Tobold's Blog
Saturday, March 06, 2010
 
Off the beaten path

Tobold the tauren shaman is up to level 10, and now has 64 gold. That involved fishing at level 7 in a level 72 zone, Dragonblight. Few people realize that outside instances you can reach any point in the game with any level of character, if you don't mind dying a lot. So now, back from my trip to Northrend, I'm again in a zone not adequate for my level, fishing in Cragpool Lake in Stonetalon Mountains to find the Weather-Beaten Journal needed to find fish pools from your mini-map. I'll need that for my planned excursion to Stranglethorn vale to participate in the fishing contest there with my low-level character.

All this obviously isn't leveling me up very fast. Gaining power for you character, in the form of levels and gear, is one of the prime motivators for playing MMORPGs. Thus people tend to choose the most efficient path to gain power. But consider this for a minute: By definition there is only one most efficient path. The further you stray from the path of optimum efficiency, the more options you have. And ultimately, especially if you are on your Xth alt, doing something very different can be more fun than doing something very efficient.
Comments:
No need to die more than once really, to get where you need to go. I've made countless (ok, maybe 10) level 1 Booty Bay neutral AH alts by ghostrunning.

Say, for instance, you make a level 1 human. Die, and start running down to Booty Bay as a ghost. You not only run faster, you don't have to worry about being killed again. When you get outside the entrance to BB, the Spirit Keeper is to the left. DON'T talk to him/her!

Log out, then log back in. This severs you from your old corpse, allowing you to talk to SK's in different zones, without getting yanked back to the one closest to your body when you rez.

Talk to the Spirit Keeper, rez outside BB, and run inside. Congrats, you now have someone stationed there to help you transfer items/recipes from one faction to the other, or simply to look for the Crusader pets that are posted there.

This method is great when you know where Spirit Keepers in other zones are located, and you want to run a low level through to get flightpoints or for some other reason.

Cheers!
 
I spent the best part of an hour wondering why you were in Northrend... And I'm kinda in awe of the 'thinking outside the box' ability you have there!
 
I couldn't agree more, Tobold! Doing stuff other people don't do is a liberating experience. I believe it also greatly increases the longevity of the game (any game, really).

Have fun in the woods, and don't go looking for that path anytime soon ;)
 
I'm leveling for the ganking project, in a realm where there are 2-3 lvl80 enemy gankers in the 20-30 zones like Ashenvale. So my leveling is optimized over "where to get XP without being killed". I quest in very hidden places.
 
Hi Tobold.

I was writing a post in regard to the nature of "doing your own thing" in Darkfall, and I saw your entry.

I linked to it and mentioned that this was another excellent point to make. Thank you for writing it. :)
 
I can see from your achievements page that you managed to find the book, good work! The Spirit Res trick that Bloodshrike posted has worked really well for me in the past, one other thing you can do to move around the map is to group up for a random dungeon, get killed, release and while you're outside the instance leave the group. You then go to the instance as normal, but when you leave via the portal, you end up outside it, not where you started.
 
awesome. I love these ideas.
 
Good post Tobold. It strikes me that one lesson to be learned from this is that just about any game can be a sandbox game if you are prepared to "go off the beaten track" as you put it.
 
The sandbox is in your head.

It never fails to astonish me how surprised MMO players can be when they finally realise that control of how they play is actually in their own hands.

There's always more fun off the path than on it.
 
Remarkable way to have some fun. ;)
 
@mbp

What Tobold is doing and what a Sandbox are is suppose to be is far from the same thing.
 
I leveled my main (Tauren hunter) in the Tirisfal Glades and in the teens made the trek to Darnassus to tame an owl. Those journeys are some of the best memories of leveling.
 
@Epiny

As soon as you start defining "what the sandbox is supposed to be" are you not missing the point entirely?
 
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