Shared Topic: Starting Over

Fiorentiin from Blasting Away suggested this Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth. Head on over there to check out some other takes on the topic!

If my account disappeared and couldn’t be restored, I’m not sure if I would have the heart to start over. *Shudders*. I don’t want to think about that, so I’m going to put my own spin on it… what character would I create if I could go back in time and start over? I actually had a bit of this article written and sitting in my drafts folder before it even became a Shared Topic – it has been on my mind as of late.

When I chose my first character, I had very little knowledge about the classes in WOW. I didn’t know what “tank”, “healer”, and “DPS” really meant. All I had to go on was my experience from single-player RPG’s.

The first console game I ever owned was Final Fantasy 9. One of the main characters (Zidane) was a thief. You could steal special items from bosses, and these items were very advantageous. I thought this was awesome-sauce.

Before WOW, the closest I had ever come to an MMORPG was Oblivion. It’s more of a massively single player RPG, but I figured my experience with it translated well to WOW. In Oblivion I made my character into a thief or rogue type (can’t remember exactly which). I hated using magic or archery because I completely fail at kiting. I was very successful with using stealth, hitting an enemy on the head and then button mashing my combat abilities. I didn’t really take much time to research the “correct” way to play the game and was perfectly happy button-mashing on easy-mode.

These experiences led me to believe that a rogue would be the best choice for me in WOW. I rolled my human rogue in April 2008, and didn’t look back for a long time.

My fiance rolled a druid. I never really thought about it, but I was jealous of him the entire time we were leveling. He can change shape and become an adorable kitty, bear, cheetah, etc. He can stealth along with me reasonably well, go into bear form and take a lot of damage, blast the mobs with big AOE spells, and still heal and keep us alive. The addition of dual-specs in Wrath only furthered his awesomeness – he can be my pocket healer in instances while still providing useful DPS in other situations.

Now it’s 2010, and my rogue is still my main. She has 5000+ achievement points, 50+ mounts, 100~ pets, and other marks of character progression.  She’s nearly a Loremaster (two more Northrend zones to go!).

I love the rogue play-style, but sometimes I get a little tired of it. I often wish she was a hybrid class that could fill multiple roles. This would allow me to contribute to my team in whatever way they needed, and it would ease the boredom. My shaman alt helped with this a bit – I absolutely love healing. The thought of switching mains has crossed my mind, but due to the achievement system, titles, and my pet/mount collections I feel very tied to Kaelynn. I never take my shaman alt into a raid my rogue hasn’t gone into first, because I value the achievements and feel like the rogue “deserves” it more. If I switched, all of that work would seem pointless. The thought of doing it all over again makes me cringe. My main is my “identity” in the game – her name is my online persona. I couldn’t let all of that go easily.

I WANTS 2 BE DRUID

If I could go back in time to the moment that I created my first character, it would be a druid. She would be a Night Elf, as I still think Alliance was the right choice for me. Druids are unique among the WOW classes in that they can fill absolutely any role – melee dps, tank, healer, and ranged dps. The flexibility is quite incredible. Kitties are similar enough to rogues that they would fulfill my love of melee DPS. The Druid HOT healing style is fascinating to me, and often seems superior to my resto shaman’s style in 5-mans. Boomkin are hilarious and adorable, and would allow me to dabble with ranged DPS when I felt like it.  In essence, having a Druid would allow me to remain tied to my main without being stuck in a single role.

My first alt was a Shaman. I wanted a druid, but it seemed to me that it was Jardal’s class, and I didn’t want to “copy” him. I finally got over this strange aversion and rolled a druid a few months back. I got her to level 20-something before hearing the news about Worgen Druids in Cataclysm. I’ve never particularly loved the Night Elf model – in my opinion it just isn’t “pretty” enough. The Blood Elf, Draenei, and Humans are the only races I really like (in terms of female model. Tauren would be winners but the females just don’t look right to me). The Worgen are very different, and yet still attractive in their own way. I decided to wait on their release to play a druid, purely for these aesthetic reasons.

I suppose I’ll have to wait until Cataclysm’s release to find out whether a Druid is really ideal for me or not. Will I switch mains? I really don’t know.

I wish that Blizzard would make all pets/mounts BOA, and some sort of cross-account achievement system. Or perhaps they could allow you to transfer achievements from a level 80 of one class to a level 80 of another class – I would even pay real money for it! Unfortunately I really doubt they will.

I’ll have a tough decision to make if I ever decide that I really prefer the Druid class over my rogue. I think it would only happen if I were to become insanely bored with my rogue and end up not wanting to play her. Currently our guild’s new endeavors into casual raiding have breathed new life into my rogue experience. I also have a feeling that Cataclysm will change the class quite a bit, and that will be refreshing as well.

Does anyone else wish they’d made a difference decision when choosing their main? Am I the only one crazy enough to stick with a character simply because of all the work I’ve put in to her?