Posts with tag friendship

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Confess your love or respect your friend's new relationship?

Dear Drama-Mamas,

After reading both articles concerning two different love triangles, I felt compelled to write this. I'm sort of in one at the moment. Sort of, because I'm the crusher, secretly of course. What's worse about it is that she's my friend, of nine years, we met back on another MMO and while our friendship has had a few ups and downs, we always came back to each other stronger. We've both seen the other go through several relationships and bounce back as well.

I had some sad news not long ago -- a friend of mine passed away in a freak accident while on holiday with his girlfriend in Thailand. I knew him through his girlfriend, and it had eventually come out in conversation that we both played WoW. He was Jacksonn of European Elite on Terokkar (EU). His guild ran ICC not long ago in his memory; they told me he had wanted bracers from there for his warrior, so it was a sweet tribute. He counted many great friends among his guild, just as in the world outside Azeroth, as do I among mine.

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?

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

World of Warcraft certainly has a wide appeal. One need only look at the motley crew assembled on this news blog to take notice of that. Along with such a vast fan base come varying ways to appreciate the game world.

Depending on who you ask, Watchmen is either a great piece of popular literature, a great graphic novel, or an overhyped piece of junk. If you talk to somebody who falls in one of the former camps, you're likely to hear that one of the key reasons for the novel's success are the small details. Throughout the novel, a minor backstory involving Soviet aggression and the escalating chances of nuclear war in Dr. Manhattan's wake plays out in the form of newspaper headlines. It's one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it plot points, but it really helps to create a sense of reality in the novel's dystopian alternate history.

Such minor details are often the key to success in most artistic media -- and gaming is no different. Look no further than WoW's famed arguing NPCs Asric and Jadaar, or on a smaller scale the shifty vendor Griftah, whose magical amulets prove a little less than spellbinding. Such small aspects of a game world so massive can often go overlooked, yet it is there that the game finds its heart. On the other hand, few game worlds are as expansive and in constant flux as Azeroth. With four continents to explore and a growing story that evolves every few months, it's hard to downplay the brilliant sense of scale and scope that Blizzard has brought to Azeroth.

What sells the game world for you -- the details, or the big picture?

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The first character I ever made in WoW was a rogue named Lockette. She was an adorable little gnome with green pigtails who I played for 5 minutes while my boyfriend (who'd left himself logged in on the character selection screen) was in the shower. I don't recall much of what I did in the game during those few minutes, but I remember being fascinated by the sight of my character's footsteps on the snowy terrain of Dun Morogh.

Looking back on it now, I know it probably sounds like a strange thing to be impressed by, but my gaming experience at that time was limited to sprite RPGs that didn't have those kinds of little details. I wasn't used to being able to affect the environment of a game. So I ran in circles, squiggles, and zigzags, then finally made a small effort at drawing something simple: a heart. That's when I realized the prints fade quite quickly.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

It was a Saturday night. I had spent the whole week working, and I wanted to do something fun. A buddy of mine called me to go out that night, but I just didn't feel like it. I wanted a fun night, but I didn't feel like going out and doing anything. Another one of my friends called me: "Dude, meet me at ICC in 20 minutes." Then he hung up. I thought to myself, "Should I do something with my real-life friend, or should I play WoW with some people I've never really met?" Well, my WoW friends won, and I spent the rest of the night on an alt beating up ICC for about three hours.

I've noticed as of late I tend to lean toward my WoW friends rather than my real-life friends. Why is that, you ask? I really have no idea. A few of my real-life friends play WoW. One of them is actually the one who got me started in the first place. I quit two years later and then came back because I started dating a girl who played WoW. Needless to say, my troll hunter became a night elf hunter, and I have come to call the people I play WoW with true friends of mine.

Other people may say I am wrong in this mindset. I tell them that I spend more time with the online friends (even though it's not in a physical sense), and I have a lot of fun doing it. Sure, there are arguments and rage-logging occasionally, but doesn't that happen in real life as well? Instead of a door slamming and car burning out in the driveway, you get the nice ding of someone disconnecting from Ventrilo and their name coming up as "Bob has gone offline."

