While seeking a new game goal to inspire our level-60 mains to do something (anything) besides watch the Auction House, we’ve been working on our army of alts. Our current plan is to fill the gaps in our class structure, which previously was … DPS, DPS and more DPS.

So our new strat is this: everyone that has a DPS main (which is everyone), half make tank alts, the other half make healer alts. The other part of the strat is: the sooner this is over, the better, so have a level 60 babysitter around at all times to make sure the alts always win. And quickly.

The time-honored tradition of the powerlevel, reworked Warcraft-style.

Now, we realize there are few things more annoying than working on your noob main in a noob area and some badass level 60 arrives to mow down everything in sight for the benefit of the gimpo alts following behind. We’re sensitive to the community.

If someone asks to join for a tough noob quest, we’ll hook him up. (Not for a collection quest though, he’s on his own for that crap — our level 60s have better things to do than help some stranger collect 35 troll nuts. Ok, they really don’t have anything better to do, but they’re still not helping with troll nuts.) And, if we arrive to a quest area after a noob group, we’ll wait silently for them to either finish or graveyard it.

As our involuntarily-elected leader puts it, “let’s try not to burn every bridge on the server.” Sometimes he adds, “right, Foton?”, which is entirely uncalled for because I’m usually quite nice to other players, if I interact with them at all.

Even with our newfound community sensitivity, we sometimes get grumbles from the real noobs in the quest area, but whatever, because we will be doing this quest and we will be using a level 60 to ensure victory and we really don’t care if people think that’s bastardizing a roleplay game. It’s not like some noob is gonna shame us into playing it straight, all over again.

A few nights ago, we’re running the alts through Duskwood to get their griff route and Darkshire quests; all of us dutifully /following the 60 hunter. Just outside of town, we see the NPC guards set up awaiting the arrival of Stitches, a level 35 ogre that charges into town as part of a player-initiated script.

Actually, we didn’t even remember that he was level 35 — when he came into view, he was just level Skulls to us, so we had to ask the hunter. Standing well behind our babysitter, about 10 paces back, we watched with great amusement as Stitches tore through all the noobs that ran up to get a better look at him.

It was even funnier when they ran back from the graveyard and rezzed right next to Stitches, only to get beat down again. Stitches was doing his part to clean up the Warcraft gene pool.

Next, this level 44 paladin came prancing up on his (FREE!) pony. As our hunter babysitter said, “this should be good.”

The paladin engaged, the noobs zerged, and Stitches started to lose. Even with 34 divine lives, or however many paladins get, even with noob healers trying to keep him propped up, even with a timely heal potion, the paladin still dropped like a sack of dirt, and the zerging noobs followed soon thereafter. Watching Stitches chase after each level 20-something in turn for a one-shot kill was well worth my monthly price of admission.

By now, we were roaring with laughter on TeamSpeak. This little side drama could only get better if they all came back and died again.

Stitches regenned back to full, wiped out the guards, as he always does, and resumed his slow waddle towards Darkshire.

We made some quick wagers on whether Mr. Paladin would rezz and try again or if he’d had enough. (C’mon, those paladins have more of a god complex than rogues, there was NO WAY he wasn’t going for revenge.)

After the third round of deaths, including Mr. Paladin (ka-ching! mail my winnings to the main, boys!), we had to be on our way, so the hunter waited for Stitches to regen, then killed him. We could have ducked out of the way and let him continue onward, but ffs, I didn’t want to run around like an idiot trying to dodge an angry ogre. It’s not dignified.

After wrapping up our Duskwood business and a couple of dings later, one of the guys said, ‘he could hardly wait to do that again.’

What? The powerlevel thing? Dinging through 5 levels a night? Doing elite quests as soon they’re offered? /fol on a level 60 while he does all the work?

No, the Stitches thing.

We all agreed. Gaming just doesn’t get any better than that.