Thursday 22 July 2010

My third life

I've been slaughtering my way through World of Warcraft for a forthnight now, and have finally arrived at what feels like a character and a mode of being that I can enjoy. (I wrote about the differences and similarities between WoW and SL on my workshop blog.)

I've made a total of three characters so far, searching for a role that I felt comfortable playing. My first was basically my Dragon Age: Origins character recreated in WoW, a human female rogue. (All my characters are Alliance, amusingly enough, the Horde somehow just doesn't fit me at all.) She got up to level 11 before becoming distressed by the relentless killing. I then created a Night Elf huntress, but found her fey gestures and slowness to attack really annoying. (Yes, thank you, I am aware of and amused by the contrast between my statements about these characters.)

I went back to the rogue for a while, to see whether I might get across the hump of moral unease about killing if I just kept at it long enough. As I was lying around dead one day (at the lower levels of experience and ability, one spends a fair amount of time dead), a stranger came running past, a priest. He stopped and without saying a word revived me, healed me and blessed me, and then just ran on about his business before I'd realized what was happening. I couldn't even say a quick "ty" before he was gone.

I had an epiphany in that moment. "That is something that I could do, that I could enjoy doing," I said to myself, and immediately went back to create a priestess. She has been having a wonderful time, running about WoW blessing and healing random strangers. She's joined a few questing groups as a Healer, which basically means standing well back and ensuring that the fighters don't die; the group system in WoW means that all who take part in a quest get the experience benefits of it — so she doesn't even have any disbenefit in moving up the level hierarchy.

As I said at the beginning, I think I've found a role that I can be comfortable playing. After the free trial ran out, I signed up for a three month subscription; we'll see at the end of that time whether I am still interested in continuing.

2 comments:

Agatha Macbeth said...

A fact most people never consider is that doctors and nurses are *every bit* as vital a part of warfare as soldiers and generals, if not more so (/me waves to Hawkeye Pearce :)).

Personally I always preferred the ethos of Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex, where the emphasis was on using your wits to actually AVOID combat/racking up the body count whenever possible.

Wol said...

"we'll see at the end of that time whether I am still interested in continuing."

Fifteen months later, I think we know the answer to that: a resounding YES.