Noorunnisa (Blood Elf Rogue): The Alt Equivalent of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club

The Name:
One could say that naming this character was the only well-researched competent thing I've managed to do on this alt. This one's another historical reference. Yay, edutainment! Anyway, rogues are like spies, what with their being all sneaky and crafty and shit, right? So, I thought I should name her after a famous lady spy. Mata Hari was taken, so I named her after Noor-un-nisa, a British spy, who was (paradoxically enough) also a prominent pacifist.

Why I keep playing this alt:
Honestly? I keep playing this one because I completely suck at it. I am really terrible at playing rogues, apparently. I tend to forget to go into stealth until it's too late (I blame fade), I am so used to avoiding melee combat that I tend to get just close enough to a mob to pull it but not quite close enough that I can actually hit it with things, and I totally panic when my health starts dropping because I don't have the comfort and safety of a healing spell to fall back on.

Ok, that sounds awful, right? Like, who would really stick with a class that is so clearly wrong for them? I would. Noor provides a really nice break from the healbots - she's novel and there are no consequences for sucking. With my other alts, I'm playing classes i'm somewhat familiar with, in ways that fit my style well (like ranged combat or mana-based spells), which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I like it and I'm good at it. On the other hand, this means I get really frustrated whenever I can't figure something out, since I should be able to fairly easily, and I also always feel like I'm on call to heal things. And sometimes I just want to bash the living daylights out of giant spiders or pig dudes or what have you. It's also nice to just totally suck at something and have that be completely fine. It's restorative. Try it, you'll see.

Other semi-relevant shit:
About the Breakfast Club reference: Ally Sheedy in that movie is totally the weird/possibly 'special' one. I already covered the retarded aspects of this alt, and I think it's clear that she belongs in special ed classes whenever possible.

Now for the bizarre part. I don't know if you've picked this up, but Noor is a blood elf rogue. Which means she is not one of my preferred races and she can't heal a damn thing. She is very much the odd one out.

PS - Dani, the workers are starting to grumble again...

Matesha (Night Elf Druid): Resident Pimp, Yo

The Name:
'Matesha' is Arabic for tomato. Tomatoes are awesome! Plus it sounds cool. That's really it.

Why I keep playing this alt:
The biggest reason (and I'm totally becoming a broken record here) is the healing. And this one's shaping up to be a pretty good healbot, I must say. Druids seem to get a wider sampling of healing spells a bit earlier than shaman or paladins do, which is nice, and they're of the instant cast HoT variety to boot. While I'm playing him with a feral build, I think I've been doing more healing on him than on Wholahay or Melisende (although Wholahay did heal the shit out of some Gnomer and Ulda runs back on Mok).

The other thing that keeps me coming back to his tomato-ness? Druid forms - gotta catch 'em all! Yeah, just got cat form, woot. But the whole "hey! at this level I get to shapeshift into something else!" thing is pretty addictive. Can't way to respec for tree.

One night only! Private bear form dance party in the Wetlands, featuring your very own blogmistresses.

Other semi-relevant shit:
So you may have noticed that Matesha's a dude. I hear around the interwebs that a chick playing a dude, and not the other way around, is a bit odd. Here's the deal: I can't stand playing night elf chicks. Their little girl run, terrible selection of haircuts (which is only marginally better with the possibility of barbershops), and usually clashing skin and hair colors drive me crazy. But you can't make a draenei druid, right?

I have to say though, it wasn't hard settling for a night elf dude. The facial hair is awesome, all waxed mustache style, and the ear bouncing is a nice touch. Besides, he's more fun to pimp out in a ridiculous purple leather outfit than a chick would've have been. Now I only need to get him that purple pimp hat from Dustwallow to complete his outfit and he can whip these Smolderthorn bitches in line.

Matesha and his almost-twin Sveren dance in celebration upon acquiring the complete Embrace of the Viper set

Melisende (Draenei Paladin): Rank and File Healbot in Training

The Name:
This name is historical, referencing the queen of Jerusalem during the Crusades. Clever, right? I felt it fitting, what with her being a paladin, off fighting for the Light and what have you. Her story is actually pretty interesting - she was joint ruler, but denied power, beloved by the church, and embroiled in an adulterous affair.

