I was walking through cube-farm heaven earlier, and noticed that one of the new hires had a WoW background on his desktop… nice picture of Kael’thas holding two Warglaives, with the Black Temple logo overhead.
Figuring we got ourselves a gamer in the place, I wandered on over after lunch to say hi. I don’t work with that team, but it would be nice to see if there is someone new to chat with once in a while.
I introduced myself, and mentioned that I’d seen the very cool looking desktop image he had, and wondered if he played Warcraft, or if maybe he was just partial to that fantasy image.
His response was, “Of course I play WoW, I have since the game first started beta 4 years ago.”
The tone of voice, the attitude… it was as though I had stumbled into some chest-beating geek e-peen bragging ritual to determine who is the alpha-WoW geek in the office.
I replied that it was very cool that he played, we didn’t have very many gamers in the office environment. So far, I haven’t even acknowledged that I play the game myself, his whole tone just bothered me, a level of arrogance I just felt weird coming 3 seconds into chatting with someone.. as though he felt superior, sight unseen, to everyone in the entire plant. Like we were all neo-Luddites to his cutting edge open-mindedness.
I just wasn’t willing to volunteer much about myself at all yet until I could figure out if I was just reading the situation wrong.
He answered by saying that he didn’t figure there would be many gamers in this company, since he’d expect to see them more where there were computer-related experts.
This said as we stand in a cubicle farm of over 200 people who make thier living on the computer, including test engineers and coding experts. Granted, as a new hire, he is in a normally empty cube near financing. Still, damn, what an attitude. Does he really think he is the only one with any knowledge of tech in the place? It’s not like we’re on the production floor, we’re in the office space. God help us.
So I volunteer that we have one guy that used to play WoW a lot before he moved on to a different MMO, and motioned over towards the corner of the cubes where our IT gurus hold court. All two of them.
His immediate reply? “Oh, are there other MMOs worth talking about? Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Said with a curl to his lip and a sneering tone of voice.
Yeah… I shut down the conversation after that. I said something about hearing Conan was good but had harsh computer requirements, and how Adam in IT had played Vanguard for a bit and liked it’s take on diplomacy and non-combat methods in playing a character, and then I said “take it easy” and moved on. Felt awkward, but damn… what a jackass.
Have you experienced this kind of situation in your workplace? And not necessarily with WoW, but with people who seem to share your interests?
Maybe they come to work wearing a t-shirt showing your favorite band, or they have a “Honk if you voted Cthulhu in 2008, vote for the Greater Evil” bumper sticker on their car, or they have statues of your favorite anime character, or they have an X-Wing lego model on their desktop or just whatever.
You might figure, “Cool, someone that might be a new friend!”
And then you start chatting with them… and discover that not only is this person not someone you want to get to know better, but you really wish they didn’t share any of your interests… because you don’t want them to know you have something in common.
Because sure as hell… he will make sure every single story somehow includes a reaffirmation that he is somehow cooler than you, has played longer, knows more, has better inside knowledge or behind the scenes rumors, more experience in that very same battle, or just generally has to one up whatever. Instead of, like… just chatting about stuff and having a good time, and giving a shit about other people’s opinions or interests.
I have had many fun chats with Adam about Vanguard, and with my friend Mark about Everquest. I love hearing about other people’s experiences, and it’s cool to have those things you share in common… we can bump into each other and blow 15 minutes just bullshitting about whatever.
But both of those guys are people I would be proud to be friends with regardless of shared interests. Having played MMOs just gives us an extra topic to yak about.
I’ve encountered other WoW players, of course.
I’ve mentioned that Cassie’s nephews play, and it seems every guy that works in every game store in the city plays WoW… and sure, I’ll chat with them, but Gamestop and EB Games workers seem to have this elitist hunger for pre-sales, do you know what I mean? Like, you wonder if they are seeing you as a gamer, or as a potential pre-sale. Disconcerting.
Actual random encounters with fellow geeks seems to be rare… except at the comic store, and.. well… everyone knows, you don’t want to make eye contact in THOSE places.
