Introducing: Kaet
I’ve been playing modern graphical MMO games for something like 8 years, and in that time I have learned a lot about what drives me as a player. I like having good solid direction — which often means that I enjoy the low levels better than the high levels. I like to have a goal outside the game as well — a personal project that I am working towards, like leveling a hunter with each pet family or taming every pet in the game. I like to make alts and start on new servers — I like the feeling of starting clean with no baggage or commitments.
But on the flip side, I get distracted easily — and once I have been distracted I find it hard to pick up where I left off. This becomes a particlar problem when I have too many characters, too many goals, all hung up on some minor snag that encourages me to leave this one for a bit and try something else and then I forget what I was doing and when I come back I’m all confused and now I don’t want to try to remember or deal with it so I think I’ll make another alt on a new server …
You see the problem. :>
I’ve run into this issue in WoW recently. Mania, my main, is level 70 and largely without goals. I have a flying mount — a slow one, to be sure, but it works well enough and I’m nowhere near the cash I’d need for a fast one, so there’s no motivation for a quick win there. Nor am I particularly interested in any of the rewards I could get through rep grinds or dungeons or what have you. My primary alt is a Draenei-with-windserpent that I haven’t seriously played in weeks — other than some off-hand grinding to level up a new pet – and therefore I’m completely lost as to where she is in questing and what I need to do next.
Now I did start a number of new characters recently — the whole Grand Character Plan thing where I level up a hunter with each pet family — but honestly I made too many too quickly. (To be fair, this was largely because I was also writing a guide for new players at the time so I had to run a number of character through the taming quests to make sure I got everything.) But I don’t remember what I was doing with each of those characters and I feel like I’ve lost the thread with them.
Overall, I am feeling lost when I log in, no matter which character I am on. And yet, I still have this deep desire to spend time in Azeroth. So I’m starting a new project! Or rather, a new sub-branch of an existing project! Because layering new projects on failing projects is a time-honored tradition that makes everything turn out all right in the end! *grin*
Basically, I will choose one of the pet families that I hadn’t yet made a character for and I will level up a hunter with this family — all the way to 70! I will not get distracted by other characters; I will not wander off and start some new project; I will not forget to play this character (I’m expecting to put in at least an hour a day on this). [Editor's note: This hour plus will come out of my free playing time, not my free 'working on Petopia' time.]
And what makes this different than the other times I’ve done this? Different, say, than my last alt who started out the same way? Well, first off I have a firm commitment written down on paper and everything! (Virtual paper, anyway.) And secondly, I’m going to blog about it. That way, even if I do miss a day or two and get confused about what exactly I was up to, I can just read my last few posts and get back on track. *grin* That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see how it works out.
But first things first: Who is this new hunter and what kind of pet does she hunt with? Just to be contrary I’ve decided to go with the least popular pet family (at least as far as pageviews on Petopia is concerned). So I’ll be hunting with … *drumroll* … a crab! My Plan calls for a dwarf with a crab, and that suits me fine, but I’m not real keen on Dun Morogh so I think I’ll be leveling my crab in human lands instead.
I’ve named my incipient Dwarf lass Kaet (pronounced Kite, but deep in your throat and with an Dwarfish accent, so it might as well be Kate). She’s a no-nonsense young woman with a cheerful disposition in spite of herself and deep doubts about the current state of the world. (I do play on an RP server, you know.) And I’ve given her her own category on the blog so that you can easily avoid my posts about her if you prefer to stick to more relevant news and whatnot.
[Edit: I turned the category into a series. You can use the table of contents below to read all the episodes.]
Table of Contents for Series: Kaet
- Introducing: Kaet
- Kaet: Northshire Valley
- Kaet: Goldshire
- Kaet: Level 10!
- Kaet: Taming the Crabs
- Kaet: Finishing Up Elwynn
- Kaet: Westfall
- Kaet: Redridge
- Kaet: Westfall Interlude
- Kaet: Finishing Up Westfall (Mostly)
- Kaet: Back to Redridge
- Kaet: Getting Disgusted
- Kaet: Duskwood
- Kaet: Where the heck am I?
- Kaet: The Post-Brewfest Blues
- Kaet: Eight Levels Later
- Kaet Gets a Pony!
- Kaet: On Hold
- Kaet: Where was I again?
- Kaet: Forced Playtime
- Kaet: Level 60!
- Kaet: Kill Command
- Kaet: A Quick Note From Nagrand
- Kaet: Level 70!
14 Comments
Heh. It’s sad that crabs are the least-popular family; but at the same time, it does make for some entertainment when you enter the level 70 Alterac Valley PvP grounds with a level 70 bronze crab from Swamp of Sorrows. The horrified/delighted (it’s hard to tell which) yells of “OMG GIANT CRAB!” more than make up for old Skuttlebus’s lack of battle efficiency.
