The Art of Tech

After Cameron and I finished working through a couple of quests together, we said goodnight and I returned to the town of Goldshire to get the last of the Leatherworking training from the Journeyman Leatherworker there. Then, I went to Stormwind to become a Journeyman Leatherworker, myself. With this accomplished, I logged off and shut down the computer for the night.

When I entered our bedroom, my wife was sitting on the bed, reading. She asked me what I had done in the game tonight. I told her a little bit about the quests that we had gone on and about becoming a Journeyman Leatherworker. She said, "This game sounds like a lot of fun." I asked if she would like to try playing it.

A minute later, we were booting the computer up and she was logging into the system. I showed her how to start up the game, and how to create her first character (she decided on a Gnome Mage). When she entered the world, I showed her the basics of moving around, talking to Non-Player Characters (NPC) and a little about the combat system. She started working on the first couple of quests and was having fun.

Unfortunately, it was too late in the evening for me to remain awake any longer, so I went off to bed while she continued to learn the basics.

This morning, before I left for work, she arose from bed and told me that she wanted my help in figuring out the quest she was doing in the graveyard. "I don't know what that quest is," I said. You see, I have not created a Gnome character yet, and each race starts in a different place. Though there are similarities between each race's first quests, the details are different.

She also told me that while she had been playing the night before, she had run into these three monsters that were beating her up and then, suddenly, all her food was gone. I asked her, "So, you're saying some bullies stole your lunch money?" Without batting an eye or missing a beat she replied, "Yes. Where can I go to get my food back?" I smiled and told her about some of the food merchants she could find.

Then she said something amazing: "I can hardly believe that I have found another video game that I like to play. This game is lots of fun."

--Lamont R. Peterson