Too much?

It's 10:30pm where I am in the world, and I just started leveling my loner character before I went off to bed (Working 26 hours in 3 days and one of them is a public holiday), and I was thinking if it is really needed for me to level a second character to get the results.  I think that it might become a bit too time consuming and repetitive, I'd like to keep my sanity at the end of experiment as well.

Can you please all leave comments and tell me what you'd like to see me do in this situation?

I'll also make this the poll question for the next week.

Stay tuned for updates!

What and Where to roll?

Probably the hardest choice I'm going to have to make throughout this whole project and that is what characters to roll and where to roll them. I've done HOURS of research on this and I have pumped out averages on race class combinations, collected census information from www.warcraftrealms.com and on an average it appears that an Orc Hunter is the most occurring level 80 race class combination across all realms (If you're curious the second highest was Blood Elf Death Knight).


After I worked out what class and race to choose for this experiment I then had to figure out which realm was the most balanced in Alliance:Horde ratio and progress on both sides. Once again after hours of research and calculation it appeared that the average Alliance:Horde ratio was 1.2 : 1 which is a very minimal difference and that the average realm had 6 / 12 ICC 10H cleared. Another thing that was almost overlooked by me was the realm population, it turns out that an average realm has between 3,000 - 9,000 character population (level 80 characters).


At the end of the day it turned out that Blackwater Raiders with a population of just over 20,000 characters (level 10 - 80) is one of the most even realms. A:H of 1 : 1.3 (In favor of the Horde), but the activity only shows a 20 character difference in the last 24 hours. 


In conclusion I've chosen to roll Orc Hunter on Blackwater Raiders. 


Stay tuned for updates.

No Guild Experience! A new World of Warcraft project.

With Blizzards Cataclysm expansion soon to be released I would like to conduct an experiment before the game is changed “forever”. Watching video blogs, listening to podcasts and reading the Blizzard forums it seems to be that in Cataclysm there is going to be much focus around ‘being in a guild’ and the importance of it is going to be so dramatically increased to the point where to gain certain benefits and items you have to be apart of a guild. 

The experiment I wish to conduct is to see if being in a guild really affects progress and if at the end of the day it is really important. The way that I’ll be doing this is by researching the most played class, role and faction combination and create that character on a determined realm depending on how balanced it is (Alliance : Horde ratio, faction progress), I’ll also be following a strict play time schedule of 3 hours a day (21 hours a week) for leveling and raiding. A long side this ‘loner’ character I’ll also be leveling a character of the exact race, class faction etc just that it will be in a guild, and after a time frame of 15 days played at level 80 which one has the most achievement points, gear - score, Ice Crown progression, reputations exalted and total gold acquired.

Rules: 

• Cannot play MORE than 3 hours per character per day. (However, on weekends two sessions of three hours per character (6 hours per day per character on weekends) is acceptable).
• The Non - guild character may not be sent gold from level 80 alts, friends, however it can be handed items from strangers. (This also includes NO heirlooms for both characters.)
• Gear, Gems and enchants at level 80 will be prioritized as they are on Elitist Jerks.
• The guild character is only allowed to raid with A GUILD 2 times a week. (Pugs only for VoA or weekly raid unless its ICC). This character is also not allowed to arrange pugs via the forums.
• The Non - guild character is allowed to arrange pugs on the forums, but is not allowed to have MORE than 2 consecutive runs of a raid where majority are from a certain guild.
• The guild character is to be played during the prime hours, and the non - guild character is to be played before or after the prime hours.