Can you be a casual player in WoW?
The fact is that in today's world, not all MMO players are kids on summer vacation and 40 year old virgins playing 12 hours a day in their parents basements. Many World of Warcraft players, and MMO and MUD players in general, are working adults with jobs, families, friends, and other real life responsibilities. So the question arises, how can a busy professional make the time necessary for MMO games?
Be Realistic
One thing you should realize, a hardcore player who puts in 14 hours a day will advance faster than someone putting in a couple of hours each night and on the weekends. That is a simple fact and you should never be bitter about it. I mean if you spend 10 hours at work and make a nice days pay, and someone else sits in front of WoW for that 10 hours, should you really be able to run home and spend 2 hours getting to where they are? That person made the decision to spend large amounts of their life in front of WoW, and you made the decision not to. Just as in life, working long and hard at something pays off. Dont worry, you'll get there, it will just take longer.
WoW Helps Casual Players
World of Warcraft more than any other game makes efforts to help casual players catch up to the hardcore players. The XP bonus that you receive when logged off in a city or at an inn can be invaluable in catching yourself up to the hardcore players. Be sure to always log out in a city or at an inn so you will get this bonus XP. In addition, many of the newer instances are 5 man instances. This makes it alot easier for you to raid. Blizzard has said that they will not create anymore instances larger than 25 man. This helps the casual player. No longer do you have to always be in a huge raid guild and wait around for 2 hours while they try to get 40 players together for a raid. You can develop a close group of friends that plays around the same schedule as you and you can do 5 man instances to get that higher level equipment that you strive for.
Be Efficient
If you have limited time and resources to devote to the game, try as best you can to be efficient. Get the mods like Titan Panel that will give you an XP rate calculator. Get yourself situated, then reset the counter and try out some methods of fighting mobs that you may think will be the quickest and provide you with the most benefits. Try to focus on mobs that are the easiest for your class to kill. Oftentimes plain tank style mobs go down faster and with less downtime than caster mobs or mobs that constantly run away etc.. Check your XP rate for awhile, then reset it again and try a different method. See which of your methods gives you the most XP after 30 minutes.
Consider PvP
Casual players in WoW may want to seriously consider almost exclusively doing PvP when they get to 60 or 70. Since I have very little time to play nowadays, I basically have myself bound and logged in Stormwind. When I log in, I casually chat with my friends, and either join up with them, or start joining BG's. Usually I only have an hour or two during weekdays, so I can jump on, run a few BG's and enjoy myself. I also get points that I can put towards some of the Epic PvP armor. I have almost an entire set of purple level 60 PvP armor from doing this a couple of hours at a time over 2 months. Compare that to joining a raid guild which makes me play at least 4 hours a day and raid 3 times a week, only for me to have to spend a couple of months or more saving up DP's to try and get that uber purple item from MC when it finally drops. For the casual player, the whole DP system just isnt worth it.
Stick With One Character
If you are a casual WoW player and are concerned about getting to the high levels with the uber equipment, consider sticking with one character only. Now I have alts just like almost everyone does, and i've made about 20 alts in my time. But by now, I know what kind of character I like, i've played around with all the classes and have seen how the different classes do in grouping as well as soloing. With my limited time, i'm never going to get all those characters to 60 or 70 or more. If I were concerned with getting my character into the uber levels with my limited playtime, i'm going to pick one of my characters and stick with it.
What else?
Should you share characters? I guess if you are really concerned with impressing people you dont know you could try to share characters, but I wouldnt recommend it. If your a casual player, why are you so intent on impressing people with your levelling speed? Also this is extremely dangerous and you could try to login one Friday night and find your password has been changed. Its not worth it.
Should you buy gold? Up to you I guess. I can see why you would want to being a casual player. Why grind for gold for weeks when you can just buy a stack? Well there are a few reasons that you should think about. One, buying gold is against the terms of service. Blizzard forbids it and you run the risk of getting your account banned. I have never heard of them banning for purchasing gold however. I actually have a friend who bought 500 gold from IGE and some of it was intercepted by Blizzard. He got a verbal warning.
Overall, just have fun. Thats why you play the game right? If your a casual player, then you most likely have something else in your life thats taking up most of your time. If you want to impress people, impress them with whatever that thing is, why try to do it with WoW when you cant devote yourself completely to it. Just login and have fun and unwind. When you get bored, logout and come back again later. If you keep at it, you will get to 60 eventually, then 70, then 80. Almost all the content in the game can be accessed by a group of 10 or less, just stick with it. Baby steps, you'll get there!
