Thursday, January 17, 2013

Server First Paladin?



Hello internet, how are you today?

Several months ago, shortly before the MoP expansion was released, I decided I wanted to be the first Paladin to reach level 90 on my server. Being an achievement-wh… err, enthusiast… the idea of getting an achievement that no other person on my server could get sounded like an awesome idea. The prestige, the fame, the night elf women… all would be mine if I could just be the first Paladin to reach level 90.

In preparation for my feat, I recruited a friend to level with me and scheduled a full week off of work. When MoP hit I was totally ready to hit the ground running and power through to level 90.

As soon as the server rolled over to 12:00am I dove right in, taking the hot air balloon from Stormwind all the way to the newly discover Pandaria. In the starting zone there was fierce competition for quest objectives, and the first few hours trudged on, waiting for respawns and getting annoyed with people.


Then, we started to pull away from the pack and we discovered new areas in the Jade Forest. I was excited by our questing pace, but when I looked at our XP progress I was wholly discouraged… we had only done about half a level in almost 6 hours… Feeling defeated (and exhausted), I made an executive decision that we should go to sleep and resume the next day.

I woke up refreshed about 12 hours later and we resumed our quest. At this point, a lot of players had already hit level 86, and some had even reached 87. Knowing how far behind we were, we forged ahead trying to make up ground. Unfortunately, MoP turned out to be the “grindiest of grinds” as my friend described it, and neither of us could stomach the questing experience much more. So, with much regret and annoyance, we gave up.

It was right around this time that I started to see server first profession achievements for some of the more annoying professions (alchemy, tailoring). But to my surprise, there were two or three achievements still lingering… including, server first blacksmith!

 

Newly invigorated, I smelted all of the ore I had collected while leveling and quickly churned out some green quality items. Unfortunately, my half-hearted ore collecting left me well short of my goal… so I turned to general chat for assistance.


10-15 thousand gold later, I had a few dozen stacks of ore and I started working the forge like a man possessed. But the stress and pressure proved to be worth it, when I became the server first zen master blacksmith.

So, while I wasn’t able to cement myself as the best Paladin on the server, I was able to claim my title as the best blacksmith on the server.