Meeting of the Minds

Last week I talked about the characters I've been using in WoW. Now a player of WoW having multiple characters is not unheard of. It seems having multiple characters is a good enough excuse to try new things and take a different approach to playing WoW. Thus it is possible for a Horde player create an Alliance character. And it encourages new routes and areas to explore and new races and classes to experiment with. Nothing wrong with that but as far as I can see, it does raise a problem: Namely a lack of focus.

How does one prioritise between characters? Any RPG is pretty much going with a character through a very long journey and watching them evolve in both strength and personality – they are pretty much you, the player, and with them a bond is established comparable to a parent’s love of a child. Thus to have multiple characters tends to break this sense of focus and make a scattering of the RPG formula/character bond. And indeed it makes an interesting contrast to, say, Mass Effect, because no matter what changes I make as a player in appearance and the character class, the person I'll control will still be Commander Shepard in name and voice. No matter how many changes I make it'll still be the same character (and it should also be noted that Mass Effect is a much shorter game than WoW). Thus, juggling multiple characters seems more and more like a parent prioritizing their time between children.

And seeing as WoW is a very sociable game, it does seem odd for people to disappear and operate under a different name. Okay so there’s nothing really wrong in being in separate guilds and mixing with different people but it does seem strange to see two of the same player’s characters in a guild list and seeing one drop out and the other come on immediately afterward – if anything, for me, it does break the immersion.
So whilst having multiple characters is nice, there does exist the thought that when one is used the other two are siting around and grumbling when they’re turn is coming around. In addition is it is weird to disappear as one character only to come back and find the people you've come to know online way ahead of you in the terms of levels - and they wonder where you've been.
Plus, having multiple characters kind of restricts the exploration element: Indeed I've enjoyed just wandering around checking the various regions out but such an aimless activity seems a bit dumb when you have two others dudes awaiting attention.

Personally, I use three characters because I wanted to experiment and try new things - as they say a change is as good as a rest. But I think to best manage multiple characters is when there is a great distance between levels - which is not the case here (Rithendal 36, Beldrath 27 and Grimcrag 19 at time of writing). So whilst it is nice to do things differently, getting to level 60+ is looking a tough prospect at the moment.........

But at the end of day I can conclude that whilst it may seem so easy to prioritize but difficult to pull off. Well WoW, looks like you got me again you sick bastard....