Filed under: Breakfast Topics

While everyone commemorates Memorial Day in their own way, more than a few of us find ourselves with a few extra hours during long weekends to clock some WoW time. You might prefer the battlegrounds or you might prefer to get a little extra LFR raiding done. If you're especially studious, you might spend some time with our video content, boning up the important parts of patch 5.3.

If you managed to snag some bonus Azeroth time, what did you accomplish? I actually curled up with a few of the books, finally getting around to reading first-hand about Jaina's troubles and travails. I know, I'm a horrible blogger for taking this long, but I really enjoy reading when I take time off. I save the good stuff for then. But what about you? What did you do?

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Good morning. Today's your lucky day, boys and girls. You get to play hooky from school or work, and you get to do it in Azeroth come to life!

Your guidelines: While this is Azeroth as if it had come to life, you are not your character –- this is the real-world you who's slipping into Azeroth. For the purposes of faction balance, you may assume that you appear to be the appropriate faction and race to be accepted by the inhabitants of the city or land you choose to visit. You can also communicate with the residents.

However, aggressive monsters will remain dangerous to you, and since you are real you and not your character, we don't recommend choosing a zone where you could be attacked by anything at all. (Unless, of course, you're actually qualified to battle these creatures yourself -– in which case, do send photos to lisa@wowinsider.com.) It's probably not a good idea to try stepping into a general zone or instance, unless you're certain you know a safe spot. But what about a city? A quiet fishing hole out of aggro range? A sightseeing tour via zeppelin, or a boating expedition along the shores of Krasarang?

Your advantage is the gift of instant materialization. Wherever you'd like to go, there you'll be. If you'd like to spend the afternoon reading under a tree on a floating island in Nagrand, we can make that happen. If you'd like to party in Goldshire, we'll get you there without braving wolves, spiders, and bandits (although what you'll have to brave once you're there is up to you). You can travel about only if the real you could manage it using Azeroth's usual modes of transportation.

What would you like to see? Who would you try to meet -- and do you think you could talk your way in to see them?

Where would you like to play hooky in Azeroth today?

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Back in the era when playing an MMO was an all-or-nothing proposition, choosing a final logout location could be an emotionally overwrought event. Today, however, players drop in and out of games with regularity. We may skip patches or even expansions that don't particularly appeal to us. We may temporarily step out of Azeroth to focus on real-world goals. We may fall out of love with a character and pick up an alt, only to return months or even years down the line.

Even so, I confess to remaining sentimental about where I log out before an extended (or final) absence. I can still tell you exactly where each of my EverQuest characters is camped out, and I've bookmarked a couple of YouTube videos that run past those areas so that I can occasionally recapture their spirit even without access to the game. I'm a little less attached to logout spots for my WoW characters simply because I use nearly all of them at one point or another for screenshots or in-game contacts for WoW Insider. After this many screenshots, they've ended up scattered across some fairly odd spots.

Where will your main character log out for the very last time? Is it someplace you've grown comfortable with over the years? Somewhere representative of that character's adventures or character? A familiar spot behind the counter of a favorite vendor or banker? Or perhaps, like the screenshot above, somewhere holding a tinge of tragedy?

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Virtually every player eagerly embraced the advent of facts, figures, and formulae driving the game when they first began to trickle through to the player base some years ago. We scoured forums, fan sites, and data-driven websites like Wowhead. A way to tell which gear worked best for your character? Sweet. Community managers and devs who actually explained and discussed game mechanics? Utterly amazing. It was a brave new world and an entirely new way to play. Gone were the days when players murmured longingly of eloquently named pieces whose names evoked the epic locations they came from. Now, it was all about tiers. We argued endlessly over the correct numerical sequencing of armor sets –- remember the etymological debate over "Dungeon 2" vs. "Tier 0.5"?

A little bit of knowledge about how to tinker under the hood is absolutely a positive and helpful thing. Today, we expect free access to ability and spell mechanics and a point-by-point road map to gearing up. But at some point, overachievers that we humans are, so many numbers can make the game feel more like a checklist of benchmarks than a storied progression of fantastic encounters and arcane gear.

Whether or not all the analysis gets under your skin, it's easy to see how this emphasis on precision and analysis evolved. The question is, do you think that this is merely a subjective matter of roleplay immersion in the fantasy aspect of World of Warcraft, or do you think the attitude actually reduces the game in spirit and heart? Do the vistas and horizons of Azeroth ever seem uncomfortably closer when every step is paved with a formula pointing to your destination? Where do we stand on the balance scale of pre-analyzing and measuring how the numbers stack up vs. gaining a feel from experience for how things work in the world of Azeroth?

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We recently explored how you felt about alternate characters, whether you believe they should represent true alternatives to your first character or whether they should remain secondary to a more fully developed main. Either way, there's no stuffing rapid leveling back into the bag. WoW's current leveling design pushes players forward relentlessly, whether they're experienced gamers or not. The problem is that today's leveling pace already outstrips zone content, quest lines, gearing -- you name it. Should Blizzard apply the brakes to base XP while still permitting seasoned WoW players to choose to move more rapidly?

Consider this: What if the leveling experience weren't tuned to catapult players so quickly through and past leveling zones and dungeons? What if the pace were a little looser, giving new players more time to soak up the leveling game itself -– and then at the same time, the current XP boosts were spread across tools designed for experienced players who choose to hop, skip, and jump their way to 90?

The precedents are there -- just look at the heirloom armor system. Today, you can buy Grand Commendations to boost various reputations for your characters once you've played through them once. And remember when everyone was buying the Tome of Cold Weather Flight for their alts? The tools are already in place. From leveling XP to reputation gains to player convenience, the helping hand of a level-capped main character is key.

Do you think WoW's leveling experience should remain something to be played through quickly and efficiently, even for brand new players, or do you think there's merit to allowing that part of the game to move at a more deliberate pace? Would you support more mechanics that give experienced players a way to speed up leveling for their alts, preserving a slower pace for new players and players who enjoy slower leveling? If you like a strong emphasis on mechanics like heirlooms and commendations, should those tools be simple, affordable purchases for any level 90 player, or should they take some time, effort, or money to earn?

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Ready to move all those alts through Mists of Pandaria? The XP reduction for levels 85 to 90 in patch 5.3 isn't something I'm particularly excited about. Leveling goes more than quickly enough for my taste. It's the part of the game I'm enjoying most these days, so why would I want less of it?

At its most basic, pushing players through the levels is a matter of character focus. In Mists of Pandaria, WoW turned away from spreading its affections amongst the so-called stable of alts in favor of encouraging a single main character. That's a compelling approach for players like me who enjoy running down the side streets and back alleyways of gameplay in search of every last way to improve a character. Players who leveled up during Blizzard's later era of streamlined leveling, however, are used to cutting a direct line to the finish with an expectation that they'll be able to maintain multiple characters all the way through the endgame.

What do you think about swinging the focus back to a single main character? Do you think bringing alts up to the same level of development as a main character should be easy, making them true alternatives to your primary character? Or should alts remain easy to level but harder to fully round out at 90?

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Some people are just driven by the need to make things, whether it's art, writing, or any other kind of craft. World of Warcraft certainly seems to have a wealth of crafty types, who use their skills and expertise to do everything from making shoes to sewing adorable plushies to truly amazing cosplay. But while there are plenty of crafty players, not everyone has the talent or inclination. So tell us, do you World of Warcraft craft? If so, what's your craft of choice and why?

And, for those of us with neither crafting inclination or talent, well, we can always enjoy the work of others -- or just enjoy playing the game!

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Wandering around outside of Azeroth, in the so-called real world, you'll see a lot of World of Warcraft players. Some you'll spot with class t-shirts, others drive cars with alliance or horde window stickers (or even custom license plates), some may wear WoW-themed jewelry, and some even have WoW tattoos. But not everyone feels the need to show off their WoW fandom in an obvious way -- or even at all.

So what about you, readers? Do you have a WoW-themed t-shirt collection so you always have the right shirt for the occasion? Or is there some subtler way you like to show off your WoW love?

I was smirking my way past the Gordon Ramsay-esque commentary on Twitter recently (go to the tweet to view it in all its unblurred, NSFW glory) when it struck me: Blizzard has created so many incentives to play a healer. Obviously, they've worked -- but are the healers enjoying it?

As a long-time healer, I find myself broken-hearted at the idea that players are going through the motions of healing simply because for the sake of faster random queue times or to fill a hole in a roster lineup. Healing by people who aren't passionate about healing? Healing by people who aren't glued to the action? Healing by people who might be watching "other things" on another screen, or eating pizza, or, or ...? Dear readers, we're talking about saving lives here. I weep. Seriously, I weep.

Still, there seem to be quite a lot of healers going about their business in today's game. If you're a healer, do you enjoy the role? Did you choose to be a healer of your own volition, or were you influenced by queue times, role benefits, or the needs of your raid or guild? If you were nudged into healing by outside forces, has it been worth it? Are you a happy healer or a reluctant healer?

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Alterac Valley sets my towers aflame. I fell in love with AV during classic WoW, in those sprawling, drawn-out matches that spun out over a day or longer. With a big map and plenty of time, you can savor the micro-encounters that make up a true battle -- that exquisitely frozen moment when you come face to face with an opponent behind a bunker, the off-objective chase that neither of you will give up, the "happy" grudges that leave you seeking out the same opponent the moment you respawn. I gulp down that stuff like water. Objective-driven play has its appeal, but it's the serendipitous moment of connection with the enemy that really turns my flag.

I have a friend who adores siege weaponry. For him, PvP queuing means a beeline for Wintergrasp, Strand of the Ancients, or Isle of Conquest. That's fine. While he's staying busy with catapults and cannon, I'll be slowly throttling some newly met nemesis in the somber shadows behind the keep.

What do you enjoy most about your favorite battleground? Is it something that's there by design, or is it some player dynamic or bit of byplay that fires you up?

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I no longer remember the exact boss or who was raiding with me, but I do clearly remember having a conversation with a friend while I was healing Karazhan. At the time, I was grumbling that I didn't think we had the right group composition to do an encounter successfully -- but it was only after the group's other healer died that my friend agreed. Of course it was then that I decided this wasn't going be a wipe -- something I hadn't thought was possible until just then. (Certainly no one was more surprised than I was when I pulled it off.)

Whether raiding or not, we all have close calls in game -- that was only one of many I've had. But it was certainly memorable. So what about you, dear readers? Share your stories, your near-misses, your especially memorable almost-but-not-quite deaths.

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When you've decided to create a new character in WoW, you'd think the actual creation part would be the easiest part of the process. After all the hard part ought to be leveling, advancing, and collecting gear. But for some players (myself included), character creation itself poses a challenge. If you've picked a class, there's still the question of which race to choose -- or if you've picked a race, the question of which class. And, while WoW's character creation mini-game is far from elaborate, there's still the matter of just what your character looks like. But most difficult of all tends to be picking the right name: WoW's been around long enough that many of the names you might usually use in a game have likely been taken.

So tell us, early morning readers: what's your character creation challenge? Does name selection cause you to stumble? Do you have to get your character's look just right? Or is character creation something you fly through, eager to get to the real game?

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