Character Soul

Earlier today I got a message on msn from one of my old guildies. We didn't really say much but we decided we were going to meet up in a few weeks. Grab a couple of beers and just hang out. Probably talk about the "good old times" we had playing together, raiding etc. It got me thinking.

My main is a lvl 70 UD Mage. I don't play much on it anymore for various reasons. The biggest reason is my job. I can't spend the same amount of time on it like I used to. This means that I can't raid on it like I want to. That’s why I these days play more casual with some IRL friends and my girlfriend. This also happens to be a Mage. What can I say? I like the class. Anyway. Me and my girlfriend rerolled on this PVE server. Can't say I enjoy the server much but, it allows me to be in a raiding guild despite of my work schedule. I still call this character my alt even though it clearly out gear my main these days and its the only character I play on as mentioned. So why do I still call this my alt?

You all remember when you first started playing WoW don't you? I sure do. Me and a friend had just bought the game. I moved my computer to his apartment that same day and we said that we would always play these characters together. I had been playing Dark Age of Camelot for two months prior to this, but this was the first "real" experience with an MMO. We picked our race and class. He, a nasty looking undead warlock. Me, an UD Mage called Himura. We were off! I'm not good with names. It's stolen from a popular anime series, so lets just leave it. Anyway. The race towards lvl 60 began.

I said race but it was nothing like it. It took me a good 4 months to get that character to 60. But the journey was worth it all. I had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends. Time went by. I and my mage were one. Looking back I feel that everything was more personal with the game before the burning crusade. I could be imagining things, suffering from some sort of "when I was young" syndrome. My point is that this first character I got to level 60 has something special. Something no character after that can copy. My character had a soul.

I don't feel the same way about the new Mage. Not even close. Perhaps it's the same for everyone. Is it weird that I don't get the feeling that my alt is missing a soul? Maybe its more weird that I think that my main has one. I don't know really. People tend to take this game far too serious at times and I KNOW that I was one of them a year back. I gave this game more attention than my real friends and I sometimes regret the time spent. Don't get me wrong here. I don't judge people who spend a lot of time playing WoW. I still play WoW quite abit. Though I probably read more about WoW and think about WoW more than actually playing. But maybe its the time spent levelling from 1 to 60 and then raiding MC, BWL, AQ and Naxx. Later on 60 to 70 raiding Karazhan, TK, SSC, MH and BT. Probably yeah. Not sure though.

When I think about it I believe the game changed a lot when TBC came. More than meets the eye. The old world no longer has any real meaning and Orgrimmar is not the centre of the Horde world anymore. Its populated for the AH but its not the same as before. Everything you did pre TBC was somehow connected to Orgrimmar. Orgrimmar was the centre of the world. Didn't really matter if you were levelling, if you were a raider or if you played pvp. Today I get the feeling that Orgrimmar is an empty shell. I get the feeling that there are more anonymous players roaming the cities today. It feels shallow. My alt and Orgrimmar seems to walk the same path. TBC was needed and I believe it to be a very good expansion. But perhaps it came at a cost. I'm going to try and tie up some lose ends here tomorrow...