The tyranny of the quest log.
A curious thing happened this weekend. As I raced around Azeroth with my fellow players, trying to fill out those last few quests, achievements, or reputations, I felt a pang of regret. There was so much from the original game that would soon be gone that I knew I would not have a chance to finish. Today, actually while I write this column, Azeroth is being digitally torn apart. The Cataclysm patch is being activated and while we are at work or school (or writing articles), Deathwing is going to blast out of the earth and tear down good ol’ Azeroth. It’s exciting for sure – but it’s a bit bittersweet as well.
Friday 6:05PM: I get the first word that the patch might be activated as early as Tuesday – panic ensues.
Friday 6:10PM: Successfully calm down – I realize that there are only a few things that I absolutely MUST get done before the patch: Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, Zandalar rep, classic dungeonmaster, and world explorer.
Saturday 1:30AM: Finish loremaster of Kalimdor. Sorry Cenarion Circle, there is no time to finish your rep grinding quests. Besides the bugs are so last (3) year. A painful goodbye to all my unfinished quests in Wintersrping – most of you led back to Blackrock Spire and there just isn’t time.
Late night playing is risky business, just take a look at the health effects of lack of sleep.
Saturday 2:30AM: One last ZG run put me into exalted with Zandalar. Thanks to a friend that helped me clear the instance and take all the bijous. Also the 10% rep buff from the Pilgrim event helped. Starting to tire – need more caffeine. Outlook good.
Saturday 4:00AM: Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms seems a lot easier, only about 70 quests left and I still have a lot of virgin zones. Tiredness becoming overwhelming decide to pack it in for the night.
Saturday 9:30AM: I realize I overslept my alarm, missed my early morning questing, I have to go to Boston today and there is no time to play first now. Curse my body’s reliance on sleep to function.
Saturday 2:30PM: Boarded the bus from NYC to Boston. Currently have an empty seat next to me. Need to preserve it to be able to use my gargantuan old laptop. Do my best nasty looking guy face in hopes that no one sits next to me.
With the introduction of the achievement system, Blizzard almost ensured that completionists would never log off.
Satuday 3:00PM: Success! Have an empty seat, tethered laptop to my phone – logging on to WoW for a little mass transit questing.
Saturday 6:30PM: Ugh. Questing on a bus sucks. My tethered connection isn’t so hot. Lots of lag (surprising?) Also starting to fall asleep. Finished 10 quests in a few hours. Outlook negative.
Sunday (all day): Raking. Apparently even the trees are against me. The last day for leaf removal is Monday, so the leaves must be collected in bags. Worse than grinding Brood of Norzdomu rep. Also there are a lot of slugs.
Sunday 10:00PM: Log on and resume questing in eastern Kingdoms. Need to finish out the quests, desperation has set in. Sorry NPC’s if your quest involves going anywhere outside the zone it probably isn’t getting done. The world is ending and I need a bunch more quests in eastern Kingdoms.
Monday 1:00AM: Hate Gnomeregan. Hate. Hours wasted trying to remember where the end boss is. Accidentally died to the new level 80 elite guards outside – should have used my teleporter. Outlook frustrated.
Monday 4:00AM: Quest. Sleep? Quest? Need sleep.
Monday (way later than I wanted): Awake. Slept through alarm again. Still need to finish loremaster of eastern Kingdoms and world explorer. Feeling pretty good about it. Should be a nice day.
I had to overcome sleep deprivation, leaves, and three wizards to complete everything before Tuesday.
Monday 2:00PM: Finished loremaster of eastern Kingdoms. Many good quests will be lost tomorrow. But I can’t stop to worry about that. I need to finish world explorer. Make a mental note to send apologies to all the quest givers in Thorium point. Your quests just didn’t make the cut. I am sorry.
Monday 4:00PM: Stupid Pilgrim’s Bounty distracted me with easy cooking skill ups, that combined with the Harry Potter movie I am supposed to attend tonight have put me in a tough spot with World Explorer.
Tuesday 1:00AM: Harry Potter movie ok. IMAX nice. Stupid Bloodmyst Isle. How is a single hut its own map point? And why is this zone so huge? Dumb Draenei. At least the fact that my server is about 98% Horde made taking the boats to Darnassus and Exodar easy. All I saw was other Horde players and a bunch of level 1 Night Elf rogue alts being shipped over to be shot by Turkey Shooters.
Tuesday 2:35AM: Finally the last map point has been revealed and world explorer is mine. So tired, but done. Writing starting to resemble a Camus novel again which means I need to sleep.
Tuesday 2:00PM: Servers are down, the world is getting blown up, but my achievements are safe. I finished everything that I absolutely wanted to get done. Loremaster of both continents, world explorer, Zandalar rep, and classic dungeonmaster. Looking back, I wish there was more time. I would have done so many more quests. There were whole zones that got skipped and many of the quests will be gone permanently once the servers finish patching. It’s a little sad actually. We have played this game for 6 years and some of it is going away. It feels a little like moving out of an old apartment. Sure we will have new stuff. But we can never get back some of the stuff we lost.
