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Summary: Most MMORPGs are based upon
one simple game mechanic: killing things and taking money and
experience from them. However, Noor, the pacifist, levels from 1
to 70 in a decidedly unconventional manner: levels without
intentionally killing anything.
Most MMORPGs are based upon one simple game mechanic: killing
things and taking money and experience from them. However, Noor,
the pacifist, levels from 1 to 70 in a decidedly unconventional
manner: levels without intentionally killing anything.
The website of wowinsider released the interview of Noor the
pacifist. The interview revealed:" We checked on Noor and
Reinisch's progress this month and found them plugging along
merrily through battlegrounds, quests... and yes, levels.
Intrigued, we contacted the player behind the toons to find out
what's behind this novel way of playing World of Warcraft. Read
more about the attraction of playing a pacifist character, how
to go about getting XP without killing anything and of course,
whether or not Noor thinks he can actually make it to 70... all
after the break."
Parts of interview are as below:
Why on earth a character that doesn't kill anything? Doesn't
that feel like pulling teeth?
I prefer doing stranger stuff, as opposed to grinding high-end
instances. Once, my 70 mage was in Southshore, and someone was
asking directions to Ghostlands in zone chat. I told him how to
go through EPL. Then I clicked on him, and he was something like
a level 12 Draenei hunter. I asked him why he wanted to go
there, and it turns out he wanted a red cat for a pet so I
escorted him through EPL, and he only died a couple of times
getting there. I've also done a few quests on PvP servers with
non-hostile Horde players (not pre-arreanged or anything), such
as the mechanical chicken escort in Feralas (twice, so we could
all get credit).
It looks like PvP is a huge part of your strategy. Do you
foresee continuing to PvP the whole way up?
I have to; the repeatable daily battleground quests are the only
way to "grind" XP if you aren't going to kill mobs (not counting
the very slow repeatable seasonal quests that you can do each
year). Without them, Horde characters would be stuck around
level 15 and Alliance around level 23 ("around" since class
quests vary, and exploring very high level areas can get you a
bit farther).
What reaction have you gotten from other players in
battlegrounds?
Some are amused, some are not so amused at least for my rogue.
At least nobody complains in BGs about a priest who runs around
just healing everybody.
Also, he told us that he is a 50-year-old male computer
programmer and main webmaster. If you want to read more, please
click: 15 Minutes of Fame: Noor the pacifist. If you have any
opinions, feel free to leave a comment.
News Original From: wowinsider
Relevant: WoW: First Impressions of Sunwell Back in November
2007, columnist John Himes took a look at a special breed of
player who levels from 1 to 70 in a decidedly unconventional
manner: hunters who only melee, a naked (well, except for his
loincloth) warrior – and Noor the pacifist, who levels without
intentionally killing anything. Now, this isn't the first time
we've heard of players who've given this idea a whirl, but Noor,
a gnome rogue on Maiev, and his Horde counterpart, Reinisch the
undead priest, seem to have the gumption and persistence to make
it to the top of the XP tree.
We checked on Noor and Reinisch's progress this month and found
them plugging along merrily through battlegrounds, quests ...
and yes, levels. Intrigued, we contacted the player behind the
toons to find out what's behind this novel way of playing World
of Warcraft. Read more about the attraction of playing a
pacifist character, how to go about getting XP without killing
anything – and of course, whether or not Noor thinks he can
actually make it to 70 ... all after the break.
Ok, so we gotta ask – why on earth a character that doesn't kill
anything? Doesn't that feel like pulling teeth? I prefer doing
stranger stuff, as opposed to grinding high-end instances. Once,
my 70 mage was in Southshore, and someone was asking directions
to Ghostlands in zone chat. I told him how to go through EPL.
Then I clicked on him, and he was something like a level 12
Draenei hunter. I asked him why he wanted to go there, and it
turns out he wanted a red cat for a pet -- so I escorted him
through EPL, and he only died a couple of times getting there.
I've also done a few quests on PvP servers with non-hostile
Horde players (not pre-arreanged or anything), such as the
mechanical chicken escort in Feralas (twice, so we could all get
credit).
So what sparked the idea of starting a pacifist character? I had
thought about doing such a character off and on for a while.
When I saw Gweryc Halfhand's blog on being a melee-only hunter,
that finally spurred me on to try it. It turns out he had been
thinking of trying something similar but wasn't sure if he'd
have the patience for it.
Show us your kung fu: what's the actual nuts-and-bolts reality
of this character? Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit
anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when
trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of
them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't
increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests
where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will
throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may
even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters.
My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying
terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and
having other players do their dirty work.
In terms of bragging rights, I intend to keep my rogue's weapon
skills (dagger, thrown and unarmed) at all 1s. My priest will
also have all 1s, but it won't be obvious on WoW Armory that he
has no offensive spells beyond the level 1 Smite all priests
start with.
Tell us about the concept behind Reinisch, your first pacifist
character. I started him from a roleplaying point of view, based
very loosely on a real German priest, Franz Reinisch, who
refused to serve in Hitler's army and was executed. My undead
priest's back story is basically the same, and he still refuses
to kill.
What made you start a pacifist rogue, too? My priest hit an XP
plateau. There were no longer any quests he could do without
killing mobs -- this was before 2.3 came out, with repeatable BG
quests that grant XP). I had already decided to try both Horde
and Alliance pacifists, so this time I started an Alliance
character using what I had learned from my priest.
