Sticking to only one character...

[Aquarela]

I have only 1 character at max lvl. But there are people in my guild who have 3+ chars all max lvl and raid geared (there's multiple raid groups for alts in my guild) It is kind of crazy, I would quit the game so fast if I had to raid all week on different characters.

[Gabrizar]

Well... I dont. I'm a huge altaholic myself and truely understand the pain and stress in it.
It sound so simple, "just stick with one or two or even five", but I cant do that, I need to level them all up and then work on them all to the next exp hits. I got 9 90's so far and my last 4 are 88, working on getting them all to 89 or 90 before next boss event.

I really understand the problem with never having enought time to do everything you want on one char, and I often wish I was one of those that could play only one and devote themself to only that char, but I cant do that myself. I would actually feel bad for my babies (yeah, I call them that, or my beautiful women), if I just totally stopped working on them, (unless I actually took a break from the game, no problem then).

I tried in both Vanilia, BC and Wotlk to pick a main and join a raiding guild with her, and everytime after months it made me unhappy and I felt ... locked with a char and kept thinking I would like another more, feel more at home there, more relaxed, do better in the raid.

I Wotlk I had enough and gave up, I no longer have a main or anything close to it and no longer look for raiding guilds, instead I stay in my own guild, and play whatever char I want when I want and use LFR when I got enought time for it.

Like you, it was the same for my no matter what game I gamed, Diablo 2, NWN, D&D online or Diablo3. I cant stick to only one, I feel locked in, but I kinda wish I could, so I could spend all my time to master 1 or two, as it is now, I dont master anything anymore, since I spread myself out too much.

Do what makes you happy, do what you feel best about, there are good and bad things about anything. I never ever run out of things I want to do between patches or in a exp.

[papajohn4]

Well... I dont. I'm a huge altaholic myself and truely understand the pain and stress in it.
It sound so simple, "just stick with one or two or even five", but I cant do that, I need to level them all up and then work on them all to the next exp hits. I got 9 90's so far and my last 4 are 88, working on getting them all to 89 or 90 before next boss event.

I really understand the problem with never having enought time to do everything you want on one char, and I often wish I was one of those that could play only one and devote themself to only that char, but I cant do that myself. I would actually feel bad for my babies (yeah, I call them that, or my beautiful women), if I just totally stopped working on them, (unless I actually took a break from the game, no problem then).

I tried in both Vanilia, BC and Wotlk to pick a main and join a raiding guild with her, and everytime after months it made me unhappy and I felt ... locked with a char and kept thinking I would like another more, feel more at home there, more relaxed, do better in the raid.

I Wotlk I had enough and gave up, I no longer have a main or anything close to it and no longer look for raiding guilds, instead I stay in my own guild, and play whatever char I want when I want and use LFR when I got enought time for it.

Like you, it was the same for my no matter what game I gamed, Diablo 2, NWN, D&D online or Diablo3. I cant stick to only one, I feel locked in, but I kinda wish I could, so I could spend all my time to master 1 or two, as it is now, I dont master anything anymore, since I spread myself out too much.

Do what makes you happy, do what you feel best about, there are good and bad things about anything. I never ever run out of things I want to do between patches or in a exp.

exactly how you said it I tried many times to pick a main but it didn't last more than a month or 2...I too ended up playing in my own guild full of alts, but often I am jealous of people having one char and being top at everything...I put my password in, and I am in loging screen...what to do now, theres so much things to do I can almost go crazy..then I chose one char, play one hour and want to log on on another one to also make some progress for him too..is like a sickness! And the bad thing is that once I level them, I cannot leave them there, with basic gear...I feel the need to make progress with them

[noteworthynerd]

I pick one toon each xpac and make that my main. I focus on this toon for achievements, gear, rep, etc. And, then I level alts and don't really care much about them.

I do this as well. I decide what I want to be my main shortly before a new expansion is out, then I focus most of my time and effort (in-game) on that toon (Classic: night elf hunter, TBC: dranei shaman, Wrath: human death knight, Cata: human paladin/gnome rogue (I had to switch for Dragon Soul), Mists: pandaren monk). I will definitely level alts (by the end of Cata I had 8 level 85s), but none of them will even come close to being as attended to as my main (usually get them in heroic dungeon gear before I move to the next one).

