The True History of Joana/Mancow

It all started back in 2005, this guy name Mancow would play on new servers only (brand new realms) and leveling a horde character (usually a troll hunter) to 60 as fast as possible.  He would time himself (by using /played command) to see how fast he could do it, and he would do it over and over again.  With each new server that came out he was always the first to 60 by far and was able to do it faster and faster each time he did it.

One day out of no where, Mancow disappeared, and this character named Joana started to get first to 60 on every brand new server, and Mancow was nowhere to be seen.  It wasn't until the second time Joana hit 60 on the new servers that Joana said this:

"For fun I wanted to try a female character and I randomly named her Joana.  But yes I am also Mancow, I will keep using Mancow if I am a male character and Joana if I am a female character".  -Joana/Mancow

Ever since then, the male character Mancow never made any more speed runs through WoW, but Joana kept on going with 4 more additional servers, continuing to beat everyone to 60 by far.

It was then at that point that everyone was praising to Joana to tell everyone his leveling secrets.  To her large response about that, he decided to record the next run he would do on the next new server.  And that he did, he recorded his ENTIRE 1-60 speed run on the Jubei'Thos realm, which is technically an Australian server.  But Joana said it didn't matter to him what region the server played on was.  He then edited the entire video speeding up boring parts, and making it more enjoyable and educational to watch.

But he surprised everyone when he said it was ready to go, because if you wanted to watch it, you would have to buy it on eBay!  Yep he sold his entire speed run video on eBay.  People were buying it like crazy!  It also included a text leveling guide booklet that he physically mailed to his buyers.  So he made a full blown horde leveling guide that was actually VERY useful. His leveling secrets were all down in detail and people started using his techniques to get similar leveling time results.

Since it is a paid guide, I cannot put it up here on this website for copyright reasons, so if you want it you can always buy it.  He still updates it till this day, and has the burning crusade, WoTLK, and Cataclysm leveling updates as well.  It is still the best leveling guide out there in my opinion.

Then in the month of March of 2006 Blizzard released a contest to the public (anyone who wanted to participate can), the contest was a leveling contest.  First one to level 50 wins, and there was also additional prizes for the top ten.  When the server started, Joana appeared in there and people pretty much knew he was going to win.  And yes he did win, take a look at a picture of the top 39 people:

Leveling Contest:  First to 50...

(click to ENLARGE)

As you can see Joana smoked everyone, although Tacitus did put up a decent fight, it wasn't enough to pass Joana up.  It was then at this point that Joana became well-known as the fastest leveler in World of Warcraft.  And his eBay sales started to skyrocket because of the contest he won.

It wasn't until 6 months after that, that he stopped selling it on ebay and sold his leveling guide through his own website, which is:  http://www.joanasworld.com/

His website contains all kinds of information about his speed runs and screenshots from his speed runs as well.  You can see all kinds of screenshots from his speed runs here.

Joana's Horde Leveling Guide was the first leveling guide to hit the market.  Since then more kept popping up, but still no where near the efficiency of Joana's.  A lot of people simply tried to rewrite Joana's guide and sell it.  Joana has the fastest horde leveling routes in the world that nobody can match.

Here is a short video trailer for his 1-60 speed run he recorded:

I am fortunate to have this interview from Joana:

BlizzardGuides: What are your name, age and job?

Joana: My real name is Paul, I was born in the year 1980, live in the United States, and selling my guide enabled me to quit my day job (at least for now) and start my new career of Internet Marketing.

BlizzardGuides: What’s your opinion on World of Warcraft??

Joana: I think by far it is the best MMO you can play right now. Blizzard takes all their games seriously and I think they did an excellent job with WoW.

BlizzardGuides: What’s the main purpose of your guide and what can players expect to find in it?

Joana: The main purpose of my guide is to not only show horde (and now alliance) players how to level really fast and efficient, but also to let them have fun while they are doing it. My guide is not some boring grind, I have now done 6 speed runs from 1-60, and I can tell you I would have never done it that many times if it wasn’t as fun for me. My guide has players questing rather than grinding, and jumping around from zone to zone instead of grinding in one zone for countless hours, which reduces boredom tremendously.

