There is a special breed of player who's not content to level from 1 to 70 in the ordinary manner. Instead, they choose to place hindrances on themselves to create a more challenging experience. Gutrot of the European Aerie Peak realm is one example. He finally attained level 70 a few weeks ago after months of questing and killing creatures naked, with no weapons or visible armor aside from his trusty loincloth. His feat has made him a minor Wow celebrity and there was a huge party when he finally hit the level cap. Other players have placed different limitations on themselves, seemingly inspired by Gutrot. For instance, Gweryc and Kakita are both melee-only hunters while Noor is a pacifist, trying to reach the level cap without killing anything.

I've always been intrigued by this sort of idea, and have even made a character or two myself that had such limitations placed upon them. Recently, during the long dark night between patches, I got bored with my mindless and aimless farming and decided to create a new alt. I decided that this character would be a Draenei warrior, but that he would only fight unarmed, with a staff or with a throwing weapon. I also decided that he could only wear cloth or leather items. I suppose my idea was based somewhat on a sketchy notion of some kind of fighting monk.

With Patch 2.3 coming next week, a number of players are going to turn back to some of the old alts they've always wanted to play, and level them up now faster than ever before. If a group of friends had decided to start over from scratch, then all is well and good, but for many players who already have character spread out at different level ranges, friends used to spending a lot of time together may suddenly find themselves with a large level gap in the alts they're most interested in.

Especially considering the new and improved dungeon loot, many players will wish their friends could join them. Of course, their friends could just bring over their level 70s and rush them through, but for a certain kind of player, this is less interesting because it takes away all the real challenge and teamwork of the instance. They may be able to find PUGs at that level, but it likely won't be the same.

Douglas at the Elitist Jerks forums has been having this problem for a long time now. He and his friends very much want to play together, but have never been able to make their schedules work out. Before long, their characters inevitably level at different speeds and can no longer level up together. He says he longs for a "mentoring system" like City of Heroes has, where players of different levels can become one another's "sidekicks" and go to dungeons together as if they were at the same level. At first glance it seems like WoW could implement such a system too, to make something like a temporary downgrade or upgrade in ability power and gear quality so that friends could fight together across the level gap. But further discussion reveals some serious problems.

Alts are like potato chips -- you can't eat just one. Or can you? Today's Ask WoW Insider question comes from JM Campbell of Comicsradar, who writes:

I've noticed a lot on the official forums and in the comments on wowinsider, people seem to generally stereotype players of certain classes/specs. I've even done so myself after a string of run-ins with bad Ret paladins. But you see all the time: Mages always qq. Rogues are always gankers. Hunters are always noobs. or Horde are a bunch of children or Alliance players suck at PVP.

I have an alt of almost every class and almost every race. So, how can you classify me as any one of those play styles? And my wife plays at least 3 different classes. Everyone I play with has at least one Alt of another class. Are there really players that only play one race/class/spec?

JM makes a good point -- if most of us tend to play several different characters, how can we get away with stereotyping so many of them? Or is it that not everyone has a chronic case of altitis, afterall? There are really two questions embedded here: do most people play more than one class, and if so, where does all this stereotyping come from?

Ask WoW Insider survives on questions like these -- we need yours! Send us what's on your mind at ask AT wowinsider DOT com.

Of course, there's such a thing as overconfidence, and I'm sure that we've all met those players who go well beyond overconfidence and into full-bore cocky arrogance, but it's still the case that as we play the game we have those little epiphanies where a new understanding of how to use all of those expensive to train abilities blossoms. It's a fantastic feeling, that sense of pulling out a victory when failure would have been your reward before, of figuring out that proper combination of intervene - intimidating shout - thunderclap to save your healer or managing to walk out of a six mob train in one piece for the first time. It signifies the beginnings of true mastery of a class, when you suss out for yourself how to best make use of all the options available to you.

One of the reasons I'm so addicted to playing Warriors (and I'm not alone, it seems, as this post from Mike brought to my attention) is that I got to have that feeling multiple times, once with each spec/character I leveled to 70. It moved me from a diffident tank to one who would willingly try and tank any mob in the game, knowing that my skills were up to the task. Similarly, I've had that sensation of 'Ah, that is how a shaman kills three mobs aggroing at once' as well as 'Do not die on me... I love you, Nature's Swiftness' by leveling my two shamans, and even my tiny ret/prot pally has given me that sense of wonder and accomplishment recently by being the hero on a Archaedas kill.

Now is when we turn to you, gentle (and not so gentle) readers: have you had a breakthrough while playing that revealed a whole new facet of your character? Done what you would have believed impossible, saved the day, or just learned something new about your class? Felt like you took a step towards mastering the playstyle or even just figured out that an ability actually did something cool? The comments await you.

