Altaholics Anonymous, a Guide to Kicking the Habit
By
Altoholic_Monkey,
Posted on: 2006-08-31 04:33 in Player Guides
Hi. My name is Dirty Shisno and I am not an Altaholic. I dont have a problem really I can stop any time I want. It's just a phase I am going thru and once I get this (insert goal here) I will stop and things will get better, I swear!
Great guide, I just wish I was good at following good advice.
Hi, I was..... no make that am, a recovering Alt-o-holic. Though I did not follow the OP's 12 step program (I kept starting, and would get to like step 6 or 7 then start again 
). I say I am recovering because I too have been playing since beta. And until I made John Bryne (level 47 Fire/Fire/Pyre tank) I never got a toon above 29.
My trick, change the outside. I went through a job change, which force me to concentrate on 1 toon, since my job kept me from playing CoH except for a few days per month.
What I did differently:
I did not delete all my toons. However I did delete many (90%) of them. I kept my favorites.
I did not advance my highest toon. In fact I created a brand new toon for the express purpose of concentrating on him. It was not important that I optimize the toon, but was vitally important to create a character I could enjoy playing.
As I said, J.B. is now level 47 (just dinged last night), and I am haveing just as much fun today, if not more fun, than when I first started him.
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yeah i have been playing since release and the highest i have is 38, if i don't like a toon before it hits lvl 10 then its going to get deleted so i can try something else. i have tried every AT minus the EAT cause i have yet to get a 50. like right now my main a kat/regen scrapper at lvl 38 is sitting idle cause i am playing my stalker that is lvl 12. the list of toons in my sig are not even 1/4 of all the ones i have. i have them spread across almost very server. most are in the 4-5 range and haven't been played in over 15 days.
I conquered altitus by making 7 Heroes with names that spell out the sentence:
Concentrate on your stone stone tanker idiot
It was boring making them all, but now every time i log on i see my own little message and remember.
Very cute Guide.
My response would come from my subconscious personalities who actually created those alt characters. Problem is that we all follow your guide for the most part. However, if I were to delete their characters, I would undoubltablybe punished by them in some way. I could wake up one morning in the middle of K-Mart parking, naked and sporting the worst kind of bed hair. My alternate personalities are ruthless. I dare not mess with the other characters. My alt is their Main...y'know...that kind of thing.
Yes, I'm an altaholic, and not a recovering altaholic, I'm a full bore altaholic. I have it so bad that I opened a second account to hold all my character ideas (I couldn't bear to play on another server). I have 24 toons on one server and only 2 of them are over 30. The only good news is that I do have a 50 on my main account. Of course it took me a year and a half to get him to 50 due to my altaholism, but at least I got there. The beauty is that once you get that 50 you feel this great sense of relief and the freedom to indulge your altaholism fully. No longer bound by the need to hit 50 you can freely frolic with all the character concepts your little brain can concieve of. It truly is freedom.
So hunker down and save all those cool ideas for later. Get to 50 and feel the altaholic freedom.
<QR>
I have now realized how bad of an altaholic I am. With the play time listed in account status I have found that I am at the 2yr6mo (play) 2yr8mo (pay). Compairing this to my characters...i actually haven't made it to 20 yet on any of them (at least 5-6 on 4 servers)...
Wow thats bad. I keep trying new names, power mixes, and arctypes. Not to mention villains and heros.
I just seem to hit a wall around 15-17. I also am not a power player so I only get an hour or so every few days that I actually play. I also rarely get on teams when I'm on.
I think I'll concentrate on the villain that I have now. Maybe this will break the curse of altism.
I was an altaholic... then I found my true love... Sky Grunthor and my altaholitice was cured. Then she reached 50 and the love is gone... I cry and cry and miss her so much but she is old and tired and doesn't enjoy playing as much any more. She just doesn't see anything else out there to do and enjoy. So she became the matriarch of her family and a myriad of Grunthor sisters were born and continue to be born and die and get reborn... OH NO! I've come full circle... I'm an altaholic again!
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One of them was a fluke. (As an a "what the heck," unplanned, not an invertibrate.)
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you sure about that bill? 
I have mild altoholism. My stable on my chosen server is full, every now and then I get a new idea and generally go to another server to try it out. My main is 43, and the characters I really enjoy playing are all over 30. Once I8 hits I'll likely get my heroes up (highest hero is 24). I have deleted many toons to make room for a new ones, heck I recently deleted a 20 cause I thought of something I'd enjoy more. My biggest thing is play what's fun, don't worry about the 'uberest' toon, the 'best' build, etc.
Wow I need this. TYVM!
[ QUOTE ]
As the resident Queen Monkey of the Altoholics, I quote Bugs Bunny: "Of course you realize, this means WAR!"
Split Personalites and YOU!
101 Alts
Alts from the Big Chair
Age of Alt-quarius!
I could go on... 
