Hello. My name is Paul and I'm addicted to WoW....but unlike most addicts I really don't want to kick the habbit.
I have tried honest I have. But I love it and its not doing any harm....is it? I mean I'm a fairly rounded type of guy. WoW isn't the only thing in my life. I love my motorbikes too (presently have a CBR1100xx) and I read a lot. I'm not one dimentional honest.
I’m old enough to remember the very 1st home computers. The ZX Spectrum, the commodore 64 and even the BBC micro before that (if you count ping pong on your telly as a computer). I remember the days when you bought a game on a cassette cartridge and loaded it by playing it on a portable cassette recorder. It would beep and squeak for 20 mins then more often than not you would get an error message. The games were terrible but I loved them. I bought an Amega that came bundled with Lemmings, a wickely addictive little 2d platform game that had me up till all hours of the night trying to get just one more level done. It was the start of a gaming obsession that even now shows no signs of abating. Damn you Sir Clive Sinclare.
I started playing WoW back in 2006. I had resisted getting into MMO games because the only exposure I had for them was a few games of Halo multi player and I just knew it was going to be a time sink. See I’m ultra competitive and just have to be the best or die trying. Unfortunately this has lead to some weird obsessions. I realised I needed to take a more rounded approach to life so WoW sat there on the shelf of my local GAME store beckoning me, daring me.
To be honest the whole Dungeons and dragons thing wasn't my bag. It all seemed a bit geeky to me. I was more into deep strategy games like Civilisation and Sim City but eventually the temptation grew too much. I had recently been divorced in 2005 and by Christmas I was feeling a bit low. I had just quit a job I hated and was taking some time off for from working for the 1st time in my life. I had another job lined up but couldn't start for a couple of months. So I was going stir crazy! I walked into my local GAME store to see if there was anything that might keep me occupied but there was nothing that grabbed me. I was going to leave the store when WoW caught my eye. I thought "what the hell" and bought the game.
So started probably the best/worst obsession of my whole life. I've had some great times playing WoW but also had a few real low times when I took a step back into reality and questioned why I was spending so much time in the game. If I had invested as much time in doing something constructive and even moderately profitable I would be well on the way to being a millionaire by now. I have even quit the game altogether, once for over a year! But I keep coming back. It's as real an addiction to me as any other drug you care to mention.
Nowadays I have stopped fighting it. I enjoy it. It makes me happy and That's what life is all about surely?
The 1st character i rolled was an Alliance Night Elf hunter. See I'm not really the sociable type. I wanted to play the game solo and be as independent as possible and hunters were supposed to be the best class to play Solo. Leveling that hunter was the most fun I ever had gaming. I knew absolutely nothing about the game and it was weeks before I realised that the whole game world was not just Teldrassil, the tiny Knelf starter island. I met some people who I started leveling with and eventually joined my 1st guild, Dad's Army. I just caught the end of the vanilla era of wow and caught the release of BC. When I got my hunter to Outland I realised there was so much content you just couldn't do solo. I had started doing the dungeons and had dipped my toe into karazhan a couple of times. I decided to reroll but what race/class should I choose?
Well I have always liked being the black sheep so I decided to try and find the least played class. Our guild had at least one of all the classes except one. Shaman. I read a little about shaman and learned that they we're a very difficult class to master. They were a hybrid so I could go DPS or healing or even tanking (yes Shaman were a tanking class back then). Up until BC Alliance couldn't roll shaman but the expansion introduced Draenei a race that could be played as a shaman. Thus Roidrage was born.
Roid has been my favorite character ever since. Oh I have also rolled a couple of other alts. I have a Rogue and a mage both now at level 85 and my original hunter is in Northrend about level 72. But Roid is my main raiding character. The rest are just support for him. Their profs supply him mats to better his gear and stats.
I've been raiding Cataclysm dungeons for about a month with Roid now. He is maxed in Enchantment and almost maxed in Jewel Crafting and his gear level is 353 (in game character sheet). His main spec is enhancement and off spec is Resto. I dont do much healing because I'd rather poke a hot folk in my eyeballs than heal a cataclysm Heroic PUG.
Roid can easily get 16k DPS on a raid boss, which is usually enough to top the recount lists. Its always good to see the reactions of people when they see my damage output. No one expects Shaman to be good at anything. They are mainly considered a utility class that brings a few decent buffs to a party but not much else.
Well that's summarises things up to the present day
Roidrage is on the Eonar EU server and is a member of the guild Swiftness. Say hello any time your passing ;)