Why I keep playing this alt:
I'm not going to lie, I play this one basically for a full stable of alliance healers. So far, I'm not finding paladins to be all that compelling in terms of gameplay - but as you'll hear later, I'm not the quickest when it comes to melee combat, either.

I think I'll be playing her more often in the coming weeks. First, I'm finally getting cool spells like Consecration and now have more than one healing spell (not counting Gift of the Naaru). So that's exciting. I also forced Jon (the boyfriend, player of Sveren) to run me all over the damn place to get all the pieces to Verigan's fist. Consecrating with that thing swinging around will be even more fun.

Woot! Go giant mace, go!

Second, there are big changes in the works for paladins. So, since the playstyles is not terribly intuitive for me anyway, I've been backing off playing this character since I heard things were being shaken up in the Wrath beta. Better to start fresh than get comfortable with things right as they were about to change, I thought. As soon as the looming Wrath patch drops, I'll be all over this paladin, because learning is exciting to dorks.

Other semi-relevant shit:
Ok, first, I think she bears a striking resemblance to Clara Bow. Think Clara Bow sporting Sally Bowles' haircut. For some reason I think this is awesome.

The other thing I should mention is that I really should've have done more research on paladins before I rolled on. Not really the mechanics, just the leveling process. I didn't realize you had to do a quest at 12 to get the rez spell. Now that wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't decided to forsake Bloodmyst for Westfall to level through the teens.

There I was, running around at 18, bemoaning the fact that I still couldn't rez people as I went to the human trainer in Stormwind. And saw he had a grayed-out exclamation point over his head. So I checked wowwiki, and lo and behold, paladins have a quest for it at 12 that can only be picked up from a trainer of the same race. So, yeah. Got that kind of stupidly late.

I have a hunter and I beat Keri in a slap fight.

At which I am craptacular.

Though, it does make me understand the allure of twinking.  Every time I'm at the AH I check for better gear than the gear I have and then like a stupid celebrity or rich person I spend way too much money on something that'll be outgrown within the week.

Brilliance.

Though, it than makes leveling way more difficult.  Why?  Because all I want to do is get to the level where I can use my fancy shamncy bow.  Yeah, I got one.  Also?  Trying to do anything without a mount is awful.

Oh!  Today me and Keri's player had a real life slapfight.  Sadly?  No one videoed it.  So unless someone can prove otherwise?  I won.  For reals.  

I'm out of anything interesting or useful.  But I will say that Sveren or however it's spelt(Cpt. Smash), is the only person who is more flightly than I am while playing WoW.

More when my brain works more, I shall give you more insight.

Wholahay (Draenei Shaman): The Heir Apparent Returns

The Name:
In Cycle 8 of America's Next Top Model, Crazy Tyra demanded that the skinny bitches (and a less skinny but not actually plus size bitch) give themselves "model-y nicknames." One absolutely priceless wannabe model decided to go with Wholahay. Then Tyra rejected that and declared she would be called Brown because "that's what color her skin is." You seriously cannot make this shit up. Wholahay Brown has kind of a nice ring to it, though. Like a blaxploitation heroine who's on a mission to cut some bitches down.

Why I keep playing this alt:
To abandon Wholahay would be sacriligeous. She was the very first character I created! In many ways, she's like the Eve scientists have speculated about through the tracing of mitochondrial DNA - much of what I know and how I play other characters can be traced back to her.

But aside from that, I really like shamans. I had no idea at all what I was getting into when I decided to make one and picked it literally because using elemental powers sounded cool and I could heal myself without being a wussy priests ("ewwww," I thought to myself, "who would want to play a priest? SO LAME!" We all know how that turned out.). The totems were unexpected and I'll admit it took me a long while to figure out how to use them.

She's also the only alt I have that has a mount, which puts her in the best position to be the next character at 70 (and then at 80). I transferred her over from Mok'Nathal as soon as I heard that Blizzard had relaxed the rules, set her up with some netherweave bags, and then promptly started playing her regularly again.

