As a wannabe cartoonist, one of my personal heroes is Chuck Jones. The mastermind behind Looney Tunes who brought Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and all their friends to life. There is a story that is frequently told regarding him, wherein he introduced himself to a small boy as “The person who draws Bugs Bunny”. The boy promptly corrected him, “No, you’re the person who draws pictures of Bugs Bunny.”

See, that’s how I feel about my characters in WoW. I am not Tawyn. I just play her in a video game.

Tawyn’s path to life has been a long and windy one. There were some parts of her character that I knew from the beginning: for example, that she lived in Stormwind instead of Darnassus. But most of the other aspects of her character wouldn’t manifest themselves right away. In the beginning, largely influenced by the night elf voice acting I think, she was a much nicer and more serene and overall “elfy” individual. It was my first ever Brewfest at level 50 or so where the guild running joke of Tawyn being an alcoholic surfaced, and I later decided to tie this into her personality. After that, it was just a snowball effect, with my character leaping unbidden from “neutral good” to a much more chaotic persona. She became misanthropic; a cowgirl and a mercenary. A Beast Master because beasts were the only thing she could trust. Time and all the changes it has brought to WoW had an effect on her as well, and I tend to say that she has since fled Stormwind due to the political goings-on and now wanders around Northrend as a vagabond.

When I think of her, I don’t think of her as a character in WoW. I think of her as this living, breathing individual. She is of course, not real, but it sure feels that way sometimes.

I think this may effect the way I play the game. For example, the idea of a faction- or race-change seems almost like a crime to me. Sure, there are races I like more than night elves, but the whole idea of Tawyn’s identity as a night elf and the internal struggles she has with this fact is bound tightly to her character. To change her into something different and rip that integral part of her story away is unspeakable. I don’t even like thinking about it.

At this point you may be thinking “Wow, you are superbig into roleplay, aren’t you?” to which my reply is, actually, I almost never roleplay in game. I was never comfortable with it. Primarily because I didn’t want to step into the shoes of this character who I knew I could never do justice. I always approached roleplaying with trepidation, the way an actor might approach playing some historical figure in a film. I don’t much like roleplaying because I know I am not Tawyn and am afraid I’ll play her all wrong. You’re laughing at me, telling me I invented her, but in truth it feels more like she came to me. I don’t fully know her yet. I’m still learning about her.

So it is that I have this character that popped into my head and I also play her in a video game. The video game aspect of it is a large part of it, and that’s why I never quite understood the “I don’t roleplay in WoW because stuff like spirit rez’ing is too unrealistic” thing. That doesn’t make sense to me because what’s happening is just that, a game adaptation of your character’s life. Stuff that happened in game doesn’t necessarily have to be stuff that happened to your character’s backstory. Tawyn didn’t actually murder thousands of the Defias Brotherhood. Tawyn didn’t actually wipe on Sapphiron or Curator billions of times. Tawyn didn’t actually do that infamous “torture quest”. The game is a loose roadmap for Tawyn’s life, but it’s not a home movie. Most World War 2 video games aren’t exactly how it happened either.

No, the Real Tawyn lives in my head and manifests herself to me in stories and in her little personal piece of lore that has been cooking in my head since day one.

All my other characters feel very real to me as well, of course– heck, I’ve been known to level characters only because I like their backstory– but none of them is quite as real as Tawyn is, and I think that’s why after all these years, Tawyn is still my main. Cause how can you shelf a character that real?

I gotta say, in the end, this is why I play World of Warcraft. I mean, the huntering is great. Obviously I love the huntering. But if you shoved Generic Hunter #13458 in my face and told me to play it, I’d lose interest. Very fast. Because in the end, the biggest reason I love WoW is because it’s a gateway for letting some really interesting imaginary people into my brain.

And that’s awesome.

After much hem’ing and haw’ing…

…Lunapike starts to work her way up the leveling ladder!

Now, I’m one of those psychos that actually really enjoys leveling. I love the quests and the lore and the world and seeing it all through the eyes of a character with a different personality than last time. Why do you think I have so many alts that are hunters and druids? Because my strain of altism is unique in that I enjoy the questing more than the “learning to play a completely new class” thing. For the most part I stick to what I know I’m already comfortable with and enjoy, and do more leveling. (And tame more pets, my other favorite part of the game).

Lunapike’s spec is a little interesting, so I’ll preemptively explain before anyone asks (cause I have been asked about spec discrepancies between my characters before)… her spec is meant firstly for making her pet more of a tank for more efficient leveling, and secondly for the fact that she’s on an RP-PvP server and may have to scuffle every once and a while. Those two types of specs seem to coincide quite well if you are a Beast Master hunter, just nab all the talents like Endurance Training, Thick Hide, and Spirit Bond. I’ll probably respec her at 80 but for now, this is what she is, and it works well.

