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Friday, April 23, 2010

How I Role

After a long, fruitless night (my daughter needed to go to the emergency room, but they found nothing wrong) and a day recovering and setting up a couple initial pages (the pages listed underneath the blog header), I am ready to throw my two cents into the the blog discussion started by MMOGamerChick, and also touched on by Adventure Historian and Amuntoth. EDIT: CaptainRuz put forth his perspective, as well.

So here are my discernible character trends:
1. I am an altoholic.
I am addicted to "The Glow." I have 30 characters on WoW, 3 captains on STO, and I started 3 characters on LOTRO although that was  mainly to try out the different mechanics. I guess that's why I have so many toons on WoW, as well. This can be a good thing. My main on WoW, Rowanblaze, is the fourth character I roled. I don't know if I would have continued playing the game if I had been stuck with one character. Plus, Blizzard kind of encourages multiple alts with the "rested" bonus, where you get more XP per kill when you haven't played the character for a while. I never really play most of the toons I've started, but I am attached to them nonetheless.

2. Most of my avatars are attractive females. Those that aren't are "cool."
I know there are opinions about men rolling female RP characters. The friend who hooked me on WoW always played male characters because "that's me having that adventure." OK, I didn't know you were a 3-foot gnome who can shoot fire from your fingers. I may not be the first guy to say it, but I never heard anyone else before I did: I would prefer to follow around a female than a male. I didn't realize that preference would call my sexuality into question.

I do have male characters, but for the most part I didn't like the male avatars in WOW, which is the game I've played for far longer than any other online game. Some notable exceptions, in the "cool" category: Tauren males, troll males, and dwarf males. I thought it was interesting that the dwarves in LOTRO could only be males.

Along that line, Locke is the first avatar that I even tried to actually make to resemble me in real life.

3. I have a definite, if subtle, naming convention. Almost all my characters have a plant as part of their name. OK This is obviously an intentional thing. Some of the names I've come up with are pretty clever if I do say so myself. A few examples:

-Poppyshock, a Draenai Shaman, is one of my favorites, and my Twitter handle.

-Hazel Wingnut is named for an herb reputed to be used by witches.

-Pawpaw Mojo (a male) is named for a banana-like fruit grown in the southeast United States.
-Rowanblaze and Rowan Starblanket are named for a tree sacred to the Celtic druidic religion. Ironically, I think "Rowanblaze" is a little stilted, definitely not my favorite name, yet she is my main on WoW.

Notable exception: Donovan Taggart Locke. I couldn't come up with a good in-universe plant name for a human male after using "Rowan" for my first STO toon.

4. I prefer healers.
My two main characters on WOW and STO--the aforementioned Rowans--are both healers. I have played a ton of toons on WoW. I like the survivability of being able to heal myself in the middle of a fight. And other people appreciate someone willing to perform in that support roll.

13 comments:

  1. I like being beakers too. I have in WoW 80 Priest, 80 Shaman. In WAR I played a Zealot. I did branch off into Tanking with a Black Orc, but I got bored with him and Started a DoK (another healer class). I started playing a Pally right before I shelfed WoW.

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  2. LOL are you typing on your iPhone again, Scary?

    It's nice to know I am not the only care-bear in the Blogosphere.

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  3. Interestingly, I'm an altohollic only in WoW. I have In addition to my five 80s, I think I also have a 70ish Shaman, 60ish Death Knight and a 40-50ish mage. Then there's all the level 1-20s that I played around with on both Alliance and Horde. Yet, I am not like this with any other game. In fact, now I just want to have one character to focus on for each game.

    With regards to the roles I play, it usually depends on what class my husband decides on. We usually like to hit up a game with one of us being the healer and the other being a tank so we would be able to duo any situation.

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  4. I know what you mean. when I start playing AoC in the morning, I will try to stick with one character, unless I have a tremendous dislike for the game-mechanics of the class I choose.

    It's nice to have someone to play with. I used play with my ex-girlfriend (with Sunsage, Ebonax and Peccant Ivy on Terenas), and I always roled to complement her class choice.

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  5. Nice post! I like reading about other peoples' gaming habits - this has made a nice little series.

    In AoC, each race has a different type of healer. I've tried out a Tempest of Set (Stygian), which is apparently the most damage-centric healer, and alot of fun in later levels - but really boring initially. GeeCee has a Priestess of Mitra and a Bear Shaman (I think), so could give you better insight into which of those healers you might want.

    Remember, roll Wiccanna (or however you spell it)!

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  6. Right, ToSs are more damage centric healers, while PoMs are the opposite -- they do decent damage but their abilities in healing are unmatched. Bear Shamans are like in a league of their own...they're like a melee healer, and I wouldn't recommend BSs as a first class. The melee fighting coupled with healing makes it so that there's a million things you have to keep an eye on.

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  7. Hey I can't to your blog right now GeeCee. Wordpress won't let me in. Of course, neither will the AoC client right now, I can't figure it out.

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  8. Oh, I left a reply to your message on AH's blog. Basically, it's Wordpress's fault :P They brought the site down due to a mistake. I've already been in contact with them, and they confirmed it was a mix up on their end. Even so, they have yet to re-activate it though, which is driving me nuts.

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  9. Oops jah I saw it now. OK just waiting for the WP then.

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  10. Lol I'm always on my iPhone. I should have looked at what I wrote. I like being healers not breakers. Not sure what breakers are. Maybe, dps class or something.

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  11. I thought "beakers" was a reference to science and medicine, hence healers. My mind can make anything make sense. Heh heh.

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  12. I totally said that I would rather follow around a female than a male way before you. I just didn't want to be an alliance and the horde didn't have good looking females.

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  13. You may have said it before I did, but I didn't hear you say it before I did. :P

    Oh, and the horde females may not look good from the front, but . . .

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