My Life in WoW - Part 1

Ok, for a long time now, I've been avoiding the geekiest of geekies... the nerdiest of nerdies... the one online game that even South Park devoted an entire episode to mocking... WoW. What is WoW? WoW stands for World of Warcraft, and it's a MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online Rolepaying Game. (yep, dorks REALLY like acronyms)

Yep, the dorks no longer gather in Mom's basement for marathon sessions of D&D. Instead, they huddle alone in Mom's basement playing this online, interactive upgrade to D&D.

And now, I too, am hooked.

After all of this time resisting the urge to try this game, what finally brought me to it? a co-worker who plays it every waking moment he's home, and talks about it every waking moment he's at work... that's what. The way he described it... the sheer SIZE of the online world they've created... It just became too much for a geek like me to resist. So I ponied up the $19.99 to buy it and the $15.99 a month online fee, and I entered WoW.

And I've got to say, it's every bit as addicting as people make it out to be.

Here's my character. His name is Schatengeist, which is German for Shadow Ghost... almost. You see, the TRUE German spelling has 2 T's in it (ShaTTengeist), but there's a 12 character limit to the names, so I had to lose a T.

**NOTE - click on the pictures to see them in their larger than life glory**


Schatengeist is a Night Elf (that's his Race) Hunter (that's his class). What that means is he digs on nature, can tame wild beasts and make them his pets, and is wicked badass with a bow and arrow.

Right now, I'm up to level 13. The more Quests you complete, and bad guys you wail on, the more "experience points" - or XP - you get. And with XP comes levelling (i.e., gaining enough XP to go from level 12 to level 13). Each level brings with it more powerful weapons, magic, armor, and generally cool shit you can do.


Here's Schatengeist throwing up an arm in victory!

Now, all of that stuff is well and good, but there's no need for an ONLINE game to do that. So what makes WoW so special? The interaction with other players. There are good guys (Alliance) and bad guys (Horde), and when they meet, shit goes down. There are massive battles all over the place! But even better, within your side (good or bad) there are auction houses, a mail system, inns, boats, cities, quests, dungeons, guilds, flying beasts... you name it, this game has it. If you happen upon a super badass weapon or armor or something, and you can't use it, you can trade other players for it. Or you can give newer players really good shit so even though theiy're low level, they can still kick some ass. (this is called Twinking Out a newbie) You have to learn a trade (such as mining, cooking, leather working, skinning) so that you can make money to buy food, potions, spells, clothing, etc. So, say I'm cruising through the woods, and skinning is one of my skills. i come upon a deer and kill it. I can then skin it, which, depending on my skill as a skinner, will give me rough leather or high quality leather. I then collect that leather and sell it. BAM! Sweet moolah for me!!

As I said, right now I'm level 13, which enables me to tame a pet. Here's Schatengeist with his pet bear, Barrengeist, and a little bunny that follows me around. Barrengeist can kick some ass. The bunny doesn't do anything but make me smile...


The world that's been created is lush and imaginative... Here's Schatengeist sitting at the foot of what is called an "Ancient"... level 60 protectors of the Night Elf's homeland.


And the game is also not without a sense of humor. There are any number of useless, yet funny, things you can make your character do. They can toss out insults (with clever animations to match), give thanks, bow in reverence, or DANCE! That's right... each race has it's own style of dancing. Lucky for me, the Night Elves dance like Michael Jackson. Here's Schatengeist showing off some of his moves.



And do you want to see just how COOL this world can look? Here's Schatengeist hitching a ride on a Hyppogriff.


And the thing is, none of these pictures are from cut-scenes (animations within games that take place between playing levels). These are all in game!

So yes, WoW is super dorky... but it's also super addiciting! And for the time being, this blog is going to be dedicated to my trials and tribulations as I venture forth as Schatengeist, the misspelled, German named Night Elf Hunter who's level 13 after only 16 hours of playing!