Work continues s-l-o-w-l-y on Samovar’s leveling. He’s a level 12 dwarf priest on WoW’s Sentinels server. Doing the whole pacifist holy priest thing where he only kills demons, elementals, undead and “stuff without a face.” Also doesn’t eat meat or fish.

Man, it’s tough relying on exploration XP as your primary source of experience. But it turns out it’s quite fun. Lots of delivery/messenger quests and anything where I have to run into an enemy camp with Power Word: Shield on, grab an item and run like hell. I actually feel a little sad/ill when I accidentally swipe a critter with my mace while it’s trying to eat me. I get into some ethical debates with myself. “If the monster is diseased and the quest is to end its suffering, is that okay? How about an alien beast (the ravagers on Azuremyst Isle)?” I decided it is okay. But I don’t kill spiders or crabs or catch fish.

Exploring Azeroth has been fun. I like the exploration achievements and feel a little rush when I’ve uncovered an entire zone. Kudos to Blizzard for ripping something off of LOTRO (rather than the usual other way around! Hah!).

Reminds me of Will Wright’s bit about playing a battlefield medic in TRIBES where he healed everyone, friend and foe, until the enemy started to realize he was just healing people and stopped attacking him. Another example of game design as mind control.

I’m looking forward to the day when more games allow player-created modes of play (player-created content is fine but modes of play is even more intriguing). Get to level 10 without killing anything? Get an achievement. Get to level 10 without dying? Get an achievement.

Now if I can just make it to level 15 so I can start doing dungeon instances with groups I might actually have a chance at leveling more than a level every few days.