altitis
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Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2's post-feature pack experience
On April 15th Guild Wars 2 got its first feature pack, as packed with features as advertised. After the first day or so of trying to figure out where our town clothes disappeared to, it's becoming clear how much has changed: There's a lot more to take in and adjust to than might be immediately apparent. The experience for new GW2 characters has changed so much that I rolled up yet another alt post-patch to try it out. That was my plan all along, and I didn't do it because I just bought another character slot and didn't have an Asura yet. I chose a profession that's known for being less fun without traits, so I could see what it's like to not have them before level 30. It was not because I wanted another Engineer and already have two Necromancers, two Guardians, and two Mesmers. It was also necessary to use a total makeover kit for legitimate data-gathering purposes. Aww, look how cute he is! I can use all of my unlocked dyes on him, and dress him up in outfits, and -- right, down to business.
The Daily Grind: Does your first character end up as your main?
I made six characters during yesterday's Elder Scrolls Online headstart. The saddest part of that isn't my altitis but the fact that I still don't know which of them is going to be my main! I began with a Redguard Sorcerer, decided he didn't fit the lore well enough for my liking, and switched to an Orc Dragonknight. I got a little bored with him and made a Bosmer Nightblade and so on and so forth. I may end up going back to the Sorc after all, but I just don't know yet. What about you, Massively readers? Does your first character usually end up as your main? 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!
Flameseeker Chronicles: The matter of alts in Guild Wars 2
As is no secret, I'm something of an altoholic. This is the case in pretty much every game I play that allows for that sort of thing. If I can make multiple characters, I will. While it's not solely responsible for the longevity of my involvement in MMOs, it sure doesn't hurt. I'm presently sitting at four max characters in Guild Wars 2. That'll turn into five fairly soon, and then I've got plans for another six or seven after that. (For those of you keeping score at home, that does involve having more than one max-level character of the same profession. It's a disease.)
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!
The Daily Grind: How bad is your altitis?
It's taboo in sixteen developed countries. Mothers shriek in horror when they hear that their children suffer from it. Friendships are strained to the breaking point when it is revealed. More than $116 billion was spent on therapy fees in 2009 alone to combat it. It has been prophesied to be the leading cause of the end of the world in 2012. Of which do I speak? The MMO condition that must not be named: Altitis. Whoops, guess I named it. To the brave altoholics out there willing to acknowledge this debilitating syndrome, tell us: how bad is your altitis? Have you maxed out every character slot on your server? On all of the servers? On all of the servers of every game that you have ever played or will play? Do you delete old characters weekly to roll new ones? Just how far do the depths of your alt depravity go?
EVE Evolved: One account is good enough
In a typical MMO, players will have one main character that they dedicate most of their time and effort to. They may also have alternate characters on the same account that they use to try out different classes or starting areas. EVE Online is different in that it's not really feasible to play multiple characters on the same account. While each EVE account has three character slots, only one can be actively training skills at one time. Taking a break to train up another character means losing training time on your main one. And since any character can learn any skill, it's often better to just train those skills on your main character rather than making a dedicated alt for it. Many players suggest getting a second account but is that really necessary? And what do you do with those two extra character shots on your account?In this article, I look at some nifty things you can do with your main account's two extra character slots without paying for a second account.
Breakfast Topic: Finding motivation to level or grind
Arrowd of the US Cairne server has a question: How do you keep leveling without getting bored, abandoning a character, or rerolling? She says that she's had around 14 characters, and she's never managed to stick with one past about level 45. She always gets bored, and she wonders if there is a way to avoid it. Now as I've mentioned before, I've leveled a lot of characters myself, and have a few 70s, but even I can sometimes get a little bit tired of the grind, and sometimes even I need to make up goals to keep myself focused. Sometimes I even need it for my level 70s if I'm running low on gold or raiding supplies. In that way, I can definitely feel where she's coming from, but I do (usually) manage to keep myself motivated. Sometimes, for me, the Motivation is pretty simple. For example, on that Shaman I'm leveling, what keeps me going is the prospect of getting some sweet Dual Wield action going. I'm actually having a lot of fun with her, so I don't need to focus on it too hard, but the idea of imagining her with 2 axes enchanted with Windfury is a mental picture that is too awesome to put into words. I mean, we're talking cover of a Dragonforce album awesome. So now I turn the question over to the rest of you. Whether it be leveling on a lowbie or grinding on a 70, how do you keep yourself motivation when the going gets tough and you get tired out? Is it the promise of a new skill? A new piece of gear? What keeps you charged up and logged in?
No new character slots for Wrath of the Lich King, says Bornakk
If you're planning to make a Death Knight on your favorite server, and you're an altoholic (I myself am guilty on both counts), you've probably already thought about your delimma, and Bornakk drove home the point today: There are still no plans to make extra character slot for WoTLK. Just like the problem you may have had deciding what characters to delete to make your Draenei or Blood Elf, you'll have to make the same decision again. I suppose it's understandable. I'm sure it would be a rather large jump in server storage space needed to give everyone a massive amount of extra characters. Still, It's going to be tough for a lot of people to delete or transfer a character so they can play their new Death Knight with their friends, I imagine. Bornakk does point out that at least, with the level 55 creation level, you can start the Death Knight on a seperate server and get a feel for it before deciding if you want to delete or transfer a character on your main server. Still, I know that half the fun for me is getting a good name reserved for my character, so I've personally already deleted a lowbie Draenei Paladin from my main server in order to create a placeholder character with my chosen name. [Thanks for the forward, Kevin!]
