You have said multiple times that you not only enjoy the pre-hero play, but that you apparently don't hero a lot of your characters because you find it boring. Good, gotcha.

When I roll a new character I go through the academy and then I usually do a bunch of gear scavenging and lowbie quests. I usually do quite a few quests. I explore for exploration and observation XP fairly heavily. I don't go anywhere unsafe or too high level, but I usually have a few thousand of each type by the late teens, often more. If I'm a mage or bard I tend to casually spam the most very important abilities up if I'm really serious. I work on important skills with my fighter classes, but I never sit at the mist wraits or anything like that, and I don't fight mobs hours on end to perfect all my non-spec weapons, for example. Oddly enough, I rarely ask for groups, I simply don't often turn them down when asked to “third”. I PK too, depending on class, but never really “stop to PK” at any key level. I continue to explore and do quests as I progress, based on level. I also stop for cabal interviews, misc. events, and things like that. At the very most, I can't see ever spending even 100 hours under 51, let alone hero range in general.

So what I want to know is how does my average day at the office differ from yours? Do you do the same stuff I do only more and for longer lengths of time? Do you find yourself driving down the freeway with your foot on the break to avoid getting to the “finish line” too quickly? Do you spend a lot of time going out of your way to have “RP sessions” or conversations with people?

I'm trying to think of what I would do if I was dead set on spending 150-200 hours pre-hero. Obviously that range changes for everyone depending on whether or not you devote that much time alone to mastering every single skill and that kind of thing. All I see is myself either power-gaming the hell out of everything and spending insane amounts of time spamming, prepping, etc., or tooling around feeling bored.

So when it comes to enjoying the teens and 20s especially, what is it that gets you all worked up for it? Whatever it is, I need some.

>So what I want to know is how does my average day at the
>office differ from yours? Do you do the same stuff I do only
>more and for longer lengths of time? Do you find yourself
>driving down the freeway with your foot on the break to avoid
>getting to the “finish line” too quickly?

Probably you and I do similar things, although I probably PK more.

With some (not most) characters I literally won't do anything but hunt if there are any enemies in my range. (Usually that I haven't killed recently.)

I also usually turn down most groups.

These things aren't every character I play, but probably most.

>Do you spend a lot
>of time going out of your way to have “RP sessions” or
>conversations with people?

I don't know if I'd say a lot of time, but definitely some.


>So when it comes to enjoying the teens and 20s especially,
>what is it that gets you all worked up for it? Whatever it is,
>I need some.

The main thing for me, I think, is that things will change as I level and that road hasn't hit its end yet. If I'm bored of being a level 20 druid, I can get a few levels and what I can do and what PK looks like will be pretty different. If I'm bored of being a level 51 druid, it's time to delete.

I could talk about the things I think are cool about lower level PK, too, but I think I've run that pretty well into the ground elsewhere.