BlizzardGuides: Did you start playing WoW for lucrative purposes or was that an afterthought?

Joana: First off, I enjoy every game Blizzard makes, I will play them no matter what, and I tend to master them to the best of my abilities. I also enjoy speed running through games just for the fun of it. Put the two together and you have the result of the record time I have achieved through World of Warcraft.  The thought of making money from what I was doing did not cross my mind until my 5th speed run, I realized so many people want to learn how to level as fast as me, and this user base was extremely huge (10+ million people), so that motivated me to write my guide. I didn’t realize it would take me as far as where I am today.

BlizzardGuides: How long have you been into gaming?

Joana: I started playing video games at the age of 2.  The first game I played was this arcade game called Ice Cold Beer.  I got so good at it I was beating adults at the age of 2!  I then later played all kinds of PC games such as:  Save the Lemmings, Wolfenstien 3d, Doom, Quake, Warcraft 2, Diablo, just to name a few.  I also played many NES, SNES, and genesis console games back in the day.

BlizzardGuides: Your guide is clearly indicated for Horde players.  Was that choice random or was it made according to the abilities of each faction?

Joana: I think it was more random than anything. I started playing WoW with an Undead Warlock and then started playing on new servers as they came out. I just stuck with horde mainly (no particular reason), with the goal in mind of finding the fastest way to level from 1-60. I do have an Alliance guide out now that I think people will like a lot.

BlizzardGuides: How does the whole leveling up process occurs? How are you able to reach maximum level so quickly?

Joana: It takes three main things: Time, Experience, and Dedication. When I race myself to 60/70/80/85 on new servers I play about 14-17 hours per day, and obviously the more time you put into it the faster you can beat the game. Experience is indicated by the fact that I have done this over and over again perfecting myself with each attempt. And dedication is just something you have, or don’t have, and well, I have it :)

BlizzardGuides: How many characters have you evolved to maximum level?

Joana: Heh, let me see here.. I have about a couple dozen level 60+ characters and a handful of level 85s.

BlizzardGuides: How many hours do you sleep per day while evolving a character?

Joana: When I’m racing on new servers, I sleep about 5-6 hours per day, sometimes I can sleep as little as 3 hours in a day.  And no I do not drink coffee, I just let my mind produce adrenaline naturally while I'm leveling to keep me awake.

BlizzardGuides: What kind of food/drinks do you eat while speed leveling? And do you do any type of workouts to help you stay awake longer?

Joana: My diet is always a a pretty clean organic foods, so I feed myself very good, I do this so I can think clearly at all times. I also do cardiovascular workouts several times a week. So I am kind of a lean dude. That is actually a very good combination to improving your stamina to stay awake longer every day and it is definitely part of my strategy. You want to avoid heavy carb foods like pasta/potatoes/breads as they will make you fall asleep easily and decrease your mental functioning.

BlizzardGuides: On your site you claim to be “the world fastest Power-Leveler”, but many players claim that this form of gameplay makes the game less fun to play. What’s your opinion?

Joana: Everyone can have different opinions on this, but this is how I enjoy playing WoW for the time being. I enjoy long competitive marathons (it don’t matter what type of game it may be), and WoW enables me to do just that.  I have actually had a LOT of fun speed running through this game.

BlizzardGuides: What do you do after reaching the maximum level with a character?

Joana:  I will simply keep playing the character until a new server comes out again. New servers are like magnets to me, It just feels like I have to go to them and start fresh again, heh.

BlizzardGuides: Do you have any tips you would like to share with the readers that are starting to play World of Warcraft?

Joana: Just starting to play WoW?  I would say your first time through the game, don’t rush yourself, take it easy, try the Dungeons (Instances), and basically just have fun.  I still recommend using my guide to let you know where to do all the quests at and what zones you should be at for your particular level.
 

What's Joana doing now you may ask?  On Joana's Myspace page he noted that lately he has been playing a lot of Trials HD on the XBOX 360 arcade with the gamer tag name of Joana255, along with working on making his leveling guides for WoW better.