Best way to do a completionist character?

Community General Discussion
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So I’ve got an alt that I’ve been working on doing every zone possible with. I’ve got a few questions for more seasoned players here.

1.) I want to level slowly along the content. I know about the bronze dragon that freezes your level and I’m currently frozen at level 20 about to start Ashenvale content. When do you/should I decide to level more? How best would you go about it with leveling through the game on an alt like this?

2.) Is there a good zone list to look at for knowing when to go after each one? By this I mean like I did all the starter zones and then moved on to the next tier of zones. I’d like a way to keep it all straight.

3.) How long did it take you to do what I’m attempting? This is more curiosity than anything.

4.) How many quests (generalizing here) are bugged in old content?

5.) Which zone would you say I should be most excited to explore and quest through? I’m making a point to read through everything with this character. In the past I was the person who’d skip the dialogue and just do the objectives. I’m changing that here. I’m here for the story.

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There is a website and you would have to Google it but the specific verbiage you want to use is “World of Warcraft zones in order of leveling“. You’re gonna find out it applies mostly to classic, which is exactly what you want. Then you go through zone by zone leaving your XP capped off and you can finish everything in the order in which it’s intended and you’ll know you’re done when you get Loremaster for both continents. Then you can move on and do the same thing for TBC, wrath, etc…

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Make sure you have the addons installed that can and do help with quests, making sure you complete all the breadcrumb quests along the way.

I to dabble in trying to complete stuff like this and have done so on four characters thus far. I tend to just pick based on the expansion launch and park my character in each expansion. Going from zone to zone doing everything.

I also, (for some reason) level up each of my professions while doing this. So, fishing, black smith and so on, depending on the class and the prof’s I have.

TIme will very depending on what all it is you want out of this experience. If your plan is to go slow, read all the text, do all the quests, maybe even attempt all the various achievement hunting, and level proffesions, it can take a good while.

Good Luck, have fun, enjoy them old zones.

Also, do not worry if you happen to be the only pearson in those old zones. Just think of it as it is your world and your on a mission to see things.

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I just finished the Redridge zone this morning before work. The story was pretty fun going from killing some gnolls to finding out they’re working for the blackrock orcs and going through the infiltration and assault to stop them from launching an assault on Stormwind. It’s pretty profound on the “celebrated soldier coming home to people who hate him” topic too.

As for not seeing anyone in the zones, I am pretty sure I saw two people roleplaying in Lakeshire yesterday. Moonguard server is full of surprises like that.

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It’s why I love this server :slight_smile: I used to be on wyrmrest accord until all of the role-play eventually died out and now it’s just a cesspool.

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Yes, it does, which is one reason why it’s a great RP server. I had some characters on that Rp realm for a while, but then decided to migrate to a less populated realm.

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I really gotta get into some roleplaying. I joined the server for it but I’ve been so focused on the actual gameplay.

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I would occasionally just chill and watch, not one to roleplay anymore. I did that when I was big into table top games. Not sure, I guess if you are not already in a guild you could find a nice home and start up with some good guild mates.

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https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/all-the-things

Pick your zone, open the mini-list. Go to town. It lists ~147,000 things you can complete in the game. This includes quests, achievements, items, and recipes. Turn off what you don’t want to pursue. May the odds be ever in your favor.

AS for going from zone to zone, the quests usually do a good breadcrumb trail between them.

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This is a fun project. I’d avoid Area 52, if I remember the zone right. You can look up quests in Wowhead and find 264 comments from players trying to figure it out. It is a tough zone to work through because the quests don’t tell you much and they are often across the land in another zone.

Have fun, I think that you are.

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I’ve definitely been having fun so far. Filling in details to stories I skimmed/skipped when I first went through them has made them much more enjoyable and some of it has been downright hilarious. I’m still likely going to do Area 52 provided I can on Alliance (I don’t think I ever did that zone) for the completion but I’ll definitely keep Wowhead open on my other monitor.

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Chromie Time doesn’t freeze your level, that’s a separate NPC.

You’re looking for “Behsten” (Alliance, there’s one for Horde named “Slatts” in Orgrimmar) in Stormwind Keep, the room to the right of the throne from the main entrance. He’s stealthed and it says “Experience Eliminator”. Costs 10 gold to turn off XP complete, whatever level your are.

Works up to level 69 (currently). Recently discovered a level 70 character can’t use it. These NPCs were made for “twinks” in PvP who used best-in-slot gear (“Behsten Slatts”) for their level to dominate low level battlegrounds, added after BGs started awarding XP.

In any case, it’s either XP gain ON or OFF.
There’s no “slow down” option, just the ability to turn it off.

The best approach I’ve found is leveling up to 69 for most of the toolkit of your class/spec before locking XP, as going back-and-forth to this NPC to unlock and relock XP (takes 4-5 quests to level up, 30-70 is crazy-accelerated) would be annoying as hell.

Also opens up the option to turn off Chromie Time temporarily for when questlines go into dungeons. Raids have no real structure leading into them for the most part, at least not until later expansions.