You just may note (well, maybe not on an RP server, I really don’t know there–never played on one) that a lot of people pay a lot more attention to your pet than they would have if you’d had a more usual family. It happened to me, for sure; I currently use a Warp Stalker, which is an awesome but fairly common pet, and never hear a word about it (except from young Hunters who have not yet reached Outlands and want to know where they can go get one themselves.) But when I used Skuttlebus, even non-Hunters would pause just to marvel at how large an ordinary old crab can get at level 70, and many complimented me on him–even though he was just a regular bronze crab, not even one of those snazzy blue or red ones.
Sadly, with the model change in the crabs, my Skuttlebus no longer seemed like Skuttlebus to me, and I traded him in on a Blackwind Warp Stalker named Harpheart. I miss the old Skuttle still, though.
I know what you mean. On my server, even young night elven hunters don’t go for the owls. Even in battlegrounds I never see them (The most popular pet besides cat is, oddly, bats). And a big red owl heading RIGHT FOR YOUR PRIEST’S FACE! is quite frightening.
Also, is it wrong that I keep a spider around for PVP incase of arachnaphobic horde? I find it rude to pray on fears, but also quite funny when somebody asks me if I could stay away from him or not keep my pet out. Does that make me a bad person?
I was thinking of leveling an alt Hunter with a “tanky” type pet (my current Hunter lvled with more DPS style pets, and I thought it would be neat to see if it was any different). If I did this, I’d want a blue crab. But they just don’t seem the same since their little mohawks got taken away.
Totally random, unrelated thought that has nothing to do with your post - have you noticed the hyenas have broken butts now? When they sniff or bite, their butts turn inside out. Like… a lot (you can see it in Model Viewer). It’s been doing that for a while now. I really wish they would fix it. I’d like to nab a hyena and lvl it at some point just because I’m weird like that, but the butt thing is just too creepy. ;)
Ok, Apparently Hyenas hate their masters so much they’re goatseing them.
hey mania, r u gonna update the crab pictures on petopia? because seeing them with the mowhawk is just weird now.
Crabs are awesome. I always got comments about Moonraker.
Zaklu: Yeah, I’ve been putting that off. I hate making the pictures. :> But I’ll add it to the list.
Darkbander: I love that name for a crab.
Even though I’ve gotten a hunter to 70, I’ll admit that I’ve been very pedestrian with my pet choices. My NE hunter (Wow, big surpise) used a Nightsaber (again, big surpise) pretty much contniously from 10 to 70. About the only interesting hting aobut it was that I never traded it in for another cat; on my server, 95% of Hunters with cats seem to dump their pet for some Winterspring cat at the first opportunity.
I did tame U’cha and use him for a while during the “At 60 but BC Not out yet” stage, but I quickly found that I couldn’t be arsed. Poor guys still stuck at 56 or so and is not likely to change.
I briefly had a Troll Hunter with one of the Vicious Night Webs, but I got bored of her very quickly. I think the pet was actually more interesting then the chracter, although the fact that she was a Generic Cutefase didn’t help any.
For a touch of the exotic, I’ve tried a new Alt with a Dragonhawk as a pet. They’re lots of fun at the low levels, but by the upper teens, the Caster Stats seem to really be a problem. However, I’m planning to give the chracter a Ghost Saber at 20 and actually trying to justfuy it IC.
Crab is a very fun “alternate” choice. On my server they seem to be insanely rare which helps make somonwe who uyses them stand out. And, if you go full BM, you can claim that its a Huge Enemy Crab. (hides)
Good luck with Dwarf ‘n crab…my focus too is on 1 character in WoW to level to 70, which I am reporting on in my blog. Gorze is now level 15 with cat family. I had never tried the Hunter class before but so glag I did!
For one of your horde alts, may I suggest Zangramarsh? I’ve been rolling with It Came From the Blog http://www.wowinsider.com/tag/icftb/ and it’s been a fun casual experience.
Great idea, Mania. This is the basic idea behind Hynjoku, too.
Znodis: Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve been hearing a lot about Zangarmarsh, so I’ll consider it for the next alt. I’ve got a framework set up for msyelf on Sentinels, though, so there’s a strong pull to stay there.
Hynjoku: Yup! I might even have stolen the idea from you. *grin*
The approach I took, was to travel to the bloodmyst island and tame a ravager…nothing big, except I’m an Orc under level 20. Sure, that was fun.
Your description of your goals and play style sounds a lot like me. It was easier to get away with ‘alt-itis’ as we used to call it when I was playing City of Heroes, but with WoW it seems all my friends have turned into hardcore endgame raiders, so slowly leveling a million characters means it’s hard to actually play with them. I’m pretty new to the hunter class (had a 20 something once pre-BC, deleted her, now have a new one at 36) but so far, so good. I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed on this one, because I’d like to find something that’s easy to solo (everyone’s in the high 60s already so I’m stuck playing catch-up) that I won’t be bored of at 70. In any case, thank you for Petopia and for sharing your thoughts on this blog, it’s been informative and interesting!
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