Rerollin'

Why do so many say "I'm going to role a priest" or "I'm making a DK for my rerole"? I know it's a "role-playing" game, but the rolling thing comes from the fact that old-school D&D required you to "roll" a dice to determine your stats. Hence you "roll" a certain character, not "role". Anyways...

A few days ago I ran into an ex-guildie of mine during a random Headless Horseman run. Luckily I was on one of my seldom-played alts but he recognized me and we got to chatting. It turns out he and a few people from my old guild (the one I was all throughout T11 content) had started an alliance guild on another server.

I had always wanted to play to 85 on alliance, because the lore and storyline that unfolds in the questing is really the only unique part of choosing to play either faction. Once you're 85, it's the same daily grinds, same raid bosses, same dungeons, same gear same everything. But the zone quests are unique - not all of them, sometimes you have those generic quests that are more or less the same for each faction. There are other quests that are only available to one faction, and the starting zone is the best example of faction-specific quests.

The problem with rolling an ally, I've found, is that it's so difficult to start from square one. Imagine having no gold, no heirlooms, no high level main to send you bags, BoE drops, or mats to level your tradeskills, no friends to play with, etc. I've tried rolling an ally on my current server when they implemented the cross-faction heirloom thing, but it was just too tough to start out with no bag slots, no gold, and no guild.

So finding out that I have some potential friends/guild on another server was a big plus. I'm maxed out on character slots on my current server anyways, so this way I wouldn't have to delete any characters that are well into their 50s and 60s (I will get them to 85 someday...).

I rolled another rogue since that's what I know best. I chose worgen because I've heard that the Gilneas starting storyline is pretty goth and epic.

I have to tell ya...this shit's TOUGH with no heirlooms! I had forgotten what it feels like to actually fear for your life as a level 3 rogue. Heirlooms boost your damage and health to the point where elites are a joke and everything else die in 2 shots. This time...I was the one constantly getting killed. Mobs took a good 15 seconds to finally die under my pathetically weak daggers. Anytime I pulled more than one mob I had a 50% chance of dying. Let's just say that this is the first time I've relied so much on sap in order to avoid certain death.

After all the ordeal I somehow made it to level 13 and out of the starting zone. The quests were pretty fun and sometimes emotional, and definitely very different from the silly, happy goblin starting zone.

And once again I find myself with no money, no bags, no gear, and no idea where to go. I'm in Darnassus, so I guess Darkshore would be the place to start. Having no money really sucks. Now I can understand the kind of desperation that drives lowbie players to beg for gold on the trade chat...

Luckily I do have some tricks up my sleeve. The first thing I did was make a bank alt that I could park in Stormwind. That way I don't have to use up my precious bag space carrying around things that I eventually want to sell on the AH. Already I've picked up some stuff to sell - things like a few stacks of leather I spent an hour skinning, some low-level gems and random greens, things like that. I'd say 20g in 1 day for a brand new alt isn't too bad!

I was thinking of rolling a DK and picking up mining & skinning just so I can use that character as both a bank alt and to generate some gold. But it takes so long to get out of that DK starter zone...maybe someday, when I have more time to invest in this character.

As soon as I hit 20 or so I'm going to hit up my friend for an invite. I generally like to hold off before asking for guild invites, because there's a good chance I might just give up and not play that character anymore after a certain point. I'd hate to waste anyone's time and wedge myself into a guild on a toon I'll never play.

So we'll see how this alt ally adventure plays out. One thing is for sure - Yo ho yo ho, a rogue's life for me!