I think it keeps the game fresh. Just like Slummish said, I would have probably quit the game a long time ago if I had been made to stick with one toon.

You (the OP) ask how we stick with one main for an extended period? I'm not sure, to be honest. I've always been kind of a completionist, and it is hard to do everything on multiple toons.

[quikbunny]

I've got all classes at 90 now, and I really enjoy switching between them. I "main" my Druid though, this is the character I'm doing the dailies with, etc. Recently though I've been doing dailies on some alts for the coins, really want to get them all 480ilvl in time for 5.2. One of the biggest issues was having 5 LFR's to run on each char, at least now it will just be 2 wings (afaik) each.

[Wishblade]

I'll only level my alts to max so I can say that they're max level and get the ones with professions to max. Otherwise they just sit there. I can't be bothered with gearing them and such with how the gearing works atm and how much time I have to spend on WoW. My warrior's the only character I spend much time on.

[Vaelorian]

I only ever play melee paladin oriented characters in every game. When established which character I play, I try to play it to its fullest potential. When I've sorted pretty much everything I can, then I will check which other characters "near" the paladinclass are available.

For instance... Apart from playing my paladin, I like warriors, druids and priests.

Warriors due to plate = close to paladins
Druids = versatile in spec = close to paladins
Priests = due to healing (paladin is a combo after all between a warrior and a priest)

I've played 430 days on my paladin. So yes I am very happy with him. Until the end of vanilla I couldn't even begin to dream about having alts. I thought they were a diversion of my time that I could have spend on my paladin.

Then I just got frikking tired of not being able to dish out any serious dps, so I made my warrior. This actually did help a lot. And thus it has been ever since - it wasn't until the end of WOLTK that I made my druid.

A very good aspect of having a lot of alts (I am not saying I have a lot of alts, but altleast I have more then 1) is understanding other classes better. It really helps in terms of what you can expect during an encounter etc. Sure you know Rebirth and whatnot, but you might not always know the exact min in terms of cooldown or cast time or whatever.

[Kuragalolz]

I always tried to play various characters but even if i play many hours, i can't handle it, i mean, o neach expansion i grind at least a second char to the max level in order to play it, but each time i done this, i sticked to my main.

I'm Deathknight and i really like my class, i tried warlock (80 WotLK), shaman (85 Cataclysm and 90 MoP) (I used to play enhancement ... but they are truly underpowered), Paladin (70 BC) (When i created this paladin, deathknight weren't available since they came up with WotLK, my main was a hunter and guess what ... i sticked to it), and now i created a war with the resurrection scroll, he's now lvl 82 but i'm lazy and it bothers me to grind levels.

[Gabrizar]

exactly how you said it I tried many times to pick a main but it didn't last more than a month or 2...I too ended up playing in my own guild full of alts, but often I am jealous of people having one char and being top at everything...I put my password in, and I am in loging screen...what to do now, theres so much things to do I can almost go crazy..then I chose one char, play one hour and want to log on on another one to also make some progress for him too..is like a sickness! And the bad thing is that once I level them, I cannot leave them there, with basic gear...I feel the need to make progress with them

LOL I know what you mean. I often curse a bit over myself for creating them all, and even got 2 of some, so so much work. But I find it unthinkable to just .. yeah leave them with basic gear and not do anything on them. I tell myself that once they are all 90, and I have them all on best friend with all on the farm, THEN I can relax more and will have more time to do other things in the game, but I know I am lying to myself, yeah I guess it is a sickness. But I both love it and it drives me crazy ... well more crazy I guess

[yjmark]

exactly how you said it I tried many times to pick a main but it didn't last more than a month or 2...I too ended up playing in my own guild full of alts, but often I am jealous of people having one char and being top at everything...I put my password in, and I am in loging screen...what to do now, theres so much things to do I can almost go crazy..then I chose one char, play one hour and want to log on on another one to also make some progress for him too..is like a sickness! And the bad thing is that once I level them, I cannot leave them there, with basic gear...I feel the need to make progress with them

Meh - you really need to just make a decision and stick with it. If you don't have the will power to do that, then becoming a "master of one" instead of a "jack of all trades" is not for you. Accept it, and continue playing how you enjoy playing.

