The Casual Altaholic – a different approach

There are many definitions of what a casual player in WoW is, over the last year this has become even more fragmented. Casual is even used in the same way as the word ‘noob’ is and according to some the root of all the ‘bad’ changes to the game. Am I a casual? I play around 25-30 hours in a week but often for less than 2 hours a session.

The urban dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=altaholic) defines an altaholic as; someone who cannot focus on just one character in an online game, usually known as their main. These people have many "alt"ernate characters.

Because of my ‘free-time’ schedule I often find myself online during the quieter times and so I’ve had to define different in-game goals for myself. When I moved to the NuGen Horde I set myself the goals of levelling a couple of classes I hadn’t really played much before (< level 20) a Paladin and a Shaman. I wanted to level them without dying too often and also to get the Loremaster and Seeker titles. In addition I wanted to make gold without farming. Both of these goals were new for me and ones that fit well with a casual approach. Not only that but pursuing the titles mentioned above actually helped with the, ‘trying not to die too often’ goal.

The suggested approach to the game is to level as quickly as possible to level 80, usually by using some kind of questhelper add on. However there are some quests that are very challenging depending on your class and level. Instead I decided to put my priority on completing as many quests as possible first. To do this I visited all the starting zones until the quests turned ‘grey’ on my main as a result as was probably a level or two higher than would normally be the case when I moved to the next higher level zones. I’m taking this to the next level on my alt by trying to do all the starting zone quests first, which means doing all quests that are grey first, obviously this means slower levelling which is fine because I’m not trying to get to level 80 quickly.

At the same time I have been ‘playing’ the Auction House with crafting low level items (Tailoring & Leatherworking skill level 150) without farming too many of that mats, but that is for another blogpost.

So how to increase my survival chances, well from the start I picked a class that had a reputation for being difficult to kill, the Paladin, by the time I reached L48 I had only died twice and both of those were due to forgetting to use an ability that would have restored all my health. However any character can improve their chances by taking full advantage of profession and food bonuses. Gear is also important, especially early on.
• Mining; gives a bonus to your health, especially important for classes with poor armor
• Herbalism; gives a free heal which is more useful for melee classes as a form of damage mitigation
• Food buffs; even at low levels you can get a +2 to +4 bonus to Stamina (i.e. +20 to +40 health)
• Gear; doesn’t need to be best in slot but initially try to max out armour and stamina so you have time to get away when outnumbered or attacked by high level mobs. Crafted low level items can serve you well early on.
• Avoiding indoor encounters; these have a much higher chance of getting you killed. For example Tiragarde Keep in Durotar is best avoided until you can handle 2-3 mobs at once.
• Buffing other players; if they get flagged for PvP so do you
• Groups; people in groups do strange (e.g. stupid) things especially when they are in a group, it’s another variable that you have no control over.
• Always be aware of what is around you; when I enter fight I constantly check my six (look behind me). Mobs have a nasty habit of re-spawning in blind spots
• Avoid overconfidence; remember mobs can have a run of good luck and it can coincide with you having a run of bad luck.

Only experience can tell you what quests to avoid, but either looking at a site like WoWhead http://www.wowhead.com/ or using the equivalent add on http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7017-LightHeaded.html will help with this.

So back to my altaholicism, I have a main, 3 bank characters and one alt at the moment on Hellfire. It might seem like less than expected but I do expect to add another bank and 3 more alts in the coming weeks. My Shaman just hit level 15 and came close to dying a couple of times (once when I got too close to a mob +6 levels) swimming away and a minor healing potion helped me survive.

The route I’ve got planned for Cowherd (Shaman) is doing quests in Mulgore (which is pretty much completed), I moved on to Durotar and did all the grey and green quests there and have recently arrived in Tirisfal Glades only taking a detour to do the Call of Fire quest chain to get my fire totem at level 12-14 (did a couple of quests in the Barrens at the same time). Why am I doing grey and greens first? Mainly to maximise on the xp earned to be honest, though by the time I reach Eversong Woods I would imagine all the quests will be grey. From there I’ll probably move on to Ghostlands/Silverpine Forest/the Barrens which should take me into the 25-30 bracket.