33 things I want to do before I quit WoW

There’s a lot of talking about quitting WoW these days. Some do it for real. Others are just playing with the thought.

I’m not ready to join either of the categories yet. But it certainly makes me start thinking. A long time ago I wrote a post about what I would do the last few hours if Blizzard suddenly decided to close down the servers. At that point I wanted to have a last few hours in Karazhan, and then let Larísa finish her days in a simple way, dressed in a simple white dress, forever merrily playing at some idyllic green pasture such as Elwynn Forest.

And I think I would say the same if you asked me again, almost a year later. Those two activities represent what is the essence of the game to me. One is raiding. I’d probably not spend my last night online in Karazhan, but I’d certainly want to get a last mouthful of it to enjoy. Maybe one of the new, quicker encounters, such as Sartharion or Malygos?

Ever since I discovered the charm of raiding, it has been the warm, throbbing heart of my WoW playing. It has brought me focus, relaxation, excitement, friendship and all of those zen moments of clarity which make the real world worries fade away.

But the other aspect, the running around barefoot on a field, is just as important to me, even though I tend to forget it sometimes when I get too caught up in the “always being productive and efficient” approach to the game, which is rather silly when I think closer about it.

I want to remember my character Larísa as someone who is free from burdens and obligations, who happily runs around, probably making cute emotes, playing hide and seek and just enjoying herself and the world. It’s somehow a comforting thought to think that she’ll still be there, even if it’s only in my imagination.

My 33 list
Today however I started to pay the issue a little bit more of attention. I thought: when I decide to quit the game, the question isn’t just how I’ll spend my last few hours. It would probably be a decision that would grow over time. And even once it’s taken I’d probably have some more days to spend in the game before the subscription ran out. And I was asking myself: are there some things in the game that I haven’t done and I’d really like to do before I can leave it with an easy mind?

Have you seen those books flooding the market, where people list “1000 movies you need to see before you die”, “1000 places you need to visit” and so on? I don’t think I could come up with 1000 “must-do” activities in WoW, and I certainly don’t have the nerve to tell others what they should do. But for fun I made a smaller list for myself. So here I proudly present you 33 things (without any priority order) that I want to do before I log out for the very last time! Maybe some of it can inspire you if you feel stuck and out of inspiration what to do next:

1. Win an arena match. This is a brave one. Will I ever be able to leave WoW if doing this is a condition? But I’m always up for a challenge.
2. Clear Sunwell. A whole raiding instance that I haven’t seen. Seems like such a waste of content.
3. Create a horde character on a strange server where I don’t know anyone and level it to at least 40. No quest addons allowed. Will I once again feel the thrill and excitement I felt being new and lost in an unknown world? Or will it be just a “meh, kill 10 horde version of pigs” experience? Will I make friends? Will I progress more easily than I did when I started, thanks to my experience? I want to know what I’ve learned over the years.
4. Eat a delicious chocolate cake at a beautiful spot. It makes me smile every time! Not for the achievement, but for the silly little firework and the completely unnecessary buff.
5. Get an Azure Whelping. Preferably not at AH, unless I’m desperate.
6. Get myself a Winterspring Frostsaber mount. (I imagine that after such a grind I’ll felt relived rather than sorry to leave the game. It’s my cunning plan to detach myself from Azeroth.)
7. Make a cool Slowfall. From Darnassus to Kalimdor, from Stormspire to Hellfire. Be a video copy cat and pretend that I came up with it myself.
8. Try some world PvP. Join a For the Alliance raid.
9. Arrange and lead a successful instance run of any kind from the beginning to the end. (Should involve more players than myself.) Just to prove to myself that I can.
10. Run an instance as a healer. (Which means that I’ll have to level my little druid at least to Deadmine level).
11. Run an instance as a tank. (Same druid! Dual spec, ftw!)
12. Roll a Death Knight and level it at least until Outland ready. They say it's such a cool questline.
13. Buy an awesome Darkmoon trinket. It’s always seemed way out of reach to me. Is it really so?
14. Find a sneaky player who could take me on a guided tour to some lesser known places over the world where you’re not supposed to be. It’s probably forbidden, but who cares since I’m leaving anyway?
15. Get an undying title of any valor. Prove to the world, and over all to myself, that I’m NOT necessarily suicidal just because I’m a mage.
16. Do if not all, at least most quests in Northrend. There are so many interesting quests, including cool things like movies, vehicles and phases, and I still haven’t come around to do many of them, which is a pity.
17. Do the Make Love, not Warcraft achivement, hugging dead enemies before they release corpse. It’s cute and still sort of humiliating in a devilish way. Kill them and then hug them. I love the idea.
18. Spec frost and go nuts aoe!
19. Harass some poor flag watcher in AB with my rogue. I’ve been attacked SO many times by rogues. The revenge will be sweet.
20. Spend a silly night at the Ironforge bridge in company with our realm clown Cacknoob. Maybe he was right all the time? Maybe that’s the way the game should be played. I don’t know until I’ve tried it.
21. Kill the toughest raid boss that the game offers at that moment. I really can’t leave as long as he is standing on his feet. Who it will be depends on in which expansion I’ll be leaving.
22. Disable all map addons and play hide and seek with someone likeminded in Stormwind.
23. Spend a couple of nights at a role playing server to see what it’s like.
24. Complete the spear quest at Hodirs. It was so annoying that I gave up and leveled my rep to exalted by other means. But it’s annoying to have it undone. I want to show myself that I can do it.
25. Have a ride with the subway between Stormwind and Ironforge. I’ll never forget the thrill I felt the first time I did it. Being a mage you get into teleporting habits pretty quickly though, so it’s been too long since I last did it.
26. Catch some fish in Ogrimmar! I'm not a coward.
27. Get the Polymorph Cat spell, make a macro for random polymorphing and find a spot where I can amuse myself with that on the behalf of some poor mob. I would feel like a real wizard for once.
28. Dress up in the useless, but good looking cloths that currently are just collecting dust in my bank vault. I’ve never ever put on those beautiful pink and black dresses, always walking around in full combat gear. It’s a shame. Larísa should get a casual dressed night at least once before she retires.
29. Complete my world exploring. When I first started to play the game, the map was grey and the world was huge and endless. Now it has shrunk sadly and I know very well it isn’t. There’s no excuse to leave the game without seeing it all.
30. Kill a rare spawn. The requirements of The Northern Exposure achievement seem modest enough. Find and kill ONE of 23 named creatures. But I have yet to see a single one of them. Heming Nesingwary must be displeased with me.
31. Take a bunch of screenshots of dear friends and places in the game. I’ve never been good at picture taking and the few ones I had were lost in the last computer crash. Of course I have it all in my head, but it would be nice to have a few pictures too to show my grand children.
32. Give a game master a farewell hug. I think they need it.
33. Have a haircut.

Nooooo! The last one was just a joke. Won't happen. Ever.

I'll leave that open for you. What is the 33rd thing I should do before I quit?