It’s Only Teenage Wasteland

Have you ever made an alt in an online game? (Christ, do I have to define “alt” for you now?) Y’know, an additional character just for screwing around when you tire of your main character? Maybe you’ll take this secondary character all the way to max level, maybe you won’t. That’s the beauty of the alt: it’s usually twinked up the ying-yang and it’s just for sport. No pressure.

Some players are freaking addicted to alts. They never max-level anything, just screw around with one of their 8 or 10 characters until even they, themselves, realize they’re an embarassment to the guild. I’m guessing they just never find their niche or a class they enjoy and can’t complete the deed. Given a long enough timeline, they’d be max level in every class. Which will be good for someday.

By all accounts, these type of players are just now reaching max level in EverQuest-Classic. Dudes, what fun was to be had in EQ has already been had. Let it go.

Then there’s the Overachieving Gamers, not unlike myself, that have maxed a character (or two) already and we’re on our way back through the noob zones with Character #2-plus. There are no words to describe the torture this is, to spend more than an hour in the Alt Zones, but I’ll give it a shot.

Firstly, there is so much misinformation tossed around in General Chat, it’s a wonder anyone accomplishes anything at all. I don’t play these classes and even *I* know more about hunters and druids than these self-proclaimed class experts. The curious would get better information going to Shittbot, and that’s a searing indictment nowadays.

Secondly, these noobs have never taken a character past level 30 (by their own admission), but they know everything about Warcraft PvP and the high-level instances (again, by their admission). Some recent advice from noob general chat: “warlocks are weak, don’t bother making one,” “rogues can own anything,” “paladins can heal as well as priests for the big encounters,” and “shamans (sic) are pretty gud (sic).”

Pretty good? They are alarmingly good — crazy good. I’m surprised the Horde players make any other flavor besides shaman. (Maybe my opinion is skewed there from being tatooed recently by a pair of shamen that wanted rogue for lunch, nonetheless … shamen, crazy good.)

Thirdly, when the opposing faction comes to call in the noob towns, how in the fuck are the noobs getting flagged with PvP? “omgzorz, i just got ganked by a 60 (they assume) player!!!!111!!”

On a PvE server, there’s only about a handful of quests that auto-PvP-flag a Warcraft player, so if they got ganked, that means one thing: they were STUPID enough to engage a high-level player. To be blunt, that’s not ganking; that’s swatting a pest that comes up on target.

Fourthly, the Alt du jour people are the chattiest people in game. They are entirely all too helpful with their misinformation and their random observations: “casters sure nuke hard and fast” (gee, ya fucking think?) “my hunter is level 22” (and?) “i have a 16 priest too” (the pain isn’t nearly over for you yet) “no one can kill a paladin” (once upon a time) and, my personal favorite, “laggggggggggggggggggggggg” (*sigh*).

Lastly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, do not allow one of the Alt-makers to put you on their friends list. If they ask, say “NOOOOOOOOOOOO” and flee the area. Some of these people are Stalkers-in-Training and will hound you daily to remake a character with them, lend them money, help them kill 10 rabid bears or whatever level 5 quest they’re working on at the time, farm instances for them, etc.

This is the voice of experience talking: take a noob under your wing at your own peril.

And people wonder why my /ignore list is always full. Thfft.

10 thoughts on “It’s Only Teenage Wasteland

  1. Damn… someone needs their quadruple-shot Vente cup of apathy today to curb out the noobies! 😛

  2. Some players are freaking addicted to alts. They never max-level anything, just screw around with one of their 8 or 10 characters until even they, themselves, realize they’re an embarassment to the guild.

    Hmm, that is so like me it is frightening.

  3. Pingback: Kill Ten Rats » Blog Archive » My Alt Has An Alt

  4. Ahh Alts-Anonymous – love that. 🙂

    What’s even funnier is listening in on the Barrens chat – prime example of the blind leading the blind.

    So cute (PvE server here too) when Alliance hits Xroads, and some ambitious teen-level Horde tries to drum up a raid to “retaliate at Astranaar!”

    Shine on you crazy diamond.

  5. Actually, the currect plural form of shaman is shamans. Kinda surprising that that someone who types “gud” will know that, but there you go.

  6. heh, bet you wish you could go back and edit that, huh? 😉

    Some sources say the plural form is shaman. I’m willing to concede that whatever the hell someone wants to use for multiple shaman is ok with me. Usually I use .. wtf and dammit when in their vicinity.

    EDIT: Also, I use to pronounce necromancers as NEE-cromancers and shaman as SHAY-man, until I was corrected YEARS LATER on TeamSpeak. So it’s clear that I’m no expert in arcane lore and terminology.

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