What to do with all those badges?

 I had an absolute blast this weekend in WoW. One of our raiding guildies established a new guild strictly for leveling alts. The response was overwhelming – I’d say we have about fifteen people who either moved over some old alts or rolled up some new ones to join. Several of us decided we’d take a group of 5 characters and level them up together – shades of the “static groups” from FFXI back in the day.

 I rolled two alts and outfitted them with all the heirlooms badges could buy. After all, it’s not like I need the emblems of Triumph for anything else at this point on my hunter. My ‘static’ alt is a level 14 Frost Mage, and my ‘free’ alt is a level 16 Resto Shaman. I’ve never healed before in my life, so this has been an interesting experience, to say the least.

 But first, our static group did RFC a couple times this weekend, and we really had a great time – particularly when we went in as level 9/10s. Being a WoW-gamer of the TBC-era, I never really did any of these Azeroth instances along the way. I’m convinced the old dungeons, coupled with the lack of character skills at these levels, make for a more challenging experience than the “heroics” of today. I jokingly said in party chat “RFC > ToC”. If we’re talking regular, I’m not sure I’m kidding c0me to think of it. I used more CC – and who doesn’t love sheeping – in one run than I have in months on my hunter.

 I used the Dungeon Finder a couple times with my shammy – and that sure is a nice change from queueing as DPS. Literally within seconds I was in RFC. The Warrior “tank” was decked out in greys. Yes, the “so bad it’s clearly vendor trash” greys. The heirloom hunter in the party ended up doing most of the tanking via pet. We had a warlock in the party who was very clearly 12 years old, over-eager and pulling everything. In spite of all this, we killed the main boss, took our satchels and went on our merry ways. And I had fun healing – scary!

 I’ve let my Fallen Earth subscription lapse. I simply don’t have the time to play two games right now, and I’m really liking the low-level alt guild idea. As I always do, I’m sure I’ll re-subscribe to FE once WoW wears thin before Cataclysm.

~ by Drew on March 8, 2010.