Sunday, February 15, 2009

Hardcore Levelers

You've heard it or read it before. That strange attitude some people emanate to make themselves feel superior. Cliches such as:

Love it or leave it.

You don't vote, you can't complain.

Put up or shut up.

Or in World of Warcraft, if you don't like leveling, why do you play?

Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy leveling a dozen characters from 0-80 through mostly dead zones in the hardest way possible and through content they've seen a hundred times. And if you don't like leveling they way they do, then you don't deserve to play WoW.

Sound familiar?

Many of the elite hardcore raiders have a similar attitude with regards to people who want more player-friendly raids.

I don't think these are generally the same people. I believe that hardcore raiders and hardcore levelers are generally two different types of players, though I'm also sure that there is some cross-over.

Do you have a suggestion on how to make leveling easier and/or faster? Be prepared for someone to suggest that you should stop playing the game.

I don't know who these people think they are, but they can eat my toe jam. So long as I'm not being inconvenienced, I really don't care how anyone wants to play their game and I fully expect to receive the same courtesy.

I have nine toons on a PVE server at various points of progress with the highest one at 72. On my PVE server I expect to play my game with out people grieving me or stealing my quest mobs after I've cleared an area. Yeah, it happens anyway, but the expectation is there.

I have a level 58 toon with a couple of bank alts on a PVP server. I expect to be ganked, camped, and griefed there. I react accordingly.

I can't stand leveling alts. I absolutely love leveling my first character in any game I've ever played. On some of the old Final Fantasy games I've ground my way to level 99...once. Once I've leveled a toon in World of Warcraft, I consider the game played. From there on I'm just goofing around, maybe doing some raiding, maybe some farming. Once in a while I get a bug up my butt and I decide to play a different character, but I simply don't want to repeat the entire game over to do so.

You play the game your way, I'll play it my way. It just so happens that millions of players agree with me, replaying the entire game is not FUN. It is tedious. It is monotonous.

Why can we raid the same instance a hundred times? Because our friends are there with us. Someone is going to get something useful that they haven't had before.

And further more, Blizzard agrees with us. You don't like the changes to leveling? All I have to say is love it or leave it, baby.

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