Lol. J/K.
I had one encounter, and Cassie was actually with me, this was before she started playing, that was very funny.
We were both at the local big mall two-story Barnes & Noble bookseller, a massive establishment with the Starbucks coffee shop inside, and the couches and easy chairs, and the massive CD and DVD sections… you know. A media boutique.
We were looking for a CD for Cassie at the time, and I had just gotten one of those buttons Blizzard put out, the one that showed the Druid bear paw in crappy art and said “Druid”. I was wearing it on my jacket in geek pride. And then promptly forgot it was there.
I’m standing there in the lobby area, waiting for Cassie to look at CDs, and this young lady that was an employee… and I mean a HOT young lady, perhaps in her early 20s, MAYBE, more like 19 to 21, approaches me… and just GUSHES all over me, “Oh, do you play WoW?”
We chatted animatedly for a few moments, I enjoyed spending time chatting with a very attractive young lady about WoW in person, it was a first, and we covered the basic first meeting topics… and I’ll be honest, it felt a little surreal to just randomly bump into an outgoing, friendly, super-hot WoW player that wanted to chat about the game.
And I love the questions we asked each other, and the order they were asked… it was the WoW version of your address… “What class do you play?”, “What server?”, ”Horde or Alliance?”, ”Carebear or PvP server?” [seriously, I love that question, I always admit to being a carebear with pride], ”Raider or PvP? What level raids? Cool!”
It was cute and fun, a brief interaction with someone, time spent mutually gushing over a shared love of WoW, and then Cassie was done looking for music and we headed off to the rest of the mall.
And of course I enjoyed telling Cassie that she was totally hitting on me… like, totally. For reals. Serious. If I was just 20 years younger and single….
Yeah, I somehow think I will refrain from repeating any of the reasons why Cassie felt that was highly unlikely… but they started with “You are an old, old, old, old, old man” and headed downhill after that.
It was still cute, though.
Do you have your own encounters with real life WoW players to share? Or your own stories of how you dealt with finding out that you shared a workspace with a gamer geek or WoW player… and you found out you didn’t like them?
Let me know how it went and what you did, I’m very curious to hear your experiences on this one.
Work: “Worldwide D&D Gameday” was a couple of weeks ago and I went to check out the new system, all that jazz, when into the store walks one of my co-workers from upstairs. Now, he’s a techie and IT guy, and because we are both on our same iTunes shared network and I’d seen his ‘Anime’ playlist and all that I thought he *might* be a gamer… but when he sat down and pulled out his character sheets and pre-printed powers cards for his “cool new tiefling warlock” then I new he was an even bigger geek than me. It was still very surreal.
Public: I wore my “Green is the New Purple” Penny Arcade tee-shirt out in public for the first time a short while after BC came out and the cashier at Wal-Mart took one look and said “Oh my god… that is so true! What server do you play on…” etc., etc. while people in line behind me /sighed.
As for your co-worker: I’m guessing undead rogue on a PvP server named “Secksibeest” or female human ret-pally named “Bounssinjuggs” — and neither of them have anything beyond Maiden.
*grin*
However, “Good Doodle” will say that you should give the guy a second chance. Casually mention that you play, but you have to use an alt on some server somewhere, and that you like your druid the best. See what he says.
One of the most surreal ones I’ve ever done was when I went to France earlier this year. I do a lot of travel to customer sites but this was the first time it was overseas. While I was configuring something someone noticed that I had an oddly-named file on my desktop (I think it was Rawr), and I told him that it was part of the World of Warcraft game. One of his friends chimed in and started animatedly talking about WoW, how he was on a PvP server, all these adventures of ganking he had – all in his admittedly not great English. We had a beer at lunch and talked about script kiddies and how lame immature folks are and how to pwn in arena and what raiding was like.
Really bizarre, and really really awesome.
Would love to see that he played druid, and hey just maybe he’ll come across this post. But funny thing is, he probably wont put the two together. Funny, I feel for you man. I’m always looking for people to talk WoW to with. Luckily I have a couple of people at work.
