My First MMORPG

Wow I can’t believe that ten weeks have already passed! I’ve had so much fun just dabbling with WoW that I definitely think I’m going to stick with it. I don’t want to become one of those hardcore players, but just maintain the social interaction I’ve had over the game. I really enjoyed getting to explore the world even as a low level character, but by far my favourite bit was getting into a guild and the fabulous surrounding community. The wow_ladies comm has been so sweet and helpful, they made WoW enjoyable to talk about and helped me gain the confidence to actually join a guild. I also really liked the vent teamspeak aspect where it was more than just text in front of your face.

It was a really good learning experience, I now know what a lot more of those acronyms stand for too!

Second Life:

I found the WoW experience vastly different to Second Life primarily based on the idea that WoW actually has objects/goals to acheive, whereas in Second Life you’re left to your own devices. In this tute I found that like with myspace I struggled to find something to do and as a result found disdain and contempt for the game.

Reflection:

Overall the experience was very interesting. By playing WoW and engaging in the community I was doing something I vehemently despised so it was getting me out of my comfort zone. It was very interesting to see just how far WoW has permeated online culture and made such a significant mark that it was able to reach from dedicated websites to social networking sites and random communities.

It was also interesting to see the kind of social interaction a MMORPG generates and the way people conduct themselves in an online game through an avatar.

Levelling

So this has been a pretty good week for me even though I’ve been so busy. I finally managed to get to level 10 again which was cool. I stopped wandering and chatting in vent for once and did a couple quests to boost me up.

Unfortunately cause I was a bit of a low level I did die when getting to level 10 (pic below of yet another death =p)

I also got to theme my character a bit because it’s Halloween really soon so she got a pumpkin for a head! I was at Sentinal Tower with the pumpkin head when I got my level ten achievement =)

MySpace/Facebook/Twitter

I had started a myspace (like twitter) for class stuff, but decided to use it for a WoW related social networking account. Unfortunately what I’ve found (after I spent ages trying to figure out how on earth you change the background!) that nobody I’ve talked to in the guild has a myspace anymore cause it’s outdated and for teenagers.

So instead I got added to facebook by a few of my guildies so they actually know who I am now rather than the chatty low level night elf druid. I also found that instead of posting my WoW updates to twitter I was posting them to facebook and my guildies were actually replying to some of the inane stuff I wrote which was really nice of them =)

Myspace

Facebook

So this week was really interesting. I kept up on my exploring but did so while following some guild parties work through raids. When we were at one near Stone Cairn Lake (screenie of me fighting a murloc at the lake below) two of the guildies had an epic fight over some loot.

Basically what happened was there was a sword in the loot and two warriors both wanted it. From what Yogibeer explained, the sword was better for the fury warrior, yet the arms warrior took it. The fury warrior really raged over it. I was surprised people would get so upset over a silly sword. Of course the arms warrior retaliated and they had it out over voice chat in vent with everyone just kinda sitting there listening to these two grown men fighting over the damn sword. Eventually one of the officers came into the channel and told them both to shut up. It was hilarious to suddenly hear silence! The arms warrior ended up giving the sword to the fury warrior, cause he could use two swords and not just one big clunky one like the arms warrior. It worked out okay, but it was really tense for a moment there!

Sorry for the short blog, I’m really busy with uni this week so I’ve not had much time to play or really have a look around.

So I thought I’d write a bit more about the guild - the social dynamics and how it all works out (and where I fit in!)

I mentioned last week that Egos gave me a quick rundown,  but what he was nice enough to send me a good long email explaining how the guild works because I kept getting confused when he mentioned a term like ‘downie’.

The Guild

They have a cute website at http://liguild.com/community/ which has a forum and applicant page, but it doesn’t seem to get used often. The guild master is actually an alternative character for the leader of the guild called ‘Slavegirl’ which I thought was a bit of a weird name .

The guild has a really well stocked bank - I had a look through it on wowarmory.com and they have a lot of cool items. The way they organise their raids/events is through an online calendar system so it all stays pretty organised. However Egos did say they recently lost a lot of their core raiders so can only get ten man groups together instead of the preferred 25 man.

I found it really useful to be able to go through wowarmory.com and look at the kind of company I’m in. People really do play this game very differently, like aiming for achievements vs good gear.

My role in the guild is as a ‘social’ - I’m a friend of a guild member (Egos) so I don’t have bank access except for the free for all tab, but I don’t mind.

Ventrilo

I mentioned last week there was a vent server for the guild. Egos got me the details and I downloaded the program. After a few hiccups with my firewalls I finally logged in and had to learn the controls of an entirely new programs (confusing much!). It was really cool to hear people on raids talk all this complicated stuff and at first it was really going over my head. I didn’t really have the nerve to speak at first, but I’m getting better. Like with the lj comms (which are still going great!) I can’t really talk about in game stuff, but I’m better at out of game/social chat which actually happens! It’s nice that they don’t just talk raids 24/7.

