altaholic
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Player gets 100 characters at level 100
No, this feat isn't impossible. A WoW-player named Watola has managed to level 100 characters up to level 100, which has a nice symmetry to it. Watola started work on this project towards the end of Mists, working with two accounts (each account is limited to 50 characters, so this is a must) to level two characters at once with Recruit-a-Friend bonuses. Always leveling with one tank meant getting into dungeons and clearing them, even solo, was easy XP. Getting to 85 in this way took Watola 5-8 hours, depending on the class -- likely taking advantage of rested XP (easy to gain when leveling so many alts) and heirloom bonuses. At 85, an alt would be paired with a max-level hunter to farm Pandaria elites, which, if they were tagged by the alt before being killed by the hunter, the alt would get full experience for. This would earn a level every 20 or 30 minutes with full rested, and Watola would cycle through rested alts to maximize XP gain. At 90, Watola took his army of alts to Timeless Isle, gearing them up to an average ilvl of 507 to be ready for questing in Warlords.
Player packs entire WoW account with level 85+ characters
Ever wondered what it must be like to level every last character slot on your character select screen to the level cap? It's not unthinkable for players who enjoy devoting a lot of time and energy to the game, but it's not exactly a project most players have the mental stamina to grind through. Shiver in fear, then, as we bring you the story of a man who's leveled characters to 85+ not only for an entire realm or even two but in every possible slot of his WoW account. That's five realms: two with 11 characters, two with 10 characters, and one with eight, hitting the hard cap of 50 characters on a single account, all told. And that's just the Cataclysm-era installment of this altaholic's leveling efforts. Bluemain of Darkspear (EU-Alliance) is still ticking along. That's right: This herd of 85s is still leveling. Since we began our interview process, Blue's replaced and scooted a couple of characters here and there, but they're all 85 again as of this week, and he's working on his 19th level 90 character. Could this guy be the prototype for Insane in the Membrane?
Breakfast Topic: Your favorite alt(s)
Sure, we all have our main character on whom we lavish both time and attention. We take the utmost care to gear them up: reforging, enchanting, gemming, and transmogrifing every piece of equipment to perfection. We read forums and class blogs and make sure we're up to date on the latest gameplay techniques and boss strategies to make the most of our beloved main when we're playing. But sometimes? Sometimes you just want a break from all of that. Sometimes you want to play an alt, running through uncharted territory with an unfamiliar class. This, of course, is the draw of the alt. And for some of us, one isn't even enough. So tell us, readers: what's your favorite alt getaway? A specific character, faction, or class? Or is it just anything different, for a change of pace?
Breakfast Topic: Your alt woes
While some prefer focusing on one character at a time, others thrive on the variety of alts, which can make for a nice change of pace to grinding away for experience or gear on a main character. But some players have raised the playing of an alt to something of an art: altaholics who play for both the alliance and the horde and have characters of all races across all level ranges. But even if you love them, alts are not without their problems. My biggest hurdle is my strange inability to remember which character I've logged on to, and automatically using the hotkeys for my monk when I'm playing my hunter. (I try to arrange my hotkeys so they're not foreign to me whatever I'm playing, but I always stumble nevertheless.) But what about you, readers? Do you have any alt problems you're always running into? Or, better yet, alt solutions? Share!
Breakfast Topic: Sorting out multiple-account and -character finances
Let's face it, the way we pay for WoW affects the way we play the game. So for us WoW-playing families, altaholics, and multiboxers, how about brainstorming some ways to nudge Blizzard into offering solid multiple-account discounts? Every single member of my family has played WoW at some point, and we might reactivate some of those accounts if there were a discount designed to keep family groups on the active rosters together. Of course, any discount system would need a way to prevent farmers and groups of players from trying to co-op their way to cheaper subscriptions. I believe there's currently a limit on how many accounts can be paid by a single credit card. What other checks and balances could you put on a discount system to keep it fair? Can we think of ways to set reasonable limits without requiring onerous levels of identification and verification? And what about the economics of server transfers? It seems logical that there be a financially reasonable alternative for moving an entire realm's worth of characters from one realm to another -- or at least some discount for multiple characters. I know so many players who categorically rule out transfers that would improve their quality of life (scheduling, realm population, raiding groups, friendships...) because they can't afford to move all the characters they've grown to love. Give us your ideas! Because when it comes to our characters in WoW, it unfortunately takes more than love to keep us together.
The Road to Mordor: Making your alts work for you
I have a confession to make. My name is Justin, and I'm a Lord of the Rings Online altoholic. I know. I have a problem! I'm weak! DON'T STARE WITH THOSE ACCUSING EYES! I always start out in games with the best of intentions: I'm going to stick with just one character, at least until I hit the level cap. I'll only make new characters to reserve names I like. I won't get class envy and wonder what's on the other side of the fence. I'll stay strong! I'll be an oak! And then I turn out to be a willow tree, blowing about in the winds of whimsy, and suddenly I end up with alts staggered all over the leveling track. It's all right; I've come to embrace my altoholic tendencies because it really is who I am as a gamer. I like to sample everything, to try out different approaches to the game, and if I don't end up with a maxed-out uber-raider, then I can live with it. If you follow this pattern and are prone to rolling up a lot of alts in LotRO, there are several advantages you can gain over the monogamous players out there. Today I want to take a look at how you can make your alts work for you, if only to give you an excuse to keep rolling them!