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Im laughing my [censored] off .......but you know I read the guide and she is correct...not a chance in hell that I will change, but every once in a while I wonder what Shadow Raptors life would be like if I could just be faithful to him
This is not the only aspect of my life that i have comitment issues's in........lol
lol
Heh, i've only played CoX for 8 Months, but i am DEFIANTLY a altaholic. I get a concept, or wonder 'huh this at/powerset combo sounds cool' and i make the character, get them to around lvl 8, then quit on them. I've not yet to get a character to level 20, and have 35 characters already, the mean level being 6. I really need help, please somebody 'GET BONGO OFF THE BOOZY!!'
I'm an alty - and I only want to get something to 50 so I can be a bigger alty with Kheldians!
Lvl 50 fire/rad troller Wantonya - Infinity
Too many other alts and servers to bother counting
I am an Altaholic, part of Infinity's AA group, actually... 12 alts on my main server, 2 L50s, 8 characters above L20 and the other two are just... Well, alts.
I can't kick the habit, and I'm still loving it!
I have been infected with altaholism. A friend who has been playing well over a year got me into the game. I've only played a fraction of the time he has, and yet I've gotten a fair number of characters over his highest since I'm a bit better at focusing. When I first started I planned on only making a couple characters, as most games have such rigidly defined classes that only a couple will appeal anyway, and there's no point in making more than one of each class since there's little variety within, or several choices are considered inferior to others and nobody plays them. I knew I liked healer and archer types, the end. But when I read forums, and we talk about different character types, it makes me want to try out more. I began to realize how differently the same powersets played when in different archtypes once I'd been playing a couple months. I began to get the tingle of 'wow that looks neat, I wonder what that's like to play?' And that is what makes CoX great.
Our plan, since we'd like to unlock a Kheldian and our highest heroes are up to 30 now that we've started following that plan, is out of our alts for each of Heroes and Villians to choose one main and one secondary for each, since only playing one character can really burn you out on them and that's not the idea when you're playing a game for fun! We focus on one server (which I have full). When I get the impulse to make a new character, I make it on a side server and am usually able to just map out how I would build it and leave it at lvl 3 once I've gotten the idea out of my head, and then I can go back to my mains with no distraction.
Over time I've deleted some alts, that just didn't make the grade in fun and fashion. I have some characters I don't really like to play but I just can't let go, because I love their name/looks/story and want to remake them as something I like better. I'm trying to keep my main server very tight with only characters I plan on pursuing. If its just a whim or something I don't like as well, it gets tossed on a side server with the dustbunnies, so I don't keep looking at it and it doesn't tempt me.
My highest is a lvl 40 MM which I'm pretty proud of (though I think leveling in Villains is easier than heroes.) I used to think getting to 50 was a big deal, but in a way I don't want to get there because then a character I leveled because I simply enjoyed would be 'over', since I'm not into the PvP scene. She's currently dormant in favor of giving my secondary Villain some love, but she is definately not forgotten and I'm generally more than happy to pull her out for powerleveling friends' characters.
It really does take a bit in the game to find the AT and powers you love most since it brings more to the table than just warrior/healer/archer/thief- it lets you be a little bit of everything if you want. Once you get some experimentation down, you usually know your couple favorite ATs, so its a matter of picking your top 2 favorites and picking the powersets for those that excite you most, which again may take some experiementing. Reading guides only tells you so much, everything has a different feel in play. Sometimes going AGAINST the grain with a character ends up being really fun.
So, in summary, to kick altism you just need to be able to make 2-3 characters you're most excited about and than you keep coming back to because you love them. You'll still have alt tendencies, but if you simply have to make a new character, do it on a side server and then don't look at them anymore! Usually if you have a good SG/VG who greets you and teams with you often you'll find yourself going to that character that much more as well. (Sometimes its so depressing to leave a character dormant, and when you come back most of the people you teamed with are gone or 15+ levels over you. Don't let that happen to your main!) If you really have it bad, maybe try to concentrate ONLY on Heroes OR Villains to limit your choices.
_Victory_
Character List
hi, i am D1sciple and i am an altaholic....
i played 2 years ago when WL's first came out and i got a blaster from 2-35 in 2 days, then in a couple weeks got to 46 and then stopped playing(time ran out and was short of cash)
now i picked the game up a lil while ago and ive been playign.... after 2 weeks playtime i have 1 level 14 and 4 level 10s....
i need help!
i am stuck on blasters (4 of the listed above are blasters) and i want to get another char for a change like scrapper or tanker or stalker seem fun...
i can never get over level 10 or so... i get to 10 start new char play it till 5 or so then get on the 10 and play 1 bar of a level everynow and then but i cant get more than that..
i really wanna try a kheldian but at this rate in 1 year i will have 100 level 10s 25 level 15-30s and thats all
thx for listening
I just have one question...
Why on Earth should I WANT to kick the habit???
Currently playing:
Infinity;
Lady Breeze (50 fire/storm)
Virtue;
Moon-kiss (44 tri-form warshade)
Scarlet Whisper (33 sonic/energy)
Ravenflight (41 archer/elec)
I'm not sure who said this first, but it applies to me:
Step One: Admit that you are an altoholic.