The 10 Commandments of Altitis
The Waaagh blog, despite technically being about some other dirty little game, keeps churning out some pretty good posts. The latest is Syp's 10 Commandments of Altitis. I'm a recent convert to altitis myself. I pretty much stuck with one character on all my previous MMOs, with maybe one extra alt I played once a month. However, on WoW, I've been bit hard. With 3 70s, 2 60s, and 61, and various random characters in the 20-60 range, I know how the alt game goes. A lot of the commandments are things that I myself have discovered and follow unknowingly in my day to day play, but Syp lays them out in an understandable and easy to follow format. Some of my favorite points, in no certain order: 6. Go Off the Beaten Path. Seriously, just because you really want to reach level 70 ASAP does not mean that doing the STV grind for the 7th time is the awesome thing to do. I mean, I guess if your only goal is to get to 70, that's doable, but for me, trying out new quests and new zones, or at least quests and zones I haven't done in a while, is one of the joys of an alt. 9. Alts can cause Burnout. This is definitely true if you think you can get away with doing dailies every day on all of your 70s. As much as you want the exalted SSO necklaces for your Hunter, your Warlock, and your Druid, don't try to grind up the rep for all of them all at once, every day. That way lies madness. I have found that focusing on one at a time, or at least alternating days, is a much better way to go about it. 3. Alts deserve real names too. Honestly, you aren't clever for naming your Druid Lolferal. Sorry. But all of the points are nice and handy, so if you're a fellow altitis sufferer, or even if you just want to catch the bug, go check the article out. It's a fun read.
Forum fun: does Tabula Rasa's cloning system cure alt-itis?
Do you or somebody you love find yourself constantly rolling new characters? Are you infatuated with that new toon smell? Have you maxed out the number of characters in your stable on not just you main server, but on two or three other servers as well? You may just be suffering from a condition widely known as alt-itis. There's no known cure for alt-itis, but there are some experimental treatments being used in mainstream MMOs that you might be interested in hearing about.One of these, is Tabula Rasa's clone system. A discussion on the topic sprouted up on the Planet TR forums on the topic, with the OP going so far as to call the cloning system Tabula Rasa's "lady in a red dress." While I was not sufficiently persuaded that the thread wasn't just an excuse to make a Matrix reference, I think the larger discussion is a salient one. Does a cloning system like Tabula Rasa's really represent a cure for alt-itis? Some would argue that it's a boon for casual players who don't have time to level eight different characters independently to the end-game, but who want to see the content. Others would argue that Tabula Rasa's tiered system means that most cloning opportunities save you a negligible amount of playtime - after all, you only have two ways to go with a clone at level 30, you can't jump branches. It's an interesting discussion worth checking out (even if the topic has since wandered a bit).
Ask WoW Insider: Does anybody really only play just one class?
Alts are like potato chips -- you can't eat just one. Or can you? Today's Ask WoW Insider question comes from JM Campbell of Comicsradar, who writes: I've noticed a lot on the official forums and in the comments on wowinsider, people seem to generally stereotype players of certain classes/specs. I've even done so myself after a string of run-ins with bad Ret paladins. But you see all the time: Mages always qq. Rogues are always gankers. Hunters are always noobs. or Horde are a bunch of children or Alliance players suck at PVP. I have an alt of almost every class and almost every race. So, how can you classify me as any one of those play styles? And my wife plays at least 3 different classes. Everyone I play with has at least one Alt of another class. Are there really players that only play one race/class/spec? JM makes a good point -- if most of us tend to play several different characters, how can we get away with stereotyping so many of them? Or is it that not everyone has a chronic case of altitis, afterall? There are really two questions embedded here: do most people play more than one class, and if so, where does all this stereotyping come from? Ask WoW Insider survives on questions like these -- we need yours! Send us what's on your mind at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Rerolling or alt-itis?
Reading through the forums I have seen several posts about people wanting to reroll characters, and this confuses me. I am an altaholic myself, and I spend my time spread between 9 characters, the 10th being our guild bank alt. I might even say I have more alts than that, considering the two I created for It came from the Blog. What this means is that when I log in, I choose a character to play based on how I am feeling at the time. Sometimes I feel priestly, sometimes I feel the need to rage against the world. But back to the concept of rerolling. Rerolling a character, as I understand it, entails completely deleting the character you have been working with in order to start anew. I have had friends that did this, one in particular that deleted his hunter in favor of a priest, only to regret the decision later. I asked him why he didn't just leave the character since you have 10 slots to work with. The only reply I got was a /shrug.
Breakfast Topic: Jack of all trades, master of none?
As a druid, I often find it hard to figure out my place in life. Sometimes I'm up there with the tanks, soaking up damage and dancing in bearform; sometimes I'm sneaking around with the rogues; and sometimes I'm standing at the back with the Priests healing.Druids truly are a jack-of-all-trades class, in my opinion. However, with the right gear and talents, they can master one -- or all of them -- too. My main is a mostly-feral druid, but I recently popped on the Test Server to try out the new Swiftmend talent. The premade characters are restoration-specced with healing gear, and I found myself out-healing priests in instances as a result.I also tried playing a priest and rogue, and found my experience with druids led me to grasp these other classes quickly. So, while some may criticise the druid for being an all-rounder, that all-round experience is valuable in some circumstances. It's certainly good to know what being a tank feels like when one is stood at the back trying to keep said tank from dying. Is this jack-of-all-trades approach valuable for other classes, too? Or is it unique to the shapeshifting druid?