I thought about using a hunter and have my pet act as a decoy;
however, I figured that my Alliance character would also have to
go into dangerous areas, and a rogue with stealth and sprint
would stand a better chance. I settled on a gnome because they
get +15 to engineering, allowing my gnome to use Target Dummies
at level 5 (as opposed to 10 for my priest).
As a rogue is a sort of "spy" class, I Googled for a pacifist
spy and found Noor Inayat Khan, a woman who was also executed by
the Nazis for aiding the French resistance, so I named my rogue
after her. She was the daughter of a well-known pacifist in
India.
Didn't you originally have a pacifist rogue named Noorkhan? When
my first gnome rogue Noorkhan learned Sap, I tried it out -- and
my melee skill went up, so it was no longer a "perfect" 1. I was
also reminded of the Anh'Qiraj war drive when I saw it again on
the public test realm for patch 2.3. I knew a low-level
character could get some extra XP if the war drive was still
going on, so I looked and found that the Maiev realm still
hadn't finished the war drive to open the AQ gates. So I
rerolled on Maiev. The name Noor wasn't available for my
character on Maelstrom, but it was on Maiev -- and I preferred
just Noor, anyway.
It's apparent from the research and design behind Noor that you
have some WoW savvy up your sleeve. What's your past WoW
experience? Do you currently play a "regular" character as well?
I've been playing since October of 2005 and have a 70 mage and
warlock on Stormreaver (Gummo and Vardlokker) in <Critical Mass>
and a number of alts, mostly in the 40s.
Who do you consider your main character – Noor or Reinisch? I'm
working on both; Reinisch is doable but slow, since he can only
do WSG dailies now since he's level 15. Both are pretty
low-maintenance at the moment, so I can level both
simultaneously. I've been mostly neglecting my level 70s in
<Critical Mass> lately, though I still do a few instances with
them.
What kind of time do you spend on Noor each week? How often do
you play? So far, I've still been playing nearly every day. I'm
still collecting items for future consideration (green whelp
armor for battlegrounds, etc.), and I want to earn enough money
so I can buy what I can't make. The Charred Vale in Stonetalon
Mountains is the best place for a self-twinking miner, as it has
mithril and truesilver nodes, most of which are far from the
mid-20s mobs. I hit 270 mining at level 23, so I bought a +5
mining enchant for some gloves and mined a rich thorium vein in
Azshara in the Bay of Storms just for fun.
It must take a ton of research time to orchestrate the XP
progression. What percentage of the total time you spend on Noor
would you guess is spent researching vs. actually playing? At
first, it was quite a lot, since there are a lot of quests in
four different starting areas to look over. The new "!" markers
on the minimap help, too. However, the number of new quests has
fallen way off. Level-27-required quests only shows about half a
dozen new entries on wowhead.com, and I can only do one of them.
It looks like PvP is a huge part of your strategy. Do you
foresee continuing to PvP the whole way up? I have to; the
repeatable daily battleground quests are the only way to "grind"
XP if you aren't going to kill mobs (not counting the very slow
repeatable seasonal quests that you can do each year). Without
them, Horde characters would be stuck around level 15 and
Alliance around level 23 ("around" since class quests vary, and
exploring very high level areas can get you a bit farther).
What reaction have you gotten from other players in
battlegrounds? Some are amused, some are not so amused -- at
least for my rogue. At least nobody complains in BGs about a
priest who runs around just healing everybody.
What about from your battleground opponents -- can you tell if
they've been taken aback by any of your actions? Not that I can
tell -- but they might wonder why I'm just whacking people with
a fishing rod instead of using standard rogue attacks.
You blogged that you recently started throwing bombs in AB
because you didn't feel you were pulling your weight defending
the flag. What other compromises have you made so far? I had to
"make up" for some unintentional XP I received when I was
grouped with another player to meet up with him and some murlocs
attacked. He killed them and I got shared XP, so I completed one
quest without turning it in to compensate. My priest will
actually be much better in roleplaying terms, since he won't
need to throw bombs. He'll just heal other players and sometimes
interrupt flag captures with a Psychic Scream or Mind Control. I
did have my rogue do the second part of A Noble Brew even though
that kills an NPC, because she isn't told that the drink will
kill him. But both of my characters will refuse to do quests if
they know it will kill NPCs.
What about in-game support -- do you have a guild or friends who
help you out, or is this strictly a solo effort? I don't have
any alts or "rich uncles" helping my pacifists. I've met a few
people like Mephisston who read my blog because it talked about
the opening of the AQ gates, and he decided to open them on
Maiev by buying up linen and turning in bandages. He's made some
potions and bandages for me (at 225 First Aid, you can use but
not make Heavy Runecloth Bandages). ... But no huge support
network.
As far as a solo effort, I bought a Security DELTA Data Access
Card from the Auction House and managed to stealth all the way
to the "D" Punchograph card readers in Gnomeregan at level 24,
so I could learn how to make Discombobulator Rays myself instead
of needing to rely on another engineer to make them. The hard
part was placing the Target Dummy so all the ranged attackers
would attack the dummy instead of me while I got the schematic.
Are you in touch with other pacifist characters such as Gutrot?
I've read Gweryc's and Gutgot's blogs, and Gweryc and I have
left each other messages on our blogs. I also sent an in-game
mail to Lintilla on Dragonblight, which I found by searching WoW
Armory for guilds named "The Pacifist," though I haven't heard
back. Lintilla's weapon skills are low for a level 17 rogue (9
in daggers, 2 in unarmed)....
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