Limited Time Only: General

Today I'd like to start my first weekly feature article. "Limited Time Only" is for those of us who enjoy World of Warcraft but also have lives outside of our lovely imaginary world. This being the first feature we'll focus our attention on general tips and tricks for getting the most out of your time. Join me after the break for a quick overview of time saving and play enhancing techniques.




From raiding to questing, crafting to rping most of us want to get the most out of every minute we spend logged on. For those of us who have jobs and families it's a necessity. I work a 40+ hour week, have a wife, and will soon have a child all ranked higher than WoW on my priority list. When I do get to sit down for a couple of hours I want to bang out as much stuff as I can in a short amount of time. There are a few simple tips that hopefully will help you as much as they help me.

• Immerse yourself in your task: "Tunnel Vision" is one way to describe it. Try not to get distracted by other in-game tasks. Remember focus fire is the fastest way to bring something down, this includes a task. 
• Avoid lulls in action: Flying circles around Stormwind while waiting for your tank to finish his burrito is a waste of time. If you have to wait on someone go farm or quest. Sitting and doing nothing doesn't help at all
• Plan Ahead: If you set goals for the play session you'll be surprised how much harder you'll push to reach them in the time alotted. "5 bars of xp before logging!" will have you actively engaging in competition with yourself while "I'll just log on and level." Is pretty passive.
• Set a definite start and end point to your play time: Sometimes we're forced into making this decision but when we're not your spouse/family member/cat understands better if you let them know you'll be playing till X o' clock.
• Find likeminded players: Play with friends and guildlies who have similar schedules and understand your time constraints
• Find someone who pushes you: Finding someone who wants to outlevel/outgear/outcraft you is an excellent motivator. Packing all that rich fiber into your diet. I mean all that dense experience into your play session.
• Marry a WoW player: Makes playing so much easier. While you're at it train the kiddos to play too. All you need now are a bunch of computers and a lot of bandwidth.

These are just a few tips to making your time in Azeroth more fruitful. Each week I'll be covering a different aspect of the game and ways to enrich your time in wow. I'm not much of a pvp'er so if anyone has any suggestions for pvp time saving please e-mail me your article and I'll publish it here with full credit to the writer.