Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft
The luxury and danger of being a screenwriter is an abundance of unstructured time. But in retrospect, I did learn some valuable things from my time in Azeroth, lessons that have stuck with me. So I thought I’d share a few of them with you.
Kill injured monsters first
When facing multiple bad guys, the temptation is to go after the one who’s hitting you hardest
- This is often a mistake
- At any given moment, there may be one monster that looms larger than all of the others, who clearly needs to be attacked
- Before you do, look around for injured monsters – the half-finished tasks that probably need only a few more minutes to complete
Grinding is part of the game…
Daily life is full of mindless tedium, but there’s an important distinction: grinding has a point.
- You’re doing X in order to get Y. While the task may be dull and carpal tunnel-aggravating, there’s a clear goal.
Storage is costly
There is never enough space, and adding more becomes ridiculously expensive
- Digital storage is now cheap – 80 gigabytes available on my startup drive
- But the cost of storing atoms is still huge
- My neighbors just had a POD delivered – a cargo container that gets trucked off
But grinding is not the game
Grinding is a means of achieving a specific goal, whereas the game itself is supposed to be entertaining
- Once you level (or get enough deer skins to fabricate that armor), stop grinding and start exploring.
- It’s easy to confuse what you’re doing with why you are doing it. Just remember: you’re not paying $15 a month to kill the same set of spawning critters.
Overthinking takes the fun out of it
Obsessive planning won’t make the game more enjoyable, it will just make it more like work
- Don’t plan your way out of an exciting life
- As you look back at any period of your life, you don’t remember what a solid plan you had, you remember what you did
Give away stuff to newbies
You start the game with almost nothing: a weapon and the shirt on your back.
- Run back to the newbie lands, find the first character of your class, and hand him all the stuff you don’t want. It will take two minutes of your time, but give the youngbie a tremendous head start.
Keep track of your quests
WoW provides quests: multi-step missions, generally to collect, kill or deliver something.
- Identify these unofficial quests and break them down into distinct steps: * browse the auctions to compare prices * pick preferred shield * sell off unneeded linen to raise needed cash * bid