How much time are you willing to invest in your gaming goals?

Our wonderful Editor-in-Chief, Liz Harper, has questioned my devotion to alt leveling during World of Warcraft Remix: Mists of Pandaria and The War Within‘s pre-expansion event. I’m trying to level… well, everything that was not already level 70 on my account at the start of Remists. My goal? Have a level 70 character of every race currently in World of Warcraft — bonus points if I could do it with as many unique classes as possible. But why on earth would I do this to myself?

Because it’s a challenge.

Yes, some of you may argue that it’s not really a challenge, that I could level a full stable of 23 alts in a long weekend, so long I was proceeding at max efficiency. Why 23? 1) Because I already have a level 70 character and 2) That’s the number of characters required to max out on last-minute bronze without doing any other activities in Remists.

Now, to be clear, I’m not actually leveling 23 characters through Remists, only 10 — one for each Alliance race that I don’t already have in my account at level 60+ (Pandaren and Dracthyr don’t count). I’m halfway done! But I’m also taking all 12 of my Horde alts through the pre-expansion event, and I’ve already maxed out five of them too.

This phenomenon is a reason why I return to Diablo seasons over and over — I love having fresh goals to achieve, to see if I can improve upon my last efforts, and to experience anything new. We’re getting a new activity (Infernal Hordes) in Diablo 4 Season 5, and I’m excited to see how they feel after post-PTR feedback improvements. Right on the heels — Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred. They basically have an engaged player guaranteed for the next 5-6 months, albeit sporadically because of work.

But this tendency follows me to all the games I play. I just returned to Stardew Valley right before the 1.6 update after *cough cough* years of barely touching it and I am so hooked. It’s hitting all the right buttons in my noggin currently, to the point where I’m going for perfection in my first playthrough on this computer. I’ve played over 200 hours and am 75% of the way there.

I haven’t exactly sacrificed everything here (what have you given?) — I’m still working on these goals within my free time, but I’m enjoying it. And now it’s your turn Watcher — share in the comments some of your examples of gaming enthusiasm, where you’ve gone all out for a goal. I’ll make sure Liz H. sees at least a few of them!