The People In My Neighborhood

It goes without saying that I don't play WoW alone.

I thought I'd write a little bit about the people I spend online time with. It's no surprise to me that they're also people I enjoy spending offline time with (even though it's been perhaps two months since we've hung out together.) Without them, Azeroth/Outland would be far less interesting.

I know I've mentioned Anyssa previously. She came into the game relatively late into classic WoW and immediately rolled a dwarf priest. She's famous for not having any other alts (not really true, but it's mostly true). She's never specced shadow, either. We used to joke that she turned SM into her favorite department store, she was in there so much.

She's living proof that all it takes is a girl's voice on Vent to make most World of Warcraft players go nuts. I've seen guys hit on her on /1 and /2 while killing time in Shattrath. I've seen Horde hit on her - and we're on a PVP server!

She's also one of our best healers. We constantly chide her for being partly afk during raids - she's usually got the TV on or something like that - but more often than not, she's at the top of the healing meters. Tanks beware, though... she's been known to healbomb tanks she feuds with, just to make them wake up and pay attention.

Isorla is perhaps the friend I'm closest to who plays WoW on a regular basis. Actually, he's got five toons at level 70 - the product of an extended vacation in front of his computer. Of his toons, I'm the most attached to Isorla. He was once a Holy Paladin, but lately he's shifted focus to being a Protection Paladin. He claims that he did this on the strength of Anyssa's and my recommendations, but we know better. After all, he's spent months acquiring every tank drop from Karazhan in addition to his healing gear.

We kind of leveled up together when the expansion came out. Anyssa, Isorla (on his hunter, Rothgarth) and I would run instances together... up until we hit level 68. At that point we knew we were doomed to split up, as our DPS guys just weren't geared enough to allow two healers to be in one group. Thanks to some pretty bad scheduling, we weren't able to run Karazhan together until fairly recently. Now that we're all together again, though, we're looking at powering our way to Serpentshrine Cavern and beyond.

Up until Isorla respecced into protection, we were a pretty solid healing clique in ASTIG. Offline, we talk about healing strategies and raid composition. Online, we talk about loot. We're funny like that.

Supsop is the only one of our buddies who we didn't know offline before WoW. He's currently Guild leader of ASTIG, one of the Guild's Raid Leaders and a main tank, to boot; how he handles the stress is beyond me. He and Anyssa usually team up to run dailies and instances. It's a perfect symbiosis: as a tank, he needs a healer, while naturally a healer works best with a tank. I don't get to run instances with him very often anymore, as he partners with Anyssa most often. Every once in a while, though, I'll get on Froufrou so we can all be together in one party.

Every so often Supsop comes back to Manila from Singapore, where he's based. When he comes into town we set aside WoW for a little while to share a beer and look at pretty girls.

My RL buddy Yz doesn't get a lot of mentions on this blog; that's because his game time has, in recent years, been curtailed by a pretty hectic work schedule. When he's online, though, things pick up; he's a funny, funny guy and he makes our private chat come alive. His gnome mage Yz hasn't even set foot in Karazhan, despite having been attuned for months. We're just waiting for the day he's free enough to run instances with us again.

Herri is another buddy I haven't brought up enough. He ranks pretty high on our server's list of hunters for sheer attack power. We PVP together (I'm in a 5-man team with him) and occasionally run Kara together. The biggest obstacle to us getting more playtime together is his work shift; he's perennially got the night shift and it means he can't play WoW easily.

There is no truth to the rumor that he opened a hole in his company's firewall so he could play WoW from the office. None whatsoever.

Last but not least is "Doc". That isn't his toon's name; it's what we call him since he's really a doctor. We've been friends since our college days, but we drifted a bit since he went into medical school after graduation. WoW reconnected us.

Since he games from home and clinic (while waiting for patients) he's managed to level up four toons. He alternates between his shaman and his mage for raiding, although his warrior is always available to tank. Lately he's taken to PVP with a retri pally.

I know I've left out perhaps ten to twelve other people who I consider friends but don't blog about much. They've made WoW a really great experience for me, and they were the real turning point in my decision to stay on Bleeding Hollow.