There’s a lot of talking about quitting WoW these days. Some do it for real. Others are just playing with the thought.
I’m not ready to join either of the categories yet. But it certainly makes me start thinking. A long time ago I wrote a post about what I would do the last few hours if Blizzard suddenly decided to close down the servers. At that point I wanted to have a last few hours in Karazhan, and then let Larísa finish her days in a simple way, dressed in a simple white dress, forever merrily playing at some idyllic green pasture such as Elwynn Forest.
And I think I would say the same if you asked me again, almost a year later. Those two activities represent what is the essence of the game to me. One is raiding. I’d probably not spend my last night online in Karazhan, but I’d certainly want to get a last mouthful of it to enjoy. Maybe one of the new, quicker encounters, such as Sartharion or Malygos?
Ever since I discovered the charm of raiding, it has been the warm, throbbing heart of my WoW playing. It has brought me focus, relaxation, excitement, friendship and all of those zen moments of clarity which make the real world worries fade away.
But the other aspect, the running around barefoot on a field, is just as important to me, even though I tend to forget it sometimes when I get too caught up in the “always being productive and efficient” approach to the game, which is rather silly when I think closer about it.
I want to remember my character Larísa as someone who is free from burdens and obligations, who happily runs around, probably making cute emotes, playing hide and seek and just enjoying herself and the world. It’s somehow a comforting thought to think that she’ll still be there, even if it’s only in my imagination.
My 33 list
Today however I started to pay the issue a little bit more of attention. I thought: when I decide to quit the game, the question isn’t just how I’ll spend my last few hours. It would probably be a decision that would grow over time. And even once it’s taken I’d probably have some more days to spend in the game before the subscription ran out. And I was asking myself: are there some things in the game that I haven’t done and I’d really like to do before I can leave it with an easy mind?
Have you seen those books flooding the market, where people list “1000 movies you need to see before you die”, “1000 places you need to visit” and so on? I don’t think I could come up with 1000 “must-do” activities in WoW, and I certainly don’t have the nerve to tell others what they should do. But for fun I made a smaller list for myself. So here I proudly present you 33 things (without any priority order) that I want to do before I log out for the very last time! Maybe some of it can inspire you if you feel stuck and out of inspiration what to do next:
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Win an arena match. This is a brave one. Will I ever be able to leave WoW if doing this is a condition? But I’m always up for a challenge.
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Clear Sunwell. A whole raiding instance that I haven’t seen. Seems like such a waste of content.
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Create a horde character on a strange server where I don’t know anyone and level it to at least 40. No quest addons allowed. Will I once again feel the thrill and excitement I felt being new and lost in an unknown world? Or will it be just a “meh, kill 10 horde version of pigs” experience? Will I make friends? Will I progress more easily than I did when I started, thanks to my experience? I want to know what I’ve learned over the years.
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Eat a delicious chocolate cake at a beautiful spot. It makes me smile every time! Not for the achievement, but for the silly little firework and the completely unnecessary buff.
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Get an Azure Whelping. Preferably not at AH, unless I’m desperate.
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Get myself a Winterspring Frostsaber mount. (I imagine that after such a grind I’ll felt relived rather than sorry to leave the game. It’s my cunning plan to detach myself from Azeroth.)
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Make a cool Slowfall. From Darnassus to Kalimdor, from Stormspire to Hellfire. Be a video copy cat and pretend that I came up with it myself.
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Try some world PvP. Join a For the Alliance raid.
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Arrange and lead a successful instance run of any kind from the beginning to the end. (Should involve more players than myself.) Just to prove to myself that I can.
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Run an instance as a healer. (Which means that I’ll have to level my little druid at least to Deadmine level).
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Run an instance as a tank. (Same druid! Dual spec, ftw!)
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Roll a Death Knight and level it at least until Outland ready. They say it's such a cool questline.
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Buy an awesome Darkmoon trinket. It’s always seemed way out of reach to me. Is it really so?
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Find a sneaky player who could take me on a guided tour to some lesser known places over the world where you’re not supposed to be. It’s probably forbidden, but who cares since I’m leaving anyway?
