Prioritizing My Characters
Achievements are going to be the (WoW) death of me. Don’t get me wrong — I like the achievement system. But … I’m a completionist. I can’t help it; I’m just a little bit OCD. And I also have a lot of alts. A lot of alts.
And even that would be okay — I could just take it slow (really slow) and work my way through, character by character. Except that some of the achievements are related to limited-time events, like Hallow’s End or the Scourge invasion. That means that if I miss getting an achievement during the event — or get the achievements on only some of my characters — I may have to wait an entire year, or worse!
So to keep myself from going absolutely crazy I sat down and prioritized my characters in terms of achievements. In doing so, I found it easiest to organize them by role. I basically defined four roles: main, mule, alt, and experiment.
Mains: Main characters are not defined by playtime, although they tend to be the characters that I focus on first, but by which characters I have made a commitment to keep leveled up. I need a character on both the Horde and Alliance sides that is available for pet research, so it’s important to me to keep at least one max-level character on both sides.
And since max-level characters have more achievements available and can participate in more activities, it makes sense that my main characters are also one of my focuses for achievements.
(There are other qualities associated with my mains as well. For instance, both of them are dual-gatherers so that they can consistently provide money for the rest of the characters. And each must keep at least one pet slot open, of course, for research.)
Mules: Bank alt is perhaps a less offensive name (to the characters, at least!) and I tend to switch between the terms. Basically, my mains need someone to hang out in town and hold stuff, and also to sell it on the Auction House as fast as it comes in.
But more than that, I have … well, I don’t know how to put this. I have a weak spot for dressing up and hanging out in town. And since pack space on my mains is always at a premium, I prefer to do my dressing up on a separate designated character. (Aside: If I ever set up a third WoW site it will probably be on casual and social clothing.)
For that reason, both of my bank alts (Horde and Alliance) are tailors. And they both tend to collect pets and hats and shoes and other weird bits, which means that they necessarily do a lot of the holiday content already. So it makes sense for these characters to pick up holiday achievement as well.
(However, this does leave me with two small problems. First, both bank alts currently happen to be level 43, which means I need to get them leveled so they can do more content and make higher robes and bags.
And second, since they both collect pets it would make sense for them to both also take engineering. But while my Horde mule Maja is fine with that edict — she find the goggles very stylish anyway — my Alliance mule Svetya feels that engineering is too … dirty and grimy. I’m still trying to convince her that it’s worth it.)
Alts & Experiments: Moving on. Alts are … well, your basic alt. I play them when I want to and don’t worry about missing things with them too much. So I definitely don’t need to log each of them in once an hour to Trick or Treat, for instance.
But I also don’t worry about spending time and money on the alts if I feel like it. Suddenly have a hankering to buy every pet on the AH? No problem! That’s why the mains are dual gatherers. *grin*
Experiments, on the other hand, are characters that I know are temporary. So I deliberately restrict myself from spending too much time or money on them, outside of the nature of the experiment. I currently don’t have any experiments in progress.
Summing Up: Since I play Horde on one realm and Alliance on another, this gives me four characters (2 mains and 2 mules) that need to do all the holiday and event content whenever they can. That’s about three more than I’d prefer, but nine fewer than I was trying to juggle before I sat down and thought this out. So that’s a start!
Anyway, that’s how I’m dealing with the influx of events and achievements. I’d be fascinated to hear how you guys organize your characters.
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I divide the achievements up between characters, so that they’re all somewhat unique. My main aim has been to get a cool title on each as well. As an example…
My Hunter (and my main) is PvP. I’d like to do the Exploration achievements on him for RP reasons (most nature attuned, most like me in that he likes to go out and find new areas), but he already has the Knight-Captain title and no one’s getting them any more, so…
My Paladin is my explorer. Crusader Aura helped convince me of this, though it still feels a bit wrong. I’ll probably end up doing it on both in the end. She also did the Hallowed achievements because she doesn’t have a cool title until she explores all of Northrend. I also think the Argent title would be great for her, but that’s also a NR thing.
My Druid got the Guardian of Cenarius title ASAP after the patch, purely for RP reasons. When I say “RP reasons”, it’s mainly that I have a definite feel/personality for each character coming from my MUDing background, not that I actually RP in WoW.
My Gnome Warlock will get the Diplomat title one day, mainly because he’s the closest to it but also because I’m going to get him a monocle to go with it.
My Shaman is a red-headed stepchild that at the moment is getting no love other than Inscription.
