Some thoughts on re-rolling
by Krystalle Voecks 
Jul 14th 2007 at 1:19PM
Like many that read WoW Insider, I've been playing World of Warcraft pretty much since release. Many people I know who've been playing that long have spent all of their time on one server. Mine has been spent with my guild, running up one of various characters to endgame. Raiding. Fun faction farming like Thorium Brotherhood, Argent Dawn, or Timbermaw Furbolgs. (I can hear your yawns of excitement now!)
So when we opened up the It came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh, I jumped in with both feet for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to run a Rogue up so that I had a testing ground to play with maces and daggers and fist weapons and not just my beloved Swords. After all, if I'm going to help bring a good quality Rogue column to the Rogue community, I should be running the builds for myself. The second reason is because since Burning Crusade has come out, there have been huge calls for more new realms so people can run from 1-70 on them, fresh. I figured I'd see what it was like to seriously try to run a new character up after 2 1/2 years of playing the game on the same server with the same people, and a pile of gold just one in-game-mail away.
I think the first thing I noticed was just how chakkin long it takes you to get green gear if you're not just gearing yourself out. I know that sounds strange, but I didn't get a quest reward green until I was pretty well in my teens. I had actually gotten two drops before I'd even seen a quest green. That was kind of surprising. I'm used to just taking an endgame character through the lowbie instances, farming up a bundle of greens, and mailbombing the new alt with anything appropriate. The second thing I noticed was how outrageous the rewards for Tranquilien rep were. Who ever heard of a rep that you'd hit exalted with before you were level 20 -- that included it's own repeatable quest grinds for those poor unlucky souls who didn't start friendly with Silvermoon like the Forsaken and Blood Elves did! But sure enough, Blood Elves have some seriously sweet goodies, and I honestly will likely be starting all future Horde alts from Silvermoon City, regardles of race. After all, with the changes, you can go back and do the starting areas for the different factions and still gain full reputation.
But it all broke down to some basic things that I truly missed. It wasn't the sweet gear I'd managed to amass. It wasn't the snap, crackle, pop of having dual Mongoose enchants. (Although I'll admit missing the cool glowy, because Mongoose is wicked looking.) It wasn't even having the convienence of VOIP in parties and raids. Nope. After 2.5 years, it came down to three things:
- Bags
- A mount
- Certain higher-level abilities (in my case, Cheap Shot at level 26, and Blade Flurry from Combat talents)
But when I sat down to think about it, I realized there was a 4th element involved that I had forgotten. It's the one that set my experiment apart from the race-to-70 solo-crazy "reroll locusts." The thing that makes leveling any character fun for me is having a great group of people to spend time flinging insults and compliments back and forth with in /guild. So, I must add an important 4th to my list of things I couldn't live without: and that would be a cool group of people that I get to spend time with. In this case, the ICftB crew were all relatively new to me, but several of them I've come to consider friends since then. As I know a couple will be at Dragon*Con, I expect at least one round of It Came from the Blog drinks will be had. And there will be pie. Oh yes.
So I suppose I fail at being a really good reroller. I'm not at endgame in nothing flat, I don't have huge amounts of money, and without the folks in ICftB, I have no doubt I would have gotten really tired of running a new character up and gone back "home" as it were. I'm still working on getting exalted with Undercity so I can have a My Little Undead Pony at level 40. My gear is a mishmash of eh and meh. But I have enjoyed seeing the game with as fresh of eyes as is possible after a couple of years playing it. In that, I will give the re-rollers one thing -- it does make you re-think your normal patterns. I feel like I've re-learned some more basic Rogue aspects that I now know I take for granted in my endgame pursuits, too.
I can see the allure. A fresh start, a new realm, and potentially a bunch of new friends to meet. But I don't think I'll ever quite get into the spirit of hopping from server to server every time they open one. I'd rather be able to spoil the next inevitable alt I roll. How about you? Do you prefer to keep your characters to one server? Anyone else ever try rerolling just to get a fresh start after playing for a while?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
honkhonk Jul 14th 2007 1:32PM
As raiding is just not doing it for me and neither is the esport arena stuff, I tend to soon enough look for an opportunity to play from 1 to levelcap again. And somehow it adds to the atmosphere if you do it surrounded by people who largely have the same gear as you. So yes, new realms please, I have the most fun rerolling there instead of an old one.