Flickr

I forgot to mention this, but I made a flickr account in the first couple weeks of play so I could post my screenshots online. I’ve been tagging and labelling them but so far they’ve been lost in the abyss that is popular flickr tags.

My photos are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41402420@N04/sets/72157622548142515/

I’m going to talk about a couple of things today most of which are actually out of the game but don’t worry, they’re still relevant =)

Livejournal Communities

After my bad experience posting in the official WoW noob forum, I decided to try some of the lj communities I’d looked at when I was first undertaking this idea of playing WoW. The three I chose to join were WoW_noobs, WoW_ladies and WoW_chicks.

WoW_chicks turned out not to be as active as I’d hoped, so I kinda let that one be, but wow_noobs and wow_ladies are definitely very active.

My reasoning for joining a wow_noob comm is pretty obvious =p cause I’m a noob and I don’t mind admitting it either - I’m not exactly going to convince people I’m some epic player when I’m running around with a level 6 night elf =p The posts in this comm were mainly about in game stuff and I felt like I didn’t really have anything to add or contribute on other peoples posts. Instead I made a post of my own asking for help about joining a guild and people were really quick to offer some good tips and a couple of links to useful sites. It really reassured me when all I saw last week were guilds that had insane requirements. Based on what they said I knew I needed to join a social/levelling guild.

The reason I went for a female oriented community (wow_ladies) is because there’s that overarching stereotype that when you play games online it’s just teenage boys and when you speak or say you’re a girl you’re going to get harassed about it. Admittedly I haven’t had this experience yet, but I decided to join a community where I was going to be part of a select demographic. I immediately found this community a lot more approachable and I liked that they didn’t just talk about ingame stuff, but also a lot of surrounding issues like racism/sexism  and other relevant topics like peripherals. I found that because of this, it was a lot easier to get involved in the community because there wasn’t a requirement that I understand everything about the game and what class does X at Y with Z. I left a few comments on some posts like the poll of in game classes, one about racism and another on mice preference.



Comment on a racism post



Comment to a threat on a post about mice =)

At the same time I found that I had a reason to post in the community because I wanted to join a guild but really didn’t know where to start. I asked a lot of questions and got some really good and helpful answers. I was even lucky enough to get an offer of in game help from a level 80 player! What differed in this comm to the wow_noob comm post was that I wanted to know more about the female gamer experience. A lot of the women had found themselves in some more female oriented guilds and gave the advice that if I joined a guild and it wasn’t  suitable, I’m not going to be forced to stay so I can duck and run if I get hassled =) that was really reassuring.



My post in wow_ladies



One of many really detailed and helpful comments =)

Guild - Libertas Integris!

After all the talk on lj I decided to get back in game and find a guild to join. I was lucky that my friend Egos was online at the time so I explained what I wanted while we were hanging around Rut’theran Village (screenie below) and he said he could get me into his guild no probs with no horrible application forms =D It seriously made my day!

He explained the whole officer/rank heirarchy thing to me so I knew where I stood in the guild (the bottom basically =p) and said they’d probably let me follow some of their raids if I get lucky. I’ve still got to get Ventrilo though cause it’s the program they use for teamspeak where we can all chat over microphones. This is so so so exciting =) I finally got my guild!! Admittedly though in game I’ve kinda sacrificed doing missions for exploring - I know there are places that I can’t go until I’ve really levelled up, but I’m enjoying wandering around so far.



Logitech G5 Mouse

In less exciting news I finally managed to get a loaner mouse of my bf Alexi - it’s the logitech G5 and it’s a gaming mouse. It’s really quite cool, there are buttons on the side which I’m trying to learn to use in game and you can adjust the weight to suit your hand.  I have to use a trackball because I have motor disability, so it’s a little hard to get used to a mouse again but I’m coping.

Twitter

I did a couple twitter updates, but so far I really don’t know anyone to add as a follower from ‘real life’ or in game which seems quite sad. So instead I did a search for ‘Warcraft’ and found a couple really good twitters like the official Blizzard WoW twitter and some really experienced players. I don’t expect to really interact with them, but it’s been really interesting reading what they’ve had to say. A couple added me back and send me direct messages, which was nice =)

Okay, so another week and more WoW - I’m really surprised I’m actually sticking with it!

I forgot to mention last week that I ran out of trial time so I had to actually buy the game to continue, which I did online at the WoW website - I got a 30day pass when I bought the game so I haven’t had to buy a timecard yet which is pretty neat. I initially installed the game off my sis’s discs, so I have my own cdkey now =)

In game I managed to Dolanaar and then Darnassus (which in comparison is huuuuuge and there are actual people!)  My friend Egos joined me again cause I mentioned I was getting bored of just sitting here alone and we started to talk about guilds and actual interaction, which at this point, I haven’t done much of unfortunately and it was the thing I was really looking forward to.

At Darnassus with Egos!

One of the big things for me was always going to be joining a guild cause WoW is meant to be a social game and it would be really nice to get a group of friends out of this. At the moment I’m just looking around at guilds but so far they’re really intimidating.