Eightbit said it exactly – that’s what I was wondering. However, I don’t believe someone with that attitude (all high and mighty) would be seeking blog advice. If he ever were to actually be seeking Druid knowledge or to confirm that he knew it all, he MIGHT show up here…but somehow I doubt Earth is as small as Azeroth. Although, can you imagine if he’d have said he’s Horde on Kael’thas and the manhunt that would follow? lol Of course, not by you BBB – but by the others, wanting to see this Mister High on his Pedestal up close and personal to really test his “skills”…or lack there of.
I know I’d try to find him. /wave @ Sexsibeastie /taunt /golfclap
You could have gotten him on a bad day or a day where he felt he HAD to defend himself in a new environment however. Could have been the first day jitters making him pumped up on himself and what have you. The benefit of the doubt is always good to give everyone. At least until they make a complete douche of themselves. Then we are free to /chicken and /taunt all we like.
=D
When attitude goes above skill and logic…I laugh.
———————-
RL WoW meetings? I can’t actually recall any. I’m sure there have been one or two…maybe not.
I had the precursor to one of those moments at Chipotle last week. I was standing in line behind a guy who, as he opened his wallet to pay, dropped out a pre-paid WoW card.
I was just about to say something when I had one of those crazy flash-forward visions of the guy being some Ganking Ally Gnome Dual-Glaive Rogue-types that I really wouldn’t enjoy talking with, and decided the better of it.
Of course, in retrospect, if he was using pre-paid WoW cards then he probably wasn’t that guy.
This isn’t a WoW story, but it’s a recognition story.
When I first left my parents’ home and started college I was very alone. Typical geek, long dark hair, maybe 100lbs soaking wet, hunched over going to and from class and retreating into books until class again. I’d read a great deal about Vampire: The Masquerade and really liked the Malkavians (a sect of insane vampires, represented by a broken mirror) and when I saw one of their lapel pins in a comic store I bought it and it lived like your druid badge on my jacket, where I forgot about it. Exiting the university library one day I saw a guy on a bench near the doors and I noticed he had a little lapel pin as well, a wolf head (for Gangrel, a more feral sect of vampire). I asked him about it and he noticed my pin, we had a short conversation and went on our way. We didn’t bother to learn each other’s names, we just called each other by our clan. “Hey Gangrel,” “Later, Malk.” I saw him again a few days after that, we talked a bit more and he asked if I wasn’t doing anything after class would I like to swing by and meet some friends of his. I ended up following him over to his friends place and then over the next few years I spent every weekend over there, gaming until 3 am, at least. We became really good friends. I ended up best man at Jeff’s (the Gangrel’s) wedding. It enriched my life and lead me to friends I still cherish more than 10 years later and indirectly led me to my wife.
I guess what I’m saying is, always take the chance. Sure ubergeeks can be a pain in the ass, but sometimes things click just right and your entire future changes in a flash of understanding. That lapel pin changed my life. Sometimes the strangest things reach out and grab us, but not everything with claws is trying to kill you.
I wound up having a small test for the “been playing since beta” crowd – I’d talk to them about BRS – upper or lower, depending on whether they “raided” or not.
Pretty much every player I’ve met who had a 60 more than 6 months prior to the AQ expansion and was anything close to a reliable player ran at least one LBRS, usually a couple, and more than a few made at least an attempt at UBRS. But most of the PX heroes only knew what they’d read in cheat notes. So it was just MC this or Onyxia that, while speaking of Mother Smolderweb’s “milk” debuff only gets a blank stare.
Perhaps he at least suspects who you are and is trying to score points with YOU albeit in a terrible manner. You haven’t exactly kept your first and last name private, you have a kick Bear-butt blog, run an awesome guild, write for WowInsider, done a podcast or seven and have raiding credentials some of us drool over. You are not exactly anonymous. All a new hire has to do is look at the company global email address list, check the photo of the kilted man a few months back and Lo! BBB is in my cube! OMG OMG OMG! I’ll handle this by not being awed or impressed in the slightest (translation: as as @$$hat, which you described quite well). Or maybe I’m wrong here :-).