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Get an undying title of any valor. Prove to the world, and over all to myself, that I’m NOT necessarily suicidal just because I’m a mage.
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Do if not all, at least most quests in Northrend. There are so many interesting quests, including cool things like movies, vehicles and phases, and I still haven’t come around to do many of them, which is a pity.
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Do the Make Love, not Warcraft achivement, hugging dead enemies before they release corpse. It’s cute and still sort of humiliating in a devilish way. Kill them and then hug them. I love the idea.
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Spec frost and go nuts aoe!
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Harass some poor flag watcher in AB with my rogue. I’ve been attacked SO many times by rogues. The revenge will be sweet.
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Spend a silly night at the Ironforge bridge in company with our realm clown Cacknoob. Maybe he was right all the time? Maybe that’s the way the game should be played. I don’t know until I’ve tried it.
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Kill the toughest raid boss that the game offers at that moment. I really can’t leave as long as he is standing on his feet. Who it will be depends on in which expansion I’ll be leaving.
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Disable all map addons and play hide and seek with someone likeminded in Stormwind.
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Spend a couple of nights at a role playing server to see what it’s like.
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Complete the spear quest at Hodirs. It was so annoying that I gave up and leveled my rep to exalted by other means. But it’s annoying to have it undone. I want to show myself that I can do it.
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Have a ride with the subway between Stormwind and Ironforge. I’ll never forget the thrill I felt the first time I did it. Being a mage you get into teleporting habits pretty quickly though, so it’s been too long since I last did it.
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Catch some fish in Ogrimmar! I'm not a coward.
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Get the Polymorph Cat spell, make a macro for random polymorphing and find a spot where I can amuse myself with that on the behalf of some poor mob. I would feel like a real wizard for once.
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Dress up in the useless, but good looking cloths that currently are just collecting dust in my bank vault. I’ve never ever put on those beautiful pink and black dresses, always walking around in full combat gear. It’s a shame. Larísa should get a casual dressed night at least once before she retires.
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Complete my world exploring. When I first started to play the game, the map was grey and the world was huge and endless. Now it has shrunk sadly and I know very well it isn’t. There’s no excuse to leave the game without seeing it all.
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Kill a rare spawn. The requirements of The Northern Exposure achievement seem modest enough. Find and kill ONE of 23 named creatures. But I have yet to see a single one of them. Heming Nesingwary must be displeased with me.
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Take a bunch of screenshots of dear friends and places in the game. I’ve never been good at picture taking and the few ones I had were lost in the last computer crash. Of course I have it all in my head, but it would be nice to have a few pictures too to show my grand children.
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Give a game master a farewell hug. I think they need it.
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Have a haircut.
Nooooo! The last one was just a joke. Won't happen. Ever.
I'll leave that open for you. What is the 33rd thing I should do before I quit?
30 comments:
That's a lovely idea. I always imagined Spinks would retire to the troll fishing village in Desolace (it's really bad that I've forgotten the name but it always seemed like such a laid back relaxed seaside sort of place).
I also did once win an arena match. We formed a 5 man team and only had 1 member who had a clue what they were doing. Fortunately we came up against a team which was even more clueless.
My suggestion for other things to do is going to involve flying because I never get tired of having a cool flying mount. Do one of the TBC bombing quests.
ps. if you do decide to play horde, feel free to come to Argent Dawn and look me up :)
"Kill the toughest raid boss that the game offers at that moment. I really can’t leave as long as he is standing on his feet. Who it will be depends on in which expansion I’ll be leaving."
I think once this happens, I am leaving wow for good.
Don't leave us anytime soon Larisa, I don't think the blogmosphere can take it!
<3
33. Roll up on Draneor to come say hi to Cassini. Bake him a cake since his cooking skill is about 12 so he can't do his own. :(
Scary thought - - not because theres nothing else to do, theres life and loads of other games i play - - but its a lot of time invested AND its a really fun game!
But anyway, you have some prety nice wish lists - - for me it would be;
In my Full Deathmist gear, on my hawkstrider- sit in a location such as Goldshire or Dalaran.
Talking to people about stuff counting dowen like New years day till last minutue of WoW. :(
For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Hence, #33 must be. Promise that you will never, ever; no really, never, ever ever quit the game.