Most zones have breadcrumbs which lead you from one zone to the other, even if it hops around a bit much. There’s no easy work-around, and it’s hard to avoid doing things out of sequence if I’m honest.

I’m going to guess a few hundred hours, it’s hard to say for sure. If taking the “level 69 and XP lock” route, leveling will be over before you’re halfway done the first continent.

Too many to count. Just be ready to research errors and fixes when they come up. The specific quest name is often enough, along with the usual stuff like logging in and out or rebooting the game.

Bugged quest dialogue/rewards when finishing one quest leads to another may as well be every other one at this point, but that’s usually solved by walking away from the NPC and talking to them again.

Hard to say, really.

… prepare for disappointment, especially after Legion.

The reduced cross-server on Moonguard actually makes it one of the quieter servers if you’re outside the heavily populated zones.

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Honestly, I think TWW has been good so far on my main. I’ve been in and out of playing through the expansions. Legion was great even if I wasn’t reading through much of it though. Definitely a competitor for best expansion. Of course, this is all just a matter of opinion. Maybe I’ll love the BFA content. Maybe I’ll hate wrath content.

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I suppose part of my disillusionment with it is a mix between having higher standards for storytelling in general (story-driven games being my general preference) and TWW failing to meet raised expectations because Blizz said they were focusing more on the story.

Either way, I’m not impressed with TWW and most of the post-Legion expansions have been lackluster at best. BfA has actually surprised me a bit on a revisit (I hated it to the point of quitting for a several years), the absence of the grind that was there during the expansion helped take the edge off a bit.

WoW’s at it’s best when it’s having “dumb fun”. Cata might be over-indulging in pop-culture references, but it’s one of the few things Blizz’ writers are not terrible at. MoP is the only expansion I feel they struck a good balance. WoD’s trying too hard to be grimdark, but seems relatively well-structured while questing at least; Legion is about the same but without time-travel shenanigan. After that, strange story directions and retcons just start cropping up all over the place; some are worse than others.

In any case, I’d argue WoW’s best enjoyed if not taken too seriously. The Cata through Legion era of WoW was when it was at it’s best, even if WoD somehow snuck in.

Besides that, I can only wish you luck. I’ve tried to do the “completionist character” approach, and more than once, but it always seemed to fall apart on me.

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Except for that one quest where you were Illidan going through what led up to him becoming a demon hunter.

I’m one of those “go with the flow” types when it comes to my stories. I appreciate them for what they are. I was one of the few who didn’t absolutely hate Game of Thrones Season 8 despite the glaring flaws. BFA (Horde side only) was when I quit the game for a while and only really picked it back up at the end of Dragonflight though. Hopped in for a little bit of Shadowlands but ultimately stopped again. I wouldn’t say it was because I wasn’t enjoying the game, more that I wanted to enjoy other games more at the time. I was hooked for Legion though. Legion was top tier for me and one of two times I grinded to mythic, the current expansion being the second. Except Suramar. I really hated Suramar and didn’t overly like that Azj-Kahet took what I didn’t like from it (mostly the constant needing to hide and evade the guards).

Don’t get me wrong about Suramar though. The story was great, just the mechanics hurt a lot.

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Hmm… I don’t quite recall that one, but I do know there’s some “relive the past” quests/scenarios where you take control of past characters. Not so much time-travel as a playable flashback. That’s a fair bit different than WoD’s was straight-up time-travel AU.

I won’t deny that my current opinion of the game and it’s story is rather sour, even if it still has the occasional good moment.

But yes, “going with the flow” and not overthinking… just about anything at this stage, is an absolute necessity here. WoW’s at it’s best when it’s just being “dumb fun”, in my opinion. Putting it under any scrutiny just exposes problems upon problems.

Don’t blame you for disliking stealth sections in Suramar, though. As great as the story was, the constant “An illusion! What are you hiding!?” got a wee bit annoying.

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I swear I got a bit of PTSD from hearing that over and over.

Yeah I guess that description would fit the questline better. We the player did essentially go back in time, just not as our characters. WOD, when I first played it, I was still young (About 14 at the time) and newer to WoW so it didn’t quite click at the time that it was time travel and I think I thought it was just an alternate reality where Outland wasn’t overly destroyed. Another reason for me to do this completionist run so I can fully understand the overall flow of what’s going on.

As I get older I do find myself starting to analyze the media I consume. I just watched 28 weeks later yesterday and I have so many thoughts about it from a writing standpoint. Everyone in that movie made fatal mistakes that could have EASILY been avoided.

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Just started watching this series recently as several folks are now doing variations on the challenge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9EW2h-5ncs

I made a character on WRA some time ago (prior to cross realm guilds) as I was testing the waters with a guild that I eventually realized was not for me. I did it in part as I’ve wanted to start exploring the RP aspect of WoW. Guild as a whole had nearly zero interest in RP and as I looked around WRA I started to realize just how little RP was happening there.

While I’m not directly on MG, I did recently join Gnomeregan Forever as I saw it as a chance to slowly get into RP with my existing main character. So far, I’ve only crossed over into MG once via a group, but it is a night and day difference.