Kestrel Is A “Main” Again…Finally

On Saturday, almost on impulse, I finally followed through on something I’ve been considering for quite awhile. But first, a little history.

When I first started playing World of Warcraft, my beta character was named Kestrel (as were my Asheron’s Call 2, Horizons, and EverQuest 2 characters), and so was my first post-release character, a Night Elf hunter on Icecrown (US).

When Icecrown became overcrowded and my friends and I tired of waiting in queue to log in and play, we eventually migrated to Kul Tiras (US). At the time, I was really enjoying my rogue character (Falcon) on Icecrown. So after creating a "just for fun" (at the time) gnome mage named Sparkye,¹ I rolled a Night Elf rogue named Kestrel. As time went by, I also created another Night Elf hunter, Talonis.

At some point—I honestly don’t recall the exact timeline, but well before Burning Crusade was released—I paid to transfer my level 60 Icecrown hunter, Kestrel, and my level 60 rogue, Falcon, to Kul Tiras. Because I already had the name Kestrel and someone else had cheekily taken the name Falcon, Kestrel (Icecrown) became Sparverius (Kul Tiras); similarly, Falcon (Icecrown) became Falken (Kul Tiras).²

(Are you thoroughly confused yet?)

Subsequently, all four characters (plus Osprey) were raised to level 70. But to be honest, I’ve never cared for the names "Sparverius" or "Talonis". So I decided I really wanted one of my two mains to regain the "Kestrel" name; after all, that has been my online persona for 6 or 7 years now.

I wasn’t about to rename Osprey: It fits perfectly with my "bird of prey" motif; he’s a Class Leader in the guild; and has become my de facto #1 main character (much as I’d prefer to be full-time Hunter). As things turned out, Talonis, my "second" hunter, became the main, while Sparverius was more a placeholder (although his maxed leatherworking was a plus in the beginning). 

So I decided on Saturday to rename Talonis to Kestrel. Of course, that meant I had to do something with Kestrel, the rogue. I decided to move as much of his gear and bank holdings as I could, to other characters, then delete him. The loss would be a level 70 rogue, and 375 Enchanting. However, since he doesn’t raid, gaining more advanced enchanting formulas was pretty much out of the question anyway.

Fortunately, I mentioned my plan in BA Chat and Razorbax pointed out I could simply petition a GM to restore the character once I’d renamed Talonis.

To make what is already a long story shorter than it might otherwise be, that’s what I did: 

• Unloaded all of Kestrel’s gear that I could (I forgot to transfer around 35 gold) to alts
• Deleted Kestrel
• Paid $10 to rename the hunter Talonis → Kestrel
• Petitioned to have "the rogue formerly known as Kestrel" restored (which was done within about 30 minutes, and quite easily too)³
• Upon logging in "Kestrelxyz" a second time, I was confronted with a name-change box, and settled on "Talons": quite fitting for a combat-daggers Rogue, don’t you think?

Of course, the first time I tried to play the new Kestrel (hunter), my Bongos bars were all screwed up. That’s because my macros were still maintained under the Kestrel name, but were rogue macros. A quick visit to the \wtf\account\Kul Tiras\Kestrel folder to rename it to Talons, and rename the \Talonis folder to \Kestrel resolved everything quite nicely.

And now I happily have Kestrel restored as a Hunter, as he always should have been. And we all hope to live happily, ever after!