World of Warcraft

WoW has stuck around. It's been hot and cold. Carrie played more than me whenever she was stuck on hold with distributors, etc. I enjoyed leveling and exploring, but once that was done I only logged on when there was something new or I was needed for something. I didn't even log in some months, and thought about cancelling.

The situation has changed, though.

Right now, we're playing two to four nights a week. Everyone hops on between 8 and 9 PM and we play for a couple of hours give or take. Shane's usually earned electronics by then, so he's on Pokemon and I hop up to put him to bed at 9 PM.

It started easily enough.

Carrie, Genevieve, Chris, and I tried to do a Mythic+ dungeon as a foursome and failed (It's typically done with a 5 person team). They're all in to collecting and gearing up. I have no interest save helping them. But running challenges? That seemed more fun to me.

Or it would have been if we had five players. We seemed to be perma-capped at four. We didn't know anyone else who played and who'd want to be #5 with a pair of married couples?

And then Bill showed an interest.

I had been playing a game a couple of times a week with Bill, John, and Dan. Dan moved to Vegas. John lost interest. Bill and I were still interested, but frequently busy. The game itself wasn't enough to hold our attention, either. It had been running as a group of four that made the magic happen.

WoW classic came out around then. Bill and I had played for a few months nearly 15 years ago. Carrie and I tried it out and I related the experience to Bill.

Nostalgia kicked in.

Bill decided to do a free trial and things changed. Carrie was thrilled and offered to help fly him around and smite anything that bothered him. We tried to get John to play, but he wasn't interested. Bill wanted to run around more with us, so he upgraded his account which gave him a level boost. We introduced him to Gen and Chris, he joined the guild, and everyone got bit by the mythic+ bug.

We had our five! That gave us a chance at running mythic dungeons. Everyone was hooked and Carrie and Gen started making plans to meet on certain nights. Everyone helped Bill here and there when he needed it to get him up to speed.

Ironically, around this time Carrie made a new friend online, Emily. Emily was in college in NC and played the same type of character as Carrie. Carrie and Emily had the best gear in the group and Carrie invited her to join us on a run Bill wasn't big enough for yet.

Our too small group of 4 changed to a too large group of 6.

Thankfully, it's worked out most nights. There have been a few times everyone was on and ready, but there were only five slots and someone was temporarily left out. Chris is the healer and I'm the tank, so we're required for each run. I would be willing to bow out, but that would be like playing soccer without a goalie or football without a defensive line. Gen, Emily, Bill, and Carrie are the four DPS trying to fill three slots.

I wrote a lot more about that than I planned. Just feeling wordy, I guess.

TLDR; Bill started to play WoW. It's more fun now. We met another friend and we're playing several nights a week which is much cheaper than eating out.