The trick (imho) is to utilize your knowledge to help out your team the best. If you know the ins and outs of all classes, you could make for a great raid leader or assistant. Maybe you should start working on your raid leadership skills instead of trying to master a single class? Just another potential avenue that might fit your playstyle better.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

I do all of my achievements and raid prepping on my Druid. Beastmaster is my main. When I am not quite sure what I want to do, I hop on an alt and level him or his proffs, and then the urge strikes me to log back into Beast and go do dailies, achieves, or world events (since 90% of my achieves are from this druid).

I will never love every class the way I love my Druid, but I do enjoy my Prot Pally in PvE and my Rogue in PvP. In a couple more months I will most likely have my alts capped and ready to roll a warlock. I used to be all about 1 character, but sometimes you just hate sitting in the city trying to figure out what to do next. If nothing else, I roll a new toon, get to 20, and then delete it. Gives me a chance to try on other classes without the commitment.

[voidspark]

I personally don't "resist" the urge to play alts, because I don't have a desire to want to level alts again really. Honestly, I'm jealous of people who level more than one character to max, since they get more variety in their play styles. I don't think you could convince yourself to play one character (and be happy doing it), if you usually play a variety of characters. I would just keep playing the way you enjoy playing, rather than forcing yourself to play a single character.

I made a warlock first and played it all the way from Cataclysm (when I really started, I hit 80 just before Cata came out) until the beginning of MOP, then I switched to a Paladin because I enjoy doing all of the roles, and being a huge "main" player I wouldn't want to have to switch to an alt to switch role. That, and having the multiple roles/specs makes doing "everything" in the game easier, in my books.

That said, switching mains was one of the hardest things I had to do, but the account-bound stuff made it significantly easier, which is nice.

[burgback]

I stuck with one character through Vanilla and TBC. I moved to another from mid TBC to the end of Cata. I've now started with a Monk when MoP began. For me, it just comes to burnout every once in a while. The game is what you make it. I generally am a single character person for most of an expansion though. I think part of the mentality is that leveling alts in Vanilla just wasn't that fun. I have warmed up to it a bit though in Cata with the old world revamp.

[mysticx]

I mostly play my main, getting all reps to exalted (With the accountwide pets and mounts that come with it), maxing out the fun parts of holidays, farming the best gear i can find in LFR, the works...

I have one alt (Soon to be two) where i farm a bit of LFR, level professions (In-house alchemist and scribe/enchanter, saves a lot of gold and earns me even more :P ), MoP makes rep-maxing on alts a bit of an onerous task (Might get around to it later), so i'm not as thorough on the ol' alts as i used to be...

[JohnnyTheCherriesLover]

I play only one character, a DK and I love the class, I find leveling incredibly boring and with Mists quests being more mind numbing than ever, I don't think I'm gonna level a new toon any time soon.

[Video Games]

Being a server first raider helps you stick to one character. Gotta min/max.

[Eaden]

We don't. I regularly max each character, but not all at once. Sometimes I hit the most I can do on my warrior, so then I go back to my main, Darsithis, a Death Knight. I'll play him and max his CP and his VP and his JP for a week or two, then heal for a while on my priest...and max her JP or VP or whatever I feel like doing.

I still make Darsithis my priority for most achievements, though.

Agreed, that's the way to do it. The game never ends, so lots of time to get them all there, even if you're super busy irl at times ^-^.

[Automaticc]

I have to agree with the Post by Darsithis. That's usually how i do it. I do have my Paladin main for raiding, achievements etc.
I level alts with friends on different realms or alt hop when im bored but i always go back to my main. I think for me, its what keeps my
paladin feeling fresh.

[Huntardicus]

I play one character, cos I'm too attached to it. OCD plays a large part in that, I don't think I could ever re-roll a main simply for that reason. Not even made an effort to max out my alts from Cata-nothingtodo-clysm.

Honestly, just think about it. If you asked someone to pick a character for you and you could only play the one they pick, I'm sure you'd hope deep down that they'd pick one in particular. That would be the one you should choose if you're really desperate to pick a main.