Why We Alt

I created my first alt about a week after starting the game. My friend Brian, who had shown it to me, convinced me to try the 10-day free trial. I had wanted to play a human paladin (Paladins being the closest thing to a Battlemage I could see in the game,) but he was on the Horde side and at the time there were no Paladin options on that faction (and it wasn't until Cataclysm that you could be anything other than a Blood Elf) so instead I created a Tauren Shaman, which I figured also combined the spell-casting and melee hybrid-ness that I was looking for. After a week or so, I had hit level 18 (leveling took a lot longer back then) and I figured I'd start up that Paladin.

To me, the motivation to play alts has nothing to do with having "run out" of stuff to do in the game. Creating these characters lets me experience the game and the game world from a different perspective. Not only do you get to try out the mechanics of different specs, but you also get to feel like a different kind of hero. A Paladin can be a thoughtful protector of the innocent who might be troubled by some of the darker elements of the world, but has faith that they can make it right. A Rogue, on the other hand, can be an opportunistic gun for hire, setting aside ethical implications in the name of making the big bucks. A Death Knight can be a tragic hero, desperate to seek redemption even as they are confronted every day by the abomination they have become.

Even members of the same class but of different races can have extremely different feels. Between the two Horde Paladin races, Tauren are tied much more to the natural world and could be considered an off-shoot of druidism, while Blood Elves (at least at first) use their powers just as a Mage or Warlock would (admittedly, post-Sunwell they're a bit more similar to Alliance Paladins.)

One of the major goals of Mists was to provide people with enough to keep them occupied - to make it harder to hit a point of "well, there's literally nothing for me left to do here." Sure, there's a cynical reason for this - they don't want us unsubscribing - but I think Blizzard is aware of the fact that people like to have that goal to pursue, and the more goals they create, the more people will enjoy the game.

The weird consequence of this is that they've made playing alts a far less attractive option. There are a lot of factions to play with, and while they've said time and again that they are really optional, the truth is that Valor Points are a very significant part of the gearing process. Without something to spend those on, characters are locked out of a significant progression tool.

I actually think that the daily grinds as they were in 5.0 (and 5.1) are perfectly fine for someone who has one character. If I spend literally all my game time just playing Jarsus, I'm sure he'd be exalted with all the 5.0 factions and probably be nearly done with collecting Sigils for Wrathion. But I don't like to just play one character. Frankly, I liked where I was in Wrath and Cataclysm, with at least one character of each class at the level cap (minus Priests - I just barely got the Priest up to 85 before Mists came out.) Sure, not all of them were geared to the teeth, but if I ever felt the urge to be a badass Rogue or fling spells around on my Mage, there wasn't a huge barrier to entry.

So now, to add some caveats to this: We're still really, really early in the expansion. Each expansion has lasted roughly two years, and we're only about two and a half months in. We're still on the first raiding tier and we've only got the original dungeons as of yet.

Each expansion causes a big reset on all of our characters. The gear that was awesome at level 85 is now crap at level 90. You might take a character who was poorly geared at level 85 and simply by taking them first and running more dungeons on them, they could become your best-geared toon. This of course happened to me when Wrath came out. My Death Knight quickly became my second-best geared character. Likewise, when Cataclysm came out, I knew that I would need to have a high-priority Worgen alt (they are my favorite playable race - too bad they can't be Paladins or I'd probably race-change,) and as such, I leveled a Warrior (a class I had not spent much time with at 80) and he quickly took a spot sharing priority with the Death Knight.

If 5.1 is any indication, Blizzard does want to keep up the pace of content this time around. Let's be clear: this is a good thing. I've been playing this game for six years now, and more is good. The question, then, becomes what will happen with our alts? It seems unlikely we won't at some point have a period where there's a lull in content. Blizzard might also come up with more ideas like the Grand Commendations to make the second or third time around easier.

And, perhaps, Blizzard is stuck in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. If that is the case, perhaps we simply need to accept that we're not going to get all of our alts fully epic'd. Or, those who really want that will have to work quite hard and play a whole lot.