WTB Mana!

I’ve read a lot of “How to Play World of Warcraft” guides, and there are a ton of them out there, some of them are even written by some really amazing writers. I don’t write guides on how to play WoW and the following is probably the reason why. WTB: Patients

Realizing Your Sister was Right the Whole Time

So, my story begins with my sister, Charlena, if you didn’t grow up with her, she seems like a very well adjusted, normal person, and for the most part she is, to those of us that grew up with her we know her better. /evil laugh.

My sister was totally a gamer when she was younger, she played Sonic, Gauntlet, Mario, all the NES and Sega games. I still blame her for not being very good at console games. I mean I played Mario, but would always make her jump my character, since apparently I lacked that skill since birth. I tended to just be the one that sat on the bed behind her, and told her when her health was low, or if she needed to shoot something. I was a complete back seat gamer, but she liked it, she never had to pay attention to her screen.

Then the unthinkable happened. We grew up.

Charlena and I grew apart as we got older, she was into sports, and I loved reading. And then high school hit and I don’t think I actually spoke to my sister outside of the house for 4 years.

She’d gone off and become a jock. I couldn’t have been further; gamer, choir/band geek, and I was in Theater.

Since we were kids we’d really stopped talking about gaming with each other. After I moved to FL we became closer, and so when I was up north visiting several years ago and was playing my druid on the laptop, she peaked over my screen and said the most beautiful words to me.

“Hey, that looks cool, what is it?”

 

A Player is Created

I then launched into my “Ah my gosh, WoW is awesome speech.” I fully expected her interest to peter off, but instead she asked if she could play my toon for a little to get a feel. I practically threw the laptop at her.

My sister and I were growing closer and this was a prime opportunity to suck her, I mean introduce her, into the world I spend a great deal of my time a part of. With the proper warning of please don’t delete any of my gear or my character for that matter, I let her have at it.

I didn’t get my laptop back for like 2 hours, and I think only then cause dinner was ready.

So, she asked me what she should play. I started naming off classes and roles and her blank dollface stare made me realize she had no earthly clue what I was talking about. So I broke it down:

• Do you want to get hit in the face
• Smash things up close
• Pew-pew from far away
• Pew-pew from far away with a pet
• Heal

She chose pew-pew from far away with a pet. So it was either going to be a Warlock or Hunter?

Her nature-loving, hippie ass chose the hunter. (Yup, I’m aware I play a Druid, quiet down.)So I got her set up, with a Tauren hunter, she was completely hooked.

Over the next several months I learned that much like when you teach children to read, or do math, you have to take baby steps and you can’t use lingo. The phrase “I don’t know what that means” was used often by her. So I learned to talk in WoW beginner speak. Honestly, going over everything with her kinda made me fall in love with the game again, and brought a few things to my attention that I, myself wasn’t doing.

At the end of the experience, I gained a whole lot of respect for teachers, and for those patient souls that write guides. My sister still plays WoW with me, and still loves her hunter. The proudest day of my career in World of Warcraft did not involve killing a boss, getting a 1337 piece of gear, it was the day my sister said to me, “So I looked up a Hunter theorycrafting website and found out all this information.” and I got to respond to some of it with, “I don’t know what that means.”

/Cheers

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