Do you consider your WoW friends real friends? And if you do, what lengths are you willing to go to for them? Are you willing to stay up until 2 in the morning trying to two-man Molten Core, just like you would stay up until 2 in the morning back in high school watching some crappy horror movies with your real-life friends? Have you met up with your WoW friends in real life, and if so, do you now consider them real-life friends?

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server.

It was really hard to choose from the many dramalicious emails we got this week. So much drama, so little time. I'm happy we have so many topics to choose from, but sad that so many of you have to go through so many dramafied situations. This one really did stick out as pretty dramarific, however. Dramarily! Drama-lama ding dong! Dramastified. OK, I'm drama-done. Turn the page for all the dramaness.

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server.

No one wants to see a good friend move on. Gaming friends seem to come in two varieties: the kind who end up at your side in game after game, across the years ... and those who drift away as soon as your immediate goals diverge. Some of them end up on your Facebook page chatting about the kids, but most fade into obscurity so quickly you find yourself struggling to remember their names. Still, you can't force a good thing, as one Sad Panda discovers this week.

Hi Lisa & Robin, For the last few years I've been playing with a very close-knit group of friends, our play time with each other comes and goes as we go about our ever changing lives, (work, school, non-wow relationships), but we always keep in touch with email, and chat outside of the game. About a year or so ago we had the pleasure of including another person to our group. He's an all around great friend to have, and I think I can safely say for everyone that we've all enjoyed knowing and playing with him.

Now as you know we're in the pre-expansion dead zone right now. Either you're raiding to get to, or finish end game raids, farming for rep / skills / heroics / so on, or you shelve your main(s) and bust out a new toon to level up. I've chosen the latter, I have toons on both sides of the border and have been playing on the Alliance side for some time now and really felt like dusting off my Horde toons. So both my hubbie and I are stomping around with new toons, (and old), on the horde side and a few of our other friends have joined us.

Your face is the first thing people notice about you when you go out into the world. Quite rightly, most of us put a lot of effort into making our faces look clean, healthy, and happy much of the time. Some people even go so far as to think of their faces as masks which they can use to alternately hide or reveal their true feelings to the world as each situation requires.

When you roleplay, your character is the mask you wear in a world where your real face doesn't matter at all - it defines who you are within this fantasy world and it determines how others will react to you as one of its denizens. Likewise, it deserves its proper amount of attention, like the care you give your outward appearance for your real life interactions. The method of caring for it is different of course, but the spirit and intention is the same.

Roleplayers have certain conventions you can use to quickly identify yourself as one interested in interacting with them. But more important than these is your attitude: just as the way you stand, smile, or keep yourself clean are all more important than the actual look of your face in real life; so, in roleplaying, a humble manner, a friendly approach, and a confident integrity are all essentials, whereas things like race, class, funny quirks and accents are all merely supporting elements.

All the World's a Stage is a weekly column by David Bowers, published on Sunday evenings, investigating the explorative performance art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.

We've talked before about roleplaying as an art form, whether you think about it as acting or puppeteering, fiction or improv, there's definitely something creative going on here. But like any art form, roleplaying is best when it means something; that's to say, when it expresses something ultimately "true" about human experience, and perhaps even illumines the minds and hearts of the roleplayers in some way.

Roleplayers all want to achieve that creativity, of course, but one problem often stands in our way: it's a rare work of art that really works for everyone. That's why the regular old art world is such a complete mess -- one man's fingerpainting is another man's post-modernist masterpiece. People constantly disagree about what subjects make for acceptable art, whether some art pushes extremes too far and becomes obscenity, and whether real art actually requires talent and skill. One person may curl up with their favorite Jane Austen novel and read it for the 10th time, while another may come home from the comic book store with the epic adventures of the Bone cousins. Each story conveys very different things to the reader -- but then the people who want to read these stories are looking for different things to get out them as well. Each form of storytelling speaks its own language for its own special audience.

We have the same problem in roleplaying. To illustrate, imagine there's a teenage boy going through public school and not getting along with his peers very well. When he roleplays, he plays an intimidating character who likes to try to get in your face, pick a fight with you and insult you to show how very powerful he is. That power fantasy may be very annoying for you and me, but for him it really means something. That's not to say it's high-quality art by any means, but nonetheless, his feelings are important too, and he has his right to play a character on an RP server the same way we all do. It's just that for us, the "/ignore" command starts to look really tempting every time his sort comes along.