I saw this and had to give it a go!
Rules:
Level from 1-85 using the rules below.
Only White or Grey gear. No Heirlooms of any kind.
No transfer of gear, items, or money from any other character (yours or others).
No gear enhancements, including gems, enchanting, and reforging. Class abilities are allowed (eg. Rogue poisons, Shaman imbues).
No specialization, talent points, or glyphs. No pet talent points.
No professions or secondary skills, except for First Aid.
No potions, flasks, or elixirs except for required quest items.
No food buffs or other external buffs (including buffs from items and other players).
No groups or assistance from other characters, even if not grouped.
No dungeons, raids, battlegrounds, or arenas.
No guilds
No Refer-A-Friend.
No addons which assist in combat and/or leveling (eg. leveling guides, Ovale).
THE BIG ONE: No deaths. Character death for any reason disqualifies the character
The following are allowed:
All class abilities, racials, and personal buffs.
All mounts, bags, and non-combat pets.
All quests, including holiday events and dailies (unless prohibited by some other rule, eg. Fishing and Cooking dailies).
Links:
Official Forums: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3966606644
Unofficial Tracking Page: http://www.wowironman.com/
Comments
This just makes the game slower, not harder!
did you miss the part where if you die you have to delete and start over?
On my first attempt I bit the dust at level 6 because I got three of the Fargodeep Kobolds on me and I took a wrong turn and got cornered. :P
Nice idea. Sad that I dont play this game anymore.
I would resub, if:
Blizzard would make this idea official, like with a special achievement or title
and give the grey gear and overhaul on its looks. For example a rusty, veteran-like look. That you dont run around like the last piece of sh..izzo
you just trust wow players not to cheat on you? :P gl with that
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
The armory shows if a person dies or not. You can also check gear at any time past level 10. Of course, the honor system is in place. Since it's not for money or anything, cheaters are only robbing themselves anyway. All of this is covered in the FAQ on the websites.
That's still not hard though is it, you just went to the wrong place. The game is far too binary for this. After loosing a few chars you'll just end up picking safe mobs and working to reduce RNG. I love WoW don't take this the wrong way, I am subbed right now but very few parts are 'hard' during the entire game, there is hardly anything that is actually a case of outskilling, out maneuvering etc.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
It can be LOL. Just an opinion, saw this stuff on the forums and thought I'd share it here. I'm not running it or anything :P It's just a fun thing for interested folks to do, that's all. It's not a contest with any big reward or anything like that.
Love the idea of playing a standard game with different ruleset. Considering that most random dungeons often wipe, I wouldn't even try one.
RIP Orc Choppa
I would think only being able to use the classes base abilities would make it much harder since without using talent points you can't get most of the classes normal main abilities.
it is a very good idea but unless blizzard make this na achievement of some kind i dont see how it is gona happen without cheating!
This just isn't true. Of course leveling is easy if you equip green, blues and heirloom gear because you're overpowered for the content.
Once you get high enough level, you either play super safe like people did in MMO's of old (i.e. killing mobs that are green to you) or you increase your risk of dying by a large amount.
Normally, when you get hit by something, you just keep attacking the mob. But with whites and greys, you don't have the health pool to soak the damage. You now have to play smart. Interrupting, kiting, using all manner of cooldowns and escaping when you pull extra mobs.
If a new MMO was announced with this ruleset and difficulty, it would be called "Dark Souls MMO" and people would be hyping it like crazy. But because it's WoW, people want to write it off. There are levels at which, even with a previous expansions raid gear (gemmed and enchanted) you have to eat/drink after one or two mobs. I'm just trying to think how a white geared player would be able to cope with the incoming damage while having such low damage output.
There is no incentive to cheat.
If blizz were to add an achieve or reward, then you would provide a motivation for cheating. But as it stands, it's a community event in which people participate for fun.
I have been screaming for new, exciting things to do in this game, and now my prayers have been answered.
I've leveled 8 characters from 1 to 85, but now I get the excitement of leveling another character from 1 to 85.
Will the fun ever end? I don't think so.
I like this Iron Man idea. Perhaps I'll make myself a character to see how far I'll get
But one thing I can't live with... Only white/grey gear..? IMO this rule should be that you're only allowed to buy the gear you get dropped and/or can buy from NPC's, and since there's no BG or instances, the chances of getting rare stuff is close to zero. Also no AH to buy anything at all!
Also a small note on the add-ons... Kinda hard to check this...
[EDIT]
Made a Blood-Elf Priest myself on Hellbound (EU) named IronMaid (IronMaiden and IronLady were taken already )
No dungeons in the Ironman challenge. Solo only.
Not like hunter bots didn't do this 1-60 back in Vanilla /yawn
It should remove use of flight paths and use of mounts. Add in mandatory flagging. That would push it to hardcore. :-)
You'd have to skip some entire quest areas without flight ... which could be very challenging indeed! A friend of mine were talking yesterday about if somebody could pull this off on a PvP server - wow! I'm not trying that LOL.
Yes I know, I was only refering to the fact that with the no death rules I wouldn't even risk running a dungeon. In the link you provided they do allow dungeons runs if soloed and the mobs are grey. I don't see the point honestly since you don't get exp and can't equip the loot.
The grey and white items must be expensive in the AH.
This whole thing remind me a little of the pacifists :
http://www.gamesradar.com/wow-pacifist-reaches-level-85-through-picking-and-mining/
That sounds like a horrible waste of time, but I'm sure some people will love it. Class choice is huge though and the ability to level from professions makes it easier.
I have this thing about dying in MMOs, so I wanted to see if I could get to 85 in WoW without kicking the bucket. I was already following most of the posted rules, with the exception that I used any gear I found, crafted, or could buy and didn't limit myself to only whites. Leveling without dying got much easier after Cat, and after seeing each area before. I did avoid dungeons, and also quests where you could be insta-killed, like the Rambo quests in Redridge. I made it to 84 with my prot war, and ended up dying to a bugged quest in Uldum. Pissed me off to no end, and I won't be trying that again.
can i do all this without paying 14.95 a month?
You'll also probably fail when someone randomly buffs you.