Dakota Gordon · @Kapodaco
5th Jan 2022 from TwitLonger
I achieved a personal goal
(Disclosure: This is about a video game achievement that was a long time in the making. If you were expecting something like, "I achieved my dream job!" or "I lost 50 lbs. doing yoga!" this is not that important, realistically.)
I have been playing World of Warcraft for about 15 years now, off and on. In that time, I've spent thousands (roughly) of hours going through most of what the world has to offer, spanning from vanilla all the way to late Cataclysm. Since around late 2015, I've been playing private servers of the game in its The Burning Crusade (primarily) and Wrath of the Lich King expansions. Even in my adult life, one single thing about the game evaded me, which I always saw as a deeper flaw to my own character:
I had never reached level cap. The closest I ever got was level 62 (out of 70) many years ago during Wrath of the Lich King's official release.
For whatever reason, I could not help myself. Time would pass and inevitably, I would grow bored and either leave the game on hiatus for months or make new characters—if the former, I would return later and resort to the latter. I've had many names, races, and classes built up to levels in the 20's, 30's, and all the more rarely, 40's. Very, VERY few made it to the 50's. Only one made it to 60.
In mid December, I had a character (ironically of the same race, class, and spec as the character I got to level 62) in the higher 30's, level-wise. In a split-second decision, I decided to challenge myself, then and there, to reach level cap by the end of the month; just to see if I could. While I had one other character I was also working on, I set them aside this entire time to work exclusively on this one character: Cof.
Having recently quit my full-time commitment, it was very easy to put in the time to work towards this goal. What was at first a pretty smooth journey of about 2-3 levels a day eventually turned into a very grindy, arduous process of getting just enough experience to continue without running out of quests to do and grinding off of killing thousands (yes, thousands) of enemies. I would play the game anywhere from 8-14 hours a day; it was the most dedicated I've been to anything in a very long time. Appropriate that it would come from a game that's been in my life since my early teenage years.
At 9:28 AM CST, January 5th, 2022, I hit level cap (level 70) in (a) World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (private server) for the first time in my life.
While slightly miffed that I couldn't have done it by the end of December as intended, it's still immensely elating to be able to finally, FINALLY say that I've gotten a character to level cap. It shows me that I can commit to something time-consuming, something that takes effort and some immense stress to accomplish. World of Warcraft is an MMO; it's intended to eat up A LOT of your time. And it has, for me, eaten up plenty. 15 years later, I feel I've seen just about everything the game has to offer me (outside of group content, which I've never cared for) for the first time. I feel good.
...I also feel slightly silly for putting so much stress on myself to hit a goal on a game that means nothing in any practical sense. Ah well.
If you've read this far, know that I appreciate the time you've taken to read my benign thoughts on a game that seems to be mocked now more than anything. I spent a majority of December (and a little of January) on something important to me, and now that it's done, I feel more confident that I can commit to other things that may bear more fruit for me. It's a start—a start to a more dedicated, hardworking me (hopefully).