We got a new hire here and he got pretty happy when he found out some of use played WoW. We did the usual, what class, what server thing and he said he played a little bit, was happy he got his priest to 70…
I got around to sending him a link to our guild and asking for a link to his character.
Turns out that this guy who plays “just a little bit”, has over 1700 +Heal, has been raiding Gruul’s, and has over 40k HKs. That’s really impressive to people who haven’t even been to Kara yet. It’s a good thing I told him we suck upfront =)
Similar story for me, actually. I work in IT but went upstairs one day to the sales area (they have windows and sunlight – /shudder). I noticed one of the girls (!) had a bunch of X-Men posters hung up on her wall and got all excited because I’ve been reading X-books since I was 11. She was away from her desk at the time, but I made a point to check back later in the day hoping to strike up a conversation with her about her favorite characters, storylines, books, etc. Unfortunately, it seemed like she really thought my way of liking the books was inferior to HER way of liking the books (“You have a favorite character? Why? They just die off anyway.”) and she pretty much shut down any line of conversation I tried to have with her. I ended up feeling really sheepish and nerdy; the way I did in high school when a classmate discovered my X-Men fan site. And this from someone (else) who hung X-Men posters up in their cubicle. =/
I initially wrote a response saying that I totally recognize those types of people and we had plenty of them at college (we were a tech heavy school so wow players were the majority) and no one liked them, blah blah blah. I basically hate these types of people.
On the other hand, I can picture a possible case where this kid (how old is he anyways?) basically has been picked on the majority of his life and the minute he feels he can prove himself better than someone, he’s going to take it. I think it really depends on how generous you are feeling, but I think this is actually a big opportunity to help make him a better person.
You could start talking to him every day, let him know you play wow, maybe work on making him feel comfortable. Once he identifies that you’re not a threat and won’t make fun of him, etc. you may be able to try and help him work on his social skills and realize that he doesn’t HAVE to push everyone away, etc.
That sounds like a lot of work, but again, always an opportunity to make a change in the world…..
Then again, I’m sure there’s plenty of opportunities like that around myself as well, but I’m too lazy sometimes to make the effort….maybe one day…
I think my favourite encounter of other wow players was just before midnight of the release of TBC. I couldn’t help it – I had to go to the 24hr store to buy one as soon as it was released – just HAD to!
Well, I was the first person there, a good 30 minutes early, just to be safe. Soon enough a couple of other people walked up, and me being me I struck up the conversation. God it was fun talking to random people about wow – I swear, anyone who didn’t know the game would have been *so* freaked out by us all! I just wish it happened more often!
I will totally be going out to do the same thing when WoLtK comes out. :D
Been playing online with a couple I met on Ragnarok Online. We’ve been server mates for 3 years, and when I went to meet her, I got stood up.
Apparently, she had to babysit the whole time (7 days).
The phone bill wasn’t paid, so it didn’t work.
Never on MSN, mails took forever to respond.
I felt like an idiot, like I was someone for her amusement, the ‘Warlock for Illhoof’. Haven’t really played that server in a month or two now. Not sure I will, either. Am I being immature here?
I met 2 guys who were in sunwell… 1 was an overweight guy who played a Gnome Warrior and MT’d Brutallis…
/groan.
At Work:
At the end of last year the company I worked anounced that it would be ceasing operations and we would all be out of work within the next 2 months. Well my friend and fellow department employee decided that was all the reasoning we needed for playing WoW on company time. We played all the time and nonstop. Our boss knew all about it and as long as what little work we did have was done he didn’t care. He even stood and watched us play.
Public:
I was stopped in a Walmart one time to discuss the Jinx shirt I was wearing.
While walking down the street one night a person walking towards me offered me 10 copper for my Murloco’s T-Shirt.
