The Ballad of Balamor, Day Five

Linda already discussed the Great Hall. That was amazing. You see things that make you stop, well . . . they should make you stop. Watching dozens of people is less rare in an online game than in real life. Still, it remains a thing of wonder. Linda and I literally [err . . . virtually] sat on the floor and watched the muster. It felt like Richard Dryfus from Close Encounters with the mashed potatoes . . . this means something!

Ironforge is huge in exactly the way a Dwarf city should be . . . dwarfing everything within. This is the first time the game came alive for me. The hustle and bustle of a busy city . . . knowing the majority of those folks are players and going about busy business. The auction house was packed and the forges were ringing and there was just a general sense of real life.

This is what a MMOG is for me. To this point, I’ve been running and mostly soloing. Occasionally, I would partner with Linda, but more often then not I was walking the world alone. Yet, here is the huddled masses with all their yearning. You can watch the text chat and it is no different then being in a busy mall and listening to someone’s conversation.

I still don’t know how to talk to others. Still not ready. Still scared a bit. My ignorance is thicker than my armor. I think it is like any activity. Some run out and challenge the experience. Others, like me, hold back and watch and listen and wait to gain some level of understanding.

Right now, I’m just wandering around trying to master the simple crafts. I can cook and I can do first aid. I can swing an axe. I can smelt and I can blacksmith. Where all this is going I am not sure, but I can see that there might be a place in this world for me.

It is a long day of exploring for me. I’m getting comfortable. I am in and out of Ironforge many times. I retrace some of my adventures and get them right. I explore other areas. I spend a lot of time learning how the professions work. By the end of the day, I get mining, blacksmithing, first aid and cooking. I start to realize al the mistakes I made early on . . . wishing I could correct them.

I wander to the lands to the north and east only to get my ass handed to me. I take the DRT to the human lands and find a place much more suitable for my current level. There is a human city every bit as impressive as Ironforge, though far more empty. Do less people play humans?

Linda and I team up for a mission to take out an ‘elite’ character. Next thing we know we’re dead and reminded of how far we still have to go. We’re level teens in a world that goes as high as 60. There are monsters out there that we probably couldn’t do enough damage to get their attention. And there is real sense of that. As Linda pointed out later, being in this strange land had a real sense of adventure. We didn’t know these creatures or this terrain or where we were. We had already made the ‘other’ land our home in our minds. This was a foreign land. I didn’t’ kill a cow for fear of offending the locals. I got mobbed by these frog things because I was too curious. We were strangers in a stranger land.