This is easily the stupidest thing I’ve decided to do in game, but I’m doing it anyway. I have decided to take on the Iron Man Challenge.

For those of you playing at home who don’t know what the Iron Man Challenge is, it’s a crazy challenge to get a toon to max level with nothing higher than white gear. And you can’t die. Ever. If you die, you’re done. You also can’t choose talents or specialisations or glyphs or use flasks or pots or do raids or dungeons or have professions (other than first aid). Oh god what am I doing?!

Given the biggest rule is don’t die, I immediately took myself over to a non-PVP server. I went back to my roots to Aman’Thul and created a night elf hunter – Ironcinder.

Going hunter is an obvious choice here – have a pet, let it tank for you so you don’t get hit too much. Hunters also have feign death which I’m sure will come in handy! And also, they’re fun to play. I was tossing up between draenei and night elf for the race, and eventually went with night elf for the shadowmeld racial. Again, something that I think will come in handy. And she looks pretty.

There’s a fantastic site that’s up that helps track your progress, and will let you know if you’ve broken any of the rules. It’s called WoW Challenges. I’m on there now!

This isn’t something I’m going to go all “hardcore” on. I imagine this is going to take a very long time to complete, and I’m ok with that. I like the idea of having a long standing achievement going (even though there isn’t an in-game achieve for this). I’m also really enjoying being Alliance again. Everything is pretty! And people are nice and not cranky at you! Such a nice change. I also enjoy having something thatI can do by myself. I do like playing with other people, but I always feel pressured to go faster than I want to when I quest with others. So it’s nice to just plod along at my own pace.

Ironcinder is currently sitting by a river in Darnassus, contemplating the difficult challenge ahead…