My (level 61) Mage is my Ambassador and will be my Albino Drake holder once she makes 70, mainly because they combine very nicely and she also started leveling after all the rep boosts in the old world so had a very very significant headstart.
So they all have their own little spheres of influence. I haven’t generally done much seasonal things until the achievements, but I got it done on my Paladin for the title… and then got lucky with my Hunter with a combination of Trick and Treating + helping my fiancee get her Headless Horseman drops, so ended up with it done on him too. The seasonals will probably end up split between the characters depending on who I think it’s most appropriate for too.
What Scourge Invasion achievements are there?
Actually the only capital-A achievement is getting the Argent Dawn tabard, as far as I know. But I really, really wanted the fake-pet Haunted Memento on all four characters, and I wanted to complete all the quests and buy all the trinkets while I had the chance. As I said, I’m a bit of a completionist. (And the purple armor was a big boost for both mains.)
I’m only concerned about achievements on my main Horde character(the hunter of course). All of the rest of the horde are profession alts(Professionalts?). Whenever I make an alt, it’s easy to justify it by assigning it one of the main professions and having it bank all of the related equipment. It makes for a nice little self-support group for the hunter. Of course they’re not worth spending the kind of time the achievements take, it just wouldn’t be very fun. And the achievements are supposed to be fun, right?
A similar Alliance collective hasn’t been played in months, so they’re left twiddling their thumbs in Inns all across Azeroth.
I have plenty of alts of various levels but I’d say my two main characters are my hunter and druid (different servers, both taurens – my significant other transferred servers so I levelled the druid to be with him while keeping my hunter where she was).
These two characters I’m focused on getting achievements and grinding rep on where possible but I will do lower to mid-range holiday and achievement stuff on my alts if I have the time to. I’d love to spend more time building up their professions and levelling them but my two mains get priority.
Like you, Mania, I love collecting mounts, vanity pets and festive clothes. I love getting little odd trinkets and fun items too. It’s unfortunate that my alts get tailoring (who wouldn’t want a carpet mount?) and engineering because I play them so little so I get nowhere fast but I like the set-up of professions I have on my mains and don’t want to alter them. On the Beta I’ve really been enjoying playing a Death Knight so that might possibly be my third main – my problem now is to decide on the race (right now I think I might go for a troll) and then professions.
Sometimes I make this all so much harder than it should be. ;)
Typically I consider Tawyn (my Alliance 70) to be my main because I’ve been playing her the longest, she’s the most geared, etc. Although she is not necessarily the most played these days. So typically, she gets first dibs on all Achievements (though to be fair, a lot of that is because she is also the on the server that all my friends are on, so it’s a LOT easier to get group-based achievements with her).
Lunapike is my Horde 70 and I try to get the achivements on her as well but not quite with as much zeal as I do with Tawyn.
And all my lowbies? I just take it as it comes!
Achievements are fun but I will probably only get them done on my main, Kaopattai a tauren horde hunter on Aggramar. I have alts which the highest level is 26…and none of my alts have been played in more than 2 years.
I try playing different classes and different but I keep returning to Kaopattai.
I am stuck, I love taurens, love hunters dislike the rest lol.
Will try a death knight when WotLK hits but I don’t think it will hit the level cap for my alts…
I had to pare down my alting. It was easy to take care of alts before BC because there comparatively wasn’t as much to do at max level. BC gave max level people a lot more to do, so I had to make make decisions about my alts. I have it down to about 4 that get played, split between roles and also professions.
My ‘main’ is an orc hunter, who does spd, is a miner and supports his own engineering. I also have a blood elf paladin who tanks, enchants and smiths, supported by the hunter’s mining. These two are my achievement whores.
I also have an orc shaman who I would heal with if I got away from being elemental. He’s a leatherworker and alchemist. He’s supported by my troll warrior herbalist/skinner. What does she do? Well, she’s just fun.
Past that is alt land. I have a poor rogue who will likely stay 70 forever. A druid handles my auctions while a priest holds packrat material. Then I have a couple Alliance side characters just to have that side of the story, but I just don’t have the time to really advance them.
It sucks being a completionist. I don’t think I’ll really have room for jewelcrafting or inscription–though I do have room for a death knight in my retinue..
