When is an Alt not an Alt?

After reading a post over at Raging Monkeys about alts it made me thinking about my own alt-a-holicism.  While he touched on points that I agree with they are things I did not often think of.

I have been thinking that I need to gear up three alts as quick as possible to get raid ready should my guild need it.  The sad fact is my main, my Hunter, will most likely never see the inside of Firelands unless we can do some serious recruiting.  I will most likely gear up my Warrior for tanking and my Shaman for healing.  However, my main comes first.  I will gear up my Hunter first and foremost.

The good thing is that the Firelands raid is suggested 355 item level that all characters already pass, so gearing up really is not an issue.  Sure, getting to 365 might make it a little easier but being even 355 is fine.  It does not mean I don't want to do the best I can do.

Maybe it is just my attitude of game play.  Don't play unless you plan to put your best foot forward.  If I can get an easy upgrade just by doing some trash runs in firelands or doing a quest line in hyjal then I would be remiss if I did not do it.

So once you look at it that way, even for an alt, if I am going to use them in a raid and it is not an all alt raid I will feel I need to do everything within my power to make that character as good as it can be gear wise.

So when is an alt not an alt?  When you actually care about what you are doing with it.

Somewhere along the line my alts went from being there for professions and so I could better learn all classes which I believe makes me a better player and surely a better raid leader turned itself into a new job.

Now that I feel the need to gear up more then just my main I feel like there is a pressure on me to do so.  Alts seem to lose their fun when they become work instead of something you do to pass the time when you are bored on your main.

Presently two of my alts are like mains and somehow that is a bad thing right now.  Some might have the time to handle three mains.  I don't.  Sure I spent a good deal of time playing but not that much time.

I wish I could go back to the days where my hunter was my main, I did everything I did with him and then when I needed something else to do I went and played on an alt.  I did not make sure my alt was geared, because I did not care.  It was just an alt.

I guess that is no ones fault by my own.  Basically I did it to myself.  I don't have to gear up a tank or a healer to help my guild while we are waiting for people to return from summer vacation or until we recruit another.  Perhaps I should just be selfish and not care.  Eh, not my style. 

I have the alts, they are geared, might as well use them.  Just wish I didn't have to because once you have to run an alt, it is no longer an alt, it is a second main.  I don't want a second main.  I want to play my damn hunter.

My poor Hunter has stepped into one raid in the last 3+ months and we only got one boss down in that raid.  He is not having much fun, which means I am not having much fun.  Downing bosses on my Shaman and Warrior is all fine and dandy, but they are not my Hunter which in the end means I don't care.  All this because I let myself gear up my alts.  Maybe I should stop doing that when I am bored because it turned them into mains of their own.  So much easier if I could just say, sorry, have to come on my Hunter because I have nothing else geared for the content.  Now that is an idea.

Alts can be fun... Alts can also ruin your fun sometimes.

My alts have started to become a problem for me.