When I first heard about the leveling improvements that are forthcoming with patch 2.3, I was very happy. As an admitted alt-o-holic, creating and leveling alts is the main thing that's kept me interested in WoW for the past three years. When the last expansion came out, I had five level sixty characters, with one more nearly there, and I've been diligently leveling them up to seventy since then. My ultimate goal is to level up one of each class at some point and I'm only three more characters away from success. The next patch will definitely help push my Shaman, Mage and Priest up through the ranks.

When the long wait times for character copies subsided, I transfered my level forty shaman to the test realm in order to check out the improved experience gains. The good news is that the change was certainly noticeable. While I don't have any hard data, with full rested experience, I was able to gain about three levels in just a few hours while doing quests that were mostly green to me. The bad news is that I've been spoiled by the new experience rate and have been unable to continue leveling my alts on the live server.

Have you experienced anything similar? Are your alts being neglected until 2.3 comes out?

The Care and Feeding of Warriors anticipates Patch 2.3 the way Cookie Monster rips the plate from your hands and devours the cookies with a 'gnom gnom gnom' sound and flying crumbs everywhere. Matthew Rossi learned to do a mean Cookie Monster, Grover and Elmo impersonation when he was in his twenties. He doesn't like to talk about it.

Since we have in the past been accused of focusing too much on the 70 game, this week's installment of TCAFOW will be spending some time with the brand new warrior. Since we know Patch 2.3 is on the way with improvements to leveling and instancing between 20 and 60, it behooves us to be level 20 or thereabouts when it hits, and that's what this post is all about. While it's not terribly hard to level to 20, it never hurts to discuss the do's and don'ts of the initial 'trying-on' period of the class.

The first few pieces of advice are general ones. First off, if you can, go to the Draenei or Blood Elf starting zones to level grind. The quest progression is better, the rewards are better, the zones are well designed to funnel you from place to place, and you can solo almost everything you'll come across with a few notable exceptions that will require grouping as you near level 20. Do as much in these zones as you can, perhaps even set your hearths there if you don't mind being fairly cut off from other zones. The blood elf starting zone has the benefit of a transporter in Silvermoon that will take you to Undercity, and thus the zeppelins for transport to Kalimdor, while Azuremyst and Bloodmyst isle are a touch more isolated, requiring two boat trips to get to. But at low level, a few corpse runs are no major impediment compared to the experience you'll gather in those zones.

There are things you can always do to make a new warrior's life easier if you have a higher level main: they're obvious, and I won't cover them here because either you have such a higher level character and can figure it out pretty easily, or you don't and therefore don't have recourse to them. Similarly, higher level friends can help you, but if you don't have them you don't have them. This post assumes you just bought the game.

Levels 1 to 10 of the warrior are, like most classes, incredibly basic. You start off with Heroic Strike and Battle Shout at level 1, gain Charge and Rend at level 4, Thunder Clap at 6, Hamstring at level 8. Clearly, since these are all the abilities you are going to have, and you won't have gained any talents yet, these are the abilities you will be choosing from. You may not even have a ranged weapon yet: get one as soon as you can. While charge is fun and awesome and a rage generator, there will be times you're going to want to pull a mob over to where you can more easily control the fight. Remember, adds are not your friend at this level, as you have no real way to deal with them.

After my paladin hit 70 a few weeks ago, I felt kind of ... empty. I wasn't raiding due to scheduling, I'm terrible at PVP, and I had little desire to run instance after instance getting my pally better healing gear. Then a real-life friend who lives far away suggested that I roll a character or two on his new server, Medivh. And thus, I created three new characters, one for every class I've never played (undead warrior, blood elf priest, and troll shaman.)

I'm having fun figuring out the specs and professions of my new, nearly-naked lowbies. But it's been so long since I began a serious character on a new server, I'm getting bombarded by all the issues that face new players. I don't have any bag space, or money for that matter -- I can barely afford my skills and food. Walking places seems ridiculously slow, I have no higher-level friends to run me through instances, and my new abilities are confusing and numerous.

All of this makes me wonder if for the majority of the population, rerolling (defined as starting from scratch on a server where you have no characters) is worth it. Most of us have relatively wealthy 70s, strong guild and friend connections, and an overall sense of history on a single server. If our servers are our homes, then rerolling is leaving your money and possessions behind to move to a new city where you don't even have an apartment yet.

What problems have you found when rerolling? When you reroll, do you generally abandon your character before going to Outland, or do you keep pushing on to midlevel? All in all, is rerolling worth the strife, or do you prefer to stick on one server?