Step Two: There is no step two, as I dont intend to fix this problem.
You can take my altoholism from my cold, dead fingers.
Now shoo.
@Bengal Fist - Freedom - Authority SG
Bengal Fist (SS/EA) - Thirt3en (Time/Elec) - Aussi (Elec/Shield) - Potamoi (Water/Time) - Parkr (Staff/Ela)
I am Kilaw Pilath. And I am an Alt-a-holic...
Only it's more then any kind of typical Alt-a-Holisim I've seen so far... My problem stems from having Friends on 3 Different Servers.. Infinity... Protector... and Justice. So it's hard to find a Toon I truelly love to death and will play since most of my friends aren't on the same server at the same time. Though I know I have only been playing for 7 Months on my own Account, 8 Months in Total (Played about a Month on my Friend's account before my Birthday and he got me the games) I already realize that I am an Alt-a-Holic. And what's worse...I have the time on my hands right now to probobly grind a toon to level 50. And yet...I keep making Alts.
Here's even a Run down on the amount of toons I have on each server as of this post..
Champion: 7
Freedom: 5
Guardian: 2
Infinity: 8
Justice: 9
Liberty: 1
Pinnacle: 8
Protector: 10
Triumph: 1
Victory: 7
Virtue: 3
For a Grand Total of 61 Toons!
It also doesn't help that the friend that got me into this game is an even bigger Alt-a-holic then I am.. Being that for 1: He's been playing CoH/CoV since Beta (Both) and 2: His highest Toon is a level 25 Broadsword/Regen Scrapper. And he keeps making more toons and gets them to level 10. (Though I have more time then he does). I really want to reach level 50. Both on CoH/CoV. But I don't know if I can do it. I haven't been able to find one single toon I like More then the others. Haven't been able to get into RP. I'm in probobly 6 or 7 Different S/VG's. I'm not the most active in each since I can't seem to stick to one toon.. And what's worse..I'm also a Badge-a-Holic on each toon! (Though I've margined it down to being a Badge-a-holic on only my highest level toons thanks to the Toy Collector badge..)
I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I want to reach level 50. But I'm starting to wonder if I ever will. And since I have 3 Servers (Though my Friend who got me into the game is also on 2 OTHER servers himself) that I'm on the most, I don't know how to kick this Alt-a-holism. Please...Help...
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I'm not sure who said this first, but it applies to me:
Step One: Admit that you are an altoholic.
Step Two: There is no step two, as I dont intend to fix this problem.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not that alting is bad. Heck there are too many players that only play *one* character, and don't know jack about how anyone else plays. They usually do average on a team since they have their playstyle and it doesn't change, although they may be very good at that style, they have little idea of some of the things their teammates are doing since they don't have experience with other types/sets.
I think this is more for people who would like to get that one character up to 40-50 and are just having trouble finding 'the one' to do it with. Nobody can really guide you to your character calling or tell you who you'll enjoy playing most but you.
_Victory_
Character List
Am I an altoholic, I'm not sure. I've played for 14 months and my highest toon is 30. I play as him mostly. I also have a lot of below-ten characters. Basically sometimes I create new characters to "represent" me for themed VGs. My friend needs this, he has like 20 lv 6s. Oh, my main character is Techno-Wolf. I want to het him to 50 so I can say in my bios, truthfully, my character is all-powerful. And kheldians.
Hi, my name is Bankshot and I'm an altaholic.
I love making alts. When I bought the game, I played my first toon for about an hour, then made three more. Those first three toons, btw... the first is level 38 (and has been for a year), level 25 (and has been for a year), level 14 (and has been for a year) and Deleted (having been reincarnated at least 3 times).
I bought CoV in December of 2005, CoH in February of 2006. In May of 2006, I had three servers full of alts, a few on every other server but two, and my first level 50 (no PLing involved).
Although I constantly delete and make toons, I did choose to focus on the one toon very heavily for three months. I continually made alts the whole time, but usually didn't play them past level 5, until that toon hit 50.
My suggestion, if you really want to hit 50 (and I encourage you to get a 50 just so you can realize how little it matters--I didn't realize this till I had one), don't PLAY the alts. Make them all you want. Play for an hour or so, then go back to your main.
Making alts is fun. Costumes! Possibilities! Costumes! Stories! Costumes! And did I mention making new Costumes?! But realize that your alts will keep for eternity. YOu can always go back to them after you accomplish other goals. If you go a year without getting back to an alt, you probably just wanted the costume and idea. Make that costume on another toon you like better. Just relax and enjoy yourself.
/signed : Getting a 50 isn't a big deal, but you have to get it yourself before you can really understand that.
/signed : Don't be afraid to delete characters!
/signed : Don't feel like you have to give up altaholism.
Finally, enjoy the game you pay 15 bucks a month for in the way that you want to enjoy it. If you need that 50, follow Nadya's advice and just focus. If you like your servers full of alts, then fill em up!
/e signs up