A Casual Stroll to Mordor

Project Altoholism: Week 1

Posted on 25. Sep, 2009 by Merric in General, Project Altoholism

Well, it’s been a heck of a week; I’ll tell you that.  Although most of you with children know what I’m talking about; heck, most of you without children do too!  Not much time for logging in, but there was a little.  We’re trying desperately to get the Hobbit on a regular routine so that she’ll sleep through the night and be in bed by 9:30-10:00 PM.  That leaves us with the choice of either going into a coma early, or playing some after she’s asleep and spending part of the next day highly caffeinated or only partly awake.  I prefer the former myself.

So here’s an update on my alts so far:

The current goals are:

• Level the character to 20
• If they are working on a profession, try to keep that going.
• If the character is an explorer, the highest level character gets priority on materials.

The Lore-master

Ah, my second character to really level is sitting now at level 42.  He’s out-of-the-game right now and probably for a while.  I like him quite a bit, but since he’s between leveling areas (he just picked up all the Angmar quests) I might use him to farm some wood or to take a break from the rest of the menagerie.

This character is a Woodsman and a part of the Woodworking guild.  I really need to work on his faction more.  I’m pretty solid about completing Meredoc’s daily guild token creation, but I always seem to forget about this one’s.  Probably because he’s out of materials and I’d have to go farm some!  He’s come in pretty handy for making some items for all the characters from weapons to instruments; which is pretty funny since I really took up the profession to only make staves and because our friend who had been working on the profession quit the game.

The Captain:

Currently sitting at Level 20.  I’ve switched his profession from Tinker to Explorer due to Goldenstar having an alt that is higher Jeweler than myself.  It didn’t make sense to me to have two people making jewelry and therefore cutting those supplies in half.  So since I was behind, and honestly not really enjoying it all that much, I switched him.  Now I need to take him around and get some hides and wood in order to get his skill up to par with his mining.  I will not be using tailoring on this character.

Other than that, I got him into an outfit that looks great (to me).  Nothing special, just one of the outfits that you can purchase.  But now he looks so good to me that I started getting outfits for all of my alts.  Not only do they look good now, but they will remain consistent in that look.

The Burglar:

The burglar is sitting at 17.  I enjoy him, but the class is kind of slow leveling wise.  At least it feels slow.  I might move this character to a different area and see if getting him out of The Shire (my usual leveling ground) will break that rut.  I plan to finish up the Hobbit quests in Scary (they’re green) and then move him along in both the epic story and in the Buckland quests.  However, his crafting is coming along fairly well in my opinion.  His weapons-craft is up to Expert and he’s been able to join the Weaponsmithing guild.  So now I hope to get him some faction in that as well and bump him up the last 3 levels.  It shouldn’t be too difficult, but he isn’t as much fun as I had hoped; at least not now.  I think he will get a lot more fun to play as time goes on.

The Minstrel:

Wow, now this guy is fun!  Definitely more fun than I thought he would be!  He’s 14 right now and going through the Elven starting quest progression.  He’s got a lot of “oomph” playing as a “battle bard” (skald) and I really enjoy it quite a bit.  However, I can’t help but feeling that over time the other shoe is going to drop and he suddenly won’t be as much a “battle bard” as a “omg run away” bard.  I’ve been told that it really depends on how you use your traits, and I hope that’s right.  I know in the end game people want Minstrels to be healers, and that’s all right by me.  Especially since I’ll mostly be solo’ing.  Maybe I’ll group some and try the healing thing, but it’s never been a huge part of my play-style.  Usually I’m a tank and sometimes a DPS, but never a healer on a regular basis; just when absolutely necessary.

He’s an Explorer too, and will not be doing Tailoring either.  That honor will be going to another of Goldenstar’s alts which is farther ahead in the craft and more capable in completing the corresponding crafting quests than this character is currently.  Surprise Goldenstar! (She didn’t know about this decision.)

The Hunter:

I miss this little guy.  He’s level 20 now, still poor, and still missing quite a few skills.  I’ve fed him some money to purchase some of the missing skills, but he’s an expensive little bugger.  He probably needs about 400-600 silver before he’s done catching up; so thank goodness he’s at my temporary level cap.

The same goes with his farming and cooking which are both on the Supreme level.  Right now he’s not generating any money, which means he’s not generating any food either.  Although he’s going to be soon because I desperately need food for my alts and my main.  They’re just too crucial to let this guy’s talents go to waste.  The downside is, that it will be a money-sink.

The Warden?:

I put a question mark by this character because I’m not 100% sure I will in fact be keeping this character a Warden.  Reading Docholiday’s blog really gets me excited about the class, but I’ll need to make sure I’m not just getting enmeshed in his own passion for the class.  It’s really important when making an alt that you play one that you enjoy, whether it’s for mechanical or roleplaying reasons, and not because you got caught up in the excitement.

I’ll probably try out a Champion and Rune-keeper once again in order to make that final decision.  I will need to play the Warden a bit more to make this decision as well so that I can be sure.  Currently the character is level 6 and doesn’t have any crafted items so remaking him is not a big deal.  I’ve also toyed around with having our listeners and readers decide by putting up a poll, but in the end I think it’s important to make sure I do enjoy the class since this will be my last character slot.

As far as crafting goes, my plans are to make this character an explorer too.

Conclusion:

Well, that’s the status of this week.  I hope to keep this updated on Fridays.  Any user input is welcome, so feel free to comment, send us an email, or link to this in a blog of your own!

Tags: alts, update