When I’m very stressed, whether in game or out, there’s something I frequently do to make myself feel better.
I roll an alt. For some reason, playing through the starting areas is extremely relaxing and soothing to me. I do it pretty frequently, actually. To the point where if I ask my boyfriend to guess what I did today, if I sound remotely upset he guesses “roll an alt?”
More particularly, I roll a hunter.
I have a love-hate relationship with hunters (as opposed to the love-love relationship I have with mage bloggers 
Solidarity.) I roll one every couple of months at least, but then they always seem to sit abandoned while other characters get played. I don’t really know what it is that turns me off to them, but let me list off the hunters I’ve rolled and deleted since starting to play wow…
Jeymilah -troll hunter of Hyjal (approx level 15)
Jezkeh -troll hunter of Hyjal (12)
Yazkeh -troll hunter of Hyjal (18)
Kaellani -Belf hunter of Blackwater Raiders (18)
Illyia -Draenei hunter of Aerie Peak (pre-pet)
Oriel -Belf hunter of Kel’Thuzad (15)
Oriel -Nelf hunter of Kel’Thuzad (25)
Airona -Belf hunter of Kel’Thuzad (17)
and of course, there’s Brithne, dwarf hunter of SAN, who is currently level 42 and is by far my best experiment at huntering. Sadly she’s more or less collecting dust now, because I hate the 40s. Will she live again? I hope so…
Not to mention there’s Klikzi, currently femorc rogue, but a name-saving placeholder for the goblin hunter I’m planning on rolling come Cataclysm, and for whom I’ve been feverishly hoarding heirlooms for months.
And now I went and did it again!
I was feeling lonely tonight, because my guild was empty (not uncommon late, we’re mostly 9-5ers I think, and need to sleep regular hours) and my boyfriend had already gone to bed too (he works at 6am! ouch) and I was waiting in long queues and doing quests that were boring.
What better compliments lonliness than the open rolling plains of Mulgore, hmm? So I rolled my millionth baby hunter, this time a Tauren named Birkhana, and off I went. Somehow deriving balance and sanity from the slaughtering of furry critters and the taming of beasts. It’s weird, but it works for me.
She’ll probably be deleted soon like all the rest, and I’ll probably do it again next month. Oh hunters, how I love you… and how quickly I bore of you… and then delete you… and then miss you and roll you again…
Anyone else have an irrational ritual of sanity in WoW?
Erik June 3, 2010 at 10:45 pm
That is amazing, besides running heroics for badges for heirlooms, all I do is start new alts. And most of them are hunters (I love hunters, my mains are hunters). But then I stop playing around level 20 because I love the starting areas with their clean questlines and good story integration but then get bored after running a few dungeons with the alts. I’ve tried 1 of each class as an alt but also stop those around 20. Cannot wait for Cata with hopefully better questing like the first 20 levels.
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 4:21 am
Yeah, this is me exactly. Maybe I should delete all my stalled alts for Cataclysm and start over? I have a full set of heirlooms for priest/lock/mage, shaman, and hunter now.
Cogito June 4, 2010 at 1:40 am
To be honest….that was how I was with mages since Vanilla. I'd roll a mage, get frustrated/angry/homicidal and then delete him. I rolled five mages, never making past about level 31 or so. Mage the sixth, though, survived…by sitting around next to the bank for about a year and a half or so.
Last summer, though, I took him out to do the fires for the Midsummer festival (free experience and I didn't actually have to -play- a mage? Sign me up!) I extinguished the fires, then Blizzard reset the bonfires, so I did it again – boatload of experience. Then, though, I got the itch to play him, and only a short time later, boom, 80. Aaaaand, then he sat again for a while.
With 3.3 and the ease of gaining at least a set of Tier 9, I took him out again (mainly because I honestly felt bad for him), and now he's my co-main.
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 2:03 am
Well I'm glad your mage is finally getting some love! That's a good idea to use midsummer to level stuck toons. Maybe it will get Brith past her leveling slump.
(I forgot a hunter… Khasumi, orc of Kel'Thuzad, deleted at level 22ish)
Teoita June 4, 2010 at 7:54 am
I pretty much gave up on my sanity a while ago, mainly due to our guild chat. The closest thing i have to a sanity ritual is arenas in full pve gear, spec and glyphs with a rogue (pve too xD) in our guild, for the lols.
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Heehee, I know lots of people who use their crazy guild chat for sanity!
Baneraven June 4, 2010 at 1:50 pm
I don't roll new alts, I play my existing ones. Well, ok, sometimes I roll a new one. My main is a mage (obviously) and my highest level alt is a druid. Also have a priest and a shammy (gee, you think I have a thing for casters?). I guess I'd better roll a lock to make my caster alt list complete.
