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Blinded Iraq war vet raids with a little helpBreakfast Topic: Do your WoW and real-life friendships overlap?
by Olivia Grace 
Jan 27th 2012 at 8:00AM
I got into playing WoW through friends I knew from the local pub. They talked me into it one Christmas when I was on gardening leave and bored to tears. As I've played, I've made many good friends, strengthened my bonds with my real-life friends, and even met someone special. My WoW friends have helped me through some difficult times. It's a great form of escapism, and there's almost always somebody online to chat with about reforging, or cats, or complaining about PuGs, or nothing in particular.
How about you? Do you have real-life friends you met through WoW? Do your real-life friends play too? How does your social circle spill over between the world and Azeroth?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Trey Jan 27th 2012 8:04AM
i tried to get them in to it. unfortunately, im 14, which means my friends are too, and they dont have the intellectual capacity for it. they think its a third person CoD.
cosmicape Jan 28th 2012 5:42PM
I'd like to tell you that it gets better as you get older...
Jamie Jan 27th 2012 8:06AM
I wouldn't recommend it personally. I used to play with my brother and my then long distance girlfriend. My brother wasn't as into the stuff we did in WoW as we were. So often times it caused a few awkward moments.
I also here of peoples' stories of how good people IRL turn into tools online. Sad story but it happens from what I've read on this subject before.
exogenesis. Jan 27th 2012 8:10AM
I don't have too many IRL friends - I'm just one of those people who prefers to be alone. However, pretty much all of them play, or have played for varying amounts of time in the past. My IRL best friend is someone I met through my then-boyfriend, who happened to live in the next city to mine.
I use WoW to keep in contact with my long distance best friend, someone I used to work with nearly five years ago and would probably no longer be in contact with if not for the game. It's also reunited me with an old classmate from high school.
seamus Jan 27th 2012 8:17AM
No, but I really wish they did. Sometimes I feel lonely. :-(
Tribunal Jan 27th 2012 10:48AM
Yeah, most of the people I know who play have quit (I still know one guy playing, but don't really want to play with him).
It would be nice to actually know someone once in a while, though I think finding a good solid guild again could be a decent substitute.
Thal Jan 27th 2012 8:21AM
I'm studying at the university at the moment, also I'm involved in lots of activities. (going from boyscouts to my fraternity and so on) And I'm suprised how much people I've met the last year that play WoW. People that aren't considered geeks or 'nerds' by the rest of the world, but truly are geeks in their hearts. :D Also WoW is an awesome conversation topic, instantly connects people. Love it.
Lars Petersson Jan 27th 2012 8:27AM
I have a few friends that play WoW, but we're mostly on different servers and largely into different parts of the game, so we tend to just chat rather than game together as such.
I haven't made any friendships in game that has become out-of-game friendships. And unless it turned out that I lived close to people I got on with in-game, I don't think I'd bother...
Jason Jan 27th 2012 8:29AM
The majority of my guild are real life friends. The core group met through D&D or at Dragon*Con and it's expanded to friends and family from there.
Shoikler Jan 27th 2012 8:34AM
No, and never the twain shall meet. My RL friends don't play, and when I'm in-game, I just don't talk about RL much. I don't even know if any of my guildies know what state I live in or how old I am. I like the comfortable distance.
Rezai Jan 27th 2012 8:36AM
Well,I have quite a few friends who play WoW. All but one play on different servers. I only have one real friend who I play in the same guild. For this reason I LOVE me some real ID dungeon finder.
Gendou Jan 27th 2012 8:40AM
My best friend IRL is also my guild leader.
We've played WOW together since 2005.
eirinefrostblade Jan 27th 2012 10:28AM
Same on the best friends thing, although I'm a bit of a "latecomer," having started playing in 2007. But I've known both my guild leaders (one Alliance, one Horde) since 1999. We were in college together :)
puffcake Jan 27th 2012 8:51AM
I have two friends who play WoW, but we were friends before we were WoW buddies, so I don't know if that counts.
glass.304 Jan 27th 2012 8:58AM
A good friend of mine that I never actually met got me into playing WoW, but she quit playing around late WotLK. We still talk but I wish she would get back into it.
I got my best friend and my boyfriend into playing WoW. We are in the same guild and we raid together and do all sorts of silly in-game things together. We also talk in game a lot. It's nice to have good RL friends on WoW so you know you're not annoying them by asking them favours and whatnot. Also because they'll be okay with the fact that you can't hang out Friday night because there is a raid, since they'll be raiding too. :)
glass.304 Jan 27th 2012 9:03AM
To add to my own comment - my RL group of friends consists of 3 other people. One of them doesn't play WoW and it sucks because it bores him to death when we start talking about it, which we love doing - especially since we're in the same guild, we'll start talking about some inside jokes with our guildies, or why we failed at a certain boss last night. But we have to be considerate of our other friend. If it were just us we would talk about it non-stop. >_>
Elanor Jan 27th 2012 9:02AM
I started to play wow in 2008 because of my brother in law. I had
played Diablo and Guild Wars. 1 year later I met someone special, my
husband! we got married in autumn 2011 :) I am from Québec, Canada,
he is from USA. I learned to speak english on wow and it is the reason
why I could talk to him. I can say that wow changed my life and I
couldnt be more happier :) We play now next to each other :P
Noyou Jan 27th 2012 12:21PM
Congratulations! Your English is better than a lot of people who speak it as their first language :)
ZodiacDragons Jan 27th 2012 9:01AM
My whole guild is nothing but people we know in real life: me, my dad, stepdad, a couple of their friends, one of their friend's wife, wife's brother and son-in-law. A few of my friends have expressed interest in playing but they haven't been able to stay very long due to not having a job to get game time or not having internet.
Tygerwolfe Jan 27th 2012 1:01PM
Mine's pretty much the same, though some long-time Online friends are also part of it. The core of my guild is myself, my fiancee, and her brother and sister. We're almost to level sixteen with pretty much just the four of us and a ton of alts. A long-time friend of mine was part of our guild for awhile but she seems to have been seduced over to the Force Side with SWTOR and we haven't seen her in awhile.