I was asked in an airport if I played by someone in the ticket line behind me. They saw me wearing the same Jinx shirt I was wearing in Walmart. It was a very long conversation that helped pass the time. He agreed that Feral Druids were the only way to go.
My favorite:
When Brady Games released the Second Edition Strategy guide, I overheard a yound man, as he showed the guide to his girlfriend, say “Look at this. Do you think we need it?” Her reply was “You might. I don’t. I have already passed you.” I couldn’t stop laughling as I told my wife who had leveled past me at the time.
My nephew (mid 20′s) played WoW well before I started, end-game raided pre- and post- TBC well before I got to 70 and has now gone to AoC. I excitedly tell him of my guild’s progress (first Gruuls kill, first Mags kill, first Gruuls/Mags double in one night), he smiles knowingly and responds with “n00b” (with a /vtic). But I don’t care, I’m excited by our progress – and I used to change his nappies, so I’m still one-up on him ;)
Where I work I have 3 desktop monitors and 5 more monitors displayed in another room for people to get info off of and of course my desktop displays different WoW logos, SS and such (right now I have D3 up). So I get people all the time that come in and ask me about WoW. I know of at least 6 guys that work on the rotating crews I work on and I am sure there are more on the crews that work my days off. I consistently talk with a guy about the progression of his Shammy vs my Shammy and of course I tell him all the news about WoW since I sit here reading WoW sites all shift long :-)
I am one of those “non-gamer” type gamers … mid 20s married woman. My fiance at the time got me playing at release on his account and it just stuck. We both still play, though I’m an alt-a-holic and he tends to work on his main. Now I’ve got his account and he made a new one and transferred his character off. =)
Running into other WoW players typically has only happened in gaming stores … EBGames / GameStop / etc. Of course, the above mentioned 20 questions commence. I have had the blessing of meeting a couple of guildies though – one who traveled from MD to Texas monthly for business and was great dinner company, the others living in the same area.
However, I do always get the shocked look saying what?-there’s-no-way-that-you’re-a-gamer when it comes up. Something about people assuming they’re all geeks. Now, to be fair, my hubby’s a geek, but I like him that way. I’m not. Opposites attract! =Þ
I was going to a bar with some friends in a Buffalo NY, one of those 21 and older places where they check you at the door. The bouncer at this place was an incredibly scary looking dude, late 30′s, teeth going bad, scruffy face, and an overall grunge to make you think twice about sticking your ID back in your pocket without a good washing first. I was the last in a line of about 4 people to get my ID checked. I handed over my ID wondering if I was going to get the requisite comments about not looking old enough no matter what my license said and the guy threw out a ham fist to stop me. He then looked up to check my face and saw that I was sporting my WoW hat, the one with the “?” The guy gave me this big toothy grin and asked what side I played on. At first I was kinda scared because I didn’t know he was talk about WoW, then I remember after he pointed to my hat. We had a 20 minute discussion about the game and what level of progression was. My friends where amazed when i got to them and wondered if he gave me a hard time, I simply told them “nope… he just wanted to gab about WoW”.
Caught Blogging IRLz! – Mr. Auzara’s co-worker and wife play WoW and we occasionally go to social gatherings at their house that include a lot of nerdy gamers. About a week ago said co-worker told my husband the story of one of these people referencing an article I’d written, without knowing that they had actually met me in real life.
I’m with good Doodle btw – maybe you just caught the guy on a bad day. New work jitters make people weird. I’d give him a little bit to settle in and see if he’s still a little snot once he’s more comfortable.
I think I’m lucky at work – there’s a bit of a wow community…
But then I do work in IT…
The people range from “my son plays” through “I just log on and dabble every so often” or “there’s no way your pre-Kara Kitty can out-DPS my raiding shaman” to “our guild is short of Feral tanks if you fancy moving servers”.
Gives me chance to talk about wow over coffee anyway!
We interviewed a developer who mentioned that her interests in her spare time included playing wow. I couldn’t help but laugh in the interview, as we were joking beforehand that the correct server and faction would be a shoe in for the job. We hired her (also a very skilled dev), despite playing horde.