As you know, in patch 2.3, many of the previously ho-hum mid-level dungeon drops are set to actually become useful, worth the trip you make to go get them in the dungeon (in most cases). Overall, this is a blessing for players everywhere, either starting out with their first characters, or leveling up long-forgotten alts.
Twinks, however, are going to become a much greater nuisance than they were before. Some of their old items are going to be upgraded by default as the new patch comes in and the old items all around the world get replaced with the new.

New twinks, however, will have the privilege of setting their sights on the best of the best items for their particular class and level bracket, putting an even further distance between them and other players who just want to enjoy a bit of PvP as they level up. This is particularly true with new low-level epics such as the Deadman's Hand which, at level 29, seems designed to be the pet dream of twinks everywhere, regardless of race or class.

Does Blizzard intend to support twinking? And what's the whole point of twinking anyway?

Are you in the midst of leveling a character between 20 and 60? Well right now is the time to stop everything, rush over to this forum post from Blizzard, and sing a happy song while you hurry up and wait! That's right, in answer to the crying pleas of casual alt-oholics everywhere, Blizzard is finally speeding up the tedious leveling curve for old world content in patch 2.3, adding in a bunch of new quests, nerfing a lot of the nastiest bad guys, and buffing a whole bunch of the items they drop.

Here's a summarized list of the changes, with the full post by Vaneras copied for you beyond the link below.

• Amount of experience needed to level reduced by 15% per level between 20 and 60.
• Experience gained from completing quests increased between levels 30 and 60.
• Outdoor elite quests will now now be soloable, with the same (or better) rewards.
• About 60 new quests and a new goblin town based in Dustwallow Marsh (levels 30 to 40)
• Level ranges for old dungeons to be narrowed down a bit (so that if you are high enough to start them, you are high enough to finish them too)
• Increased questing experience for dungeon quests.
• Buffed up item drops from dungeon bosses.

As Vaneras says, "Though we've given you a few examples of the things to come, we think everyone will pleasantly surprised when they see the full extent of the changes discussed above." Keep reading to see all the juicy details.

It can be a touch daunting to level a character in WoW, especially if you have a lot of real life commitments. The designers are aware of this, and changes are on the way. But what amazes me is that there are players out there who pay other people to level their characters for them. It's usually offered as an adjunct to real money transfer services, and it always boggles my mind.

I can understand that after you've leveled a few 70's up, you might get bored with the old world content to some degree. After my fourth 70 I was bound and determined that none of my under 60 prospects were going to set foot in Stranglethorn Vale again because I'm sick of the place (they all did, because while I'm sick of the place, I also know where all the quests are - I can go through STV like a steam powered quest thresher now, be it Horde or Alliance quests - expediency trumps all, I guess) but I still have a hard time imagining actually giving someone else access to my account, especially someone who is in all likelihood working for a gold seller.

I suppose it's only different from playing your wife's toon while she's at work by degree, but it seems different to me. (Hey, she really wants that Firefly, it would be a great anniversary present.) I play WoW because, well, I like the game. If I disliked playing the game so much that I felt like I needed to hire someone to play it for me, I don't think I'd play it at all. Is it that important to get to 70 super-fast? Is the game so much more fun at max level that you'd actually pay someone to get you there?

Yet again we descend into the maelstrom and bring forth The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column that shoots forth horrid tentacles at the bathysphere of warrior issues, probing, searching, a kraken of communication. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is with all the squid imagery either. I think Matthew Rossi had too much pizza last night and had some weird dreams that are still lingering as he writes his intro text. The guy's got something like six warriors, he's not right in the head.

Yesterday, when writing Totem Talk, I mentioned that I'm leveling up a draenei shaman (this is in addition to the shaman I already play) - what I didn't mention is that I'm also leveling up a draenei warrior. Yes, this is my sixth or seventh warrior and, after my three 70's and my poor orc warrior who's been stuck at 60 forever, he's currently my highest level alt at 52. Part of the reason I'm doing this is due to extreme guilt at the fact that I haven't gotten a draenei to 70 yet and warriors are exceedingly easy for me to level.

In general, warriors offer a unique way to level compared to other classes. Unlike most of the mana classes, there's only enough downtime to restore your health, and with a properly maintained first aid skill a warrior can maintain a grinding pace most other classes would find ludicrous. (Rogues and druids to a lesser extent, but rogues often have to stealth and position themselves for maximum effect, which can slow them down. Again, I admit now that I am an awful rogue and a talented one might play differently.) However, there are things to keep in mind as you start your newbie warrior. Since I've recently been taken to task for writing most of these columns for the level 70 warriors out there, I wanted to try and provide some balance and address leveling a warrior up.

Tommy writes in with an interesting question: do we have any tips for rerolling? Since I've played on a lot of different servers in order to play with friends, I felt like I could give this one a shot.

