Mains and Alts

When I look at my friends in WoW and separate those who i consider to be very successful from those who aren't(please note my definition of success is gear, achieves, progression and prestige. This is fairly subjective and other people have different definitions of gaming success, so don't get all uppity on this point, I know my definition isn't for everyone) one factor seems to have more of an impact than the rest: they stick to their main.

There are outliers of course, some incredible DKs immediately spring to mind, but by in large I have found the most successful people in WoW found something they enjoy and have stuck with it through thick and thin, year after year.

Is this because they have a heightened appreciation of that classes particular mechanics due to years of experience, or did they just find something well suited to their particular play style? I don't know, but I do know that sticking it out with one toon seems to predict long term success more than current gear or guild.

If i had to guess, and I clearly will because this is my blog after all, I would say it is due to running out of shit to do. Yeah, that's it, that's my big theory. I will explain a bit more, but I think the concept is pretty simple. People who lots of toons can always find an easy, relatively stress free way to make one of their multitude of toons better (how hard is leveling or heroic farming after all? not very
Someone who sticks with one toon, on the other hand, has to seek out increasingly more stressful and difficult avenues of improvement. Once all the easy achievements are gotten, all heroic badge gear farmed, all of the buyable mounts bought, what can they do? Well they can roll on alt i suppose, but they don't! That's what separates them. Instead of rolling an alt they find another way to progress their main, then another, then another.

They arena, do PUG 10 mans, do old world dungeons, solo world dragons, etc. And it is through this boredom and lack of easy progression they improve. I don't just mean improve in the sense that they have more achievement points or now can cook, but improve their understanding of their class and the game in general.


By pvping they get better at pve, by doing a world dragon they learn how to heal themselves more effectively in raids, by farming a mount they learn patience and agro management, it goes on and on. All their guild mates see is a bad ass at their chosen class, but it wasn't luck or chance in my opinion that got them there. At one moment they were presented with a choice, do the hard stuff most avoid or hop on an alt for more easy progression. Most people, myself included typically, opted for the easy road. They did not.


This isn't binary, clearly. It's a choose your level of involvement paradigm here in WoW, and some amount of alt playing is needed for sanity's sake if nothing else (once again, my opinion clearly). It does seem apparent to me that the more dedicated a player is to their chosen main the better in general that character will turn out to be.


Who knows, maybe I'm wrong and spreading around your playtime learning the ins and outs of various classes makes you better at your chosen class. It's possible, and my sample size consists of my own friends list and guild and little else, so maybe even probable.


Still, I think I am on to something here. The people I envy and admire most in the game don't have a main and a few well geared alts, they have one character with 90% of their /played time on it, so much so that the guild forgets which alts are theirs and accidentally boots them (this happened, the player in question was rather confused).


What do you think? True theory based on your experience or utter BS spouted by someone looking at too small a sample?

Ok need to edit here:
I tried, i really did. I soloed ZG mount bosses, finished the exploration achieves on some old world zones (I am going to finish this before cata, i swear), did my daily heroic and even a WSG. Then we had 38 people online for raid time, 38 fucking people. Well I didn't get a spot, which while not completely unexpected still sucked, and I logged on my priest alt.

I know, I know, but my post, those vaunted ideas and theories. Well, theories and ideas are all well and good, but playing my newly 80 priest through some heroics was better, at least last night.

I have no idea my intentions for the character, no clue what I want to do with them really, but last night when i needed a break from my main he was there for me, and I will be grateful. I still think my post above holds true, and that pvping on Jax would have been the more goal oriented, praiseworthy thing to do, but as I said yesterday sometimes you need an alt to save your sanity, and last night was one of those nights.