Main(s) and Alts: Multiple Character Management in World of Warcraft

This study examines how players manage multiple characters, or "mains and alts," in World of Warcraft, focusing on how account owners group their avatars into sets and what those groupings reveal about player goals. Because account-to-avatar ownership data is confidential, the authors built an algorithm that infers avatar sets from publicly accessible online-status data, using a player-designed interface to collect continuous observations on two Taiwanese servers, one PvE and one PvP, between November 2008 and June 2009. The approach draws on Goffman's dramaturgical framing and Bartle's player taxonomy, classifying avatars as foreground (achiever, killer, balanced) or background (businessman, repository) roles.

The algorithm identifies double and triple avatar sets by analyzing switching intervals and online-sequence overlap, then finds triple sets by locating cliques within double-set results. Validation using held-out data reported a recall of 78.5% and a precision of 97%, with name correlations among set members offering additional support. Findings show that single-avatar sets were most common on PvP servers, while triple sets were more prevalent on PvE servers, which the authors attribute to survival pressures and social dynamics on PvP realms. Most sets contained avatars that had reached level 15, the threshold for group play, and players commonly paired balanced and achiever avatars, with background avatars becoming more prominent in larger sets.

The authors conclude that players typically begin with foreground avatars and add background alts for logistics such as storage and trading, and that constraints of real-world time push players toward maintaining one or two active foreground characters while retaining others in supporting roles. The study is limited by its restricted server sample and the single-game focus, though its methodology offers a replicable way to study multi-character behavior in online games.