Addon Spotlight: Quoth the Raven, Grab Bag 4
Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Grab Bag 4 is probably better than Grab Bag 3 but not as good as Grab Bag 2. Once upon a website cheery, awake at midnight barely clearly, Running another troll instance studying their forgotten lore, While on Eagle Boss, DPSing, suddenly I heard his rasping, Annoying me with all that chatting, chatting in my Chatter box. "Who's there?!" I muttered, "rasping in my headphones loudly?" Fine, I'm back to DPSing. "Addon columnist," he told me smiling, Grinning like that stupid Jin'do, Godslayer of trollish Loa, "My addons broke and I need fixing and by god I need it now-ish," Can't you see I'm in an instance, running, DPSing serpents, boas, "TELL ME NOW, my framerate's dying!" he sqawked like Outlands' Arakkoa Quoth the patch day, "Addons broken!"
The Daily Grind: Do alts help or hurt game retention?
I'm going to share with you something I've struggled with and then ask for your professional opinion, Internet Friends. As a natural altoholic, I'm forever filling up my character select screen with a wide variety of heroes. And by heroes, I mean "experiments." Having a main is all fine and dandy, but sooner or later the winds of whimsy wash over me, and I feel the uncontrollable urge to roll up an alt. My struggle is this: Is my altoholic nature helping me stay in the game longer or hurting my interest overall? On one hand, having a single character to focus on helps me to bond strongly with that toon, explore high-level content, and dedicate myself to a focused journey through the game. On the other hand, having alts adds the spicy variety that I crave and lets me explore the game in new ways. But I've noticed that several alts can erode that tight attachment I have to an MMO, especially if I keep bouncing around between them. Does this happen to you? What do you think: Do alts help or hurt game retention for you in the long run? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Breakfast Topic: Way better than my first time
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. I am leveling what will hopefully be my sixth level 80. It is my ninth character slot on my main server, leaving one spot for a worgen druid. I really like leveling. The term "altoholic" has been thrown around -- but once they get to 80, I stop caring about them. It's the leveling process that I really enjoy. It seems leveling gets better and better each time I attempt it. I light up every time I get level achievements, and I love that feeling of getting a mount for the first time. For this alt, I have decided to level like it's my first toon with some semi old-school restrictions. My current alt is a 27 dwarf paladin, and I cannot use the dungeon finder nor run with heirlooms. I didn't give my alt gold or bags. I am not buying or training for riding skill until level 40 and epic at 60. I am trying to stay in the natural quest progression (I did run to Elwynn Forest to kill Hogger, but I didn't take the quests) provided by the game. This is incredibly hard. At 27, I have exhausted every possible quest in Wetlands at my level, and none of the quests have sent me on to another zone.
WoW Moviewatch: Altaholic
EmberIsolte's last movie, Ninja Raiders, was certainly a hit. She's now following up with Altaholic, which is a parody of Katy Perry's Hot 'n Cold. The video and lyrics were created by Gack and Eidni, while EmberIsolte performed the vocals. The video for this song is pretty fun, with a heavy mix of machinima techniques and gameplay footage. The lyrics for this piece do a great job fitting the music, without any of the "forced" feeling which many parodies suffer. The vocals sounded a little funny to me, but that sometimes happen when checking out a movie through YouTube. However, EmberIsolte does a pretty good job of nailing Perry's voice technique from the original song. It's nice to see Draenei surfacing as strong machinima characters. While that's not a direct commentary on movies like this, I think the choice of main character helps separate Altaholic from many of the other WoW parody pieces. Getting some variety in machinima is always a bonus. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.
Fighting off the WoW doldrums
Andy Salisbury recently forwarded his latest post to the WoW Insider team, originally published on A Rogue's Eye View. The article provides some excellent tips for staying excited about the game. They should be especially useful now while fighting off the it's-not-expansion-time-yet blues.Here's a brief summary of his points, minus the tips, discussion and personal experience in the article: Don't treat the game as work. Start an alt. Make time for other games. Take a break from raiding. Spend time with friends that doesn't involve a computer.
Why do we WoW before WotLK
The Part Time Druid posted a bit of an existential question -- "Why do we WoW?" It was followed up over on the Altoholic. And while their musings on the motivations for gaming are notable, I'm happy they avoided questions around that horrible WoW-addiction issue. I'm not much of the navel-gazing type, so I wasn't concerned about why I play WoW, in and of itself. (Presumably, I get something out of it, so fair enough.)But, with pre-expansion blues (and excitement) crashing down on our heads -- why are we playing right now? Our gear's about to go obsolete (and we're about to put on our green-quality clown-suits), our level cap's about to go up 10 levels, and the whole world as we know it is going to be radically different! Oh, yeah, and those guys are going to be around, stealing our tanking spots and doing Elune knows what else! (Anyone else notice they're the first class to have two words as part of their name?)For me? Nothing special about the pre-expansion time period. I play the same reason I always do. I play with my girlfriend, I play with my friends. I play in the Arena. In a year, what I've done now might not matter to what I'm doing then. But what I'm doing now matters now -- and for now, I'm having fun.