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Yeah, I'm definitely a caster person as a rule. I have a 80 holy pally, 80 mage and 72 shaman.
grimhammer June 4, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Your not alone Rhii,
I find myself pissed off in RL quite often these days and there really is nothing better than rolling a new alt and maybe getting him/her to around level 10 or so. I find myself start loads of dwarf alts, for some reason i totally love their starting area. Turn up the game music to full, shut the blinds, close the door and get lost in the world.
I can't even count how many times I've done this.
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I can't stand the dwarf starting area! LOL I can only stand a certain number of beer runs before I want to hang myself.
But hunters, mmm. Love level 10 hunters.
Kevin G. June 4, 2010 at 3:25 pm
You'd be able to answer this question then: my family was debating whether the starting areas had gotten a lot easier some time since the beginning of last year. Some people remembered mobs that once were dangerous were now all non-aggressive (yellow). Is that the case? Did you notice the same change?
Rhii June 4, 2010 at 5:21 pm
True. I liked it better when it was a mix of red and yellow mobs in the early levels. It seems really cheap to just run into a cave, kill the one mob, and then run back out unmolested.
Bill June 6, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Totally do this…hit a wall where I can't seem to get past a quest/level…get all fired up and roll an Alt. It's a very cleansing process. Love it. Typically I'll get them up into the late teens to run some Battlegrounds then wipe them. Good stuff.
My recent post Hunter PvP Pets in Plain English
Rhii June 7, 2010 at 12:37 am
Glad I'm not alone! I always feel so refreshed after being in the starting area again.
Deetz June 29, 2010 at 3:41 am
Though I typically switch over to counter-strike when i get stressed out (a few headshots does a body good) opposite of yourselves my burnout comes from endgame shenanigans and my stress relief from leveling. A 60 in vanilla (a hunter!) and several 70's at the end of BC went the way of the dodo when the character list filled up on Hyjal just so I could make more chars to level >.< I can definitely relate to the rolling plains of Mulgore, but for me it seems to last all the way until Northrend. An upside of this though is I've plenty of screenshots of the game to be nostalgic about after the next expansion.
Rhii June 29, 2010 at 5:27 am
Oi, I have so many screenshots I can't even find the ones I want half the time! Whenever I queue for an instance as dps and have to wait 20 minutes, I bring up that screenshot folder and start sorting them into folders by character and date. Nightmare!
Gnerrica June 29, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Tauren hunters and Undead rogues did it for me. I do so love the early levels of new alts. My mains were all alliance but my very first character in beta was a Tauren huntress who I loved. I was so bummed when she got purged.
Then I rolled a tauren huntress in live but my friends were all playing alliance and I got stuck playing with them. I always tried to level up my poor hunter but she got left in the dust. I'd delete her so I didn't have to see my failure staring at me from the character list, but then I'd re-roll her (same name and everything) from the ashes a few weeks later.
The same thing happened with undead rogues who were OMG OP in beta and everyone wanted to roll in live to level fast. I rolled one to start and kept deleting and re-rolling her.
The only thing that finally made me stop was that I vowed to never use the delete button again. I set up my characters on a single server, one of each class and said "there, that'll fix that". I haven't rolled anyone new since then, but blizzard destroyed my grand scheme by introducing faction transfers. Now all of my high level characters are all one faction (8 level 80s, with two in the 70s) and I deleted my lower leveled alts. So I've finally got my level 80 tauren huntress, but it's just not the same as actually leveling her. : (
I'm waiting for cata to set up a whole new batch of alts on the Alliance side again, and then I'll see about leveling through all that yummy new content. Maybe I can get a second batch of 80s up there?
Rhii June 29, 2010 at 4:23 pm
The vow never to use the delete button… I couldn't do it!
Zymurg June 29, 2010 at 2:47 pm
So many alts on Hyjal… is that your home server? If so… /wave from Zymurg <High Lords of the Horde> of Hyjal.
I've done this recently too… started an alt that is. For various reasons I rolled a troll priest. Now I find myself leveling the heck out of him using RFD. After raiding as a rogue for three years with a warrior tank alt it is a really nice break to see the healing side of things. Switching it up has helped tremendously stave off the end of expansion "blah" I got in TBC.
Found your blog through wow.com. I'll bookmark it and check it out again.
Rhii June 29, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Hyjal's not my home server now… I keep my primary toons on Kel'Thuzad… but Hyjal was the first server I rolled on and I can't bear to delete my very first toon, so it's always at the top of the server list for me. It's a very friendly place for creating alts on.