A "must do before leave WoW for myself": Start an ally char on Stormrage and give a /hug to Larísa
33. Think of the class you can least imagine yourself enjoying, roll it.
One of mine would be to level to 80 on all classes.
: flying isn't a bad idea. I'll never ever forget the feeling I got from having my first flying mount... Epic moment in the game indeed! And thank's for the invitation. I may very well turn up one day and say hi!
: Whic boss actually is tha last one depends also on how we define it. Currently I guess many think it's the extra boss on Ulduar hard mode, but in my world that Ygg-guy is good enough. But we all have to set our own limits.
And don't worry. No plans now at least.
@Cassini: a server transfer to bake you a cake! Seems a bit complicated. But roll a DK at my server and I'd be happy to treat you with one!
@Kromus: yeah, a lot of farewell chats would definitely be needed. Say goodbye to current and ex-guildies... I get sad just thinking about it.
@Elnia: hm... you mean I should tie myself up so I can't leave or so I have to practice on breaking promises to myself just to see that it isn't such a big deal? I've got to think about that one.
@Gevlon: Awwww. Dito! Do you know something... I actually rolled a horde character on a foreign server the other night, just because I felt like seeing how a horde starting area could look like. I wanted to roll on your server just to be able to say hi one day (if I wasn't in a shy mood). However your server seemed to be full atm... But noone would be happier if you came by to get a Larisa hug than me!
: hm... I wonder what that would be... I'm actually curious and interested in every class in the game. Maybe arms/fury warrior then? I'd never felt any attraction to that. But I wouldn't mind trying to tank!
: wow! You're going to play this for long I hear!
I think I'd have to go back to Nagrand to sit on one of the floating islands and look at the sky and the stars. In fact, I might just do that tonight... :)
I don't quite understand why everyone complains that Hodir's spear is so hard, I did the quest everyday in 5 minutes, it's the easiest thing you can do for rep. Perhaps you need advice?
Very cool list. I like it. I might do one of my own.
33. Say goodbye to all your online friends.
As helpful as that anonymous comment was...I admit I got to enjoy the Hodir spear quest the best of all the Hodir dailies (fighting over Hot and Cold mobs still haunts my dreams), but only after a couple epic fail attempts. you simply have to keep banging "1" to increase grip near 100 and then have the sound turned on to press "2" for dodge every time he tries to swipe you. Other than that, spear him with "3" and "4" as you are able and eventually you hit phase 2, which is basically 1-1-1-3-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-3 until that Fatal Strike hits. I only got up to about 80-90% successful, but it's better than banging you rhead against a wall.
I usually don't care for list entries, but this one was very thoughtful. Shouldn't be surprised on this blog! My only easy addition would be playing each class up to at least a low level (say 20-30) to experience all the different classes and starting zones.
3-man a level-appropriate instance because it's challenging, and honestly a little goofy and fun.
Sad news, after you kill one silver another achievements opens up to kill them all...
Hopefully you arent thinking of leaving any time soon.
Similar to #22, my old guildies used to run around Stormwind yelling:
/y MARCO!!
and we'd see how many others we could get to yell
/y POLO!
It was silly and meaningless, but it was fun.
12. Roll a Death Knight and level it at least until Outland ready. They say it's such a cool questline.
Seriously if you haven't done this you need to. It sets up so much of Naxx beforehand, but I won't say any more. Set aside about 2 hours and you can do pretty much all of it.
There are some things on that list that you ought to do before your next raid. You are seriously missing out.
33. Kite gluth's zombies as a frost mage. And live to tell the tale.
One of the games I mentioned our guild plays is a Naked VC run sooo..run through VC naked, pick up whatever you can wear from there and see what crazy look you have at the end. Dear god, please dont die in there hehehe
If you really aren't a coward, you will:
a) combine 26 & 27... Got to Orgimmar and sheep the Horde over and over from a safe hiding spot...
b) Ignore Krizz's suggestion of Kiting Gluth's zombies as Frost spec... Real Mages kite with Fire!
22. Disable all map addons and play hide and seek with someone likeminded in Stormwind.
Pure gold!