That makes 3 of us in a company of 25, and of the 3 she is doing the most progressive content, followed by another female worker. Two girl gamers in end-game; I feel slack.
Hey just thought I’d reply to the Gamestop comment.
I work at a Gamestop in the Mpls suburbs and I can tell you we don’t ask for preorders because we want to. There is a considerable amount of pressure from managers to meet weekly preorder quotas. My manager will hover around behind me when I ring people up and I get a lecture whenever I “forget” to ask for a reserve. Same thing with magazine subscriptions and warranties.
So just know that while it chips away at my soul to have to harass you every time you come in about 3-4 different promotions, I have no control over it.
About six months ago, I was in training with a number of folks. At one point, the chaplain (a colonel) suddenly said: “Can’t we all just get along???!!!!!” perfectly imitating the lock imp.
I almost fell off my chair laughing.
Awww…. Blandar, that sucks. I do feel for ya, I really do.
I’ve known about how you guys get treated for awhile, I remember reading articles at http://kotaku.com/ from GameStop workers on how you guys literally get hammered if you don’t get those pre-sales. I understand.
I don’t take it personally… if I met you OUTSIDE work it would be a different story. But in the store… well heck, you know what I mean.
And for Good Doodle and Auzara, just to let you know… he has been in the company for over a month, I just don’t interact with that area much.
Now, I’ll grant you, geeks are notorious for having stunted social skills.
Maybe he was having a bad day, or maybe I caught him in a moment of honesty when the walls weren’t up. I’m sure I’ll talk with him again sometime.
But if he couldn’t be bothered with being polite or less confrontational with a total stranger that showed a friendly interest in his openly displayed hobby, then I’m certainly not in any rush to go give him a second chance at a first impression.
I don’t think that you can have too many friends… but I also believe in not wasting the precious moments of my life on asshats.
First impressions are a bitch, though. That story from ForSquirrels was an awesome example.
And as far as him reading my blog… it’s a big world. I figure the likelihood that I will ever casually run into someone that happens to read my blog are pretty minuscule. You folks are a special, rare breed of awesome that come in small quantities, spread throughout the world.
On the other hand… Auzara, that is scary, the idea you could be sitting there chatting and someone starts mentioning something they saw on your blog without knowing who you are. I’m pretty sure I’d freak out.
It’s bad enough when I’m listening to the Twisted Nether blogcast starring Ratshag (very nicely spoken for a virile young Orc, ain’t he?) and they mention my PvP gear kerfluffle from a while back. It’s such a big community, you just don’t expect to hear your name.
Heh, I know exactly what you mean about the assbag at the office. :P
I was standing around waiting for my order at a local Chinese take-out joint, and these two high school guys walk in. They start chattering about their WoW toons, and one’s talking about his hunter. They were standing <5ft from me in a practically empty room, so, unfortunately, I would’ve had to really work not to overhear their conversation. At first, I had thought about chiming in to the conversation (one of them had said something about girls not playing video games, heh)… until the one talking about his hunter went on to say, in rather condescending tones, that his PvP gear was working out great for PvE content. (Newsflash, kiddo: great for tanks, not so much for dps.) Anyway, his overall attitude kinda soured any thoughts I’d had on chiming in, and I could NOT wait to get my order and leave.
