OK, so you are addicted to World of Warcraft no more, but you still play every now and then. You probably know the sense of vertigo that comes every time you log in now. What was I doing last time? Why am I camped in Dragonblight? What quest was I working on? Or what is the next step in the chain?
Don’t worry, it happens to all of us. When you are always logged on, its easy to pick up from last session. But when days or weeks go by in between, we all need some help.
Back in the addicted phase, I almost considered it cheating to have to resort to great sites like thottbot.com and wowhead.com. Now they are my first line of reference. I don’t want to take time to wander around aimlessly. Tell me where it is and what I need to do. Thottbot and wowhead do that. (To be fair, there are other sites that fulfill the same role. Those are just the two I use.)
Even better though, I’ve found a couple great addons: Questhelper and Carbonite Quest. Both do almost the same thing, so choose between them. Don’t run them at the same time. (I don’t think you even could.)
Both keep track of your questlog and guide you through the most efficient path to completing the quests. If all members in a group use the same tool, it will consolidate the quest list and take all the quests into consideration which is a great help in avoiding the, “What should we do next?” discussions that can eat up a lot of time.
Neither addon is perfect. But both are right enough of the time to make them worth using. (Note: Carbonite Quest becomes even better with the Cartographer addon installed as well. Questhelper stands alone.)
I use Carbonite instead of Questhelper because it shows the route of where you’ve been. It makes it a piece of cake to find your way out of dungeons instead of meandering around lost or maybe having to hearth out like I do sometimes.
Questhelper is a completely free addon. Carbonite comes in two varieties. One free and one paid for. I admit I do pay for Carbonite and find the added features worth it. But it is a useful tool even in its free version.
I’ve heard there are addons that go beyond Questhelper and Carbonite. They not only guide you in the quests you already have but suggest which ones you ought to pick up and maybe even drop because they aren’t worth doing. I haven’t looked into them too much because I kind of like completing all or most of the quests in an area before moving to the next.
I’ll be posting more reviews and suggestions for useful addons for the casual World of Warcraft player at myworldofwarcraftaddiction.com. If you know of any, please suggest them or write them up yourself and I’ll post them.
