A Mother's Life in World of Warcraft

My husband introduced me to the World of Warcraft, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (commonly and popularly known as a "MMORPG") our first summer living together as husband and wife. I had never heard of it before, but his computer geek friends were into it and so he got into it too. Then, he introduced me to it as a way to spend time together and because he knew that I was into video games. When I was in elementary school, video games and books were the way I passed my time - I didn't have many friends then - and so he thought that this would interest me also. And it did, immensely.

I still play to this day, years later, even though he has since lost interest. There are lots of reasons why I do.

1. It's a wonderful stress relief. It distracts me from the trials (sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively!) and tribulations of my everyday life. For an hour or two most days (and longer on weekends), I can enter a world where my main focus is not real life but is to level my character and to get the most gold and the best gear. On some servers, which are role playing servers, you can actually create an entire online fictional persona based upon the lands and stories that the game and its producers give you. In that sense, it's an escape.
2. You can bond with and meet new people. On a lot of servers, there are mommy guilds and guilds where people podcast together during the week.
3. It gives some people a sense of satisfaction to be able to power-level a character.
4. The quests provide goals for people to accomplish.

That being said, there are definitely people out there are on the World of Warcraft for a lot longer than I am - I am talking hours and hours and hours. I'm not like that at all. I am a casual gamer that enjoys the company and the game and completing tasks at my own pace. The beauty of this game is that it allows me to do that - I can complete tasks as quickly or as slowly as I desire and there aren't any company sponsored rules that dictate that I do so at one speed or another. That being said, in the practical world (of warcraft), gamers tend to want to power level because of new updates or gear or whatever that is coming out.

World of Warcraft may not be for everyone, but give it a try!