World of Warcraft with Calfgrit12

Both Calfgrits know about World of Warcraft from watching me play it in years past. Over the past few months, Calfgrit12 has become interested in the game for himself. He has a friend who plays it with his dad, and CG12 has been collecting some WoW sets by Mega Bloks. So we told him that if he wanted to play the game, he needed to save up money to purchase the game and to pay the monthly subscription fee, ($15). Well, he did it. A few weeks ago we downloaded the program and I created his online account. (I also reopened my own subscription account.)

At first we said he could only play it while I could be online in the game with him. I needed to refamiliarize myself with the online game environment, (that is: how the real-world people were interacting with others in the online world). (It’s been a few years since I last played.) The two of us started playing a couple of Taurens — him a paladin, me a shaman. We designed our characters, (I never liked to say, “toons”), independently of one another, and despite the dozens of possibilities, we ended up with identical bulls. Like we were related.

We played together a few times, leveling up to about 10, until I confirmed that there was minimal contact with other players in the game. And since he plays on the downstairs computer, right in the literal center of the house and family activity, where we can see everything he does as he plays, we started letting him play on his own. He now has about half a dozen characters of various races and classes, on both the Horde and Alliance sides, leveled up between around 5 to 12.

He only plays on Saturday and Sunday, usually for 1-1.5 hours each morning, if he’s been good all week. (Good school and behavior.) Occasionally I’ll get on and play with him again. Our Taurens make a formidable pair, and we really need to take on tougher challenges.

I have other characters I can play, but as they are all significantly higher level, (my orc hunter is 72, my human priest is 63), our teaming is not as fun as when our matching Taurens quest together.

As a side note to my adventures with my son in WoW, I’m amazed by how the game has progressed in my long absence. The top level is now 90 — almost 20 levels higher than I’ve played. And the higher level gear . . . holy crap!

I hadn’t really looked into any gear when one day, while just running through a city, I saw someone offer a purple item for sale on the general chat. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the name to see what it was.

A cloth item giving 1,733 armor, and ability bonuses in the 4 digit range? Holy ever-lovin’ crap-a-mighty! The best gear on my level 72 character gives bonuses in the +50-80 range. Granted, all my gear is green to blue stuff for level 65-70. I then went to the auction house to look at what other outlandish gear was available nowadays. I found a level 85 gun to compare to my absolute best item — my [purple] level 70 gun. Look:

Seeing this stunned me. Look at those numbers! 1,711 DPS compared to my current 128 DPS. I know a lot of my readers have no idea what any of this means. But for those of you who have played WoW, you can understand my astonishment at seeing this amazing list compared to what I thought was a decently good piece of main equipment.

Bullgrit