Other semi-relevant shit:
Because she's been my guinea pig, Wholahay's been through a lot of changes. When I started her on Smolderthorn, I was dead set on speccing elemental, but grudgingly respecced enhancement when a certain someone told me to (with little in the way of explanation or rationale, I might add).

Then I got repeatedly ganked, said fuck it, and plunked down the $25 to move her to a PVE realm, where I promptly specced back into elemental. But not for long, because soon after I started running dungeons with friends and ended up discovering that I gravitated and had a sort of raw knack at healing. So I respecced again as an elemental/restoration hybrid.

After moving back to Smolderthorn, I bit the bullet and went enhancement to level faster, fully prepared to hate it. But I don't. Stormstrike + windfury + dual wield is just ridiculously satisfying to play with. I feel godly and have been known to mock and laugh maniacally at the poor creatures Wholahay wails on out loud. I think I'll have the same relationship to enhancement with Wholahay as I do shadow for Sinead: tons of fun while it lasts, but given the chance, I'd still rather be healing.

see? see all the exploding goodness?

Last thing - there's blood on Wholahay's blue hands (cue ominous music). When she returned to her home server, as it were, I deleted the shaman leg of the army o' healbots. I didn't feel compelled to level two shamans and gave her the axe. Who knows? Maybe she insulted Wholahay and found out the hard way that Wholahay Brown is nobody's fool.

Goodbye to training wheels

The biggest shake-up on the alt front recently was Blizzard's move to make PVE-PVP transfers possible. I've talked before about how I started on Dani's PVP realm and promptly transferred off because I was not a big fan of getting ganked and started a sprawling network of alts (with no real main) on Mok'Nathal.

Eventually, I stabilized at four characters: a draenei shaman and draenei hunter and a troll priest and troll hunter. I was perfectly content to level them simultaneously in a slow and steady fashion until I created and promptly became obsessed with Sinead.

When I made Sinead, my friend Tamar who also had characters on Mok'Nathal asked me if I was going to stop playing over there and forsake those characters. At the time, I thought this was ridiculous. I mean, I had put a lot of time and effort into those characters! I made my wallpaper of them imitating the cover of Let It Be (shut up, stop laughing)!



But she ended up being right. Part of it was that I was suddenly part of this whole network that wasn't just me and two or three of my friends, and for some reason I felt weirdly obligated to stick around even when I didn't feel like playing my priest. Part of it was that as Sinead got closer and closer to 70, she was better able to support my alt habit.

When it comes down to it, though, I think that on Smolderthorn I felt like I finally got the game, and didn't need to idly fiddle around as much. Mok'Nathal had served as a sort of sandbox for me to safely explore WoW in, in terms of learning the game, discovering the world, and figuring which classes (and specs) I liked and which I didn't.

By the time they opened up PVE --> PVP transfers, I had only played the shaman a handful of times and basically hadn't touched any of the other characters. So I sent the shaman over to Smolderthorn and said a private, silent goodbye to the other characters fairly certain that I wouldn't be playing them again in the forseeable future.

Wholahay and Sveren (who also transferred over) enjoy a quiet moment in Uldaman before the big move

You won't be hearing much about Madgebobbins, Squiddles, or Tammyfae around here - not that you heard much before either - but the stability and easy, comfortable entry into the game they provided was appreciated while it lasted. In the meantime, I'm totally not changing my wallpaper.

Project Level Alts: A Primer

As mentioned before, I love me some alts. Perhaps a little too much. A big part of why Dani leveled her rogue to 70 several months before I did was because I was too busy spreading myself between a bunch of characters. This is pretty typical of me in real life too - my advisers pick on me a lot for having too many interests.

While I was leveling Sinead, there was some withdrawal that happened, for sure. There were some dark times where I was half-convinced that by the time I got her to 70 I'd be so sick of playing a damn priest that I'd never actually raid with her. It was about that time that I started the army o' healbots.

