Best played diversely

August 30, 2006 on 11:04 am | In MMO (Live), WoW, Playstyles

There's folks who play MMORPGs with a single-minded focus and dedication to rival a mercenary.

I'm not one of them.

Having recently landed back upon Azeroth, I've been dabbling with all of the systems in the game. What I have found:

• I'm just not a crafter. In WoW, "crafting" is mostly resource gathering, and I don't enjoy spending what little time I can log in dedicated to collecting resources. I'd rather just buy them.
• Questing. A lot of revamps have happened since I left last November, and a number of new quests have been added. Good stuff always.
• I don't mind the occasional raid. To me, "raid" is an event where a group of people come together to dungeon crawl through content they already know in order to get a rare drop within or at the end. There's zones I haven't seen the end of, and getting new gear is always good. But even better, it's not the only way to get new gear.
• Faction Grinding. I find it carthatic after a fashion. As long as I switch factions every so often, I don't get bored with it. The mobs in Silithus are very different from those in the Plaguelands in both how they fight and what they drop. Bouncing back and forth in the way only Mages can do (with teleporting and strategic Hearthstoning), it is fun. Plus, with all of the changes they've made, I can grind faction a number of ways, from hunting to turn-ins to crafting writs to repeatable quests. Finding the right combination of faction, mob, drop and quest is a game unto itself.
• Battlegrounds. Whoa. I did not realize how much I would enjoy these. I'm not very good, and my gear was the sort of equipment people were outgrowing in 2005, but I've been able to hold my own. I find I'm most effective as a closer, anti-caster sniper and of course, AOEer. I'm also pretty good as a spotter: run in, poly, wind up a big blast while others come along, boom. If I eventually climb the Honor Point ladder to get better gear, all the better. But I won't focus exclusively on this because that'd be as bad for me as focusing just on Raiding.
• Commerce. I really don't care. I'm making enough money from the other stuff to just go buy what I need when I want it and occasionally upgrade a piece of gear through the Auction House. I currently have my eye on a Sageblade, which is crafted but currently almost the price of an Epic mount (which I don't care about). That'd work with my +Damage Fire-spec Mage rather nicely, especially since I've had the materials for a great Enchantment since before I quit last time. +30 Damage from the Enchant on top of the +20 Damage from the sword, and the additional add of the -10% resistance debuff to my target(s). A nice complement to what I already have in my off hand.

Right now, I'm in the mode where whatever improvement comes along, I'll take. There are some who look to build sets or focus on a specific encounter to get a drop, and I'm always willing to help. I just prefer, in general, to bounce between many activities to prevent the boredom of any one activity impacting my enjoyment of an experience in general.

It's alway nice to be reminded by some of the diversity a diku can offer.