Let’s start off the week with a short list — five advanced tips for making a World of Warcraft alt. These won’t be your basic blah-blah tips like: collect a ton of quests, run out and complete, hearth back, rinse, repeat, use your main to assist with the tougher quests … I mean, DUH! We all know that. These tips are for guys like us: we’ve already played the game far too much, we’ve made far too many alts already, we’re h4rdc0′, we know the sco’, give us some mo’, ya, fo’ sho’. Now look at that, I was rapping. And I discover yet another skill I didn’t realize I had.

(Ok. I promise not to do that again.)

Anyways, here’s the short list of how I approach alt-making in World of Warcraft today, pre-expansion_01, because you must know that the expansion will change almost everything, including alt making:

1. Choosing your alt’s professions. Choose professions to help out your main because your main is going to be your alt’s sugar daddy — shouldn’t the main get a little something, y’know, for the effort? Of course he/she should! One caveat: don’t choose both herbalism AND mining, nublet. The default map only marks one of the spawnable resources which will drive you nuts before you leave noob-town.

Personally, I like enchanting or skinning AND herbalism or mining, although my latest alt is enchanting and skinning because I’ve become SO lazy, I don’t want to check my minimap anymore.

Secondary professions (cooking, first aid, fishing): First aid and nothing else. You either have a 300 fisherman and a 300 chef in your stable already or know someone who does. Plus, honestly, fishing and cooking won’t make or break the game either way. First aid, however, will.

2. A little gold goes a long way. Before you even enter the noob playpen with your new alt, mail him/her a few gold and a full set of backpacks. You already played the game straight by struggling to buy spells/skills every other level and trying to beat down Edwin VanCleef with a rusty dagger. This alt is for speed AND comfort, give him some walking-around money for the ride.

If he loots some nice gear along the way, super, but since we both know he won’t, just buy the shit off the Auction House and be done with it.

3. Asking for help. If your main (and/or bigger level alt) will be flying down to noob-town to help out the alt with the tougher quests and elite mobs, cool … ditto if a guildmate will help you out. Certainly, for instances, you will want the big guys’ help.

For the single elite mob quest, I don’t even bother with that anymore — my main has become as lazy as my alts. IF the quest is worth doing (this is increasingly questionable when we’re talking about alts), I’ll ask one of the Show Off Dudes in the zone to give me a hand.

Allow me to explain. There are two reasons why a level 60 hangs out near noob-town: 1. they are incredibly bored (uncommon) or 2. they are showing off for the noobs (common). I figure, what better way for the Show Off Dudes to do exactly that than offing some elite mob for me? Instances, I’ll get help from my main or from the guild — outdoor elite mobs, Show Off Dudes are the way to go.

Ask nicely — even I would help ya out.

4. Be paid for your services. I know new-to-the-game nublets like to make guilds of new-to-the-game nublets. I know that, I don’t understand it, but I do know that. If some dude needs me to sign his guild charter so he can have his little circle of gaming buds in a guild, I’m cool with that. I expect him to ask me first and not thrust the charter onto my screen without a word. Same goes for the ninja guild invite. And if they have a conversation with me first, I do explain “no thank you, not looking for a guild” (got my hands full with the other guild donchaknow).

But, I also know that most of these wordless charter situations are well-funded alts looking to make a vanity guild. I’m cool with that too, however, I expect to be paid for that service. My minimum price for a charter signature is 1 gold. They need the noobs for their little project, they should pay the noobs — that’s how I look at it. As far as they know, I’m a noob, so open those pursestrings and fork over a gold.

Like I said, if we have a conversation and I can tell that the guy doesn’t know up from Westfall, I’ll sign his charter no prob. That charter from the level 60 druid for the guild “Brokeback Mountain Cowboys” costs 1 gold. Actually, that one would cost 2 gold because that’s just damn stupid, albeit fitting for a fruity night elf druid.

5. Don’t tell your guild. And I cannot emphasize this point enough: Until you are ready to premiere your alt, until he’s ready to graduate to “The Show”, DO NOT TELL YOUR GUILD. Remember “speed AND comfort”? Your alt is where you escape. No drama, no whining, no complaints about the loot or the raid schedule, no requests to help Soandso’s brother with the jailbreak from Blackrock Depths (an odious quest, by the way), no requests for loans, and no inane conversations that start off with “hi. how was your day?” because I always know where that convo is going … straight into how their day was.

And allow me to save you the pain of thinking you can tell a few people in the guild who your super-secret alt is and they won’t bust you at the worst moment possible … they will. I know. This is how it’ll go: Guild says, we need another whatever-class for this BRD jailbreak for Soandso’s brother, does anyone know when Foton will be online? Guild-idiot-I-thought-I-could-trust says, he’s online right now. Guild says, where, we don’t see him. Guild-idiot says, he’s on his warlock NotFoton’sWarlock.

Next thing I knew, I’m getting tells from guildmates asking if that was my new warlock. Fuck no, this is my new mage, your /who command is whacked.

And it was all downhill from there.