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Contest Winner – part III

Wednesday Jan 14,2009 04:32 PM
By Regis
In wizards-and-wenches

Last, but not least, teh third winner in the contest.

Part I | Part II | Part III

Why I Alt: Teh Essay

By Ventris.

“You know, you would have maxed out if you would just stick to one character.”

I hear this.

A lot.

Mostly from the wife. (I’m lucky that way, my wife shares my hobby)

Altitis, Altoholism, ADD. Call it what you will, I have it pretty bad. Take my CoX characters for instance. I have one L50 (max level for CoX), one L32 and one L26. All the others, all 7 of my other characters on Virtue Server, are sub 20. This scenarios plays out on every game I’ve ever played. I had 5 characters in EQ with a main at L24. SW:G (Pre-NGE) had the same lineup only my main got a little further – A L26 Entertainer. Then WoW dropped and changed everything for me. I my altitis spread to other servers and I think at one point I had 24 odd alts. My main, retired since I no longer play, is a L68 Paladin (Anséis). Currently in WAR I have 13 characters. Nine are on my primary server is Phoenix Throne, Order side. I also have 4 Destro alts on Skull Throne and other servers. Oh, and I just created and leveled to 5th level (Order) another Order alt on Iron Rock.

Drive

All this is basically to show you, dear reader, that my ability to focus on a single character to max level is a bit retarded. My buddy Iridar thinks it may be something to do with his fixation – ‘Live for the Ding‘ as he calls it. Leveling is far faster during the < 10 ranks than during the mid levels. I can see this reflected in the sheer amount of alts I have sub 20. I do indeed feel that there is less of a grind during the early stages. Right now, my main (SW, L26) is in Saphery and my quests all involve mobs that are +1 or +2 levels. While I can kite with the best of them, the level disparity does make completing quests more of a chore. Take into account nipple confusion (I hadn’t played Ventris since Heavy Metal and kept hitting the wrong keys) and I quickly became weary of playing my main.

Ventris Bartle Quiz Results

Social Butterfly

Some of my altoholism can be explained by my desire to group with friends. I’m am a S.E.A.K. according toGamerDNA’s Bartle quiz. The alt I have on Iron Rock was created last night because a friend I had invited to play had started a character there. I really enjoy playing with friends and tend not to PUG much. I’ve a bad taste in my mouth for PUGs. You would think this would go against the socializer piece of my Bartle profile but there you go. I will stop playing WAR to jump onto CoX if that is what my friends are doing. This kind of activity significantly impedes the upward progress of my main.

False Sense of Accomplishment

I was watching The Big Bang Theory Monday night. It was a re-run of the episode “The Barbarian Sublimation”. In the epidsode Penny gets hooked on Age of Conan. Leonard hypothesizes that the addiction may be due to Penny lacking “A sense of achievement lacking in [her] real life.” I don’t think that’s me though I can see how it was germane to the episode. (Penny was getting a little freaky lookin). I do tend to learn the most efficient (for me) way to get through each starter area and this may reinforce why alting comes so easy – I know what to do and how quickly I can do it. With a higher level character there is the frustration of the unknown (what order am I supposed to click these objects? The friggin quest doesn’t even have a riddle-like hint for goodness sakes!).

In the end …

In the end I think it’s just the novelty of playing something new that keeps me alting. Trying the different classes. Seeing how they play at increasingly higher levels. Even though the content isn’t ‘new’ the experience is since each class plays differently and has different mechanics. Thoughts? Feel free to comment, question or even outright call me on this BS.

Read the original post on http://wnw.blogwarhammer.net