Posts with tag goal

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Once upon a time in a distant land called Azeroth, a Night Elf druid was born. This little Night Elf was running around being its level 4 self, exploring the world and its purpleness (Teldrassil being the whole world for a level 4.) A hop skip, and a boat ride away, she found herself in Stormwind, city of the humans. "It's not nearly as purple here as it is back home!"

Hardly two steps into the great city when all of a sudden the sky darkened and a deafening screech rose. At first startled and then in awe, the little druid looked up to see the silhouette of a great winged dragon. The best part about it ... it was purple! "I must own that dragon!" She thought. After a quick trip to the internet, the goal was set and the journey began, pushing through 80 levels of dungeons and deaths, beginning the rep grind, and finally obtaining the fruit of the efforts: a netherwing drake.

Although I don't play that Night Elf druid as much anymore, I still remember the wonder and awe I first felt when I began playing. Have you had similar experiences? Did you ever have a goal that you once thought was unobtainable? If so, did you prove yourself wrong, or does your goal still elude you?

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Arrowd of the US Cairne server has a question: How do you keep leveling without getting bored, abandoning a character, or rerolling? She says that she's had around 14 characters, and she's never managed to stick with one past about level 45. She always gets bored, and she wonders if there is a way to avoid it.

Now as I've mentioned before, I've leveled a lot of characters myself, and have a few 70s, but even I can sometimes get a little bit tired of the grind, and sometimes even I need to make up goals to keep myself focused. Sometimes I even need it for my level 70s if I'm running low on gold or raiding supplies. In that way, I can definitely feel where she's coming from, but I do (usually) manage to keep myself motivated.

Sometimes, for me, the Motivation is pretty simple. For example, on that Shaman I'm leveling, what keeps me going is the prospect of getting some sweet Dual Wield action going. I'm actually having a lot of fun with her, so I don't need to focus on it too hard, but the idea of imagining her with 2 axes enchanted with Windfury is a mental picture that is too awesome to put into words. I mean, we're talking cover of a Dragonforce album awesome.

So now I turn the question over to the rest of you. Whether it be leveling on a lowbie or grinding on a 70, how do you keep yourself motivation when the going gets tough and you get tired out? Is it the promise of a new skill? A new piece of gear? What keeps you charged up and logged in?

WoW tends to be a night time activity for most people, many of whom find that it's surprisingly easy to move from one objective to another and lose track of time until the wee hours of the morning. Some people I know sometimes stay up most of the night playing WoW, only to get an hour or two of sleep before whatever they have to do the next day. They're young and they say they make up that sleep at other times, but still, no one would argue that this sort of situation is ideal.

A recent study reported by CNN says they're not alone. People who play MMORPGs tend to sleep less and spend more time playing than players of other computer games. It may seem obvious, since MMOs are by nature somewhat of a time-sink, but there is undeniably something more to it; any activity can potentially be a time-sink, after all -- so what is it about MMOs that makes people actually sink time?

The answer is up for debate, of course, but one important factor is that WoW's community of players gives the accomplishments within the game a context of reality. The game's goals, dangling in front of us like carrots, would be nearly meaningless if we could only appreciate them in a single-player context, but with a whole realm of other players working alongside us to get them too, they can feel very important. If the choice is between a few hours having dreams you won't remember, or getting a little closer to riding an impressive dragon mount, then certainly sleep can seem boring and useless by comparison.

Saturday was a memorable day for me. It was the day I hit 40 with my draenei priest, and was at last able to mount my Brown horse and ride off into the, uh, twilight. My goal had been accomplished, and it was time to shift gears. Saturday was also the day that I finished my first piece of my Spellfire set on my mage, another goal I had been working towards for more than a month. Having spent so long getting her to that point, I felt an odd sensation afterward. There was this emptiness where the drive to reach my goal had been. I thought to myself "why do I do now?"

It took me a couple hours of contemplation to realize that my next goal should be to level my warlock, since she is already so close to 70 as it is. Now with a new difficult goal in mind (being that I tend to bounce from one character to another rather than focusing on one), I felt I had a gaming purpose as I set out to adventure in Azeroth. I'm not really sure if this is just something I do or if others organize their playtime like this. I have other goals, but not nearly as pressing.

Now a while ago James wrote in about a forum post he encountered talking about a top ten list for goals in WoW. I am not sure I have a list of my own that goes to that extent. More like a top four list if anything. Do you have a top ten list of things you want to accomplish in the game?

[via James]

Sometimes I find myself just standing around somewhere while lost in a deep conversation with a friend, perhaps wandering my character around in some pattern while I talk. It feels good to just let go of time, and immerse myself in that conversation.

Some of my friends, however, would never do this, because they have solid goals that they always want to work towards achieving. Whether it's getting keyed for a high-level instance, attaining some new gear for fighting in PvP, or even just leveling up a new alt they like, many players seem to be in motion all the time. Sitting down to talk just doesn't feel productive, especially if they've reached the level cap and there's no such thing as rested experience anymore.

Once, a friend of mine told me about his brother's 3 level 70 characters and several other characters getting close to 70. He said his brother is always doing something related to leveling or gear whenever he logs into the game. Sometimes I inspect someone I know, and as I mouse over their various epic items, I feel like I'm getting left behind, like maybe I should get busy like my friend's brother, doing something --anything -- to get farther along in the game. Something inside me says, "What do I need to do to get that item or level up that kind of alt? ... but wait a minute... How much do I really want that? Am I playing this game for the loot, or am I playing it for something else?"