Patch 3.3.5 is finally going live today, packed with RealID plus a Ruby Sanctum that will be activated once Europe has a chance to get the patch as well. (The Fire Festival started yesterday too, but that’s not actually related to this patch.)

Patch 3.3.5 also has, hidden in its innards, the two pre-Cataclysm events: Operation Gnomeregan for the Alliance and Zalazane’s Fall for the Horde. These events won’t be activated until some time much closer to the launch of the Cataclysm expansion, of course, but we had a chance to check them out on the Public Test Realm over the past couple of weeks.

And that left me with a bit of a problem …

My Alliance Main is Too Low!

Zalazane’s Fall was a lot of fun, although there were so many people in the final assault on Zalazane that I never actually saw him. Or anything else, in fact, since my screen froze up. But apparently we won! And I got a Feat of Strength and a nice cloak. I am really looking forward to doing this event when it is eventually activated on the live realms.

Operation Gnomeregan, on the other hand, started out with some fun quests for all levels, but then I hit a wall. The final assault event, it turns out, requires level 75 — and Kaet, my highest Alliance character, was only level 71!

I could have copied a pre-made character on the PTR, but that’s hardly the point; the real problem was that I wanted to be able to participate on the live realms when the time comes. And that means that I needed an Alliance character that was at least level 75.

The solution, of course, was easy: get Kaet another four levels. But that lead to another problem …

Kaet’s Not A Good Main

Don’t get me wrong — I love my little dwarf lass. But I’ve come to realize lately that there is a reason that I haven’t finished leveling Kaet to 80. I like Kaet, but she just doesn’t feel like a good main character for me.

Kaet started out as a project character: a (rare) female dwarf  with three (unpopular) crabs. Remember, when she was created we didn’t yet have pet talent trees. Crabs weren’t a tanking Tenacity pet or a handy Pin in PvP — they were just useless and unpopular. So running around with three of them, swapping them out regularly so I could keep them all approximately my level (since we also didn’t have automagical pet leveling) was a real project.

Kaet also has a fairly specific personality. I don’t do much heavy-duty roleplay, but like many players I often have a personality and sometimes a backstory in mind when I create a character. Kaet is sweet. Sometime a little saucy, maybe, but overall very sweet: kind, generous, helpful, sympathetic … a real people pleaser. And while that’s a great personality for Kaet, it’s hard for me to play unless I am in the right mood. (I’m not really a people person at heart.)

And unfortunately it’s not as easy as not roleplaying Kaet when I’m not in the mood. I can’t just turn off her personality — it’s her personality. (What about Mania?, you may ask. Mania has her own backstory, but her personality is very close to mine. She’s not a people person either. She likes to help, sometimes, but throwing gold at people and then flapping off into the distance is more her style.)

But I can’t just abandon Kaet and start a new primary Alliance character. For one thing, I have no desire to level a new hunter from 1 to 80 in the next couple of weeks. For another, I’ve treated Kaet like my Alliance main for a while now and so she’s accumulated some nice Feats of Strength, as well as a retired Swift Zhevra.

The Solution: Nefane

I’d been thinking about this problem with Kaet for some time, but it took the looming deadline of pre-Cataclysm events to spur me to action. And the solution was actually a lot simpler than I thought: I turned Kaet into a Draenei.

… Or more accurately (from my point of view),  I put Kaet’s character into storage and turned those 71 levels of experience into a new character, a Draenei hunter named Nefane. A somewhat self-centered, fairly sardonic Draenei who is trying out a slew of white and grey pets to see what she likes best.

(A nefane is essentially the big brother of a niffis, pictured above via the Asheron’s Call Wikia community. You can see the resemblance in the tentacles. And Niffis was the name of Kaet’s white crab, so there is some continuity.)

Kaet still exists (in my head) and will likely make a re-appearance in Cataclysm. But in the meantime I have a mail Alliance character that I like leveling. And after a few days of playtime she’s already level 75 and ready for Operation Gnomeregan.

A race change isn’t something I was expecting to do, but it’s worked out well for me here. I’m glad I had the option.