I started playing World of Warcraft at launch in 2004, took a year off, came back to it, started too many alt characters, and was the official magazine’s first Editor-in-Chief. And then I finally hit level 80 Sunday night.
It may sound silly to people who don’t play WoW, but hitting 80 was an important milestone. I celebrated with a glass of mead for extra geek cred. I have eight characters on this server, and I play different ones with different people, but this one was my main. Kat got her main character to 80 about an hour before I did, so we got to level together.
A few people have asked me why I play WoW, and, well, that’s really the reason. It’s not about the story, even though it is an incredibly detailed fantasy universe, and I do like the drama; it’s not about the gear, even though there are plenty of toys to acquire and oodles of enemies to slice and dice. It’s about the social aspect of the game, and the fact that I get to play with my friends and family. For me, jumping on once a week and being able to voice chat with my brother-in-law across the country or the friends I left back in San Francisco while we slaughter the indigenous residents of Azeroth wholesale is well worth the price of a subscription to me.
That social aspect is also one of the main reasons Kat plays. A lot of people have asked how they can get their significant other interested in games, and it’s something we discussed on the podcast. But Kat’s always said that it’s the social aspect that she likes. Nearly all her go-to games — Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands — give her the chance to play with other people whose company she likes. Even when we played Civilization II, we played the single-player game as a co-op challenge, hovering over each other’s shoulders.
So that’s partly why it’s such a big deal for me to finally hit 80; it was never about mechanically acquiring new weapons and slaying spiders. The appeal of World of Warcraft is partly due to the people at the Blizzard who make the game — but I’d argue it’s also the people not at Blizzard who make the game.
