NotSteve’s Guide to Cataclysming

How to fail at real life but have a whole lot of fun in Cataclysm

This guide is a simple step-by-step guide to playing Cataclysm when you should definitely be planning for your future or doing other productive things. It covers all the basic fails you could have in and out of Cataclysm while enjoying the hell out of WoW’s newest expansion. (Sorry but I don't know any pretty HTML coding )

1. Put off buying Cataclysm on opening day. It’s finals week; you can’t mess around with a silly game, so instead of doing that, just talk with your friend about it while you try to study. That won’t sidetrack you and make you bomb your Spanish final. Nope. Didn’t happen.

2. Buy Cataclysm the second your finals are done. You didn’t have to clean the house or unpack anything. You just moved in six months ago, and that is not nearly enough time to get unpacked. You also rent, so you’re seconds away from being thrown out for no reason. That is the way things work. Besides you have to buy the game so you can get behind quickly. More on that later.

3. Make goals you have to meet every day before playing Cataclysm. Take out that dry-erase marker and large calendar because you are making some goals! It doesn’t matter if you meet them; it matters that you made them, look at them every day, and realize that you are on your way to achieving those goals . . . tomorrow.

4. Check out all that new stuff! Damn new expansions are fun! There is so much new stuff to check out, new gear to buy, new everything, and with Cataclysm, everything has changed so much that you just log out and wait for your friend to explain a lot of it to you so you don’t have to think so hard. Go browse Netflix and watch "A League of Their Own" because you can’t get enough of Tom Hanks.

5. Rekindle the bromances. Toss that real-life girlfriend aside because it’s time for bromancing with your old guildies! Your pinky will hurt from shift-clicking all the new gear you got to all your bros, and you link everything. Green off the AH for 37g? LINKS! Ninja’d a dagger in a reg? LINKS! Truegold cooldown you don’t have the cash to use? LINKS! And just think, with this pinky workout you got going on, you will be in tip-top shape when it comes time to spend time with your girlfriend, whenever that happens.

6. Stall at leveling characters. All those 80s . . . all that work. Eff that! Start leveling professions. This way you can do it on a dead or underpowered character and waste as much gold as possible. Once you start leveling, don’t focus on one of your six 80s. There is too much fun to be had at 85 for you to level just one character. You need to be behind from the start so that you can catch up in the end and look awesome. Plus, playing a little of all those classes teaches you a lot about your other classes (it really does).

7. Think about those goals some more. Those are some good goals: researching grad programs, reading an hour a day, writing an hour a day, cleaning one room a day until the house is clean, alphabetizing Magic cards . . . good thing you know what you need to do for your future. A lot of times people get sidetracked and don’t set goals for themselves and they don’t go anywhere because of it. Now that you’ve looked at those goals again, go play Cataclysm. Those goals will be there tomorrow, staring you right in the face . . .

8. Try every spec possible, regardless of gear. Never tanked as a druid? DPS’d as a warrior? Now is the best time to try new things. Regardless of the prices on new gear, buy the best gear possible. You’re just trying out a spec, so you should look good doing it, and have the best stats you can get. You’ll be a level 80 twink right off the bat. Plus, if you fail at the spec in a dungeon, you can just blame it on new content, and then vendor the gear for your monies back. Or try these scenarios: if you’re a tank, blame dps for not watching threat. If you’re a healer, blame dps for not CC’ing enough so the tank could live, or blame tank for crappy gear even if he has 80k health at 80. If you’re a dps, pull mobs like you’re tanking. Tanks don’t mind and things get done faster, and if the tank doesn’t pick it up, blame him/her. It’s the tanks fault unless you’re the tank, and then it’s the DPS’s fault regardless of the situation. Those lazy DPS :/

9. Ruin your sleep schedule. You’re playing the hell out of Cataclysm, and doing a fine job at it. You don’t have any 85’s, but you’ve done everything else you could possibly do but level, and you’ve managed to turn your sleep schedule around so that you go to bed at 11 a.m. and sleep until 5 p.m., and then the cycle begins anew. This won’t affect you when school starts up again. Besides, that’s why Jesus invented Powerthirst. And you have a sinus infection? Now there is definitely no reason to sleep. If you sleep, you'll just be all stuffy, so why not grind out a couple quest hubs in Hyjal instead.

10. Make this guide because of Wednesday maintenance. Wednesday maintenance? BLASPHEMY! Because you can’t play WoW at the moment and all you can think about it WoW and the goals you have to do, why not write a guide about it? But how does a clicker with little experience at level 85—let alone experience writing guides—write a guide? Well, you go with what you know. And you know that you haven’t done a thing all Christmas break because you have been playing a whole lot of Cataclysm in your own way. Never mind your high hopes of a future at a prestigious college for creative writing. Never mind the four books you have to read for next quarter, one of them being a French novel written in the Victorian Era (so you know it’s bad). You’re having a blast at Cataclysm because you followed all these guidelines like NotSteve.

I hope this guide has been as informative for you as it has been for me. And now I'm off to achieve those goals . . . right after lunch