Heard people talking about WoW in RL? The streets are no longer safe!
I’m a bit late to the party. This was the Shared Topic suggested by Oath from Dressed to Cuddle on Blog Azeroth from a couple of weeks ago. As I’ve only just caught up on my Feedreader today I got excited after reading a couple of posts and decided to write about my eavesdropping experiences too.
Have you ever been out and about and overheard someone talking about WoW, or someone overheard you and butted in?
I don’t know what it says about me but I seem to find this quite a bit! Perhaps there is just a large WoW community in Brisbane, Australia or maybe I just attract it because I play with so many people I know IRL. Whatever the reason I seem to stumble across WoWers and eavesdrop in on their conversations quite frequently. Ok, I admit it, I’m a bit of a snoop!
The Nerdy Bus Girls
The first time it happened I had only been playing for a few months and was still a complete noob. I was on a pretty empty bus and 3 girls were talking about Molten Core and priest healing at the top of their lungs. I remembered being so excited because I’m sure to the remaining passengers it sounded like these girls were speaking a strange new language – it was a language that actually made sense to me!
The Mac Guy
When Cass decided to take the plunge and move to a Mac laptop one of the most important questions she had to ask the salesman was “How will this run WoW?” It turned out the salesman played and even demonstrated how fast it loaded by logging into his level 70 druid who was sitting in Epic Bird Form in the middle of Shattrah city. I was in complete awe. Oh and yes the Mac impressed me too.
The Coffee Club Waiter
During BC when my old guild – Insanity Later had just decided to try doing 25 man Gruuls Lair (we were months behind the raiding curve). Cass, my partner, brother and I were all out for brunch and had started discussing strategies and how we could best get down HKM.
We were sitting quite close to the counter and when we went up to pay, the guy at the register asked us what server we played World of Warcraft on. He then went on to tell us about how he played on Frostmourne as Horde and was in this awesome guild who was about to start Reliquary of Souls in Black Temple. He was so excited to meet fellow WoW players, even if we were so fresh at raiding we had no clue who or what Reliquary of Souls was!
EB Games Launch of WotLK
This was just the start of 1 of 2 queues....!!!
So this one is a little more obvious because everyone in the queue was after their pre-ordered copy of WotLK. What I really loved about the midnight release was how clear it was that people of all different ages, backgrounds, sex and race play WoW. I spotted a couple of people I know from work who introduced me to some of their guildies and also had a good conversation with the random guys in front of us. Pizza, Red Bull and WoW was a great combination to get everyone relaxed and ready to break the ice!
Even though Cass was a tad tipsy by the time she joined me in queue (she had been out earlier that night) I couldn’t convince her to join into the dance competition. She did however go in the trivia comp and actually won a fairly ugly troll figurine.
The Thai Cross Over
My final and most recent WoW in RL cross over: Brute and I (I’m sure I’ve mentioned already that we work together) went out to have lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant. We were sitting there talking about raiding, the guild and all things WoW and after about 30 minutes I realised that the two guys sitting at the table right next to us were talking about Rogues and PVP! What are the chances that the people right next to you would also be out having a WoW catchup? Brute typically being a male missed it completely and didn’t realise until I told him – go figure.
World’s Colliding
So what about you guys – have you every had your in game and real life worlds collide? Share the details!
I tossed that figurine so fast. I also couldn’t believe that the girl (game store employee) asking the trivia questions was so clueless she had to check her QA card when I answered her:
“Who is the king of Stormwind?”
Why didn’t they give that job to someone who actually plays?
@Cass – I remember her, she didn’t seem especially thrilled to be up all night with a bunch of slavering wow fans
Haha, Cass. The King of Stormwind is Goku, everyone knows that!
Funny enough, Lath, I had a very similar lunch-time experience as you. We were sitting at a booth next to these two guys and they were talking about healing ToC and people standing in fire. Meantime, WE’D been sitting there talking about our strats for ToTGC Anub. I don’t know if they heard us, but I heard them, and I wanted so badly to turn around and talk to them a bit but I didn’t want to be too weird and interrupt them or anything. Typically, my husband didn’t notice what they were talking about either until I told him! I think it was because I heard one of them mention a priest spell by name and then make reference to winding up in angel form, hehe.
And I was extremely uncomfortable in the WoTLK purchasing lineup. I was one of two – count ‘em – women out of the approximately fifty or sixty people there. There was a good spread of ages though.
.-= Vidyala’s last blog … It’s still pugging if you met in an instance. =-.
@Vidyala – OMG I can’t believe that he just assumed because you were a girl that you didn’t play!!!! If looks could kill I bet he would have been one dead sales assistant.
AND when we got to the front of the line (they were sending people in only two at a time to make their purchases) the guy started to wave me by, and when I said, “Um,” he said, “Oh, you didn’t want a copy for YOURSELF, did you?”
I said, “Do you think I’d be standing out here with him in minus fifteen (celsius) if I didn’t?”
Marital solidarity only goes SO far.
.-= Vidyala’s last blog … It’s still pugging if you met in an instance. =-.
At an old job, I had a recreation/lounge area and I was playing WoW on the laptop when two guys showed up behind my couch and started fawning over my computer. They were so excited to meet someone who played WoW. I don’t know what impressed them more, the face that I was a woman or that I had a level 80 warlock.
Another time, I got a service call at 3AM because someone was locked out of the apartment. I found them sitting against the wall waiting for me and they apologized profusely for waking me so late. I told them not to worry, I’ve been up playing WoW anyway. The girlfriend – the GIRL mind you – jumped up and told me that she played WoW too, although the boyfriend did not. We exchanged servers as I keyed them back in.
.-= Domni’s last blog … Staying Alive at All Costs =-.
@Domni – That’s pretty cool, I wonder how many other girls play where the boyfriends don’t… even though I know a lot of female players most of them have always either started with their boyfriends or taken up playing in a “can’t beat em, join em” attitude.
Aww, wished I’d gone to a midnight release! We ordered online and had to wait a couple of days to get our copies. The midnight releases sounded fun though.
.-= Jaedia’s last blog … Roleplay: Getting Started =-.
@Jaedia – The midnight release was pretty cool. I had to drag Cass and our brother out to it and I’m not entirely convinced that they thought it was worth it…. the free pizza EB Games supplied might have helped though
Hm, the last one I remember was a pretty heated discussion at ~2 am at a party where it went very much about team spirit, guild hopping and Alliance vs Horde. To sum it up, we were both a bit tipsy and didn’t agree on anything
.-= Armagon’s last blog … Whiny Post Day: Living in the past =-.
@Armagon – I don’t know what it is, but whenever I meet/overhear these randoms out and about they always seem to be horde players. And yes when I say I’m alliance they give me this look and I just know they’re thinking “oh your one of those….”
@Lathere – Just wait till Worgen are released. It’ll get worse.
I was picking up some stuff in Walmart one morning, and heard some people complaining about this Boomkin they ran into in the battlegrounds and how they should be nerfed with those 10k starfire crits…they kept talking about it, I realized they were A: Horde players on Mal’ganis, B: Talking about me. It was hilarious with how rarely I PvP too.
Funny stories, only time I’ve ran into others that play wow in when wotlk came out. For some reason the only people I saw was the creepy mouth breather type that looked like they haven’t showered in a few days. As I was pulling out of the parking lot I saw a few normal looking people walking in, but I was loading wotlk on my notebook at the time while trying not to run people over.