I had a look at http://www.lookingforguild.net, but all the ads (I guess they’re ads?) are really intimidating. They all want lvl 80’s who play some super class and are available 24/7. I only want a more social kind of experience, not some hardcore gaming guild. They have to be out there, I just have to find them.

I might post in some livejournal communities I joined and see if they can help me. They seem a lot nicer there than the people on the WoW forums. I was looking on the WoW forums when I was switching to Blackrock and the people there are so scary, they use all these terms I don’t know and seem a bit mean. I initially posted in the noob ‘Getting Started’ forum cause I wanted to know if I was in the right class, I got one nice response and one that seemed a bit douche-y and condescending. It was a level 80 who seemed to only be there to tell people they were idiots.

So the plan is to basically find a guild. I know I’m of no real use to them, it’s not like I can heal a lot or do a lot of dps, but I’d really like to join in somehow and maybe get to understand the game a bit more =)

Last week I managed to get to level 5 on the Gilneas server playing with Alexi, but this week I’ve been ditched!

What happened?

Alexi, who used to play an awful lot when in uni and got a bit addicted to it was considering going back to it even though he currently plays another MMORPG called EVE. After thinking about it, he decided that the temptation was too risky so he uninstalled, leaving me all alone =(

(On a bit of a sidenote, there’s a pretty funny video of a kid on A Current Affair for a ‘WoW addiction’, link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7BeSrrMOoc)

So I logged back in and tried to play by myself, but to be honest it was really lonely, and for a MMORPG that’s kinda strange. So I talked to another friend at work who I know plays WoW and he recommended I change server from Gilneas to Blackrock and that’s where I am now! Unfortunately Blackrock is PVP not PVE like Gilneas was, so we’ll see how it goes and if I get ganked all the time I might change back.

I’ve started another night elf druid, so I’m back in Shadowglen this week redoing all the starting quests I did over the last two weeks.

Starterzone again! De ja vu!!

My aim on this server is to level up a bit and find a guild. It’s a bit easier the second time through, but I do keep getting lost and seem to end up just running around aimlessly. I think I need to find a guide or something to tell me where to go.

My friend did come to the starterzone to see how things where going so I quickly nabbed a screenshot of that too - you can see he has a really cool looking mount. I look kinda stupid running around in hobbit looking clothing. I suppose though once I do more quests I’ll get better gear.

First Impressions

I’ve now, after a plethora of pc issues, managed to actually install all nine discs of the game and patches. As aforementioned, I’m starting on the Gilneas server as a night elf druid.

My first impression of the game was that they were trying to make it seem ‘epic’ by factors like the music. In the starting zone I was joined by my boyfriend Alexi and we completed the first few quests. I really was not amused by the quests. The structure was very repetitive – they were all ‘go here, kill x number of y creatures to get z number of n items, return and choose a reward’. It really did seem like the same thing over and over. I was waiting for some form of variation but when I stopped playing after 3-4 hours and only reaching level five, there was none.

In game shot. Low level starter

To be honest, the most exciting thing was jumping from a high tower to my death. Maybe it was because it was only the starter zone, but the game really left me with no motivation.

Yay death!

The only other people we encountered was a random tard and my sister and her friend who came to say hi and give me some pointers. I will continue, but only because I’ve committed to it.

So I kinda have some prior knowledge about the World of Warcraft. For instance, I know that dps stands for damage per second, that the game is full of grind and that Blizzard make millions of dollars a year by getting people to pay for the privilege of acting out these repetitious tasks on a computer that don’t actually benefit anyone.

However as for where on earth you start, I was totally over my head, so I went to the most knowledgeable WoW player I know – my sister Kaitlyn. After initially awkwardly broaching the subject of my deflection to the dark side, she proceeded to provide me with a vast array of starter knowledge. She went through the classes, explaining the strengths, weaknesses and progression of each, until it was decided that my starter character would be a night elf druid (and by decide I mean she told me to just use that one cause it was a bit easy and could do lots of stuff =p ). The night elf druid appealed the most as it appeared to be the most diverse character, which was not limited to merely tanking or causing dps.

She also showed me a variety of screenshots and a few quick videos to show me what to expect in terms of interface and gameplay. It was suggested that I start on the server she plays on, Gilneas, so she could guide me through the first stages. This decision was also influenced by the fact this server is PvE, so there was no risk of being constantly ‘ganked’ or ‘corpsecamped’ by more advanced players looking to mess with a noob. I’m really quite intimidated by the whole thing at this point, so I think I’m going to need someone to guide me through the whole thing. I don’t know how to play the game let alone do things like join guilds or get commands rights =\

I also spoke with my boyfriend Alexi, who played WoW for many years before getting bored and quitting. He moved onto another MMORPG, EVE Online, clearly not having gotten enough of collecting stuff and healing things. He has agreed to start the game with me on the PvE server, Gilneas, my sister plays on. This means I’ll not be left to fend for myself and have two players who know what to do giving me advice and help along the way. Playing with other people is also a lot more fun than running around by yourself.

After I reinstall Win XP on my pc, I will install WoW as well as the appropriate patches and actually begin the game.