Beta schizophrenia

Do you play a MMORPG just for the adventure, the fun and experience of playing? Or do you play it for the character development, the virtual rewards? That question normally doesn't matter, because you get the fun and the reward at the same time. But by having copied my character to the beta test servers, I suddenly find myself in a situation where I have to chose one over the other.

Playing on the beta server is fun, because most of the things I see there are new and exciting. I'm not saying the the content of the Burning Crusade is better than that of the old World of Warcraft, but after over 2 years in the game I've seen pretty much everything in the old world. The BC beta gives me new zones, new dungeons, new loot, a new tradeskill to play around with, new mobs to fight, and many other new things. But whatever experience, levels, and skill I gain, whatever gear I acquire, will be gone when the Burning Crusade goes live and the beta closes down.

I told you how my priest on the beta server learned jewelcrafting, got a new staff, bound in Shattrath, and changed to shadow specialization. Last night my guild on the "real" server had an Onyxia raid scheduled, and as we are recently often short on healers, I logged on and helped out in that raid. And so I played the same priest without jewelcrafting, with his old staff, bound in Undercity, and still on holy specialization. I felt as if I suffered from a split personality, a clear case of beta schizophrenia.

This weekend my guild has several BWL raids scheduled, and I will try to participate in as many of them as I can. And over the coming weeks I will try to balance beta test playing with real server playing. If the Burning Crusade is really delayed until next year, I might even level up my shaman on the real server from currently 42 to 60. But more importantly I will keep playing with my guild, raiding several times per week. It doesn't matter if the only loot I get will be replaced by Burning Crusade loot shortly after the expansion comes out. It is the social aspects of playing together in a guild that is important. And if I level my shaman, or improve my priests mining skill, or get the third piece of Transcendence for the set bonus, those are rewards that I will be able to keep. I will certainly also level my beta priest a bit, just to get deeper into the Outlands, but if I spent all my time reaching level 70 fast, I'll just have to do it all over again when the beta ends.

Playing the same character in two incarnations on two servers will be a bit confusing, but I'll have to get used to it. I don't want to give up either of two.