Ryan Jul 14th 2007 1:34PM
About a year+ ago my alliance guild was starting to splinter off to other end game guild or quitting the game all together, a handfull of us said lets roll horde on another server to screw around on and a place for us to hang out. Present day we are a thriving guild currently working our way thru karazhan and kicking butt in heroics. Now have 2 70 horde and my highest alliance is around 62 =D
White Rabbit Jul 14th 2007 2:37PM
I prefer keeping them all on one server. That's why I only had alts on Dragonmaw, my first server. My 70 would farm gold in outland, then mail it to my little alts so they can AH and work on Professions and get nice gear and plenty of bags
but since coming to Zangarmarsh for ICftB, It's been awhile since I've had to level a lowbie character with no financial backup from my Orc
-Obron
lunada Jul 14th 2007 2:20PM
I may reroll on another server as a "break" but i cant stand having all that money and ability to at least give my alts good enough armor to make the questing and boring level grinds through the starter areas tolerable. But it also is in part that for some reason as a druid player (and prob other druid players) have a hard dealing with other classes and their "one-trick-poniness" (no offense non-druids =P)
Chris M Jul 14th 2007 2:20PM
Being a sufferer of altitis myself, I can tell you- it's not all it's cracked up to be.
For those of you that have lived in the endgame since release, I'm sure it's a big cultureshock. But for guys like me that have one high level (70 Priest) and numerous alts spread across nearly every realm (not kidding- if you need gold, or a healer or DPS in a Scarlet Monastery run, I've probably got an alt on your realm.) the run from 1 - (wherever I get bored) is no fun, whatsoever. For me, BC added the Ghostlands, which was a huge bonus; and I recently rolled my first Draenei (and second alliance character of all time (currently level 29, Priest btw) and found that the Bloodmyst/Azuremyst wasn't half of what the Ghostlands is.
Frankly- the 1 to 40 (where I usually burn out with a class and get bored and roll anew) is so depressingly boring, I find it to be monotonous now. Just a part of leading up to the 'fun' is me leveling an alt, and then I never get to the real fun, get bored- and reroll...
Chris
Guernia Jul 14th 2007 2:26PM
I rerolled on a new server in May, having been on the old one for about a year. I brought three friends with me, so that satisfied the cool guild/chat criteria. But the one thing we all complained about was BAGS!!
Puny bags sucked, and that was even if you could get any to drop. And for some reason, on the new server the 6-slot bag prices were always higher on the AH than at the vendor (??? go figure). So we were all hurting for bagspace for a while.
I was waiting to transfer my characters over, since the patch with the change to jewelcrafting (guaranteed gem in every prospect!) was about to come out, and I had 1500 fel iron ore sitting in the bank. I needed that space to load up all my mooncloth bags, 14-slot bags of various sorts etc. Which I did, then transfered the character. It made life sooo much easier (especially for the new hunter).
I love the rerolling experience - getting away from old server DRAMA, facing the new grind up to 70 with a fresh character - but it has certainly given me a new appreciation of decent bag space.
RaydenUni Jul 14th 2007 3:56PM
I don't mean to be a jerk, but you need some new gear. My 29 rogue has some better gear. In a day when I get my WSG dagger I'll have better weapons. I have spent a little bit of money getting my leather working up and buy some stuff on the AH for PVP but I haven't gone crazy.
Most importantly, do the Rig Wars quest from Gnomeregan. You get some great pants from there.
You mention rep in Tranquillien. It was really cool to see how rep actually matters for the first time. My main is only 66 so I haven't spent too much time grinding rep and I never thought about it pre BC.
Cayleigh Jul 14th 2007 5:25PM
I have serious alt-itus, and I've pretty much made an art out of getting to level 15 and having 16 slot bags by then.