But I'm getting distracted again (imagine that). What I really wanted to talk about was the goals of the project:

1. I want a choice of raiding healers. Part of the reason that I'm so addicted to warcraft is because the theorycrafting side of it taps into the same part of me as research and stats. Uncovering the logic behind class mechanics is thrilling for me the way getting badass gear is for other people. So, I've been reading up on it and I'm really intrigued with the differences between healing classes and want to fiddle around with them. But really, there's only so much insight you can get by running around a level 12 druid in Westfall. To really get it, I have to level these puppies up.
2. I want a max level horde character, which will probably also be a healer. I'll tell you this, it's the great tragedy of my WoW life that everyone I play with likes Alliance more than Horde, because I am such a hordie. Horde is awesome! And so much less bland and retread-ish than Alliance (though of course personal opinions vary). I mean, really, none of the Alliance races except for Draenei are nearly as cool looking as most of the Horde races. And, even though it shouldn't, that totally matters to me.

So that's the motivation and grand design behind Project Level Alts. In the next couple weeks or so, I'll post profiles of my alts and explain where they fit into my brilliant scheme. And then I'll use them to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! BWAHAHAHAHA!

Nope, still not 70 yet...

...but last night I dinged 65, which puts me much closer! Let me tell you, the last 5 levels have been a doozy. It took me about 11-12 days to go from 60-65, which is twice as long as it took to go from 40-50 and about 1 1/2 times as long as it took to go from 50-60. Brutal, right? Well, nothing felt more brutalized than my poor ego, which had taken some measure of pride in being able to level up so quickly thus far. I mean, Dani (among others) had warned me that the grind from 60-70 was essentially WoW's version of a widowmaker, but in my youth and arrogance, I didn't listen.

But now, there's only 5 levels standing between me and endgame! WOOT, baby! I CAN DO THIS!

Anyway, it's been awhile sine I blogged about anything other than slapfighting, so let me bring you up to speed a little bit about how I've been keeping Sinead busy. First, Outland is on massive amount of crack. Glorious crack, the likes of which Whitney Houston would no doubt love, but crack nonetheless. Exhibit A: the clown clothes of Outland (see below).


Exhibit B: the mushroom forest of Zangarmarsh (also home to mushroom people).

go go levitate

Exhibit C: proof that someone at Blizzard loves the Dark Crystal just as much as I do. I mean, what else am I supposed to think when presented with richly dressed bird creatures huddled around a floating rock?


I credit the actual progress of my leveling more to two other things than to Outland, per se. The first is a sort of ad hoc carrot-and-stick mechanism that's developed recently. The stick is represented in part by that nagging voice in the back of my head that chides me whenever I feel like I'm not leveling fast enough. The actual nagging voices of those who've taken me under their wing (it should be noted that Dani is generally more supportive than nagging) make up the rest of the stick.

The carrot is the lure of playing alts. Not the alts I already have - new fancy shiny ones on Sinead's server. I've gotten this idea in my head that it would be really awesome to level up one of each healing class - just to see how healing is different for them. So, I've been rewarding myself by playing a couple of levels here and there on each whenever Sinead hits her various checkpoints.

brewing an army of healbots

Probably the biggest thing pushing me forward is a more direct focus on the endgame. Something you should know is that I'm not a social person. Really, I'd describe myself more as a hermit than anything else. It's not that I'm unfriendly (I actually have no problem making or keeping friends at all), it's more that I don't really feel compelled to seek out social interaction most of the time. Which means I'm kind of an odd fit for an MMORPG (well, except that such self-imposed seclusion does make ridiculously quick leveling possible).

So that's what I realized - that you raid in groups. I also realized that healing myself and Dani when she came to kill things for me was nowhere close to what I'd (presumably, hopefully) be doing in a raid, and that I'd have to step out of my comfort zone to develop some mad endgame-appropriate skills. The first time this happened, the guild decided to run Molten Core for shits and giggles. And I got pulled into, too, and proceeded to follow people around trying desperately not to die and trying to heal whoever was in range. It was crazy and stressful, but it was also a raid and I was in it, and that was awesome.

noob's first raid!