Im a perfectionist…. i am doing all the achivements avaible on ALL my char which so fare include
3 lvl 70 hunters
1 lvl 70 mage
1 lvl 70 druid
1 lvl 42 paladin (soon to become deathknigth)
1 lvl 45 shadowprist
and my 2 new hunter projects… (5 hunters made…around 20-30 to go:P)
Seams like i still will be playing Wow when im 99 :D
i have my main tauren hunter who is my every achievement person… im up to about 250 achievements on him, with another 100 that are ‘easy’ ones, i just dont have enough time to do them because of trying to get the halloween stuff. hallowed helm i have on 4 alts that i trick or treat usually twice a day, ive seen it drop at least a dozen times, and EVERYONE and their mom has it already. just not me.
i have plenty of alts that if i see something easy to do, ill do it, but i dont go out of my way for them. my disc/healing priest alt has the better gear of him and my prot warrior and i almost made him my main in the expansion; however, they brought out achievements!!! and the hunter had about 100 more than any of my other characters at the start.
only 12 more days until lich king, and im hoping to finish up the EK/kalimdor quests, all the 5 man dungeons/heroics, and im HOPING that i can get the 25 exalted, although i dont think it will happen.
there is just soooooo many achievements, not enough time. i hardly have played any alts since 3.0.
I know how you feel as i also have a lot of alts , mostly Hunters but have fallen for the fun that is Mage , my real problem is i love my original 70 NE Hunter but she will never ever be able to get the rep that my newer alts can get as she has about half the rep that my level 40 got easily yet did roughly the same areas and quests.
I am trying not to leave out any on this achievement game , but decided that my Trades are the most important aspect of my characters , so far at least with them i have all trades except Blacksmithing but even that might happen one day if i get a Pally to complete the trades for me.
Perhaps one day i will decide on just one character but until then i will just have fun exploring and taming all the pets i want , so far though i have only found Wasps and Silithids out of the new pets to suit my warped playstyle , i guess that is why i will never be without my warpstalker.
I just decided to forego achievements with my alts. I have one main (hunter), and though I plan to make more some time, I will not focus on them much and my hunter will always remain my main
@Mania. Hehe, yeah, the purple armor was nice n’ easy to get.
And my dwarf can finally wear a skirt, without being a n00b ;P
I got 2 lvl 70′s like you. One of them, also my dwarf, is focusing on the 50 minipet, and explore everything archivements.
My elf haven’t got as many archivements done, maybe because I rushed her to lvl 70 (Used Jame’s Guide^^).
Another archivement I can see myself getting in the future, is 50 mounts, heh.
Luckily I only have one lv70 currently (which is *drumroll* NE Hunter), so I can focus on her achievements for the time being. However, I am planning on leveling all classes to max level and making them all “perfect”, as in great gear and all available achievements.
… A girl can have her dream, right? :D
I keep several alts on two servers, though I rarely play my alliance toons anymore. I know how you feel wanting to get all the achievements on a bunch of toons, but I took it this way. As long as one toon, my main 70 hunter, has the ones I want the most, I’m happy. I don’t care so much about PVP, but I did run AV and got 5 ACHIEVEMENTS from that one game (including G.N.E.R.D. Rage, which was the whole reason I was there.)
Selesti had the Ambassador achievement the second it was out, and I currently have 44 mounts on her…very clost to the albino drake. She also was gonna go for the Diplomat, but the rep grind with the Timbermaw is gonna be a pain. I’ll also get the Explorer title once we go to Northrend, and my guild took a ton of people, switching some out, to UBRS so both my hunter and my priest have the “Jenkins” title…my priest’s only title.
I also find running low level instances a ton of fun on my high level toons, so most of them won’t be too hard. The achievement system is pretty cool, and certainly gives people something to do besides questing, raiding, and doing PVP if they’re bored with said three.
I am pretty laid back for achievments. My Main-er most active main, is my Druid, on which I am trying to get as many mounts as possible, and rep, and vanity pets. Aside from that, I am just taking my time with it all. On my other main, My hunter, I am lazily doing achievmants are they dcome along, or am in the area to do one. But there no biggies for me, mostly just focusing on making gold, and getting ready for Northrend.
My main, Kurasu, is getting all the achievements possible. Levels, PVP, professions, holiday, et cetera, et cetera. I’m a completionist, and therefore I want to see them all on one character if at all possible!
I have only one high-level alt, which is my druid Ruxpin. He gets to get some achievements done, but for the most part, he is for grinding, for tanking, for the like. He’s sort of a ‘play time’ alt for if and when I get a bit bored of my main. I don’t feel bad about him not getting all achievements, and I don’t particularly have a hankering for him to get a lot of them.
My other alts, at the moment, are lower level. A rogue at 50 and another hunter at 62 (who’s steadily gaining). Like Ruxpin, they can get the achievements and some cool toys, but they’re not being made to do so specifically. It’s mostly catch-as-catch-can for them.
