Understanding WilderCraft

Woot. Welcome to WilderCraft, the daily (most days) review of the world of online gaming and the misadventures of the people who play it. For those of you who do not know what "woot" means, here is the working definition: similar in nature to 'woohoo', it is an exuberant cry used to convey excitement or interest. It's used regularly within the gaming community. You'll see more of this. (Don't worry, I'll decode gamer speak for you. Look for italics and find the words defined at the bottom of the post.)

We will discuss the general play ideas; the sites that tell you how, when and where with the most success; share our triumphs as well as out failures and how we cope with them and the humorous anecdotes that shape the world we play in. Also, I hope to disabuse a few notions the world at large hold about the gaming community at large. Stereotypes have some basis in reality, but they aren't fair.

I call it WilderCraft for a few reasons. First, it's a blatant play on Warcraft. As in, World of. (It's the game that takes up most of my free time.) Secondly, Wilder is the in-game handle my boyfriend uses. He leads the guild we play in, leads the raids we do and generally makes my life awesome. He's not the reason I started playing WoW, but he is the reason I like it as much as I do. But, there's more to that story later. :)

I hope you find some amusement in the things I share. Enjoy.


Definitions:

World of Warcraft- an amazing game, of the massive multi-player online variety, created by Blizzard Entertainment and supported by nerds, gamers, geeks, teenagers and military guys with nothing better to do all over the world. A virtual reality, where you create an avatar of yourself within the parameters of their fantasy environment, choose a side and battle it out against each other and the bad guys. There's a storyline (which we will explore), weather patterns, an economy; you can even get a job. Or two.

guild - a group of people who share a chat channel, common goals and a name tag. Like at those professional conventions where everyone wheres a name tag? "Hi I'm from (guild name) and my name is (whatever)!" You can communicate with people form other guilds, but it's like having a giant common room in your dorm. Only the people who live there get to chill.

raid- as with any game, from old school Mario Bros on up, there is an end battle, or boss fight. In this particular case, multiple people (10 to 25 individuals) have to come together and coordinate under the leadership of ONE Orc... err.. man. :) It's up to your leader to determine strategies, positions, job assignments, etc. It's like a tiny virtual army, with one general, to destroy the .... uhm... virtual bad guys. *nod*