Warcraft After a Year
Jaimie and I have been playing World of Warcraft together for about a year now (the first definitive date I have is Apr 04, 06). I had bought WoW about a month earlier and she tried it out on my computer before insisting that her system be upgraded and that she should have her own account.
For anyone who doesn’t play Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, the best analogy is a sport. Imagine that a crazed millionaire set up a fancy baseball park in the middle of a city, one with all the best in automatic equipment. You wander in there one day, pick up a bat or a ball and start playing against an automated batting/pitching machine. You may start tossing the ball back and forth with a friend or a passerby. Other people wander by and you do a pickup game. Then you start getting more serious about it and join a team so that you’re consistently playing with the same people. Some teams get very serious and start pushing for major accomplishment, some stay more on the pick up level.
As with so much else, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year that we’ve been playing. We’ve done so much and met so many people, it almost feels like a lifetime. Probably the best analogy for me is that starting to play WoW was like starting college - you meet new people, try new things, and discover all manner of things about yourself.
Picking Characters
We started out on Andorhal, which was a brand new Player versus Player server. We tried a bunch of different class combinations before settling on our mains - Flint and Tinder, a dwarf priest for me and a gnome mage for Jaimie. Jaimie had mostly played warriors before that and after trying a number of different classes I decided that a priest was the best fit for me. Jaimie loved being tiny and doing massive amounts of damage and I loved being able to take care of those around me.
Guilds
After about 2 weeks, we were invited to join Death Before Dishonor. We’d run the Deadmines with a couple of them and accepted the invitation as a “what the heck” thing. After about two weeks there, we moved over to ÐØØM with a large chunk of Death Before Dishonor’s members. We wound up staying in ÐØØM for a long time. We ran many instances, everything up to Upper Black Rock Spire with them. We made a lot of friends there. Jaimie and I were guild officers for a number of months. However one fine day around September, our guild master suddenly decided he didn’t want to play and further and abruptly left the guild. There was no one left who wanted to lead the guild, so we ended up disbanding ÐØØM and joining Legion of the Dragon. With LotD we moved into raiding, first Zul’Gurub and culminating in completing Molten Core in December. Shortly after that there was a mis-handled incident which split the guild. My part in it was that I gave the guild master bad advice instead of checking things thoroughly. Jaimie and I stuck with LotD even though many of our long-time friends from ÐØØM had left the guild. Burning Crusade came out and we leveled to 70 at a decent clip. We managed to get Karazhan attuned and even made it past two bosses. Then our guild master up and disappeared. Jaimie wound up running the guild for over month during which time we tried to find someone to replace her and/or provide leadership. We’re tired of trying to lead and as of April first will be leaving guild and playing for fun again.
Friends
To steal from something I read, probably the biggest thing that Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games such as WoW have going for them is the Massively Multiplayer part. It’s the community that makes the game fun, rather than the game itself. Both Jaimie and I are uncomfortable being around people in a social setting so this gives us a chance to meet and spend time with other people in a non-threatening way. Jaimie especially has made a number of good friends through playing WoW. I’m looking forward to spending more time with friends and having Jaimie spend less time taking care of the guild’s needs.
What I Like
It turns out that I don’t like raiding. I think a big part of it is just that I like that “ding!” when you can demonstrate concretely that you’ve improved - you don’t get that in the endgame. I like alts - making up new characters and trying different classes is a lot of fun. So far I’ve played every class except shaman up to level 35. It’s been fun to see what is easy for each class and what each class struggles with. (I strongly recommend against leveling a paladin without a group as it’s very, very slow.) I enjoy seeing the world of Warcraft and the different things there are to do there. I’m looking forward to exploring Outlands more thoroughly.
Conclusions
I still really enjoy playing WoW. It gives Jaimie and I something that we can do together, which is great. I no longer wish to be in a leadership position in a guild. I will doubtless be in a guild, I will help when I can, but I do not want to be in guild leadership. A player versus player was a bad choice for me, so I really doubt I’ll choose to play on one again. I find that if I want to enjoy the game, it’s best to stay away from the official forums. In the meantime, until a game that’s better than WoW comes along, I plan to keep on playing and enjoying myself!