Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Level 2000 Altaholic

I've been playing World of Warcraft for a long time, and I do spend a lot of hours on it because I enjoy it as a pasttime. The reason I find it acceptable is because I play it in a way that lets me turn it off or look away whenever I want so that I can interact with the family. At one point when I was gaming I was heavily into raiding, and it took time away from the family and required my active concentration for too long. I refuse to play that way anymore. I am a casual, and I am happy.

Warcraft has its fast and furious parts, but when you're flushing out all the finer points of your character - fishing, cooking, lockpicking, exploring, grinding mobs for a mount, etc. - there are a lot of times when you're doing repetitive or mindless tasks. These things are optional for a character, truly. You don't need to level those professions to play the game and more than you need to play solitaire on your PC in order to complete your TPS reports.

Last night I leveled up my lockpicking to almost 300, and I got distracted from that and focused on watching Die Hard 3 and Auntie Mame. (Yeah, we have diverse tastes in movies.) I didn't get any levels on the rogue, but the character progressed, so I got a little buzz from feeling like I was building something. That's all I ask, really. Give me a way to relax and feel productive instead of destructive, and I'm a happy player.

And If you're like me, the game just doesn't grab you at 80 the way it does from 1 to 79. As you level up there are an insane amount of challenges in all directions, things to explore, and people to meet. When you hit level 80 though a majority of all the challenges are behind you, and only the heroic things are ahead of you. It doesn't take long to face them all either. Back in February when I stopped playing my druid we were clearing all of the available 25-man raid content in one night - the hardest challenges in the game.

So what do you do the other six days of the week? If you have other hobbies, go for it. If you're sorta tied to home and you don't have a lot of spending money, creating a alternative character in warcraft (an 'alt') and starting a new story can be fun. Well, the leveling suits me more than playing at 80 does. I've raided at 60, 70, and 80, and I can honestly say I've found my preferred style of play. I am an altaholic. I like creating new characters on different servers and making a new adventure out of it.

I may have done it a bit more than most people I guess. I have a total of 1,983 levels over 50 characters on 28 different realms. Most of the time I create a new character on a realm by itself, this makes it a little harder to carve out your own space, but it makes everything you have more rewarding because you know that you earned it and it wasn't gifted to you by one of your alts. Anyway, I'm closing in on a career achievement. At some point when I get Diagnose to L80 I will officially hit 2,000 total levels on my account. I'll probably celebrate by starting a new alt and watching a good movie with the family.
Level Name - Realm
80 Moonclover - Wyrmrest Accord
80 Archeologist - Wyrmrest Accord
80 Vaalin - Illidan
80 Susse - Cho'gall
80 Goatwaggle - Area 52
78 Aquaux - Cho'gall
72 Foff - Nesingwary
71 Wickerman - Exodar
70 Heedmartin - Wyrmrest Accord
70 Invulnerable - Moon Guard
68 Lorebreaker - Wyrmrest Accord
64 Taxidermist - Cairne
63 Diagnose - Wyrmrest Accord
63 Vanbracken - Area 52
62 Bonypony - Trollbane
61 Taxidermist - Moon Guard
61 Latte - Fenris
61 Florentine - Exodar
60 Teacher - Ysera
60 Kadoobound - Khadgar
50 Butler - Wyrmrest Accord
46 Evade - Hydraxis
43 Ax - Exodar
42 Owl - The Venture Co
33 Diagnose - Illidan
29 Deadhorse - Tanaris
29 Horde - Anvilmar
27 Feral - Shandris
27 Epicmount - Hydraxis
26 Calvïn - Gorgonnash
26 Deadhorse - Gnomeregan
25 Hammercraft - Gorgonnash
24 Hexaddict - Cairne
24 Aermoss - Blackhand
20 Zulysses - Wyrmrest Accord
19 Jadesparrow - Moon Guard
17 Heed - Undermine
17 Hogan - Terokkar
16 Vanbracken - Borean Tundra
14 Easygoing - Madoran
12 Rabies - Ghostlands
10 Bonypony - Tanaris
9 Hammercraft - Velen
5 Vandergelder - Whisperwind
3 Cleavage - Velen
2 Vanbracken - Hellscream
1 Macys - Illidan
1 Economics - Cho'gall
1 Paypal - Borean Tundra
1 Diagnose - Azjol-Nerub

3 comments:

  1. I'm not a big fan of the Moon Guard server - its more famous for ERP than RP - so I'm taking a free transfer for Invulnerable to Farstriders. I will probably transfer off my Illidan characters to Agamaggan later tonight when I clear out their mailboxes. It's a nice server to make gold on, but it's way overpopulated. Agamaggan is a low-pop PvP server at CST, and looks like a pre-BC realm. They usually aren't dominated by blood elves and it's easier to handle the Horde kiddies.

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  2. I really want to do a sociology thing on the names people give their characters. The names are AWESOME!

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  3. If you're actually interested, try searching the game armory sometime - it's available to anyone at any time. It's pretty hard to find a name that someone hasn't tried, somewhere (as long as it isn't a title, famous person, etc.).

    http://www.wowarmory.com

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