As soon as my new toon hits level 5, I grab a pick and start mining. On average, copper ore sells anywhere from 1 to 2 gold on the AH. There's always a 70 or so out there who's going to pick up JC instead and need basic mats. I also pick up leather bags as soon as I can in the AH. They can go from anywhere to 20 to 50 silver. But you have to make a little bit of an investment to get to the gold making.
I think the lure for me to reroll on another server is just to veg. I'm main healer of my guild, and it can get really demanding. Sometimes I need a day to just... play and veg. No farming, no instances, just me and the newbie quests. It's pretty much self therapy. But it works!
On my main realm, I have all ten slots full. All alliance. I just deleted my lvl 42 mage and rerolled another priest. I want to have a shadow priest to play with now. But I also want to just experience the lowbie stuff with a priest again. But when I want to go back to the 70 stuff, I've got my guild, my priest and rogue to play with in endgame. ^.^
~Cay
Hipshot Jul 14th 2007 7:25PM
WSG dagger? That might be ok if you're not trying to level quickly, but BG items are just timesinks. You could get 1/4 a level during a single WSG round. I'm saving the BG gear until after I'm done leveling. Just faster that way.
Wolfstalker Jul 14th 2007 7:53PM
You can get exalted with tranquillien just from doing all the quests from levels 10-20. You don't need to do the turn-ins.
The last few quests give like 3000 rep each, and killing the end guy in Deatholme gives 10,000 rep lol.
The +7 stam cloak lasted me until level 35.
Cheeno Jul 16th 2007 9:47AM
I rerolled Horde from Alliance not long after I had rushed my main (human warrior) from 60-70 about 2 weeks from when TBC went live. It was a relatively new realm (Hydraxis opened right before the expansion I believe)and I completely bought into a reroll along with two of my real life friends. We basically picked the classes that we'd had as mains already, which meant that I rolled warrior and my friends a rogue and a priest. I have to say, it was a blast.
Everything that you've read above about Tranquillen and Ghostlands is true. It's fresh content and the rewards are alot better than anything that you'd get in the older content. Exaulted is so easy to get...just do every quest (regardless of your race) and you'll get it in no time. I'd highly recommend going there in your pre-20 leveling, regardless of race.
We each picked different professions. The priest was a miner/jewelcrafter, the rogue a tailor (can't remember the second) and I was mining/smithing. So basically, I'd feed all the gems to the priest, most of the stone and some ore went my way, and we'd feed most of the cloth to the rogue. It worked out perfectly, because before long, we were pimpin bags (albiet small bags at first, but BAGS), the lower level JC stuff (the rings and necks are sweet for the level), and smithing helped me a little (wouldn't pick that again). Helping each other was the biggest key to making the reroll easier to handle. Once you get the bags, everything becomes easier.
Definitely make a bank alt/mule. Every time I ran by a mailbox, I'd constantly mail things to this character or my friends. Taking advantage of the mail system is an excellent way to store your items while you level. If you get burned out on questing or whatnot, you can always hop on that character and play the AH a little or mail things back to your main character to skill up a profession.
I personally had enough gold for my level 40 mount just from questing and being smart with the AH. You can also be smart about what abilities that you train, especially if you're familiar with the class that you're playing. Not training a few ablities here or there can really help boost you up for the level 40 mount. It's pretty key in helping you level faster.
I was able to get my epic mount in my early 60's as well. The real key here is questing. You may think the gear that you get your lower levels really matter, but it really doesn't. I'd recommend not running hardly any old world instances. The gear you get isn't really worth the time invested. The gear you get in the first zone in outlands will blow anything that you could possibly have out of the water (if you're rerolling of course). This is hands down the easiest way to get gold for your mount.
Same can be said for your flying mount. Just doing quests in your later levels will easily get you the 900G you need for the riding skill and mount. I leveled the warrior from 1 to 70 in roughly 14 days /played and I was fairly casual about my leveling.
Looking back on it, I'm glad I leveled a Horde toon. It's interesting to see a different "side" of the game (oh, and Grom'gol in STV friggin rocks). I ended up going back to my old alliance guild because they needed me, but I don't regret the time invested at all.