My poor hunter has sooooo much to go for most of the achievements. My shaman was my main for several years, but the recent pet fixes/changes brought me over to the hunter. I did the solo/no dungeon level up thing with the hunter, skipping factions and only doing elite quests when the hubby was available to help me. So far, I’ve gotten a few achievements when guildies or hubby were doing some lower level/easy place and I tagged along. I think I’m gonna skip most achievements with all my other characters, as it’s just too time consuming to do most of them :S I did trick or treat with all my characters once an hour when I was online and not grouped. Some achievements I may skip on the hunter and do only on the shaman — like all the fishing ones. I’ve always kept the shaman at max fishing, but I just don’t have the patience to sit there being bored that long for more than one character!
I have one 70-a hunter who is my sole achievement gainer. She’s really the only character I actively play (and enjoy playing.) My other 19 alts (spread over a couple of servers) are all there to experiment with. Most of them aren’t higher than level 10, because I get bored with them.
Nim is going to be the only toon where I make a significant effort at getting all the achievements. My druid is my only other 70, and she’s just going to continue as a handy tanking + leather working alt rather than worrying about maxing out her achievements. Ditto for my shaman if I ever get around to levelling her past 40.
Although the shaman serves as a healing/enchanting/jewelcrafting alt rather than the tanking/leatherworking options provided by the druid :)
I try to split my time between the 3 characters I have in my current server. I usually spend my time finishing quests so time and priority is not a problem. However, if I’m in a party at the time, I concentrate on that character until the party’s goal is completed. Whatever time is left for my evening, I spend doing housekeeping chores on my remaining characters, like crafting and checking the Auction House or moving the character to another town.
The only exception to this was Brewfest 2008, where I spent all my time trying to get tokens for all 3 characters. That left little time or energy for questing or grouping afterwards. Ram Racing is very exhausting despite it being virtual.
I just don’t even bother on any character but my hunter main.
If I get achievements on an alt, neat! If I don’t, ah well.
I’m a total alt-o-holic, to the point where I refuse to name any of my characters as being my ‘main’. But with 11 level 70s, some tough choices have to be made of course.
Securing a decent flow of raw materials to feed leveling all the professions on those characters is of primary importance of course. So the first to go leveling will be a dual gatherer. From previous experiences I know that frost mages are excelent levelers, and my frost mage happens to be herbalist+skinner. Add to that the fact that mages can get to Dalaran earlier than other classes (if I understood correctly), and the choice becomes easy. With three of my characters depending on ores and bars, a miner will be second in line to level up soon after. Most likely that will be my mining & jewelcrafting hunter, though if leather is tough to come by, my mining/skinning feral druid may need to go first.
As far as achievements go, the aforementioned frost mage is already on her way toward the explorer, salty and chef titles, and she’ll certainly continue trying to get those titles. Apart from those, I don’t intend to focus too much on achievement, just let them come as they come…
I’m being real casual with all my toons, mains & alts alike. My troll rogue is my current pet-collector, the rest I’m just getting when opportunity presents itself.
I had to give up on the seasonal achievements except on one character. I don’t really have Mains or Alts per se. I have a level 70 of each class Alliance side. And I have a character of each class on Horde side as well on a different server. It would drive me insane to try to complete all the achievements on everyone. One time I decided to do the trick or treating on all my characters on both servers. By the time I got done with the last one, the first ones were ready to do it again.
I have two main toons, one alliance, one horde, but I only really have one main toon that I play, and that’s my troll hunter. I’m just going to gather up as many acheivements as I can on my troll and just get whatever I can for my alts when I play them, including my night elf hunter.
Thankfully my extremely limited WoW time means that I have only 1 main (Horde hunter)to worry about, and when it comes to achievements I collect them like Pokemon. My oft-abused alts (2 alli hunters, 1 alli druid, 1 horde pally) get nothing unless its completely incidental to whatever else I happen to be doing.
My big problem is going to be my death knight, because I’ve already invested a lot into the character (very sad considering the expansion isn’t out yet) and will want to go all out with them as well. Winterveil will be…hectic.
Mania – seriously, your banking alts are level 43? That sounds a bit like having muscles on your muscles.
I was quite pleased when Naughtygirl (I couldn’t believe that name was free), my alliance banking alt, dinged 5 during Brewfest – without, I’ll add, ever killing a mob (unless you count the ones Zsuzsa killed for her so she could complete the quest for her imp). But I can see that she’s got quite a bit of catching-up to do, particularly if she persists in her pacifist stance.
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