Well I’ve had this blog for quater of a year now, and I can’t believe this is my first post about Wow. Wow being World of Warcraft, the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game I’ve been playing since Christmas 2004. Being the first, and hopefully only, MMORG I’ve played, the experience of dealing with people in a virtual world was completely novel to me. I got to play with good friend’s I already know, and I got to meet new people through the game. My guild members, a group of a kiwis and aussies, are a great bunch of people, though some of them worry me with the amount of time they play. /played is the command you type in to see how much time you’ve spent in game with that character. My time is 28 days (and thats 24 hour days) in just over a year. I thought that was bad. But one of my guildies has played 102 days. That amazing. How does one have any life outside the game?

Sometimes I think my days in the world of Azeroth are coming to an end. My main character, a Night Elf Hunter named “Shanathalas”, has leveled to 60 (the highest level attainable). Once I got as far I could, my big task was getting a giant riding cat (Swift Stormsabre) that lets me travel fast around the world. Once I managed to get enough gold for that (Thanks Bepa!) I felt I had a achieved much of what I set out to do. At level 60, playing seems to involve large amounts of time (4 hours +), that I don’t seem to have. I prefer to play in little hour blocks.

Hence I have succombed to “Altitis” - the creation of many low level alts that can offer the easy satisfaction of quick leveling up. I now have a level 27 Troll Shaman named Oubliette, a level 23 Gnome Mage named Metragnome, a level 19 Night Elf Druid called Angua, and a level 16 Human Warrior called Hatshepsut.