I’m going to try an experiment. It’s not scientific, and it will not be done with any great attention to detail, but it’s one about which I am curious.
I’ve been telling people for quite a long time that, at this stage, if you don’t know anybody in real life who plays World of Warcraft, there is really no need to pick it up. The reason being that the game has been around long enough to be its own creature; each server is its own island, each guild a community. Relationships have been solidified long ago, and only flesh-and-blood friends of those already playing tend to be the new players coming in. If you don’t have an in, somebody who can get you into a good guild and help you catch up to everybody else so that you can justify the purchase of the game, then there is no real need to even give it a try. Save your $15 a month; spend it on more games or comics or books.
But then again, there always seems to be a new guild recruiting in Stormwind whenever I log on. Always. So could there be a place for new gamers in this microcosmic world? If I was a lonely man with no true friends that I see every day, could I find a social scene to call my own in this game?
I’ll never be able to re-capture being a brand new player again; I’ve been playing this game for a while now. But I can emulate making a fresh start. I’ll be rolling a Horde character on a new server, one on which I have never played, and see how it goes. I’m going to be friendly and open; I’m going to approach players politely should I need help with a quest, and see if–at this point in the game’s life–if it’s possible to build the digital-only relationships that I’m sure helped the game grown in its infancy.
I won’t be playing this toon exclusively; I am part of a great guild on Kilrogg that is Alliance, and I have both a level 57 Rogue and a level 62 Death Knight on that server (as of this time of this writing), but I will be playing this character regularly.
I’ll be writing about how it goes.