Perhaps more practical, I started running every pug looking for a healer. Up till now, I've gotten random whispers asking me if I would heal this or that instance and always turned them down (except for one Scarlet Monstery run). Now, need a healer? I'm there with bells on. Which has been an interesting experience, between the shieldless tank, the warlock who refused to soulstone me, and the rogues who ran into battle at half health because they wouldn't eat and thinking that they were dying because the 'healz must be gettin d/c.'

You Have Discovered the Ghostlands.

So, my friends, it has been a long long time. For awhile I was unsure just what to say to you all. I wasn't playing WoW for awhile because of finals. So, apparently I still had my soul... though now?? Now I am full in the World of the Warcraft. I have started my exploration of classes and servers, we well as

I have recruited the masses. The masses you say? Well, it all started when i talked my friend Melissa into getting Warcraft one fated weekend while I was sitting on her couch. Then she talked Jon into it. Then, our fun and love was transplanted to Tamar. In the end, we ended up a five person strong group of n00bs. Look out, Mok'Nathal.

Well, I have been playing in little spurts. Honestly, it makes me jealous when people can level super fast, and it takes me a million years just to get one stupid level. Part of me has given up in my heart. I will never make 70. 70 is so far away! And yet, I keep at my hacking and slashing and questing. It's very curious, how hopelessness and addiction mix. I don't know if I'm having that much fun, but the promise of fun keeps me going.

Okay, I'm lying, I'm having a blast.

One thing that is completely annoying to me though? The drop rate. Why, do you say? I think Melissa, otherwise known as Wholahay, said it best. "I just killed a bear. A big fucking bear! And there's no meat?! How is there no meat in this bear? I mean look at it!" And once more she relayed, "Okay, so I'm killing these things with hooves... and they are kicking me with their hooves. And yet, when i loot them, they don't have hooves! What are they swallowing them with their last dying breath?!" And she's right! How are some spiders without legs and some large animals without meat? It's unfair and cruel. I understand if not every animal is carrying collars or whatever. But come on people, meat?!

Anyway, other than that, i would say that my experiences have been somewhat pleasant. I started a character over on this horde server, actually. She's a blood elf paladin, and well, hot. I love her, and her cool haircut, and the fact that she can bring judgment down on your ass. However, I've just left the first starting area and wandered into the Ghostlands. Now, the Ghostlands are supposed to be super evil and scary and have lots of evil bad beasts. Most of them are just kinda creepy, but this one thing? Oooooh, this one thing...

I have an irrational and overpowering fear of praying mantises. There is no story or explanation, and all you really need to know is that I've been scared of the things since I was at least nine, and they make me, well, freak out. So, my little girl Rekah is kinda wandering around and she has to kill some spider people. When I get to the area with the spider people? They look like praying mantises! In my absolute utter fear and panic-- I die. Okay, so, now I know what they look like, how hard can this be? I try again. I die. This goes on and on for about an hour before I kill all ten of them. It was quite problematic...

Though, not all beasts are evil. Melissa, she's fighting on some Island in the North, they look like the giant pansies from Alice in Wonderland. I kid you not! They look like they're all trying to hug you! It's great.

Speaking of quests... I've developed an addiction to thottbot. What is thottbot, you say?? Well, it's this website that basically helps you with quests and items. It has these lovely maps that bring you directly to where you are going. Melissa and Jon think that this is cheating. They call it my addiction. Any time one of them seems me opening up thottbot(which is all the time, I'll get to that in a minute), they yell "Don't use, Dani! You can do it! Say no to dope!" And I use it anyway. It's not that I'm not smart enough to figure out where things are, it's just that I don't see the point of wandering aimlessly around looking for things, when I can just find out where it is. Maybe this is part of my problem. I keep seeing everything up till level 70 as the preview to the show. I'm like a small child with it. "Are we THERE yet?" So, sure, I'll use a few maps. It pisses me off you can only see parts of the map at a time anyway!

Okay, well, this isn't really that funny. But to be honest? I haven't been keeping notes. I think that for me, it's just completely frustrating and absorbing that I have to wander aimlessly back and forth across areas in a way that's just counter intuitive in order to reach a level. Though, less than 20 levels to go and I'll get a mount. And another 30 after that, and I'll be good enough to PvP. And, let's not forget that I now have my motley crew. So, stay tuned!