20 Days of Blogging - Day 3

Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW

Before I start talking about my first day playing Wow I think I should first explain how I first got started with playing Wow.  I didn't do much gaming before getting into Wow.  My parents refused to allow my siblings and me to get a game system growing up and internet was as much of a dream as satellite tv, which pretty much meant never going to happen. So video games where these things other people got to have while I merely got ponies and bunny rabbits.

Far more awesome and pretty horse then I ever owned

I became interested in Wow because one of my friends was playing it.  I had seen her running around on her hunter and giant push-over that I am, I allowed her to convince me to give it a try. So we took the bus to Wal-mart and on the way back to the dorms I read the little video game guide book to try and figure out what this game was about.

We got back to my room and I began installing it.  That took some time and we began watching movies.  And once it was installed I then had to start installing all the patches.  There seemed to be an endless amount of patches.  One of the last movies we watched before all the patches finished installing was Ella Enchanted. 

Areida! Poor, poor Areida

With all the patching finally done it was time to create my first toon.  I had decided to be a druid because they could turn into cats.  I like cats. So I was going to be a cat.  Because I wanted to play with my friend that meant my druid would have to be a night elf.  I spent forever making sure all the details where absolutely perfect.  I had just finished reading a series where the people with magic had white hair and I really liked that idea and I thought turning into a cat was definitely magic so my druid had white hair.  She had the claw tattoos because she would be turning into a cat.  And she was purple because that was my favorite color.  Then I had to pick a name.  Naming stuff is not my strong point.  I once had a fish named Mr. Beta since he was a beta fish and I had a goat named Goat-Goat.  But since we had just finished watching Ella I felt inspired to draw my name from that movie.  I didn't want Ella but Ella's friend was Areida.  But I thought they were calling her Arita, which is what I named my druid. Both names sound pretty much the same anyway although I've been told it's because I don't enunciate my t's properly, an Iowan or Midwestern thing. I'm not too sure which.

Recreation of the Character Creation Process
Although the screens have since changed...

Anyway, I was finally done messing with my druid's looks and ready to actually get playing. So I logged in and watched the cinematic in awe.  And I then saw my screen. What the heck was I supposed to do?  My friend immediately made sure that I wasn't using the arrow keys to control Arita but asd and w.  Hey, to be fair she was still pretty new to the game herself. I think she was a level 20 hunter.  She taught me to click the yellow exclamation mark and pick up my first quest.  And then she taught me about my skills.  I had something called "wrath."  I wanted to know when I could turn into a cat.  She told me it probably came later since she hadn't had an animal at first. Hmm... ok.  So then she wanted me to kill stuff.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: "How do I kill stuff?"

Her: "Stand a distance from your target and then right-click it."

Me: "Ok!" click, click, click..., "Uh, it keeps saying that I'm too far away."

Her: "Then get closer!"

Me: Get closer until I can finally began whacking the mob with my druid's stick.

Her: "What are you doing? Why are you standing on top of the mob?"

Me: "That's how close it says I need to be!"

Her: rolls eyes. "Whatever, try using your abilities."

Me: Begins casting wrath with mob whacking at me. Watches as it finally gets cast and it doesn't do much damage. "That didn't really do anything."

Her: "Well, I don't really know much about druids."

Me. "...Ohhhh Kaaaaay...."

Her: "Just let me know when you finally kill it."

...Much later

Me: "I killed it!"

Her: "Ok, time to loot it"

Me: actually managed to figure out how to loot

Her: "Oh! You got some pants. See if they're better than what you've got."

Me: "Huh?"

She eventually gets me to understand bags, character screen, and gear.

Her: "Ok, hmm... your toon doesn't have any pants. Or gloves. Or shoes. Why are you barefoot? What did you do with your shoes?

Me: "I don't think I did anything with them."

Her: "You must have done something! You need boots! Go get boots!"
Me: "....Ohhhh Kaaaay...."

My druid. Still engaged in the fine art of Bare-foot Melee

I'm pretty sure the rest of the day went something like that.  It's kinda funny now because neither of us really knew what we were doing although she was at least able to read the map.  South is damn difficult to find.