Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Altoholicism: The Descent Into Addiction

Ok, so I dont have THAT many alts yet . . .Hi, my name is Surania, and I'm an Altoholic.

(Hi Surania)

I have a problem. I'm addicted to making alternate characters. Actually, I think its a deeper problem, I'm addicted to character progression. If I'm not somehow a little bit better, a little farther along every week, I start to lose interest, and start making new characters.

I first started developing my disorder when I was with Patronus Veritas. We had finally started to down Ragnaros in Molten Core, but were unable to get past Razorgore in BWL (We got past the egg phase exactly ONCE. . . with 6 people left standing). Surania's gear was good, certainly nothing left to upgrade in normal 5-man instances, so when I wasn't busy helping guildies get some gear, I started to level alternate characters. Between then and the release of The Burning Crusade, I managed to get three different characters to the mid-30 level range: Kirari (originally my bank/disenchanting alt), Chalith, and Tornaq (34 Shadow Priest). Thats as far as they got, though, because soon my mind was on levelling and gearing Surania, and rebuilding a guild whose leadership suddenly became my responsibility.

Surania occupied all of my time for quite a while. Lots of time was spent gearing her up, then gearing the rest of my guild up, then learning Karazhan. Eventually, the guild grew big enough that we started to plan for running two Kara groups per week. One problem I saw was warlocks: We only had one (And only had the one because I recruited an old raiding friend from PV after that guild fell apart when a major clique mass-quit the guild), and we had JUST started downing Aran and Illhoof, two fights where having a Warlock is damn near a necessity until you out gear it. And seeing this problem in the future, I decided to start hammering levels out on Kirari so I could gear him up and sub him in on those fights, and maybe Netherspite when we got to him for blue beam duty.

Around the time my warlock had hit 70 and gotten some decent starter raid gear, my fiancee started to get some decent levels on her priest. I decided that when she caught up to my mid-30s alts I should try to keep one of them at her level so I could play with her without just powering her through random instances on Surania. And thus, Chalith started gaining levels. I actually ended up racing ahead to 58 on him, because I decided to make him a gathering mule for Surania (Skinning/Herbalism to complement Surania re-levelling Leatherworking to make the SSC pattern boots while still keeping Alchemy since she has ALL the flask discoveries and the coveted Major Mageblood Elixir). He tends to only get played a few times a month, unfortunately, as the fiancee usually is kept busy with work, college, and other obligations, and often when she has free time, its at the same time I'm needed in Gruul/Magtheridon/SSC/TK/TLA.

When Kirari's upgrade opportunities became limited (I dont care to farm for Spellstrike mats/gold, and I dont get to run many heroics on him), it was time to start yet another alt. I decided, after trying to play him again, that priest just was NOT my class, so Tornaq was ignored in favor of a new class. Since I wanted to make a healer, but wasn't really into the ways of the shaman, I went with a Paladin, Jasminne. I got her to 41, I think, before patch 2.3 hit and introduced a new set of shinies to collect on Surania with heroic badges, and she is now 43 and holding, probably waiting to be my next 70 after Kibler gets geared.

Ah, Kibler. Kibler was created the day 2.3 came out. I saw someone link the new pet food pattern in guild chat excitedly, and my twisted mind decided that it would be fun to have a hunter named Kibler, with a pet named Bits. And so, I quickly made a hunter named Kibler to hold the name, with no intent to actually play the character. But, less than 2 weeks later, I got absolutely fed up with our guild hunters' propensity for NOT using Feign Death proactively and pulling aggro at exactly the wrong times and actually started playing her to, in my mind, show them how to play their dang class. And hot damn, did the levels pile on fast! I think it took me about 3 weeks total to get her to 70, due to the combination of new easy levelling (Unfortunately, pet levelling wasn't fixed until the week after she got her last ding) and the disgusting ease of playing a BM hunter. She's my current focus, though I'm sure it wont be long until she's "finished" and its time to kick the Paladin into high gear again, or start gearing up my Mage assuming the missus finds more time to play.

Anyone know of a good 12-step program?

10 comments:

Vince said...

No more pallies, work on your mage nub. Good read though, the beginning made me chuckle.

Spacewarrior said...

A paladin is definitely NOT the cure for boredom. I'm starting to regret rolling one, but I'm way too far along now to just delete Tachiba. I would have to second the mage idea. Nothing really beats blowing shit up. I may return to playing Brosner soon.

SuraBear said...

Yes, but the mage is dependant entirely on the playtimes of my fiancee, gotta stay at more or less the same level as her. And I already have a cloth caster type at 70, so its hard to get all that excited about playing Chalith.

Anyhow, I'm still having fun with the paladin, wading into a packed murloc camp and finding 30 corpses surrounding me 5 minutes later (due to runners actually HELPING me by bringing fresh meat to the slaughter) just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Delaraga said...

I'm in the same boat with alts.I have a warrior, feral druid, warlock, mage, shaman and as of last week a BM hunter. I think I have adult A.D.D or something.

Xanathos said...

Embrace the Altoholicism. I too play many characters. see my blog on the same subject.

Sucks to try to ply a character around someone else's play schedual, but it's better then simply not playing with them.

Thinking about leveling up a second druid to have something I can level on my own.

SuraBear said...

You know, I keep toying with that idea too. I'd love to have a dedicated tree druid, since I do enjoy healing.

But then I realize that any character I make thats not on SwC alliance side I tend to abandon due to loneliness, and having two alliance druids on the same server just seems kinda silly to me, especially since the second druid would almost assuredly never get as well geared for healing as Surania is already.

Xanathos said...

Yeah, I know what you mean. all my alts are same server alliance side. I have played with others but not more then 2-3 times each.

And I agree that more then one druid seems kinda silly, but do you want to respec to fill that other roll when you want a change? Not the cost that bothers me, but I dont want to rearrange all my spellbars and such.

TKC said...

If you're bored and haven't rolled a druid then do it. I have. Twice.
One feral. One balance. Still deciding if I want a resto. I already have a priest. And a warlock. And a mage. And a warrior.

Oh, and a hunter that is my main.

I think the feral druid is up for some love. Dayum they kill quick.

SuraBear said...

I've gotten pretty good at redoing my bars, honestly. I think its easier than reacquiring all of my gear. . .

Well, maybe not, I guess once I get some decent entry level blues, I'd be a hot commodity for Kara groups. . . bah, now you have me tempted! But no, I think I'm going to keep on keeping on with the paladin, let that be my healer.

Oh God, once she and the mage hit 70, I'll have my own level 70 dungeon group, tank, healer, and 3 DPS, if only I could play them all at once!

Anonymous said...

13 level 70s ... 1 lvl 68 ... all levelled myself ... I much prefer levelling to raiding or running instances over and over at 70 :)

 
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