I have no idea how fast or slow Lunapike’s journey to 80 is gonna be or whether she’ll even be my second 80 (Tamaryn is closing in fast in a surprise run from the outside! And down the stretch they come! Now taking bets!) but I’m gonna enjoy it. I was always disappointed that I got her to 70 a little too late last time and never even got her into Karazhan because WotLK came out before I could finish getting her geared up for it. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen this time; my taureness is at least gonna see Naxx, and hopefully a lot more too. Because I maintain my stance that tauren females* are the best playable models in the game and deserve to be seen in all that epic armor. *nods*

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* Female tauren hunter is probably my favorite gender/race/class combination in all of WoW. I just love it. And it makes me really happy that there are a pretty decent number of us in the blog world!

If I had to pick a favorite part of World of Warcraft it wouldn’t be hunters. Nor would it be the social aspects of the game (though admittedly, that one is largely because most of my guildies are now effectively out-of-game-friends as well– we all hang out in AIM chats and stuff).

No, my favorite aspect of the game is character creation. And by that I don’t mean the whole choose your race/class/silly hairstyle part, although that is fun too.

I mean coming up with a story and personality for your character and stepping into their shoes for a few fleeting hours. That’s what I mean. That’s my favorite part of the game. That’s one of the things that first enthralled me when I started playing WoW. “Wait, you mean I can create my own video game hero/heroine?” Now don’t get me wrong, I love Mario and Link and Solid Snake and Locke Cole and Jim Raynor and Master Chief. I love them to bits, heck, don’t tell anyone, but I have a crush on Link that is like… thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big.

*cough* Sorry, sidetracked.

Anyways, yeah, there had been times before where I could sort of create a character, but not in the same way. Neverwinter Nights and KotoR were solid games but didn’t grab me on a “character” level. Pokémon didn’t let you create female characters (which I really wanted to do) until I’d already sort of drifted away from the series. Et cetera. Other games let you sort of make a character but thrust you into an already formed backstory anyway.

But with WoW, I discovered the game alongside my character. I learned things like how to play my class alongside my character. And for some reason, this was the first game where I not only experienced the story as I would personally, but thought about how my character would react to all the events unfolding around her, too. By the time I was max level, I cared for my character in a very deep and hard to explain way– she was sort of me, but sort of not me, and she was a good friend who I experienced this crazy world with. She has a real personality, one that is different than that of any of my other characters. In a way, she is real. She is something I created and can be proud of not just by topping a DPS meter or getting her all decked out in purples, but by being able to feel like I created a character in a story.

Mirshalak recently queried, “What are you addicted to?” What keeps you coming back to the game? Sure, my guildies do and my hunters do and my general enjoyment of the game does. But more than all that, for me, it’s the way Blizzard really succeeded in creating a world that just sucks you right in. It’s the way every time I do one of the opening quests that I’ve done a million times, it’s fresh and original because I’m seeing it through a completely different set of eyes. It is pure distilled roleplaying without actually going out and walking slowly around the Cathedral District and having some deep discussion about the state of Azerothian affairs. It’s something that I’ve yet to be able to experience anywhere else, with the exception of maybe Dungeons & Dragons, but for me this might even be more than that because it is so visual and hands-on and I’m a very visual and hands-on type of person.

That‘s what keeps me coming back. My friends are here– and this time, by friends, I mean characters.

Okay, gonna end this now that there is a big neon “GEEK” sign hanging over my head. =P My WoW account is now safely reactivated though I don’t anticipate too much activity for the next couple of weeks; I am moving into a new place and that will require most of my attention for a little while! Still, I’ll be here, yapping away, I’m sure.

P.S. Since I’ve already linked to one blog in this post, go read this. Trust me.

When I posted a picture of my servers on my last post, I got a lot of comments about how I have a lot of toons. This is something that really hadn’t occurred to me because it doesn’t feel like I have that many characters, because I don’t actively play many of them. Observe:

Silver Hand (10) – I have ten characters on this server, and only five that I ever log into. One is Tawyn, one is Tamaryn, one is my bank alt, one is my mote bank alt, and one is my Death Knight. Characters posted in order of frequency that I log into them (my poor DK is neglected these days). Those other five characters… I have a hard time remembering who they are, much less logging into them >.>

The Venture Co. (8) – I have eight characters on this server. Now actually, this server sort of ends up being my “experimental alts” server so I think overall I’m more active with alts on this one than on Silver Hand. Not all eight of them, though, there are a couple characters here who I rarely touch, and Lunapike and Althalor (both hunters) and Songlark (my other resto druid… what? >.>) are the only ones above level 20.

