Night elves are the most popular characters for women in WoW
Reading time: 5mins
I often made fun of people who play WoW. My first introduction to it was about 3 years back when I was at my sister’s house. I began a delightful conversation with my sister’s flatmate only to realise he was talking through his microphone to his party of orcs on World of Warcraft.
Perhaps it was this damp introduction that made me pity those who play WoW. But now I have played and enjoyed the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game, and yes a lot of girls are doing the same.
“You want to join my party?”
First thing’s first, WoW is not a social game unless you join a guild. You do interact with people from other parts of the world, but unless you’re in a guild everyone keeps to character, and hardly any personal information is exchanged. Some people are nice and cast healing or improvement spells on you, but other than that it’s about as social as a Japanese cosplay party.
Joining a guild increases the amount of socialising and takes you beyond the realm of WoW, you get to know the actual people in your guild and you learn to look out for each other.
In other semi-social ways you can join a party and go on quests, but this just gives you a better team than non-player characters (NPCs) who usually muck up your fight strategy by attacking too many characters at one time or forgetting to heal themselves. You don’t really get to know these people unless you meet them regularly.
If you’re a lone ranger like me or hate trying to keep up with people who can toggle keyboard commands on a very quick basis, joining a team won’t be in your books at the start – but you’ll have to learn to get over that, the game requires you join a party for the really difficult missions.
“What’s the sound of a bunny being killed?”
“Click”.
Word of warning: the beginning can be a bit boring. Most beginner level fighting scenes are simply point and click until the monster is dead. This is good for the girl (like myself) who doesn’t enjoy real-time killing. A super mutant striding toward you at an incredible pace while you’re trying to get your sights up is pretty scary. WoW fights are far less daunting.
The good thing is, the fights do get more challenging. Earning spells and buying more weapons can add strategy, but it may take a week to do this.
However once you get into it, the game becomes increasingly addictive. There is an abundance of quests to go through and a regular reward system (money!). Constantly improving your wares seems to be the common aim, and girls who are a fan of simulation games e.g. Simcity and The Sims will love this aspect.
“What shade war paint should I use today?”
Creating a character is one of the best aspects of the game. A lot of girls pick night elves for their svelte feminine look, and would probably be more inclined to be druids as these guys do their damage from afar with spells. There are a lot of night elf druids running around, but it might also be because of the mystical look of the night elf itself.
Women will also love the shopping aspect, a lot of quests or kills will give you access to money or trade goods and these can be used to constantly upgrade armour – which can then be seen on your character in real-time. Cute!
“Hey you wanna meet over wild boar at lunch?”
For some girls, who like me had previously turned their nose up at the fantasy world, WoW is now their meeting place for gossip. They join their team, go on quests and talk about their day, what better way to relieve tension than attack a corrupt town? Might help if you have a headset though…
Great game if you can afford the subscription. Ladies will love the interaction, upgrades, scenery and mission stories. But would help if it had, yes I’m going to say it, a love story. Hey, orcs need love too you know.
More info on WoW basics can be found here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics
