Be warned this blog entry is full of gaming terms and references.

Hi my name is Vanessa, and I'm a World of Warcraft (WoW) addict. Now while this may have been the call of only us geeks back a few years ago, the popularity of the game has increased in such magnitude that that is no longer true. Now while I do fit into the category of 'gamer', I am also 'social', 'girl', 'techno-geek', 'programmer', 'married' and 'woman'. So chances that someone else fills all of those categories are fairly slim. Granted, that if someone filled the programmer and girl categories they would probably be more than likely to fill the others that I mentioned.

However on WoW females are fairly uncommon. There was a Mountain Dew promotion in the states that people called FAKE! PHONEY! THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN! because two women at a grocery store buy Mountain Dew of different colours, and transform into their WoW equivalents and battle it out at the supermarket. The bit that was fake? Not that people could transform into their toons, but that two (count it TWO) female WoW players could NEVER be in the same vicinity as each other. See the ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh-QQ5G-e3g.

Now in WoW you can roll (this means start and build and play on) a female or male character. Being female, I was drawn to playing a female toon. But don't let this be a mistake you make, the majority of toons are female, just played by males behind the scenes. You cannot assume that the person being a female toon is a female, just don't make that mistake. There are complete sexual stereotypes also in the game itself and made by players of the game. I am continually asked, when I say that I am married, "What toon does your husband play?". None, I respond. Mostly it's just bafflement, or I'm asked if I'm joking or serious. You see most girls only play WoW because their husbands/partners/boyfriends play it, and that gives them both a chance to interact while the male of the two is playing his game. Generally they get asked to play something that will help the male progress in game too (If you attack you need a healer, if you're a healer you need someone to attack).

My husband doesn't like WoW. Not in a 'hate' way due to it dominating my life, but it's just not his type of game. We gamed together previously, got heavily involved in Unreal Tournament for almost a year of daily gaming and LANs. He is just an FPS (first-person-shooter) gamer and cannot see the point of MMORPG (massively-multiplayer-online-role-playing-game). It's too fake for him, there is magic and flying and spells and it isn't reactionary enough, and the scenery is unrealistic. This of course coming from a man who on our honeymoon in the Daintree Rainforest said "This is just like out of farcry!".

So what is the appeal for me? It's actually a very social game. I am an officer in a raiding guild who are progressing through 25-man Ulduar. This is an instance (read scripted combat of enemies and bosses to fight using specific strategies) where 25 people spend 2.5 hours 4 nights a week attempting to defeat. That's right 24 other human beings and myself spend 10 hours a week playing the same thing over and over. We use voice programs to speak and define strategies and to communicate while all playing. Outside of this 10 hours, we are likely to be doing other things in preparation or progress of the game. So we talk then also. There are at least 40 people in my guild that I speak to. There are politics and infighting, competition and bickering, but in the end its 25 people united in a common goal.

I adore playing my hunter, with her pet "sudo" (makes me laugh), fighting with others to down the big ugly bosses. I love the complexity of having so many people in one battle all having to do their own specific roles to defeat our enemies. Andrew and I here at work are in the same guild and raid together. We go to lunch during work to grab some subway, and on the way talk over fights we have just done, or strategies we could use to be better. He and I are so invested that Ireckon now has a WoW gateway that reduces our and others' ping by at least half. Check it out at Reduce the Lag. Would it have happened if we weren't so invested in the game? I doubt it. It makes my game-play unbelievably better.

And hey.. We got Yogg!