When Simply Leveling Isn’t Enough

I thought my attempts at Loremaster were hard enough — how about the anti-Loremaster? Recently, I’ve been coming across a bunch of stories of patient and creative WoW players who have set crazy goals for themselves and reached them, against all odds.

Take Everbloom, for example, who posted her story on the official WoW forums of how she leveled to 85 without killing anything (mob, monster, critter, PvP or otherwise) and without (intentionally) completing any quests. After reaching level cap five days ago, her story has garnered her congratulations and even a little in-game fame. Here’s what she said of the experience:

Well I did it lol, it was certainly a different way of leveling, requires lots of patience, but I did get to see the whole game in a new light.

Being on the ground and sneaking around mining and herbing and eventually archaeology, going everywhere to get every single point of discovery xp that you can, really gives you a chance to see an amazing world up close and personal. I spent hours swimming around reefs and flying to the farthest reaches of the maps.

If you like to explore, and enjoy a challenge I really REALLY recommend this, I have been playing since day 1 on other characters and I even have an original Loremaster (you know, back when it was hard) and I saw so MANY new things with Everbloom that it really made it worthwhile for me to continue on with this character, and each level was a major achievement!

…SO now I am server transferring this one to Antonidas to join the guild which is a 0 kills guild that was started there for us alternate advancement people! I think most of the guild is searching out quests that require no killing, but I shall stick to my 0 kills 0 quests attempt yet again!

In reply to questions about how she did it, she wrote:

Yes, xp gains as you said, and if mobs agroed on me I would shadowmeld and fly away at later levels, earlier on it was much trickier, I would run away from the herb/mine a little, root the mob, rejuv, go get the node, then run away. Shadowmeld was the reason I picked Night Elf, Flight Form the reason I picked druid.

I died 25 times, but I think 24 of them were in the first few levels haha!

I took an interest and read through most of the thread and was really most interested in her explanation regarding the why of it all. And really, it’s exactly why I believe anything should be done in the game — because she wanted to.

I’ve done the raid thing, the gear thing, the rep thing, the tradeskills thing, the achievement thing, the …. everything really, this was something different, that “I” could do when and how “I” wanted to, not because it was expected of me :)

She’s just one of many examples of characters who make up their own achievements of sorts. There are players who have leveled without ever dying; or leveled strictly through killing one specific type of mob; now also on the forums there is Neverloots who, as her name suggests, is attempting to level without quests, training, or — the kicker — without ever looting from the mobs she kills (and therefore having no money to buy gear/food/etc.). So far, she’s at Level 50.

Perhaps the recent uptick that I’ve noticed has something to do with players getting bored and looking for alternative fun to be had in-game? Perhaps there’s no connection, or maybe it’s only a case of confirmation bias convincing my brain that there even is an increase in these attempts. Whatever the case, it’s interesting to see the many ways that players are finding new ways to keep the game going.

What crazy attempts have you accomplished or considered in-game?

3 Comments

  1. Well, that’s one impressive passafists leveler 2.0.. Someone else tried this in the earlier day’s, but couldn’t get past a certain level. Guess this just shows people wanting to break the mold of leveling and blizz’s dedication to make that a reality.

    As for me? Well, it’s not as impressive. But I’m currently working on my own little leveling project. Nothing fancy, just leveling every Class to 85, and leveling each race to a set point to make a review of all the old world quest changes. So far I’ve got about 15 zones down. Loooong way to go.

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