First off, if you're really rerolling instead of merely rolling up an alt (and it's a tenuous difference at best... but starting on a new server, for instance, is different from rerolling on your original) you need to make some choices. Rerolling horde when you originally played alliance means you're going to be making some adjustments, even if you're starting a character of a familiar class. You won't have to relearn everything, of course, but the quests will be different, for starters. Horde and alliance auction houses tend to be different on the same server, depending on which faction is more numerous, so don't assume you'll be able to get all your gear from there.

Blizzard's plans to speed up the old Azeroth leveling experience 1-58 have been pretty vague so far, about some additions to Dustwallow Marsh and some kind of general speed increase at some point in the future. Drysc has made things a little bit more clear though: we can expect to see a "pre-expansion change to the experience curve and gain." You won't have to wait until the expansion comes out to finish leveling that alt you've always wanted to play but couldn't make time for. Exactly when "pre-expansion" this will be isn't clear of course, but it's nice to know it shouldn't take as long as some had feared.

In addition, Drysc goes on to add that they are interested in "refining (?)" a couple of the old-world instances, namely Gnomeregan and Uldaman, because apparently those dungeons tend to get more people more often during the leveling process. "Refining" those dungeons could mean anything from changing some of the trash mobs to really reorganizing parts of the instance, and the effect could be for better or for worse -- several of my friends tremble with hatred at the mention of those two instances, and would much rather Blizzard removed Gnomeregan and Uldaman altogether than encourage us to go back to an "refined" version anytime soon.

For my part, any refining of old-world content is a good thing. It would be good to speed through content that most of us have already seen before, and it would be refreshing to revisit some old dungeons with new twists for those of us who haven't already done them to death. Some players, however, are crying bloody murder -- apparently ones who enjoy repeatedly slogging through hours and hours of the same old content and think that everyone else should have to also.

Fridays are a time for early happy hour quiet contemplation and reflection upon the past, and in that spirit we're taking a look back at some of the best posts from over the lifespan of Ask WoW Insider. Now that we're all older and wiser -- who *did* end up being the top PvP classes at 70?

• Best duo for PvP or grinding
  "What team of classes make the best duo for PVP or for grinding?"
• Top PvP classes at level 70
  Just after Burning Crusade came out, we speculated on which classes would dominate in PvP. Were we right? Would you change the answer you gave then?
• Best ways to make money in Burning Crusade
  "What are some good ways of making money for levels 60-70 in Burning Crusade? Are there people making money from jewelcrafting yet, should I pick that up? What about good mobs to grind or drops that sell well to vendors or on the AH?"
• Best way to get instance invites
  "What are your tips and tricks for convincing a group you've got the goods despite not having seen the inside of the dungeon?"
• Why are you overpowered?
  "Dig deep, self-examine and admit it: what makes your class overpowered?"
• How's WoW performance on a Mac?
  "I play Wow on a PC, and am looking towards a new computer purchase. One thing that influences my purchase is how well WoW will run on my new computer. I'm leaning towards a Mac, but how well does WoW run on a Mac?"
• Best way to power level alts
  "What's your strategy for the quickest power leveling? How do you maximize your time with your alts?"
• How would you design your own battleground?
  "What if you could design your own battleground? What would you do different or better than what is currently in the game?"
• When is it fair to upgrade an epic?
  "All DKP ideas aside, when is it fair to upgrade an epic over an epic?"
• Best healing class
  "Which class would you roll for a purely healing role? Which would you roll for a powerfully healing hybrid who might want to take on other roles from time to time? Relatedly, which healing class is the worst?"
• Best DPS class
  "Which classes can dish out the most DPS and which ones make the least amount of DPS?"
• Favorite WoW podcasts
  "There are a ton of WoW-themed podcasts out there now -- which would you recommend? What are your favorites?"
• Great ding stories
  "Any fun or interesting stories to tell about hitting the level cap? Or more generally, any memorable or unusual dings at any level?"

We see that look in your eye, and we know it means you want to send us questions. Ask WoW Insider needs 'em -- send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com!

Sure, it'll be nice to have a new class -- we've been stuck with the same nine since 2004. However, there are some downsides to the Death Knight as well. Some see it as a threat to their raid spots (mostly rogues and warriors), some don't think it fits in well with the lore, some are afraid it'll be overpowered. However, I have a different concern: how am I going to fit one in my character list?

Some players with less severe altitis may not know it, but there are limits on how many characters you can have: ten per server, 50 per account. Ten is a good number for the per-server limit, at least right now; you get one of each class, plus one more for a bank/AH alt. But what are we supposed to do if we want to make a Death Knight? Delete one of our beloved alts? Pay to transfer a character? Start the DK on a different server (if that's even possible)? CM Nethaera tells us there are no plans to add more character slots, although she notes that people are unhappy with it and that she'll relay that to the devs. Are you going to run up against the character limit in WotLK?