Sunday Morning Funnies: You are not an ostrich
From the training of a rat to a meeting of the altaholics, to a little bit of man lovin', this week's comics progress storylines, provide gaming commentary, and bring out the laughs. This week, The Scout Report teaches us a bit more about Ogre culture. On Teh Gladiators, Trevor tries to train his hunter pet, the valiant rat. Monkey Punchers goes all-out for the Man Love this week! This week's LFG was definitely hilarious. I won't even comment, so as not to spoil it. Shakes and Fidget are out for Rock 'n' Roll this week. Dark Legacy's NPCs are getting Stinking Rich. Okay so WoW isn't as customizable as the generic MMO featured in this week's NoObz, but I think we can all relate. Besides, Wrath is bringing us new hair! Ding! talks about altoholics. Quite probably my personal favorite this week, The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf, Episode 14: Orphan Saga, Part 1. Click through to cast your vote for the best comic from this week's selection.
Addon Spotlight: Altaholic
Altaholism is something we've all heard of, talked about and possibly suffered from. I have struggled with this as long as I've played World of Warcraft. I use a variety of addons, as you can well imagine, to enhance my game play. Some of these addons provide information about my alts, although not across servers and factions. The information I am typically concerned with is rest bonus, gold and recipes. I usually use the Armory to check my alt's gear and reputation, or God forbid I relog to the character in question to check something. Enter Altaholic, an addon I have recently started using to keep track of just about every detail about my alts. Developer Thaoky tipped us off to his addon, and I thought I'd give it a test drive. I'm not going to lie, I was a little doubtful about the usefulness of this one, but I have changed my mind. Altaholic looks akin to Auctioneer (and therefore the default AH interface) to allow the player to navigate different information regarding alts. Some of my addons duplicate features of this addon, but this package brings much more to the table. It's an Ace addon, and the developer seems to be very proactive about the future of this one. One warning, however, this addon will total up your /played time, which may cause you to ask serious questions about the direction fo your life. Come back after the break for a look at Altaholic.
You'll always remember your first
Togus is right-- there's something about your first character. Many of us, as I said yesterday, have tons of alts floating around, but your first character (while probably not your best-- I didn't understand First Aid when I started playing the game, so I just didn't train it at all) was a big deal. Finishing that starting area and realizing there was a whole World out there, grouping up for the first time, and learning just how all the spells worked and what everything looked like-- your first character may not be your main now, but odds are it's still sitting there on the server, like an old friend from years ago.This idea of a "first character" is actually especially interesting to me, as just yesterday my very first character dinged level 60. As I said on the podcast the other day, I'm going back to play the Night Elf Hunter (yeah, yeah-- I was young and impetuous, and I heard Hunter was a good solo class) I started playing the game with, and take it all the way to level 70, and then 80 when Wrath comes out. In some way, I see it as finishing what I started way back when. And after all this time playing something different in game (Horde, obviously, and classes besides Hunter-- Warrior, Shaman, Rogue, Priest), it's been extremely interesting to go back to the beginning. And seeing Outland (and eventually Northrend) through the eyes of the first character I've ever played promises to be a trip. I feel like I'm rediscovering this game I've played so much of already yet again.What happened to the first character you ever started? You didn't delete them, did you? Were you able to get them all the way to 70? And when the next expansion comes out, will you take them further?
Sticking with just one character
We've done a lot of talking about alts here at WoW Insider, and if I had to guess, I'd suspect that most of our readers tend to be what most of us writers are: alt-a-holics, with many, many classes and levels of alts, sometimes even spanning across servers. But not everybody is like us-- some people, like the Nameless One over on LJ, have only one character. And to tell the truth, I kind of envy her a bit.I've known a few people who have only played one character in the game ever, and in my experience, they've done great-- all the money they make goes directly to them, they never have to redo rep runs, all the keys they collect never have to be collected again. If you are an altaholic, think about all the gear you've gotten across the board and all the time you've sunk into other characters-- people with just one toon get to put all that time and effort into just one character, and get to reap the rewards.There is a lesson here, however, even for us altaholics. I've often found that if I really want to level up one of my alts, the switching just can't happen-- I have to choose one character and stick to it. All the money I earn stays with that character, and my only goals while online are for that character alone. And when I focus, and put effort into just one, that's when things actually get done. I, like many players, get bored easily-- if I had only one class ever, I would have had to give up on this game a while ago. But when it comes to earning gear and leveling fast, the best strategy I've found is to sit down, focus in, and play like you have only one character.