On the flip side, though, I have actually had rather nice chance encounters of the WoW kind. Some friends of mine and I were standing outside a bar one night (we’d gone outside to have a ciggie break), talking about hunters. I’d been saying something about the mechanics of Aimed Shot and why, unless you need the debuff to reduce healing, its pretty useless in a shot rotation during raids. Anyway, as I’m saying this, a guy walks by and exclaims, “I know what you’re talking about!” My friends and I turn and give him rather quizzical looks, and he goes on to explain, “I play WoW too!” Turns out, he plays on an RP server in the same battlegroup we’re on. He stopped to chat for a few minutes, exchanged drunken high-fives, then went on his merry way. :)
Some people are twits, some aren’t. Every community has its share of pricks. :P
Sounds like you have neo-nazi nerd in your office. Those “I caught a fish this big” kind of guys get on my nerves. I would assume that he plays some hardcore raider that spends every waking moment on WoW and yells to him mom to bring him dinner because he is too involved getting badges. :)
As far as gaming stereotypes, we all have are own sets of them. In his own little world, he probably couldn’t imagine anyone that doesn’t stare at a computer screen longer than 18 of the 24 hours of the day to play such a game. Its ok, like I said we all have them. “Does he really think he is the only one with any knowledge of tech in the place? It’s not like we’re on the production floor, we’re in the office space.” Your statement points at the exact same thing.
Oooooooh yes, I’ve seen those kinds before. I’m an Animation major, so when I was in college there were a lot of gamers around, but there were a pack of what we called ‘WoW Heads’. They were the elitest jocks of WoW and would hear no critique on their game and no speculation on other games. I myself would have been playing since release if these people hadn’t put me off the game entirely. Instead I picked up Guild Wars and a little number called Horizons, played a little bit of SWG and DDO. All good games with their own quirks. I really enjoy talking about games and comparing them, their mechanics, storyline (or lack thereof), but these boys just had such a hardcore elitest attitude they felt compelled to be sneering and derisive of anything I had to say, it was really disgusting.
A game is supposed to be a forum to meet new people and have fun, not an opportunity to put others down.
By the way, I want to thank you for making this blog. I came for the bear tank consummables thread (I’m a shiny new tank) and I’m staying because of the witty repartee ;)
Let me preface by saying that having the WoW Visa card is a really great icebreaker. Everyone who sees it comments on it. :)
Recently, I went to rent a car for vacation and used the card. The customer service guy saw the card ( which has a Nelf face on it ) and jokingly said “I can’t rent you a car…you’re the wrong faction!”
We laughed and chatted and exchanged the 20 questions. It was so nice.
On the other hand, I’ve used the card and had cashiers sneer at me for having a gaming card and even one who doubted the card was real because of the picture on it.
Go figure.
I often wear WoW t-shirts out in public, just hoping to get that kind of experience. Twice, it’s paid off. Actually, now that I think of it, three times now, but one of those was already a friend, I just didn’t know she played WoW.
Both totally random times it was in grocery stores, and both times the conversations went about the same way BBB described them. We even exchanged server names and character names. I went to the servers once, but couldn’t really get interested, as we just had a ‘hi, remember me?’ conversation. So, nothing panned out there.
The third time I was chatting with a friend and she said she had to go home because she’s a World of Warcraft addict and she had something to do before raiding. That started the 20 minute conversation about WoW and though we’re unlikely to get to the same server anytime soon (or probably in the future) it’s really neat to know we have that same interest, among others we share.
I /love having these kind of meetings! I especially like it when, as in the first two cases, I wore my WotLK shirt. That gave us some good speculative ground for discussion.
My sister got me a WoW calendar for Christmas and I have it hanging in my cube. First shocker was my boss asking me if I played WoW and I said “a bit” :) Turns out he played a bit too pre-BC.
I walk past a couple guys who were having what looked like a serious discussion. I heard the words “Shield slam” and “threat rotation” and doubted it was an IT-related conversation.
Not two days later, a new guy who moved into the cube farm slot next to mine strolls by, pokes his head in, points at the calendar and I nod. He pulls out a Horde insignia and it was INSTANT friendship. For the Horde! He’s part of our guild now – good guy.
Haha all of these stories remind me of Fight Club… No matter where you go, they’re everywhere!! :O
I’ve had a few experiences like that, myself… I think I throw people off because I’m a girl and I play a tank… I often get that “but girls only play healers” thing. :P That’s always a good time to toss out my armour cap / 18k health status, hehehe. I hit up EB often for pre-paid cards and other games, and like you said, they ALL seem to play for some reason, so every time I go in to get my card, the guys working there talk to me about it. It’s good times, really.
