WoWoW: What’s The Hurry

Words on Worlds of Warcraft by John Zakour

I received my copy of Lich King on Friday morning but purposely didn’t play until Friday evening. Partly because I had work to do, partly because I thought it would be a good lesson in patience for me. My plan has always been to work first and use WoW as my little reward.

My goal is to get to level 80 on my mage before my favorite niece (my inspiration for the Flaxen Femme Fatale) and her husband come to visit us the week before Christmas. With each new level requiring more than a million and half experience and figuring I could grind 500K xp in day (and still get work and life done) I thought this was a reasonable goal. I also want to always have rested experience as that just makes more sense to me: twice the xp for the same amount of work.

Once I started playing I hopped a bird to Wetlands then took the book there to Northend. I figured the Howling Fjord would be the less crowded of the starting areas. My initial impressions were that Blizzard did a really nice job. The places are laid out well. Quests fall into place nicely so there is not a lot of excess hiking back and forth. The quests are mostly interesting and seem to have just the right amount of challenge. After playing for a couple of hours and having over 400k xp without pushing I knew my goal was well within reach. I felt pretty good about my pacing. Then there was a world announcement that the first player at hit level 80. Yep I wasn’t even at 71 yet and somebody had hit 80. I wasn’t sure what to think about this. I looked at the general chat to see what was going on. I expected to see some congrats and some jeers. I was surprised to see only jeers,

“Another loser with no friends.”
“Bet he’s a virgin.”
“He’s probably fat with zits…”
“He just played the beta….”
“Levels played in beta don’t count…”
“Yeah, but you know where to go…”

The remarks went on but I stopped reading. I started to collect my own thoughts. First I was wondering why everybody assumed this player was a guy, but I guess they figured most woman have more common sense than to sit more than 24 straight hours at a computer playing a game. I have to admit I was at first a little envious. Somebody got to 80 before I had even made it 71. Albeit they had a day head start on me but there was no way I could even dream of being anything more than 72 by the next day.

My son sitting at the next computer started reading to me some of the techniques people were using to hit 80. The first players at least certainly weren’t doing this alone. The first guy to level to 80 had a healer with him all the time. As he grinded the healer healed so he had very little down time. Others hunted in groups - the player leveling would tag a bunch of mobs then his / her teammates would finish off the mob. So you get most of the xp with out much of the work. In a way I think this is ingenious. But in another way I have to say, “what’s the hurry???”

Yeah, sure it’s kind of cool being the first to level 80 on your realm. You do get some good bragging rights and you do may get first dibs at some cool gear. But when it all comes down to it, you’re just pushing buttons on a computer playing a game. It’s not the first person to scale Everest. Not the first to hit 700 home runs. Not the first black president of a super power. You were basically willing to sit at a computer for more than a day straight. In a way it’s an accomplishment but then again I’m glad there is no way in “heck” my wife, family, editors, agents and friends would let me sit at a computer playing a game for more than a couple of hours.

So congrats to those who already made level 80. Now go outside and avoid your computer for a while. I will see you in 80s arenas in about three weeks. Sure your gear will be better than mine. Sure you’ll clobber me.

But life will go on just the same and that’s just fine with me.

John Zakour is a humor / sf/ fantasy writer with an online Master’s degree in Human Behavior. He has written zillions (well, thousands) of gags for syndicated comics and comedians (including: Rugrats, Grimmy, Bound and Gagged, Dennis the Menace, The tonight show and, Joan River’s old TV show.) John also writes his own syndicated comic, Working Daze for United Media. John has been the weekly cartoonist for Geek.com and has sold cartoons or gags to hundreds of journals, magazines and web sites. John also has been a regular contributor to Nickelodeon magazine writing Fairly Odd Parents, Rugrats and Jimmy Neutron comic books. Recently John has started writing Simpsons comics for Bongo comics. John’s has written seven SF novels for Daw books the latest The Flaxen Femme Fatale hits bookstore on December 4th.