When neutral Pandaren characters in World of Warcraft leave their starting zone, they’re forced to choose a faction — Alliance or Horde. Choosing to remain neutral, Doubleagent never left. Nearly two years and a whole lot of herb picking later, Doubleagent has finally hit the game’s level cap.
The idea of remaining neutral in a game defined by conflict is an appealing idea to many World of Warcraft players, so when it was announced the new race introduced in September 2012’s Mists of Pandaria expansion would begin with no allegiance, those players were understandably excited. But the neutrality offered only extended as far as the first 10-15 levels of play in The Wandering Isle starting zone — if players wanted to extend their journey into the rest of Azeroth, they’d have to make a decision.
Doubleagent didn’t make that decision. He stayed on The Wandering Isle. Once all of his quest options were exhausted and he became too high level to gain experience from the creatures in the zone, he used mining and herbalism to slowly gain experience points. We’re talking 20-30 experience points per ore or plant harvested.
He couldn’t train his professions past 75 points. He couldn’t participate in PVP or dungeons (he’d have to choose a faction). He couldn’t leave the relatively tiny starting island at all. He couldn’t even mail himself gear, as the island has no mailbox.
This weekend he gathered together fellow neutral-minded players into a herb-picking raid to celebrate hitting level 90. His total play time on the character prior to the event was some 170-plus days.
Doubleagent’s future plays include staying on The Wandering Isle when the Warlords of Draenor expansion comes out this fall and slowly picking his way towards level 100.
Doubleagent hits Level 90! [World of Warcraft via The Escapist]
Comments
31 responses to “World Of Warcraft Player Hits Level 90 Without Picking A Side”
I remember reading something like 176 days played. Half a year of just picking herbs and mining ore. I think, that task alone should award you the title “the insane”.. oh wait….
Blizzard should award him by letting him leave the island, crazy willpower though I could never do something this fruitless.
That should absolutely do things like that – reward crazy dedicated players by making specific exceptions for them, it wouldn’t break anything, it would just be very cool. He could just wander the world picking herbs.
If I were at Blizzard I would totally push for that – or even going further, they should give him some special banner / armour / pet that is literally only created for him and anybody else who has the dedication required to follow the Neutral path. Adds flavour.
They have the resources, I wish there were more “one offs” in WoW, assets created just for certain players who stand out in particular ways.
I can’t tell if you are serious, your post is like 95% sarcastic tone.
Oh haha, it’s not meant to be sarcastic sorry, totally serious. I like how in Dark Souls it’s not just a shield or a staff, but a weapon with history that belonged to somebody. I’d like to play an MMO with unique items that literally only exist once, and can be lost, won and passed down, that have a history that exists beyond the imagination of the player wielding them.
I agree in spirit. But they will never do this incase it breaks the game. Its not worth it if something weird happens and the server crashes.
What makes a man stay neutral… Lust for gold? Power?
Or was he just born with a heart full of neutrality?
I like your style, Gooky – you remind me of a young me, not much younger mind you, perhaps even a couple years older.
With Evil you know where they stand…but with Neutrals? Who knows!
You two just made a difficult day bearable, the internet thanks you for your services.
Wow, one day a man has everything…,then the following day he blows up a $40 billion space station, and the next day he has nothing. It really makes you think.
That is my most fond futurama episode. Such memories
The real kicker is he paid however much it is per month for about 6 months to farm. Not to do whatever it is people do in WoW, but to farm
Amusing comment from the Reddit thread:
Things you can do in 4164 hours:
* Earn 10.4 million wow gold, at a rate of 2500 an hour
* Earn 33 thousand dollars at a minimum wage job
* Learn both chinese and arabic languages as a native english speaker
* Learn to fly, get enough hours to become a commercial pilot on a major airline.
* Walk at 3.5mph from Magadan, Russia to Cape Point, South Africa (burning 1.69 million calories, enough to lose 483 pounds of fat if you were 150lbs)
* Have a level 90 character in world of warcraft that cannot participate in any of the major gameplay features.
Just why. What a waste of life.
But how do you kill that which has no life?
You can stay outside and play basketball all day, or you can sit at your computer and do something that matters
As opposed to playing another videogame?
Playing videogames is a fun thing to do. This wasn’t really playing. Gridning, doing the same thing over and over and over. For what? I don’t think this is really an accomplishment.
People running time trials? People playing for High Scores? People playing games that are at it’s core, simple repetitive actions? (Look at Pong!)
And he wasn’t grinding, per se, just doing it as something to do when watching TV/movies.
In all of the MMORPG’s Ive ever played there was always that 1 Person who never chose a class/Stayed in the beginning area – I used to call them mad, I still stand by that point.
🙂
But everyone is choosing to fight in a never-ending war. Which, according to Catch-22, makes THEM mad 😛
“When the lunatics run the asylum”, and all that.
I don’t blame him. As a neutral pandaren, given the option to go see the world, you can either hang out with the Alliance, which… yeuch, or go join the mighty Horde. Only if you do the seemingly obvious thing, your initial introduction is through Garrosh doing everything within his power to make you think, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
In the face of that, I wouldn’t inflict either option on a poor young panda, either.
That just makes it all the more satisfying when you defeat him in SoO =) I imagine if you start a Pandaren after WoD comes out, you’ll be introduced via Vol’jin and not Garrosh, and there are literally no down sides to that at all, because Vol’jin is awesome.
So there’s only one level 90 neutral panda… he’s just become closer to extinction?
I bet his gear sucks.
I think doing this was pretty much a plot of a South Park episode.
No. The plot of the episode was the four kids grinding away so they could eventually defeat a player with greater abilities.
Yes, but the part about staying in one area and doing menial things to get to a high level.
My dad did something similar to Doubleagent – he isn’t level 100 or anything, around about level 60, but he had made a draenei priest and levelled it without killing anything at all, and just collecting herbs and ore.