So, a couple of days ago, there were lots of pink slips handed out on my account.
Having finally reached the end of my rope, I went on what I’m sure could be termed a rampage, if you were character on my account. I deleted characters.
No, this wasn’t the tame deleting of low level alts that often occurs on my account (doubtlessly on some of your accounts – you start an alt on some server with an acquaintance… you play for a night or two, but you never played the character again and it’s been going on 10 months now?) and I was sick of seeing all these characters that I had rolled, invested any amount of time in (from sub-10s to several in their 60s and 70s) and then never played again, for any or no reason.
It started small, with the random sub-10 alts I had on a ton of servers. If I knew people on the servers, I vendored everything and gold was sent to them to repay them for the gold and bags that they had bought me to start out with. If it was on a server where I knew no one, they were ruthlessly deleted without even kindly donating gold to a random character I saw around in Ironforge.
It was more of a process with the characters I had on my home server, Exodar. (I call it my home server, but I actually haven’t played seriously on it in over two years.) I went through each and every character on it, since my home server was my only “full” server as well, and painstakingly sent anything useful to Anea, any trade goods that could be auctioned, or interesting bits that I’d picked up here or there, so that she could still have them. Though I will say that finding the Haunted Memento on my 70 hunter made me a little nostalgic and rather sad to delete her Jeweled Fishing Pole (that is the only fishing pole I’ve ever gotten from the fishing daily in Dalaran, over a large number of characters. Anea never got it.)
The only characters that are left standing are Anea and Sin (who was my first 70), one lone dorf priest on my manager’s server who may or may not make it through the week, plus three characters on Naithin‘s server, but only because I didn’t have the patience to deal with all the tradegoods on those characters. Probably tomorrow I’ll be deleting the DK and the low level shaman and sending everything to my 67 shaman there, but it isn’t really as if she’ll be played again.
This leaves me feeling as if I’ve truly cleaned house – as if I have a clean slate. Like I can start again, without all these stalled and abandoned characters left hanging over my head. Whether or not this will help anything, I’m not really sure. I didn’t do it with the conviction that it would, but it was something I didn’t feel bad doing and I don’t regret it now, so I don’t see it as a bad thing. It’s lifted a bit of guilt that I had (that any number of you who I talk to in game will tell me I shouldn’t even have anyway) and perhaps that will help me enjoy the game more.
I hope it does help you. I’m unsure that it will, at least, in terms of actually getting something to the cap.
But I suppose it might help in making new alts more fun for however long they last, since you won’t have the guilt of making another alt of class x when you have a million and one of that class already scattered about the place. :)
You’re right, the only thing I can be SURE of getting from all this is less guilt about having a ton of certain classes. Other than that… we shall see?
There needs to be a name for the guilt abandoned alts cause. I really do understand that pressure; I’ve been looking through my own stable, knowing that there are alts I’ll never play again for the reasons you mention, and knowing that almost every one makes me feel like it’s a failed project.
Focus is a good thing, though it’s hard saying goodbye. Bravo!
Maybe you could take the delete-hammer to your abandoned alts? :)
I love swinging the delete-hammer. I’ll swing it at any toon at any given time. There are only two characters right now that are on my do-not-delete list, but that list is always only temporary and those two could very well be on the delete list next month; you never know.
My wife and I go through Spring Cleaning™ about 3 times a year, where we go on a mass deletion spree and just get rid of all of the abandoned toons. I’ve hit the toons per account limit twice and got really close a third time, and I know my wife has hit the cap more times than I have.
Rolling alts is a fun aspect of this game for many people, and having fun is the point. Getting to the level cap is fun for some people and for others its not. Whatever aspect of the game brings you joy is the one that deserves being focused on.
If you like to roll alts and level them up, then keep on rolling your alts and just add in a cycle of deleting them to clean up your account every 4-6 months. I did a big cleaning on my account just before Cataclysm launched and I’m starting to feel the urge to start the mass rerolls again real soon.
I’m only using about 17 character slots right now, and those other 33 slots are just waiting to be filled so that they can wait to be opened back up again.
If I were TRULY being practical and honest, I would delete Anea and Sin too, since the criteria for deletion was “will not play again” and “guilt-inducing” and while they both have the former for sure, only Anea induces a little guilt. I’ve since stopped feeling bad about not playing Sin, haha. But they have emotional attachment because of time played with Lus, so while it’s sappy and sentimental of me to keep them, I do. Probably if Lus were still playing and we could roll together somewhere else, I wouldn’t mind at all.
I don’t know how close I’ve gotten to the character limit… I’ve never REACHED it, otherwise I’d know, but at one point I had a TON of characters just lazing about starting areas, doing absolutely nothing.
I’d heard stories of your deletion penchant (well, read stuff on twitter) but I see you’re on quite your own level!
ANEA!!! You’re back!
My account doesn’t go through quite as large character number swings, but I do have a penchant for rolling an alt, playing it to level 10 or so, deleting it because I start feeling like I have too many idle alts, and then creating an identical character because I decide I really do need a toon of that race/appearance/class combo after all.
I have one mid-level character that I haven’t played in ages, but I’d feel guilty if I did delete her — my BE Paladin. She’s an off-screen supporting character in the stories I’ve written about my BE Mage, and I keep her around on the premise that I’d really like to have a BE who can wear mail & plate. The chances of her getting to level 40+ and actually being able to wear plate are rather slim, though, and so I’ve been arguing with myself for the better part of a year about whether or not to delete her.
Right now, I feel like my character portfolio is pretty stable… but come back in a month or two and I may have changed my mind.