Alt-ernate Universes

As of writing I currently have three characters at level 50: a Mercenary, a Marauder, and a Sniper.  I also have an Assassin that literally just dinged 42 before I decided to start this blog.  By design, I play Empire exclusively on Helm of Graush (that is, I have a character of each class made on the server--my Republic characters are tentatively set up on The Maw).  I've always enjoyed leveling alts, but in SWTOR I'm taking it seriously to the next level.  My goal, ultimately, is to have every advanced class at 50.  There's a number of reasons I aim to do this.  First, I do enjoy leveling to a certain extent.  I also love having the variety in character selection--being able to log in and run with any class I want and having a working knowledge of how each class works.  Third, it makes a fine thing to do early on while Bioware sorts out the finer points of running an MMO.  I'm also unemployed and in between trying to chase down a few new state pharmacy licenses and finding a job (I'm a PharmD--a pharmacist) I've got way too much free time.  Finally, while the token time-sink right now would be PvPing (I'm even on a PvP server), it just doesn't really interest me as a primary pursuit, which leaves either sitting around the fleet trying to find groups, feeding Ron Paul trolls all day, or leveling alts.  The latter seems a natural choice.

Plus my Legacy Level is the one last sweet achievement I'm hanging onto.  It's 38.  Here's proof.

I had races, names, tradeskills, and alignments planned out for all of my characters before release, 'cause that's how I roll.  I originally started my Mercenary, Voltaren, at Last Resort's request.  At the time, the class roster had plenty of Sorcerer and Sniper ranged DPS, so I went with Merc.  I started leveling a Sniper (Zofran) next, since that's what I'd wanted to play in beta and it was another ranged DPS to have in my repertoire.  Made it to about mid-30s (mid-Taris) before I switched to leveling my Marauder (Seroquel).  I originally hadn't planned on leveling a Marauder at all, since I had no affinity for the class (though I do like dem dual wielders), but for reasons I can't recall I started duo-leveling it with Callsign's Sorcerer.  Duo-leveling goes way faster than leveling solo; Callsign quit leveling his Sorc after we finished Taris, and I figured if I was that far I might as well finish it.  So I did.  Even duo-leveling just that far it shaved ~16 hours off the total /played time to 50.  After that, went and finished up my Sniper.  Currently I working on wrapping up my Assassin.

I intend to do a little more detailed discussion of the classes I've played the most so far in future posts that I can set aside specifically for those classes.