The Daily Grind: When do you alt?

Whenever I get an idea for a cool character name, I instantly roll an alt in what-ever MMO I happen to be playing at the time. Inspiration typically comes from movies or books.

I always alt- I create one of each playable toon and play them all.

I rarely, if ever, roll alts but I have found that I always roll a healer first. Then, after a fair amount of game time, I find that I really miss killing things easily. So I usually go back and make a DPS alt and then I have my two play styles covered.

So for me, it's all about playing to my mood - do I feel like lending a hand or do I feel like striking down with great wrath.

Depends largely on the game, CO I made an alt almost every session, DCUO I stuck with one toon. It usually occurs once I get a whiff of burnout on my main or if I come up with a cool concept for the most part though.

With SWTOR I knew what characters I wanted to make (thanks to beta) so I made them right at launch, and got back to them later. SO far all my alts are at least on their capital worlds. My main has me so hooked though (agent), that he has gotten the lion's share of time.

In Guild Wars, I made my alts after a few weeks just to save the names (for GW2), but I have not really gotten many to lvl 20. The ones I have gotten there I use as my mercenary crew on my main. Nothing like grouping with your own alts to tackle content.

Back in the day with SWG it took years before I made any alts (ok well one year), but I used to dual box back then too, so I leveled them up with my main.

On a whim abo0ut covers it and I get those whims pretty often. I just made two new characters in EQ2 last night, which gives me a couple of dozen or so I think. Of course, I have been playing since launch. I think in Everquest I probably have double that.

Can't really have too many characters and no reason needed to make a new one beyond "because I can".

In themeparks when I still played them, I did alts for crafting and maybe one alt to play diffrent class after I played my main for long time.

In sandboxes I stick to one character. Actually I enjoy mmorpg's that have limit of one character per server, it gives MUCH better economy and also people cooperate and behave better. This works in sandbox / sandparks thought only.
At least it used to cause not much mmropgs nowadays do that. Well EvE does.

Mostly on a whim when I feel I need a change from what I have been playing. Generally there's not any reason beyond that. But I will say the will to roll alts is also directly proportional to the amount I enjoy the levelling content as well. Which for SWTOR, I find enjoyable.

When I first start playing, mostly to cover for all crafting possibilities; I don't like depending on other players for crafting.

I do attempt to spread out class and race selection, though. In both WoW and LotRO, I have at least one character of each class, race, and profession - though I only get to the end game with characters that can both tank and heal.

(It's my main gripe with DCUO and TOR, really; no way to make a character that can alternate between tanking and healing. It's also the main reason I plan to jump to TSW, and after that GW2; all characters will be able to do all roles, so I won't feel limited in my character selection.)

I like to be self sufficient crafting wise so whilst leveling my main I will normally have a bank alt and a couple of crafting alts I will level high enough to be useful. Once I'm in a good place with my main I will invest more time in the favorite of those alts.

It depends. In City of Heroes, whenever I get an idea for a new character or an urge to try a new powerset combo (so, all the time basically. I'm using the F2P character slot restrictions to sort of control my alting in that game.)

Fallen Earth was different. I rolled my first alt there purely because I missed S1. LOTRO was different again - multiple alts once I had the crafting system worked out - that's the only time I've done it to benefit my main character (though they've been superseded as favourite by one of those alts.)

When my bank is running out of space.

Or...

Desperately in need of a crafting toon.

ALWAYS create alts. Unless the game lets me have one character any class/job then it's just a matter of playing whichever class I feel like that day.

The decision to make an alt comes from wanting to change my playstyle up a bit. Like wanting to change your room around because it's gotten old and stale in it's current configuration. Alt's are my in-game way of doing the same thing.

I tend to make alts at the start of my time with a game, especially if I have followed a game until launch. I will look at several factors first, but it can do with class and what race there is in the game that appeals to me. Of course, with class. it gives a variety of different roles/mechanics to play in the game, but if we are talking about race, it gives different personality types.

Let's take our topic of inspiration: FFXIV: With such a game, I am attracted to the big class and although it any race has a wide variety, I feel like being a "serious bruiser"(Roegadyn) with one. Being a rascally imp, for my style and desire, is out of the question. I feel the smaller race (Lalahfell) would be better able to portray that side/nature. They certainly are more approachable, IMO, to many people than the Roegadyns. Of course, I might also roll a Miqo'te, partly for a character-concept and partly for eye-candy/change-of-scenery as I play.

I also, many times, like to roll a "base human" character, just because it can be something of a springboard into the game and learning about it. I find most people, especially novices, tend to make a human (or near human) at first over other races and then, getting comfortable with the game, they may expand the population of the other races by making a non-human character. But like many, they don't want to lose any "work/playtime" they put into such a character and "start over with a reroll".

I think a game can feed a bit of the "packrat" in many of us virtually. We can take a nibble here and there. We can dress up a character or race to have them look different.

Preferably, never...

Say what you will about Final Fantasy XI or XIV, but the one thing they both do right is allowing your character to switch jobs. I don't mind leveling new jobs from scratch, but most MMO's make you do all the dumb shit over again, like all the exploration, transportation options, notoriety, etc. Screw that. I tried to level an alt on DCUO, but I just can't get excited about repeating all that crap.

I love that I had one character that everyone knew, but today I can level my Black Mage in party, but tomorrow I can go solo on my Puppetmaster...

Mainly when I get bored with my current character whether it be due to hitting a bad leveling spot (Outland in WoW) or I'm sick of that character's playstyle. It has happened too many times to count, many of those alts being deleted or abandoned.

I always create alts - initially when I first start the game and again at later stages.