Playing Alts in WOW

You know it's interesting how the game experience in WOW changes outside of a raiding guild. I've learned to be somewhat orderly in regards to my play time, mostly due to the limited amount of time I have to play and the large amount of time required to raid. But with the raiding game pretty much taken out of the picture for the moment, I find myself still planning ahead.

First, I've been leveling a druid alt. Now that's not really a change for me. I've always had alts...I like variety and diversions, which helps keep my interest. This time I did something that at one time I swore not to do (and I feel bad about it), but I bought another account. I did it for several reasons. First, I didn't want to delete any of my existing characters (which I have 10). Second, I wanted to be able to dual-box 5-man instances while leveling. I figured that way I'd still be able to keep my horde characters in case I ever switched sides, and level grinding would be easier with extra gear.

Now, less than 2 weeks later I'm level 41 (almost 42). I've run many of the low-level instances at least 2-3 times; and I've ended up with tons of crap to sell. Not only has leveling been easier, but I've made a ton of money for my druid...900g, and only 50g of that was seed money. You'd be surprised how many low-level green items will sell if you don't hyper-inflate the process like so many seem to like. I'll put up some random l23 sword up for 1G, when everyone else puts them up for 5, 10, or even 50!?!?! gold, and still make a decent profit out of it. Plus I guess I've been lucky when it comes to blue drops; I've had several which have sold for over 100, one that sold for 200, and 4-5 that sold for 40-60g.

One other thing I did with my Druid was to make her a gatherer. Mining/Herbalist to be specific. Now mining doesn't necessarily give me all that much, but it does let me stock up on valuable materials that I might need for an alt jewelcrafter or smith (DK?) and herbalism lets me prep for Wrath by collecting low/mid/high level herbs for Inscription. I'm considering just leaving druid as a pure gatherer alt, doing the epic flight-form quest, and using her to collect materials later. That would give me the option of dropping tailoring on my Mage and taking Inscription instead (which I'm actually leaning towards).

Of course, tailoring might end up being as good as it was in BC, but I doubt it. Sure Tailoring turned into an invaluable skill at 70 pre T5; but it really left me without many options in T4 for quite some time (and even T5 until I got the 2-piece bonus, which took forever).

So, while I'm no longer planning for item upgrades and watching DKP, or planning to sneak in 1-2 hours of alt-time between raids, I'm still planning but it's all focused on the next expansion.