Towards the last year of my marriage (in about 2005) I took my first steps into the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) world namely World of Warcraft on the Silver Hand realm. In the process I became one of about then 5,000,000 players who were part of Blizzard's version of reality.
Now I was an absolute newb. I'd played plenty of games before (though I'd never been a console gamer), I'd even played some of them on line. But first person shooters (FPS's) were my schtick. I'd loved Half Life and its on line derivative Counter Strike, I'd played Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex and Grand Theft Auto in all their many and varied interpretations. I had no idea what to expect of this role playing game (RPG) or more importantly how I was meant to behave in it. It would be somewhat of an understatement to say that when I started it sure did show.
Now I was an absolute newb. I'd played plenty of games before (though I'd never been a console gamer), I'd even played some of them on line. But first person shooters (FPS's) were my schtick. I'd loved Half Life and its on line derivative Counter Strike, I'd played Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex and Grand Theft Auto in all their many and varied interpretations. I had no idea what to expect of this role playing game (RPG) or more importantly how I was meant to behave in it. It would be somewhat of an understatement to say that when I started it sure did show.
The first thing I had to do was decide on a character class and race. I settled on a Dwarf Paladin (being 6'2" in real life made me like the idea of being a short arse for a change). Now I had my Paladin (paly) named Uralc and I was ready to (without making to be big of a pun) begin my quest.
Note: I'd invented the name Uralc by taking the title Ur Lord (from Stephen Donaldson's most excellent series of books The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) while adding the abbreviation alc for alcohol. It nicely summed up my vainglorious delusions of being a great but tainted hero while combining this with my love of a good Scotch Whisky.
I blundered round having no idea what a Paladin actually did. I joined pick up groups (PUGS) to do quests and tried a few guilds for no other reason than somebody asked me. I became a miner and blacksmith and started to learn how to trade in the auction house. But by the time I got to Level 30 or so, I suddenly found I actually knew (to my very own amazement) what I was doing.
I looked around me and saw that the game was full of these deeply committed people who knew every detail about this vast, strange world. They taught me which mods to use, how to maximise my quest runs to get massive experience points (xp). I breezed past Level 40 and got my first mount, then became obsessed with reaching level 60 so I could get my epic mount. I joined a stable guild and we did many five man raids. We must have run Scholomance a couple of hundred times and I think most of our guild's mains became exalted with the Argent Dawn from doing just this.
I rolled a Human Mage, as my paly was finding it hard to join in the big 40 man raids, and leveled him up to 60 in what seemed like next to no time. I farmed for gold religiously, I manipulated the auction house so I could make more money. I bought rare recipes and plans so I could make even more money. My favourite was the Steel Weapon Chain, it was an extremely rare drop that I picked up in the auction house for less than 3 gold and I'm sure I made thousands from it.
I had become hooked, I just didn't know it yet!
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