As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve got a pretty large family, and we’re all involved in various geek pursuits of some kind or another. Thus, it wasn’t really a surprise when I found out one of my sisters was interested in playing World of Warcraft.
I have to say, though, I had a little bit of apprehension. It was like worlds were colliding that shouldn’t be. Kind of like seeing your fifth-grade teacher at the mall, when everyone knows elementary school teachers only exist in the classroom.
My guy and I started playing at the same time, so we had sort of the same learning curve. But my sister is now playing with friends who have been playing for years, and are rather hard-core about it. Based on some conversations I’ve heard, there’s already some sniping and tension. And she wonders why I’ve been reticent about joining in on the fun!
It’s not uncommon to moan about the incompetence of the tank in your group, or the healer, or that hunter who can’t get their pet under control. But most of the time, you don’t actually know the person you want to throttle, or you only vaguely know them through a guild, as some intangible presence on the other side of the country. What if you actually know the people involved beforehand, have to see them at work, or at church, or sleep next to them at night?
And what if you’re in a new relationship and your new significant other wants to join in on all the fun? How do you handle the situation, and how do you gauge when they’re hardened enough to handle your “quirky” guild leader?
What do you do when your geek worlds collide? Are you thrilled that you’ve converted yet another, or do you struggle to keep your interests private? Or is adventuring a family thing in your house?
About j
As a person who started playing only a few months ago, I found myself in a somewhat similar situation playing with lots of friends who had been playing since the game was released. My friends are pretty hardcore players too, but they helped me along instead of riding my case all day long (and they didn’t forget that it’s a game where you’re supposed to have fun).
To put it bluntly, I think your sister needs to tell her friends to stop being douchebags. And if they don’t, there are Lots of people she can find online to play with and she can just hang out with her friends IRL. (Where they will probably still be douchebags.)
Very interesting. When I met the one that will soon be my ex-wife, she was no geek. But after a while, she was watching anime with me, playing games on console with me, and also started RPGing with me. She is not by any means a full-time geek, but she found those activities interesting from time to time. A casual geek, sort of. I admit I was often frustrated when we had to start a level of Baldur’s Gate on PS2 for the tenth time because she wasn’t paying attention and fried me with her fire balls. But I soon understand that she wasn’t playing for wins, but for fun.
In WoW, there are guilds that don’t play hardcore, and I had a great time being a casual player there when I played. There are all sorts of geeks after all.
Hyb’
For this reason among many is way I went over to DDO.
There is mot mush of a learning curve when it come to DDO and the short quest/goals/dungeons/instances make it easy for an addict like me to get his fix with out neglecting school work or my wife.
I love WoW and there are a lot of times that I miss WoW, but DDO fits my life style.
Bellow is a link to my old WoW character.
I can’t access the starts because the account is not active or I don’t have an active about to use the Armory…but is good to know he is still avalable if I wish to play him again.
http://www.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=Deamondealor&searchType=all
@LokyCat: I don’t think this really solves the problem. I tried playing DDO with some longtime time friends. They made new characters to play with me but would solve all the puzzles before I could even look at them and were always dashing off to their next optimal quest spot. They had done it a dozen times but I had no idea what was going on and was having a miserable time.
I have played with my brothers, my girlfriend and real-life friends and I think it is more a problem of relative experience than real-life and games colliding. The more experienced players need to be patient. They should also be backing the newbie up, not leading him or her. Sometimes it is just better to let them play alone for a while.
Nicholas´s last blog post..D&D Cartoon Review: Remaking Childhood
@Nicholas You are right…I see it all the time with quest I have not don.=P
Experienced players do need to be a bit more patient and show the N00Bs the puzzles and slow down the rampage. Still the learning curve is considerably shorter then WoW.
There are some dungeons in DDO that I have goon throw several times but still don’t know my way. I play a cleric so is sometimes hard to know whats going on around me when I am to busy looking at everyone’s Hp. I currently play a Rouge for this reason, they HAVE to slow down and wait for me to disable traps so I am now getting to know this dungeons. >-)
I play DDO because of time issues. Is easy to waste an afternoon in WoW and is hard to accomplish anything of importance in a shot time. DDO allows me to play for an Hr or two and log off feeling like I accomplished something in the game.