I have characters in a reasonably active guild and characters that I solo. I play the first on a PVP server and the latter on PVE.
I've found that being in a family guild is all about multitasking. (Even just being on a PVP server -- you're always looking behind you.) You can get into a repetitive motion grinding and keep up with gchat pretty easily but when it comes to complex thought or maintaining a lot of different information in your head at once, or even just being left alone for an hour or so, being in an active guild is the worst place to be.
On the other hand, while playing a character solo gives you ample room to stretch and breathe and go as slow or fast as you want, and you don't get those distracting "Who wants to heroic?" requests (or my least favorite: "You could switch characters and heal us."), you also don't get to accomplish group tasks without dreaded pugging.
My husband and brother usually refuse to guild their alts until a certain level -- sometimes even endgame level. This way, they keep their alt "secret" from the guild so they don't get distracted from leveling but can still put the alt in the guild when the character is ready for group activities. Since leveling doesn't offer much to a guild beyond the knowledge that a person is online -- and the ability to ask that person to relog to an 80 for one's own benefit -- and I guess conversation and relationship-building, too, then I think this is an excellent solution.
Have somewhere to escape to when you need escape; acknowledge it as just an escape (for example, I don't expect my Birdfall to ever rock raids); and keep your mains close to your guild heart (don't neglect them in favor of your solo characters, if you can help it).
The key is to keep a balance of guild time and personal time so that you don't get burnt out or lonely.
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I have recently started an alt after feeling a bit "burned out" on Lamora. I could only do so many Argent Tournament dailies without go crazy, I found.
ReplyDeleteThe excuse to start an alt came with one of my friends finally picking up the game after much convincing from one of our author friends.
No guild, but we do usually play together in the evenings now. It's kind of refreshing, seeing as we rolled on Earthen Ring, which is an RP server. Not a very active RP as far as I can tell (I'm not looking either), but it's nice to do the actual leveling again. I've been in instances I never set foot in before, and I've even managed to become fairly decent at being a Protection Paladin.
That is, if our Druid would stop being a Bear. >.>
But aside from my tl;dr post here, I have to fully support this post.
I agree as well, sometimes it's nice to get away. On the other hand, my druid (which was a secret to the guild until she hit 60) is now as big a part of the guild as my main, and I'm having a blast getting her the last bit of the way to 80. Rolling an alt on another server always seems to end in stagnation before level 10, but alts on my main server get much further and, in some cases, flourish :o) ... if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know that feeling. It's why I rolled with some friends.
ReplyDeleteTwo of them haven't played since the days of Vanilla WoW (One was actually around for when Ahn'Qiraj was first opened), the other two had never played before.
^_^; It's kind of a funny, but I'm turning into one of those tanks that's frustrated when people aren't following at my pace. I really need to work on that.
Because at one point in Ragefire, I was two-manning the instance with our Shammy while the Druid and Priest where hunting for our Warrior's body.
I actually rerolled on a completely different server than my guild. We have Alliance and Horde counterpart guilds on Fenris. Going to another server with one lil' lonely toon is... fun, liberating, a little scary with no support? It's a lot closer to being a complete newbie than rolling up an alt on the same realm. Kinda fun, actually. And the ultimate Alone Time. I turned on trade chat for the first time in ages, just to make sure there was someone out there in the world playing too. :D
ReplyDelete-Fri