In both of my previous WoW articles, I claimed to have played only two characters for my entire on-and-off history with the game. This is essentially true, since the druid is Alliance and the warlock is Horde and that means I can interact with every part of the world between the pair. I’ve never really felt any urge to make more characters since leveling is my least-favorite part of the game.

That was me. I tried to mine an explosive node while mounted, which massively increased my character hitbox. Don’t be like me

The only thing that ever tempted me to make a third character was learning about a specific quirk through which a player could theoretically reach max level without ever choosing either faction. The Pandaren race, added during the eponymous Mists of Pandaria expansion, uniquely starts the game neutral and picks a side at the end of their opening questline. If a player were to never make said choice, they would be locked in the starting zone but free to play the game to their heart’s content. And one of the most famous WoW players of all time did exactly that:

Doubleagent got tons of press coverage and shocked the world when he managed to reach max level exclusively through the meager means available on the island. And we’ll get into the specifics of the insane grind later. But for now, I confess to being extremely inspired by his ordeal. He once explained to an interviewer that he “just likes having a max-level character of every faction,” and dammit, I also think like that! Knowing there was a secret third faction I hadn’t leveled suddenly made my team feel incomplete, like my two toons had an empty pedestal beside them just waiting for me to complete the triumvirate. But for years I banished the notions as flights of fancy, intimidated by the sheer scale the grind would demand of anyone insane enough to try.

You see, the pandaren starting zone, while beautiful, is rather barebones as far as content goes. There are no quests to complete after the tutorial questline, the mobs stop giving XP after level 25, and neutral characters are locked out of most features and queues. (They can’t even access the Warbank, a core cross-faction mechanic that lets all your characters share items and currency!) The only real thing for them to do is mine copper nodes and gather herbs for a whopping 10-100xp each, meaning the grind is guaranteed to take months if not years. And I never played the game long enough to realistically finish an endeavor of the scale we’re talking about, so I never started.

Until December 28 2017, when I had a hankering to play WoW but not enough of one to reactivate my sub. Both my main toons were therefore inaccessible, but I did have the option of creating a free trial character and leveling to 20. And I figured, while that wouldn’t be be max level, it would be max level for a trial character and I can scratch a smaller version of that recurring itch. So I rolled up Sunzoo, using the same shaman class as Doubleagent because presumably he had his reasons for choosing it, and began the journey of a decade.

The first ten levels went quickly enough, completing the opening questline and saving the isle whilst steadfastly ignoring the prompt where I need to ally with one band of foreign castaways or the other. But after this, the entire island is going to presume I don’t exist and everything will cater to levels so low that my progress will slow to a crawl. I remember I managed to tough through and get those last 10 levels, completing my personal challenge, but it took significantly longer than expected just farming endless mobs wearing increasingly-underleveled gear. Upon reaching 20, I once more deinstalled the game, my curiosity being quenched.

Which is honestly really sad as I’d JUST unlocked Spirit Wolf form, the most important mobility boost I’ll get in this playstyle.

Unbeknownst to me, two important changes happened to WoW in the years between this and my next install. First, the stat squish in 2020 dropped Sunzoo down to level 10, I could have freely grinded ten more levels if I’d wanted. But, more importantly, the updated character creation screen removed the ability to create ‘true’ neutral pandas, now you need to side with Horde or Alliance before you even create your character. This left Sunzoo in a now-limited population of legacy pandas who are even capable of completing the grind, if their owners would only knuckle down and get it done.

Dumb fun fact, you can still mine ore and gather herbs in Ascendant form. This info is completely useless but looks funny

I made progress here and there, whenever I reactivated my sub for a short burst of WoW endorphins I’d nip on over to Sunzoo and grind out a level every so often. I discovered my favorite rotation for tagging gathering nodes across the island so they’d respawn shortly before I reached them again. I poured all my Shaman abilities into mobility boosts and totem-spawning (because Shamans get a 15% speed boost for having 3 totems out). It was a very unusual playstyle, chaining various movement tricks together to blitz around the island fragging posies at breakneck pace.

There’s no mailbox in the panda starting zone, so I was never able to read that mail ;_; What was it? Why did somebody send something to me?? I want to know!

But I didn’t get serious about the grind until returning for The War Within. Not only did it add a new Warband feature that let Sunzoo take her place around a campfire with my other two toons, it granted her a permanent 10% XP boost courtesy of my other characters! Now I was getting 110xp per node!! And more importantly, I’d carved a pretty decent chunk out of the progression already, reaching 49 despite my ever-distracted attention span. The capstone was still far away, but I could vaguely see the barest shadow of a finish line through the fog.

So I kept going, unlocking the ability to walk over water and speed up the slowest part of my route. I maxed out my Rested XP every login, I took advantage of seasonal XP-boosting events, and I started running five specific pet battle quests on my other characters that, god knows why, can be turned in on alts, giving Sunzoo a guaranteed daily XP stipend that greatly helped the grind. It wasn’t fast by any means, but I knew every quest turned in and every node gathered was shrinking the gap. I was guaranteed to finish so long as I didn’t stop. And it wasn’t even lonely, because I met somebody I never thought I would along the way!

It turns out the tutorial instance is shared across all servers, meaning it wasn’t long before I started running into Doubleagent, my inspiration for attempting this! He was on his sixth neutral character by this point, thanks to stamina levels and sheer conviction I could never hope to equal, and he was extremely friendly and encouraging. It honestly really helped whenever he was online, even if we didn’t interact that much because we didn’t want to steal each other’s nodes, just knowing someone else was doing it gave me the drive to never give up.

Something I didn’t expect was how oddly therapeutic this playstyle was. Gone was the hustle and bustle of WoW’s gameplay loops, dungeon queues, crowded hub cities… instead, playing Sunzoo was almost meditative, just jogging around on the back of a giant turtle gathering the simple resources nature offers. I started looking forward to my time doing this, often watching second-monitor YouTube or listening to podcasts and just losing track of time. Strangely, I started thinking I might miss this experience when I ultimately hit 80 and ended my odyssey.

Though I did once get distracted and waste a whole day glitching into a normally-inaccessible quarter of the island after he taught me it was possible. I’d wanted to see it again for years!

Until finally, on November 29 2024 (seven years after I started), Sunzoo mined her final copper ore and I’d done it, I’d reached max level and officially capped out without ever joining Alliance or Horde. And even better, Doubleagent was online and included my moment of completion in one of his videos!

I know it’s just a World of Warcraft character, but I’m honestly really happy I managed to achieve this after so many years thinking I’d never have the patience or stamina. The neutral panda playstyle is such a quirky little bundle of accidental mechanics that just barely eke out a feasible path to endgame. There’s no practical reason to ever play this way, but I feel like I joined a stoic little club of stalwart pacifists who eschew the violence and factionism inherent in World of Warcraft despite the complete dearth of in-game support for their chosen lifestyle.

Sunzoo ended her journey after 727 hours, and she made 10,061 gold I have no way to transfer to the characters who could actually spend it😭

So what’s next in Sunzoo’s adventures? Well, probably nothing. Certainly not for a while, as my sub is currently inactive. I’m even more relieved to have finished the grind than I am pleased, and so she’s probably gonna sit there enjoying her retirement until the next time WoW adds more levels and I feel compelled to max out my characters again. But whenever that time comes, I confess I am looking forward to zoning out and just mining some herbs in her peaceful little bubble, far removed from the action-packed and never-ending chaos consuming everybody else in Azeroth.

Rest easy, queen, you’ve earned a long break! (And so have I…)