Also a tip for the Hodir spear quest, use your frost/ice armour and your mana shield, that should buy you a bit more time to get him down.
@Softi: another nice suggenstion for the 33 list. And you don't have to wait until you quit to do those things!
: It was a while ago I did it, but if I remember it right, I really followed the guides and advice there are but failed anyway. Someone suggested it could be a UI thing, bugged, latency, whatever... But it WAS long ago and I should give it another shot.
@Rivs: looking forward to read that!
@Carra: oh yes, I'll do that too of course, even though it's not a "game activity" like the other stuff on the list.
@Fitz: thank you for the hints! I'll look at those when I do it once again. Actually I have thought about if I should play every class at least a few levels. I've never been an altholic, but maybe that's something I should try befor quitting.
@Bri: sounds fun! I really miss the 5-man instances now (we're too overgeared and don't have any rewards in there). Maybe the 80 ones would be fun again 3-manned?
@Shy: I wouldn't say "sad"... but I'm not sure I'll go for the full collection either. Or rather: I'm pretty sure I won't. Not even if I quit.
@Fish: no, as I stated, I have no plans on that.
@Bob: yelling in public? oooohhh... I'm to shy I think. I've never ever yelled anything in WoW. Not even once.
: yeah, it's really a shame I haven't come around to do it. There always seem to be stuff that I "have" to do first. I'm taking the game way too seriously sometimes.
: hm... not doing Naxx anymore... torture a PUG with my kiting failures until they kick me? Maybe, maybe... Who cares about server rep when you're about to leave? Hm.. Thinking about it: I do.
@Cathy: haha.. Not a bad idea. I've never ever done any naked run. Or wait: I have. I take off my clothes at the end boss of Occulus if I'm expecting wipes (achievement fun). But never like that. Sounds like fun.
: that sounds sort of suicidal. No chance of getting the undying title at that run.
: actually if I'd do that quest I'd rather do it on my rogue alt, since she still needs rep with Hodir... I guess I shouldn't care since I would be leaving. But maybe I could dodge a bit better being a rogue?
I've been playing my alliance hunter again and it came completely out of the blue but after leveling 5 toons to 80, I thought I'd be bored. I wasn't. the storylines from a different perspective are amazing, especially in northrend. I have to say I'm just a bit jealous of alliance storylines :P
as for your 33 - some of my characters, I just didn't want to change the hairstyle. or color. but I wanted the achievement O-O. so I changed accessories :P my mage got to wear new earrings and even though she basically looked the same - I got to see that box pop up :)
as for things to do before quitting the game...you just got me thinking :P again :)
Once I swam around the southern side of Tanaris to see what was there. I recall finding a cave, a witch doctor, and a campfire. The view was a vast sea with a low sun. You could almost smell the salt tang in the air and the warmth of the fading sun on your face. I would would make my final cast into that blue sea and rest eternally on the white sands.
Morven - Akama
Larísa, start on #31 now. When a guildmate died suddenly earlier this month, I went back through a couple of years of my screenshots folder looking for pics of him. A disturbing number were of people's backs, as I screenshotted text frequently while doing guild business.
I'm going to take more pictures of friends I enjoy, doing things they enjoy, from the front!
Perhaps #33 could be some in-game random acts of kindness, now, to build up more good memories to review when you quit.
I'm actually working on a version of #3. While I created a Horde character on my main server (rather than a strange server), I have no other Hordies anywhere so I haven't treated her like my other alts, sending her gold, etc. I take my time with her, reading all the quests, knowing there is no rush to level, exploring the Barrens slowly and with much curiousity. She is a blast to play, and I highly recommend doing this - you'll never get back the original wonderment at the game, but seeing it this way is almost a new game in and of itself.
Love your list and absolutly love your blog, I only recently came across you after reading about you in another blog. I love the way you write, so easy to read and you can feel the passion for the subject at hand just in the way it reads. As to a number 33 I would explore the barrens again savering the sunsets from on top of the mountain above the wailing caverns one last time before the world gets rent apart by the cataclysm.
Go to a lvl1 spawn area and hand out bags of gold to newborn players.
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