Kaet: The Post-Brewfest Blues
I haven’t played Kaet — I mean really played Kaet — since before Brewfest started. I logged her in more or less daily for about a week to get some Brewfest tickets, but my heart wasn’t really in it. At the same time, though, I might at any moment have decided that she really needed a Brewfest hat or a pony keg, so I couldn’t really take her anywhere else either.
And then Brewfest ended and I felt a strong desire to really play (instead of just logging in to run rams around), but I was out of the habit of Kaet. Even though I’d been enjoying the character, even though I knew exactly where she was and what she was doing, I felt diconnected from her — I wanted something new.
So I started another alt and played it to 12, but that wasn’t what I wanted. Then I dusted off my Mania, my main, and finished up some quests in Outland — but that wasn’t what I wanted either. I considered leveling one of my other innumerable alts or even (*gasp*) trying another class. But in the end, none of these ideas sparked anything for me. And yet I still wanted to play.
Eventually I realized that what I really wanted was a feeling of connection with a character — not just to tick quests off a checklist, but to immerse myself in another world and yes, another personality. This might qualify as role-playing, but for me this is largely internal. I don’t do (much) conversing or acting in character towards others, I just quietly live my solitary adventurous life in Azeroth.
At any rate, once I figured out that this is what I was missing, I realized that Kaet is in fact my best bet for this experience right now. She’s got a unique (and quite pleasant) personality that is a joy to play. Once I stopped thinking of her as an obligation and instead as a person, I was suddenly very excited to play her again.
So off we go!
When we last left Kaet, I was just on the verge of heading down to Stranglethorn Vale. In the comment thread of the last post, many readers kindly suggested alternatives to Stranglethorn — or at least places to pick up a few more levels before I enter the Vale. But the truth is that I really like Stranglethorn and I haven’t been through there since Mania was that level — which I believe was about 18 months ago. So I was rather excited about exploring it all over again.
I cleaned out all the empty mugs in my inventory, saddled up (on a flying taxi, that is) and flapped my way down to Duskwood. I stopped just long enough for some quick trick-or-treaing. (Ironically, I won a female dwarf mask.) A short run west and south and I was in the Rebel Camp at the far north of Stranglethorn Vale. (In Patch 2.3 there will be a flight point here, but until then I’m going to have to use Darkshire as the nearest town.) I wandered a little south to find Nesingwary’s Expedition … and start on my glorious career of killing innocent jungle creatures!
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!
6 Comments
Good to hear you found Kaet again.
I am enjoying reading her exploits :)
Just gone back to Gorze & missed the whole brew fest thing buthat didnt bother me…have made a new WoW post to boot!
“Eventually I realized that what I really wanted was a feeling of connection with a character — not just to tick quests off a checklist, but to immerse myself in another world and yes, another personality. This might qualify as role-playing, but for me this is largely internal. I don’t do (much) conversing or acting in character towards others, I just quietly live my solitary adventurous life in Azeroth. ”
I know exactly what you mean, this just how I play. Probably the reason I have so many alts, too. Good to see you having fun again. You inspired me to start a new pet/race hunter combo I’ve never done before: a female bloodelf and a white bear (which I found out about thanks to Petopia) Hit lvl 11 and marched over to the Dwarf homeland to tame the legendary Mangeclaw… now that was an adventure… I’m having a blast… thanks foe the inspiration
In terms of getting to STV, I found the easiest route is to fly to westfall and run down to where the river joins stv and swim in, there’s also a little path on the Duskwood side of the river that takes you over the hill that separates Duskwood and STV and drops you off just up river of the nessingwary camp, but I think he short swim is easier.
Well, seeing how Mania plays Kaet lately, I’d say that the FP in Rebel Camp will still be put to a decent use! ;)
I’m having a blast on my main druid which hit 70 last night! Also, finishing those quests suddenly becomes more attractive when on top of the reward (which I either use or DE), now give a nice money boost! I have quite a few quests with over 10g reward and up to 19g! And that’s for solo quests, not dungeon quests! So I’ll be making some money and spending some money to gear up my druid a bit then get back to Someone and level her to 70 as well, although still 7.5 or so levels away! Granted, the Flight Form at 68 was a MAJOR incentive for leveling my druid after a friend loaned me some couple hundred gold, which I quickly repaid in only a couple night’s play… Making money at high levels is *so* much easy and now looks even better at 70! Now I need to buy Someone a decent 2H as I can now do +30 INT on my main char and the mats are not that hard/expensive to get! Pitty one can not send SB stuff to one’s alts to have them chanted! :(
ironic you should mention, mania, the urge to play but not finding satisfaction in what you are playing at the time. I find myself logging in to look at characters and having the same disconnect with them. I think that’s also why I tend to fire up a new character, run it to 10 or 12 or so (very fast), because I can see discernable gain from doing that. But it’s also just boring at times. Occasionally I get some insight by running new chars through the beginning stages, but I still have a disconnect.
I try periodically to start characters in classes I never play - warlock, mage, priest, even warrior (though to qualify I’m trying very hard to develop a nice warrior), but inevitably these are the ones I drop and play anew. What bothers me is that this is obviously wasted time that I *could* have been doing my mains (yeah, plural) with, and am just that much farther behind on them. Ultimately I’d like to have a solid druid, and warrior to balance out my hunters.
The fingerwagglers I get bored with way too early. I like your idea of dedicating time to running one character through to 70. that’s admirable. dunno if I have that much disipline to do that but hey. :)
shibumi
oh grats on STV - that is a very fine place to hunt for quite a while.
Leave a Reply