Yes that's right, I am officially a World of Warcraft player.
If we're being honest here, and I hope that we are, I've always wanted to play an MMO. I've wanted to be a part of that online community because I find it fascinating! I'm not talking about the 13 year olds who can't type and call everyone a fag, I mean the other people like me who have real lives and derive great enjoyment from video games! It's nice to meet new people, even if they are online.
When World of Warcraft came out I was a fresh faced GameStop employee. It was November of 2004 and I remember it well. I was hired on for the holiday season and, more importantly, the launch of Halo 2. I would like the record to show that I don't give a fuck about Halo. We can move on now. So, I'm learning the ropes, we're prepping for Halo. I am also being prepped for Everquest II and the much spoken of World of Warcraft. It was one hell of a month.
Flash forward five and a half years (yikes) and I have yet to really *know* anything about the game. People were very consistently purchasing it at work since its release and I have been privy to the releases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. There is an apparent frenzy for this game and I just got curiouser and curiouser. About two years ago I ventured into a 10 day free trial, but I didn't care for it. I think this is mostly because I didn't understand how to play the game. At this time, also, no one in my "circle" played. This is definitely a social game and I was missing that aspect in a big way. I kept getting murdered by the same Harpy over and over again, each time running back to my body only to get slayed again. "Well that wasn't fun", I thought to myself before uninstalling the trial.
In September of 2008 Warhammer: Age of Reckoning was released and I thought it would be my chance to get into an MMO. I care much more about the Warhammer universe than I do the Warcraft universe. I've played Dawn of War and I have an army of Witch Hunters for tabletop 40k. There was a pre-existing investment here. Well, no one I knew wanted to play WAR. I thought I'd be able to get past this, and I might have been able to if WAR weren't so PVP heavy. Even though I'm interested in making new "friends" over the internet, I'm not really into the idea of creating strict guild requirements and having these sort of strange online "commitments". I'm fairly wishy washy with my gaming time, I don't think I would have been a good member.
This story is going somewhere I promise.
I recently received the Netflix instant watch disc for my Wii (about time), and the first thing I did with it was start searching for instant watch content of course!
Now I had heard of The Guild before and I had a vague inkling of what it actually was, but I had never watched it. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on instant watch and I instantly watched them.
Highly entertaining! I definitely recommend them. I need to start on season 3. But the point of this is that it centers around people playing WoW. The show started to stir my curiosity and thirst to be a part of an MMO. That and about once a month Penny Arcade does a WoW comic and I swear it just makes me burn to be involved. Agh!
The final straw here happened last weekend. I was home from school visiting friends and family, and on one particular outing Jake and I went to the GameStop where I sometimes work. My fabulous friend James was on shift and he told me he started playing WoW. I looked at him incredulously (he wouldn't play WAR with me, afterall). Apparently he started playing and was running around with another friend of ours, Amanda, who has been a player for a long time.
I turned this information over in my mind a few times before starting a 10 day trial just three days ago. James sent me a recruitment thing and apparently we get more XP or something.
I love WoW! I'm pretty damn happy to say that. I'm currently trying my hardest to level up to mid 20s so I can go questing with James and Amanda. I'm level 12 right now, not bad for three days of playing if I may say so (although I really have no basis for comparison). I am a troll mage specializing in alchemy and herbalism. I hail from Zangarmarsh, fear me!
There's a boar stuck in the canyon wall. His legs were going as though he were running. I found this to be pretty funny.
I just want to add that, under different circumstances, I would have chosen Alliance not Horde.
-MJ
2 comments:
Lol, WoW is pretty fun especially at the later stages but the people become so much more vindictive and annoying to play with. I played an undead mage with the same specializations, really fun ^_^ I only got out because I couldn't stand the people that were on there. For the record though Horde is definitely more fun to play than alliance because the Alliance is apparently full of pre-teen scene kid wanna-bes whose only form of entertainment is ganking folks and making dick jokes. So, enjoy and get ready for the onslaught of people that are gonna look down on you because you got "addicted" to WoW...
They can look down all they want, I know it'll happen. Everywhere I turn someone is giving me shit about it. I'm having fun though, so that's what matter! :)
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