. I am completely motivated every night because I still haven’t faced down Illidan. But we are close 7/9 BT, 5/5 MH. A couple more weeks of helms into our guild and it will be all BT all the time until Illidan bites it.
Because I don’t have time to play as much as some others, I very rarely run out of things I want to do. There are Naxx PuGs on Proudmoore for T3, I still want to finish the AQ scepter quest chain, the timbermaw furbolg trinket, try soloing some BC instances or maybe a solo 45min Baron run, an epic flyer on my warlock before WotLK hits, the “tank” trinket from MgT… heaps of stuff ;)
I’m not really feeling the pre-expansion crunch this time, but I certainly did before the Burning Crusade came out. I countered that by rolling a tauren warrior (my other toons being alliance), and gearing up the newly revamped pvp system. It was a nice change of pace since I didn’t have to worry about being online at any set time, I could try out a new class and see new quests, and I found out that I liked low-level pvp a lot more than top level battlegrounds.
I made it to level 29 before BC came out, and I still log on to my tauren when I need a break from my normal WoW routine.
My Tankadin was 70 before he finished Terrokar; that left BEM, Nagrand, SMV and Netherstorm full of quests. I’m working on finishing those up, I’m 3.5k away from exalted with SSO, that’ll happen tonight. Then there’s the gear grind as well, even though Wrath is an ominous cloud shaking its intagible hand over me “You’ll never finish that before I arrive”; i’m still trying to gear for Kara because I will tank that place once before I die, or hit level 71.
yea with honor and arena points, reckon u can stockpile em and go into wrath and buy some stuff as soon as u hit 80? I’ll prolly end up maxing out honor and arena on both my 70s just by day-to-day play.
My big goal is to look like a proper T6 tank before the expansion. With my recent acquisition of Bulwark of Azzinoth, that is mostly accomplished (my bracer is the warrior T6 equivalent, but it’s covered up by the gloves).
I leveled a mage to do my dailies, so I have more money than I know what to do with. I got the money saved up for my Death Knight’s epic flying mount when she get to 70s, though she will probably not see much of Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley.
Now, I just have to get the mage tailor to crank out enough bags to get the DK properly geared.
On the one hand, I think I am sorta “feeling the burnout”, but on the other hand, I still have a lot of stuff (mostly alt-related) that I’d like to do. I still like the idea of exploring the world on lowbies =P