The trouble with alts
November 12, 2009 § 1 Comment
I suffer from a debilitating disease known as altitis. This causes me to create alt after alt, obsessively trying to get them at least to 65 so I can max their professions. Let me tell you a little about my alts. Settle in. This is a long post.
My very first real alt was a human warlock named Ahimaz. I leveled him to 20 but ended up deleting him because the names of his minions were terrible. I forget them know, but they were bad enough that it made me want to delete him. I still wanted to play a warlock and decided to stick with the gnomes. I created a gnome warlock, named Toclafane. And I hate him. Seriously. I can’t stand him. The trouble is, I don’t feel like I can delete him. See, I decided to make him an alchemist, and since it was before I had much WoW-sense, I ended up buying all the herbs from the AH at whatever outrageous price they happened to be at in an effort to power level him. At the time I didn’t know the professions had level limits and that usually it’s easier to level your profession as you level your toon. But I had dumped a lot of gold on herbs and he had used a lot of them by this point, so when I realized that I just don’t like playing a Warlock, I felt like I was locked into keeping him. I also figured that maybe at higher levels it would get better. I was told that the cooler spells come around 50 or so. I finally got to 50 and I still hated it. I tried each of the 3 specs. I still hated it. But now I felt like I had invested gold and time, and so I just couldn’t bring myself to delete him. He’s currently sitting at 67 and a half. He’s nearly maxed his alchemy. I’m so torn. I hate him. But I can’t bring myself to delete him. I know…I know….I just pray one day they will release paid class changes….
After this I was goaded into creating a Night Elf because I was assured that I would enjoy being a druid. I can’t remember his name, I think it was the name of a star…who knows. I hated him too. But that’s cause he was a night elf, not a druid. He didn’t make it past level 10.
My next alt was much more successful. Enter Zulaijang. At the time I created him I just needed a break from the Alliance side of things, but I didn’t want to go all the way to another server. Against my gnomish instincts I rolled Horde. It was great fun. Since I consider him to be my 2nd main I’ll save recounting his life story here, but I will say that I fell in love immediately. I enjoyed playing him and leveling him every bit as much as I did with Thistlefizz. I’m guessing that’s because of two things. First, both Fizz and Zulaijang were the first characters going through their respective factions’ content, so everything was new to me. Second I really enjoy the warrior and the shaman classes. I was lucky in that my first toon for each faction happened to be classes I really enjoy. Anyway, it took me a while, but I finally got him up to level 80. Now he raids, and heals, and is tons of fun. And right now he’s seeing more action than Thistlefizz.
While I was leveling the Shaman I got tired of having to head back to Orgimmar every time I needed to bank-dump my bags. I needed a bank alt. I had created a Tauren hunter named Dunatai around the same time as Thistlefizz on another server I had a few friends on. But he never made it past level 3, especially once I discovered these friends never really played much. Anyway, I really like the name I picked for the hunter, and wanted to give the druid class a chance. And since I didn’t have to be a Night Elf this time, I went with it. He stayed a level 1 bank alt for a long long time though. It wasn’t until this past summer that I really played him. Right now he’s sitting pretty at 42. I mostly enjoy leveling him. Really what I’m looking forward too is seeing what it’s like to heal and tank from the perspective of a different class at a higher level. I still use him as my banking and Auctioning alt though.
After I created Dunatai, I realized I didn’t have a bank alt on the Alliance side. And thus Thistlefritz was born. A gnome rogue I decided to give a little backstory to. After all, since I wasn’t going to level him or anything, I might as well do something interesting with him. I decided to make him the cousin of Fizz–the devious, sneaky, unscrupulous cousin of Fizz. I’ll go more into that in another post though. He’s actually level 30 right now thanks to the recruit a friend system. But I don’t actually have any plans to level him. Ever. In fact, if I need more space come the expansion for more characters, he’s at the top of the list for deletion. I haven’t sunk any time or gold into him, so there’s not the same hangup as Toclafane. Although, I admit, because of the backstory I have created for him there is a little attachment.
And now I’m revealing something no-one in my guild knows. I have a death knight. dun Dun DUN! I suppose I should explain. When WotLK came out I was not happy about the prospect of death knights. For a long time I had some very valid concerns that dks would really just push out all other tanks, but specifically and especially warrior tanks. And being one, I felt personally attacked. So I was not happy about them coming along. Additionally I was concerned that when the expansion hit everyone and their dog would roll a death knight, just to see what it was like, but then give up on them shortly there after. So I initiated a policy that your Death Knight had to be level 62 to join the guild. This was to match the policy that any other alts had to be at least lvl 10 (unless clearly a bank alt ie has the word ‘bank’ in their name). This gives you time to get out of the starting area, and figure out if you really want to play that class or not. Originally I was going to make the DK level 65 (to match 10 levels), but, I was told that was a little unfair. So I decided to roll one myself to see if the complaints were valid. Sure enough, 65 was a little high. By 56/57 you are out of the starting zone, and by 60 you’ve started on towards Hellfire. And by the time you hit 62 you know if you are gonna play the class or not. So yes, I have a DK. And yes, I did play her past 62. Currently she’s almost 70. I decided I wanted to try every tanking class at 80, so that’s where she’s headed. For now though, she remains nameless.
After the DK I tried rolling a Draenei Shaman named Karyna. I figured since I enjoyed my troll so much, and our guild could use another healer, I tried leveling an alliance Shaman. But I never could get out of the starting area. I don’t know what it was, maybe I just wasn’t in a place where I could level another alt when I created her. In the end I deleted her.
My next alt didn’t come for quite a while. Probably May or June of this year. I made a mage named Thimblewiket. I really like her. I got a super boost leveling her because I did the recruit a friend thing around this time. So getting to 60 was easy peasy. But when I hit 60, and went to the outlands I hit a wall. The xp bonus and level granting had stopped and I really don’t like leveling in the Outlands so she stalled for a while. Eventually though I got the heirloom shoulders and chest piece and she’s finally 68 and 3/4 and running around Howling Fjord. I’m not passionate about her, but I do enjoy playing her, so if I do finally get a ranged dps to lvl 80, she’s the most likely candidate.
And finally we have Graymane, my lvl 49 paladin that I don’t have a clue how to play. He was granted 39 of those 49 levels via recruit a friend. I had created him when I decided that I wanted to try a tank of each class. I haven’t really given him an honest chance, which sucks for him because he’s entering my least favorite level range. 50-68. He’s also at the top of the list for deletion if it comes down to it.
In the future I plan on creating the following alts:
Gnome Priest, because it’s always been my dream to be a Gnome healer. Name as of yet to be decided.
Dwarf Shaman, because I would love having an Alliance shaman and maybe I’ll enjoy being a dwarf more.
Goblin [something], at least through their starting area, just to see what it’s like.
Worgen [something, probably druid], again, at least through their starting area. I wish that Worgen were getting Shamans…but…oh well.
And that about covers it. Too many alts. But I keep on truckin. Partly because I’m trying to build up the grand FizzCo empire where I have one of every profession. Just need blacksmith/jewelcrafter now.
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
The Cranky Old Gnome 
Fizz has a death knight? I refuse to believe this.