Melmoth’s rules of altitus:

1. You can only ever be satisfied with your character’s appearance or class, never both.
2. If at any point you consider yourself satisfied with both your character’s appearance and class, it is guaranteed that in the next five minutes you will see another player whose appearance or class appeals to you more than your current one.
3. During the pre-launch hype for a game, the more certain you are that a class is right for you, the more certain it is that you’ll end-up playing an entirely different class altogether come launch.
4. Finding yourself happy with both your character’s appearance and class for any length of time is a strong indicator that you’ve picked the wrong faction.
5. It’s never too late to re-roll for the superior beard option.
6. Nobody is playing class X until you switch to it, and then everyone is.
7. If you’re a tank, then your guild is ninety percent tanks; if you’re a healer, then your guild is ninety percent healers; if you’re DPS, then there are no tanks or healers in your guild. Any attempt to rectify the situation automatically invokes rule 6.
8. All classes are the best class ever for the first twenty levels.
9. You’ll always think of the perfect name for your character after you’ve been playing for quite some time, but well before a paid character rename is justifiable.
10. Altitus is an affliction in the same psychological family as inveterate shoe shopping, trying to pick the fastest line at the checkout, and deciding which sweet to pick from a tin of Cadbury Roses.
11. New race or class in an expansion? Alt. Hit a bit of a levelling hump? Alt. Logged-in to the game today? Alt.
12. The secret gateway to altitus is opened with the magic phrase “This is definitely going to be my main character, guys”.
13. In the extremely unlikely event that you’re entirely happy with everything about your character, you will invariably make the mistake of reading the official forums, thus learning all the myriad ways in which your character’s class, faction and beard choice suck horribly compared to everyone else.
14. Altitus is most often contracted when receiving the seventy fifth incremental upgrade to a rarely used utility skill.
15. Alternativa, Goddess of Alts, is a harsh mistress who will only grant an extra character slot upon the ritual sacrifice of one of your existing stable of characters.
16. They’re not alts, they’re the pixelated vahana for my chronically fractured personality.