Dark Iron (3) – This is the server that a lot of my family and IRL friends play on. So I’ve had characters on there almost from the beginning. Here’s the thing: it’s not an RP server. As such, I have a heck of a hard time playing there. It’s not even that I “miss” the RP, because I don’t do a lot of RP myself. It’s that the whole atmosphere just feels different in a way I can’t get used to =(

Regardless, I have a level 16 blood elf paladin on this server who I haven’t touched in over a year. I also have two hunters who are levels… I dunno, 9 and 12 respectively, I think. Who also haven’t been touched in over a year. They’re still sitting there out of… well I’m not sure why they’re still there. I have already informed aforementioned friends and family that if I ever decide to go play with them it will probably be through transferring Lunapike over, so maybe it’s finally time to release these characters into the nether.

Thunderlord (2) – I have a couple of sub-10 characters here. They haven’t been touched in months. More family members play on this server, but sadly it suffers from NonRPitis like Dark Iron does and I can’t get into it. Next!

Cenarion Circle (2) – This one is actually interesting, the two characters here are level 1. One is from some random BRK event a long time ago and one is a replica of Tawyn when I wanted to try my hand at machinima. Decided I failed at machinima and haven’t touched the character since. Not sure why these characters are still around actually >.>

Twisting Nether (2) – Ah yes, this server. My boyfriend and I have been casually leveling two gnome mages together. We got busy and haven’t logged in for a few months. We should probably do that again. >.> The second character on the server is a level 2 hunter who I never play.

Drenden (2) – I have a level 2 blood elf hunter here who now that I think about it should probably be deleted, and a level 12-ish dwarf hunter who… I need to log into more. Forgive me, Ratshag and BRK! /grovels

Wildhammer (2) – This server has a bit of a story behind it– the same friend that got me and my boyfriend playing WoW on the first place (and stuck us both on Silver Hand, actually), also had Horde characters on this server, and a really fun guild. So, one of the first characters I made in all of WoW was a troll warrior named Lunakuti, partially because it sounded trollie, and partially because my character had tusks like Luna from Dominic Deegan. Then I realized that I missed behing a hunter. A lot. A lot a lot. So I rolled a new character, named Lunapike, as an homage to my first failed attempt on this server. I liked Lunapike a lot and played her until level 22 or 23 or so, at which point the guild sort of imploded and I diagnosed the server with having an acute case of the dreaded NoRP Flu, so I transferred to The Venture Co. The rest is history =P

That aforementioned troll warrior and a random troll priest are still on that server, having not been touched in over a year. I find it hard to delete the warrior, if only because she wound up being the roundabout inspiration for Lunapike. I’m kind of a sap.

Moon Guard (2) – This is supposedly the world’s biggest RP mecca and I wanted to check it out, so I have an Alliance and Horde character here. Now maybe it’s because the characters are low level or maybe because I was checking out the wrong spots (Thunder Bluff is understandable but Stormwind? And I had to walk through freaking Goldshire to get there?), but I didn’t see any of this mythical RP going on. Sometimes I think I should go back and take a second look but the server is always locked these days, so…

Sisters of Elune (1) – This is the server where my boyfriend and I were doing our Grand Switcheroo project– he rolled a hunter and I rolled a warlock. They’re both sitting at level 10, and have been for quite some time. I feel really bad, but… I have such a hard time getting into warlocks. I try so hard, too. For my latest attempt, I decided to make a “hot blood elf guy ‘lock” (my term /cough) and it sort of is helping a little. Why yes, I am kind of a sad person. =P

Shadow Council (1) – I have a level 18ish troll Survival hunter on this realm who I play once every month or so because Shadow Council has this weird tendency to be the only server up when all my other ones are down. If that keeps up this character might actually be a decent level someday. o.O

Maelstrom (1) – I sat down and said “I AM GOING TO LEVEL A DRAENEI PAST LEVEL 10 FOR ONCE” and the result is a lonely level 6 draenei hunter on this random server. As you can see that little project isn’t progressing very well, but maybe someday?

And that’s that. I’ve deleted several through the ages too, but now that I look at it, I may have to go through and make yet another clean sweep. I mean, it’s a new year, Spring Cleaning and all, right? Though I always feel a little bad about deleting characters. Am I the only one who’s a character packrat? =P

In other news, I feel obligated to inform you all that my WoW subscription expired yesterday and I am not going to resubscribe right away. Not out of lack of interest in the game at all, no, but because I have a lot of stuff going on in the Real World right now that requires my attention (and money) and I want to make sure I have that all cleared up before jumping into the Warcraft World again. I don’t anticipate the game downtime being that long and I’m pretty sure I’ll still be blogging, so don’t panic! I just wanted to update you all on the situation. *nods*