It has been over a month since I started blogging, marking my return to WoW and a comment from a recent post got me reflecting on that time and reassessing how things have turned out playing WoW on a restricted time budget.My conclusion is this: Playing and enjoying WoW with only an hours time in a play session is definitely possible and I find it highly rewarding. The thing that I feel is actually harder to come to terms with is only playing a couple of times a week.
When I originally came back after my break I thought I would be playing for an hour a night - but the reality is I only sporadically play during the week and my play time is almost exclusively on the weekends. I often get to play for more than an hour in the evenings, and usually get about an hour during the day when the kids are sleeping but this means I basically get to play on two days of the week.
Also, given previous experiences, I had expected that I wouldn't really be able to run the dungeons, nor keep up with the gear progression, however the instant groups of the Looking For Dungeon tool (combined with being a tank/healer) and the average gear levels of players mean that instances are a lot quicker to run and the return from Emblems means that I have kept relatively apace with others in terms of gearing (according to wow-heroes I should be good to heal 10 man ICC - yah!).
What this means is that I haven't been doing what I thought I would. I have been running dungeons a lot - it really is one of my favourite parts of the game - combine that with a new tanking class (in the form of my Paladin) and it has been new and exciting - and I have seen some good upgrades to gear. So I have generally been rewarded.
Apart from levelling alts I had a mental list of things I wanted to do - the first on this list was getting the Crusader title for Keluin so I can get the pretty new paladin mount. Actually that was the second, the first was getting epic flying - but I figured I would get that on the way. I have been slowly progressing on both the alt levelling and towards the Crusader title - particularly when I know I'm going to be interrupted. But in this, and also in thoughts towards getting the Netherwing mount I've realised the biggest enemy for me is actually this: they require me to do daily quests!
I understand the need for daily quests - they are a way of metering out the rewards such that you can't just prop your eyes open with paper clips and grind out the requirements without eating or sleeping. It is part of Blizzard's healthy choice tick (and makes it so that some things are not trivialised... but definitely it's about player health first and foremost). However to someone like me that gets to play a couple of times a week (and already has competing priorities) it means that the process is drawn out to the point where the end result is so far in the distance I have trouble visualising it.
Take the Crusader title for example. To attain it requires one to do 4 quests daily rewarding 5 tokens to obtain 25 tokens total for each of the capital factions. That is 25 days minimum to achieve it. The quests can all be done in under 30 minutes if you are focused (and ignore the crusader seal rewarding ones that go along with it). Add on top of that any time required to bring your factions up to exalted (thank goodness Keluin is human). However in my case, if I was dedicated to it I could get that done in 13 weeks of doing it. The reality is I tend to do 2 or 3 instead of the full 4 and ignore the one that takes the longest - simply because you have to fly to the other end of Northrend. At the rate of 3 instead of 5 tokens per day that pulls it out to 21 weeks of work.
Having actually sat down and worked that out, 13 weeks doesn't seem so bad (in actual fact I'm only 5 weeks off now - just Exodar and Ironforge to go). If that was all I was doing it actually seems doable but Blizzard have created a wide and diverse game and there is a lot of competition for my time - with limited time in a play session I tend to default to running dungeons if I can, and then doing the dailies has to compete with levelling alts. I guess if I was DPS then I might actually be able to do this while waiting for the LFD queue to pop...
Add on top other dailies you can do to get faction reputation - for example the Oracles and your daily quest burden adds up. Then there are the other dailies you need to do to be able to perform your business - most notably the cooking and jewelcrafting quests - all these things are rewarding short but frequent play, rather than occasional and longer play periods. I've been avoiding raising my cooking with Keluin because I know the dailies are going to end up with it being a drawn out process (which I've already been through with Gameldar) but I still try and do my jewelcrafting daily with Gameldar so I can cut my own gems and make a bit of money as well... At the rate I play this does mean that I can get a new epic gem recipe every fortnight - thankfully guild mates have the other recipes - but it doesn't go very far towards help me get the funds I need just to keep up with gem and enchanting upgrades, let alone save towards my epic flier.
I threw out the following query on Twitter (OK that's just a shameless plug to say I'm now on there and you can follow my inane ramblings if you like): what daily quest do you loath doing - but feel obliged to do?and the response I got back was the jewelcrafting and cooking dailies.
What is the alternative? It really is hard to say - the obvious example is the weekly quests. I'm enjoying the raid weekly because it gets you out there into the older instances, and it easily achievable with my play schedule (we'll see how it goes when Lord Jaraxxus turns up - I was in a pug that failed on Anub'Rekhan). Also (although I haven't done so) I think the switch to weekly quests for Wintergrasp are a good move from my perspective too, despite all the rage when it happened! However moving to more weekly quests means that those that do have time more frequently are penalised for that.
One idea I did have it to basically place a weekly metering on things that allows you to either binge on them if you are like me and do them all in one or maybe two sittings, or alternatively be able to do them daily. For example, following the Crusader dailies - the limit isn't on being able to do them daily (at 4 per day), but rather you can only do 28 per week. I don't think this is the ideal solution because if you wanted to do all 28 at once you are in for a monotonous time - the one main advantage I see is I might actually dedicate one of my play session to do it instead of running dungeons as in bulk it would be worth it.
Another alternative is to offer weekly version of the daily quests that reward slightly less than if done daily - and you have to choose which one you do (i.e. if you do the daily you exclude yourself from the weekly and vice versa). Taking the Crusader dailies as an example - you could have one weekly quest that combined all the quests that take you throughout Northrend in one hit - pick the daisies, grab the sword, kiss the frog, and return them all for 6 tokens. I think this would be the fairer way of doing it, and would not end up with the endless grind trying to keep up with a weeks worth in one hit and still giving the better reward for those that do the task daily.
Any other suggestions?
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