I love Elder Scrolls. That’s just a fact. Like many of you, I have sunk 550+ hours each into Skyrim and Oblivion. I have played many races and many playstyles. But, there is one thing I absolutely flat out refuse to do – create Alts.
Alts, or ‘alternate characters’, are simply that. Many times, players will have a primary character that they use. In addition to that, they may have 2 or 3 alts which they use to explore different play options. For instance, your primary character may be a sneaky Bosmer thief-sassin, but you might create an alt which is a heavy armor, two-handed Nord. To explore the pros and cons of each, I’ll be dividing this article accordingly.
Why Alts Can Be Good
If used correctly, alts can prove to be very useful and helpful. For instance, say I am playing as a Bosmer archer (primary character) and I’m on a certain quest in which I’m required to clear out a dungeon. Well, unfortunately for me, my Bosmer is too low-leveled for this dungeon so if I enter it prematurely, I will get totally pwned. However, my alt character, jacked two-handed Nord chick, is more than capable. Therefore, I enter the dungeon with said Nord and come out victorious.
Screw you guys, I’m going home
Alts can also be a great tool if you just want to explore different areas of the map due to guilds. Again, let’s use our Bosmer archer and two-handed Nord to explore this use-case. My Bosmer may be focusing primarily on the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. Because of this choice, she’s not going to do too much (at least not initially) with the College of Winterhold nor the Companions of Whiterun. However, my two-handed Nord could be spec’d for heavy armor and the like – perfect for helping out the Companions. What this allows me, the player, is the freedom to partake in different quests at (relatively) the same time.
Finally, let’s look at a use-case dealing with player choice. If, like my buddy Evarwyn, you want to take the ‘good guy’ route, you may want to use your two-handed Nord paladin chick to do just that. This means that you’ll always take the moral stance on quest objectives and generally be a good dude. You may even bury a dead Nord girl you find next to a troll cave just because you feel that bad for her (just saying).
However, with your archer Bosmer, you choose to take the ‘bad guy’ route. With this play-style, you’d probably pillage, plunder, kill innocent NPCs, and generally cause chaos and mayhem. In this use-case, you may even do the exact same quest with both characters, but make different decisions as the quest progresses.
“Fight for me, and I will hold your oaths fulfilled!”
The benefit of this is that you see how your decisions panned out. For example, do I kill Astrid, thus starting the quest to eliminate the Dark Brotherhood? Or do I accept her offer and mercilessly slaughter all who stand in my way? Same quest, different choices, different outcomes.
Why I Don’t Use Alts
I will start off by saying I have played different characters (except Argonians), explored different play-styles (mage, warrior, stealth, etc) and explored (nearly) to my heart’s content. Thus, I think I can safely say that in both Oblivion and Skyrim, I’ve explored and done pretty much everything. Phillip G.
Trust me, I’ve gone everywhere
You guys with me so far? Good. You guys know me by now. You understand my play-style. You might already have a pretty good idea of why I play like I do.
The reason I never roll two characters at the same time is simple: I want to take my time doing everything with one character before moving onto another. This allows me a couple different things:
- The opportunity to fully explore everything in one go, and not piece-mailing bits and pieces from various characters.
- Uninterrupted journey through my character’s story-arc, allowing me to take my time and make choices that really matter.
- Finally, complete and total immersion in the game by allowing me to be 100% vested in one character at a time.
So you see? I have my reasons. It’s all chill. Alts aren’t for everyone. I’m not saying they’re bad, but I’m not saying they’re good either. Alts have their uses, plain and simple.
So, time for you guys to chime in. Do you guys use alts? Why or why not? Sound off in the comments below.
Shadow hide you.
I don’t use alt’s often but sometimes I get to a point with one character where i just want to try something different for a while, I consider my main to be my highest level character regardless of which one I’ve been playing recently any character below that is an alt to me because they don’t have the same amount of time invested in them. When I switch to a new character it may be for a dozen hours or several days of gametime before I switch to another character again.
I have over a dozen characters. I usually switch between them every five levels or so. It keeps the game fresh, and I’m always coming up with new ideas for characters. I won’t even play an RPG nowadays if I can’t create my own character.
Another point for alts is that in Skyrim, at least, the weapon the Thane (and loot) receives is sometimes different based on play type. With one character, I received an Ax from Whiterun and the next character received a bow.
I’m a diagnosed alt-aholic. ’nuff said.
My “problem” is that I want to try everything at the same time. Though at the moment I have only an archer/assasin in Skyrim. In SWTOR on the other hand I have just yesterday created two more characters… Sorry. Three.
Sometimes I wish I could concentrate on one character at a time (I’ve never gotten past lvl 35 in SWTOR before), but then I get on the computer and start up the game and look at my list of character and think: I wonder what this sort of character that I’ve never tried before plays like, and I cannot resist the temptation to immidiately try it out. Or I dislike a single attribute on my character or come across some piece of equipment that doesn’t work well with my current set-up but is really cool and I ipulsively restart the character or make a new one.
Ah, well, nevermind. Its all digital anyway. Its not like I’m actually making the people…
May the God of Alternates watch over you and protect your many identities.
The Captain.
I have over 200+ hours logged into Skyrim at the moment.. However, due to many PC issues, and corrupted saves from mods, I’ve had to restart characters several times. I completed the main quest line before Dawnguard, but that character was lost. So I’ve been repeatedly trying to recreate that character, and do some things I didn’t do on the first.
I do, however, have a very strong desire to play alts. I also tend to play a good guy, sword-and-board Nord “Paladin” (One Handed, Heavy Armor, Block, Resto, Smithing as primaries), but I do occasionally take out a bow, and think a ranged/sneak character would be a lot of fun, and do the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild quests. I also have an interest in creating a completely non-combative character, one who specializes in crafting, speech, and resto/conjuration with a follower and summoned creatures to do the fighting for me, while I keep them alive, provide equipment, and make myself rich.
There are so many, many ways to play the game, I find it hard to NOT want to make alts whenever possible. I think that really speaks to the longevity and diversity the game provides.