There’s an internet cafe downtown that I go to sometimes if I’m fed up with my slow/bad laptop, and a ton of people there play as well… One guy who works there saw I was on my druid doing Ogri’la quests and came over and talked to me… he plays a druid, too (moonkin) and we started talking about gear and how lame the dailies are, etc etc. :P
I recently discovered at a family BBQ that my cousin’s husband plays WoW along with his teenage son. I’m not sure my cousin was real happy to have someone encourage his WoW use as I am pretty sure it is a touchy subject in their relationship at the moment.
A long long time ago, in a cubicle farm far away, I sat late one evening compiling quarter end finacial reports. While waiting for my system to crunch data, I pulled up my email diplomacy game’s latest results and mapped out the pieces to consider my next set or orders. Lost in thought, I failed to notice the banks CEO stopping behind me, until he asked which country I was playing and who my allies were. He then commented how the obvious attack coordinated between my Austria and my Turkish ally not only hamstrung our Russian foe, but also set up my flank beautifully for a Turkish knife the following turn. He then walked away, commenting he’d be VERY sure of his ally before submitting my next set of orders.
And don’t knock we Neo-Luds. We except what technology we choose, on our own terms. Eventually. And after proper concideration.
My response would have been; “Acutally, I am a DIRTY old, old, old, old, old man, and damn proud of it.” :-)
Non WoW-related, I have a cousin that is the most arrogant nerd I have ever met. I think we all know how to react and deal with an arrogant jock type who just thinks he is a stud among men. But the nerd who likes stroking his geek e-peen is a bit harder to accept because it’s unexpected. I can’t tell you how startled and disturbed I get when somone shows disdain or mocking behavior over a technology preference. I’m like your fronting me over the fact that I run Windows Vista??! Nerdom and fanboy-ism is no reason to be an elitist asshole. Ironically, 99.9% of the world won’t recognize the “eliteness” and all that is leftover is them thinking your an asshole.
OH MY GOSH THAT WAS YOU, TRIPLEB? IN THE BOOKSTORE?
(heehee, just joking)
I have struck up many random conversations with people in my bookstore, however. Some chat with me and others, who obviously are only casual players, give me really weird looks and hurry away as fast as they can:)
It took me almost a year to out any WoW players at my workplace, even though we’re tech-savvy here. I have, luckily, had good experiences with the two I found. Even though one is a PvP junkie (and I hatehatehate it) and one raids a bit higher level than I do (not for lack of trying!), it’s all been nice and friendly and no elitism or anything, thank goodness.
Heh, I’m very late to this, but I wanted to share. My first real exposure to WoW was thanks to a friend at work. A different friend and I played Magic the Gathering at lunch on occasion, and this fellow joined in. (We later had others join when they saw us playing at lunch; we got the spectrum of humble newbie to jaded veteran to protour wannabe.) Sometimes he would actually play WoW after hours or even during lunch (that’s one cool thing about working in games; such lunchtime activity is socially acceptable). I’m not sure how it came up, but I expressed interest once or twice, and he was kind enough to give me a key for the ten day trial. (These were the days before the ten day was free for all comers.)
I wound up installing it at work since I didn’t have internet access at home. I played on occasion during lunch and at least once on a late night. I thoroughly enjoyed my Tauren Shaman, but I was hopelessly behind my friend, and never did wind up subbing. (Those who know me know that I have problems with the sub model anywho.) At any rate, it was a blast, and it made for some fun conversations with my battlegrounds equipped PvP Orc friend.
The truly surreal part was when I let our head engineer know that I was having some weirdness that I would appreciate help with (I’m a tech artist, good with some things, but not heavy coding). He happened to come by during the lunch hour when I was playing and alt-Tabbing back and forth between WoW and my fiesty program. He didn’t seem to mind, and actually admitted that he was having fun with his own ten day trial. We didn’t talk much of it since I had to get that program behaving and his time was short, but it illustrated to me that you never know who is playing the game.