The Significant Owl Goes Hoot in the Blog

This is a post by Mimetir, an oversized owl of a raid leader on The Venture Co (EU). You can find her twitter feed.

Well, if not significant then *peers around owlishly* the only owl in the blog, at least. And yes, I do shine my beak, thank you. Nothing strikes terror into an opponent more than the eerie glow of an eclipse proc reflected in the beak of an overgrown bird I tell you.

Matticus has kindly invited me to make something of a more permanent nest here as a regular member of the team, along with Thespius. I’m grateful to many of you for sharing thoughts and comments on my posts so far, which have looked at hybrids, looting and social Wrath. I’ve enjoyed the discussions which have come out of you pitching in your two-hapeth alongside mine – so, thank you, and I hope it continues!

Meanwhile I’d like to introduce myself a bit more thoroughly. Sure, I say I’m a giant owl – but who’s the person behind the feathers and what kind of WoW player does it make me? I’ll meander around and about the facts of my life in and out of game for a short spell. Are you sitting comfortably?

I’m an English Literature graduate who has a longstanding and deep rooted dislike of (some) Shakespeare and of Middlemarch. I took great pleasure in studying fairy tales, post colonial texts and war literature. I still love learning and a good old yarn.

This is a big influence on my gaming – it must be said that WoW is a huge and complex game to learn. Three years into playing I’m still revelling in learning and improving in different classes, roles, fight tactics. More importantly I still sometimes feel a bit of the “new player” magic that many of us get upon entering WoW at first – that it’s a huge world to explore with breadcrumbs leading bit by bit through the epic storyline.

As a  British Red Cross volunteer I have worked with refugees to try to help them integrate into society or find their families after being separated from them through war, conflict or disaster. I’m also someone who has lived with a disability for most of my life. These things have taught me patience and empathy with other people – and players – and that people are really just people. Everyone has within them the strength to make what they want of their life and live it.

That extends, too, to WoW. I personally don’t like to turn away from a challenge though at the same time I remember everyone plays different parts of the game, so try to help anyone who asks for it. I try to treat all players I meet equally. I expect – even ask – that to be returned and shared in a group situation. If a player turns out to be A Nitwibbling Little Horror (you know the type of player) in my group, then my boot, claw or hoof quickly helps them out of the instance portal.

I grew up as the only child of a small family in a seaside town in England. I’ve played computer games since an early age – my parents bought me a Nintendo and we collected consoles as they appeared. I played many of the best, earliest RPGs with my mother – think Final Fantasy II/IV, Secret of Mana, Suikoden, This may conjure an atmosphere of peaceful safety of a gamer in training in your mind…

Perhaps that’s so, looking at my time on Ravenholdt. One of my mains is a fury warrior named Gramm – he’s guild master of a small, family-type guild. We try to be a place of safety and friendship for players of any sort, so long as they have something of the ‘bimbler’ about them. And yes, my mother also moved from console RPGs to WoW. I’m not sure if she thanks or curses me for getting her hooked on it.

Online gaming has had its claws in me for ten years now. Scary thought. Most of those years were spent playing tick based games such as Planetarion. I was one of the founders and then leaders for a long, long time of an alliance – a group not unlike a guild. Over time the alliance became a strong community and many of us became friends, with ensuing alliance meets in different countries.

This has translated straight to WoW and raid leading. My other main characters are Mimetir, my boomkin, and Apeorsa, a newly minted resto shaman. Their guild is a small group of real life friends. We aren’t big enough to run guild-only raids so we have a wider network of players we have met at random, enjoyed running with, and regularly keep in contact and raid with; we meet new folk all the time. This style of running means raid leading can present different challenges to a guild-only run.

I’m now living in Edinburgh after an unexpected and happy turn of events during a guild meeting. This, apart from anything else, reinforces my belief that WoW and similar online games are not to be scoffed as communities. I happily stand as proof that it is entirely possible to meet and build solid relationships with new friends and even your “other ‘alf” in these games – and it’s no bad thing to be brought together partially through a mutual love of gaming.

So that’s me, pretty much. I’m thoroughly enjoying blogging and contributing to this site. Watch out for my thoughts on the “link achiv or no raid” style and why I disapprove of it, to what extent micro managing in raids can do as much harm as good – and, well, whatever else takes my fancy, hitting a blog near you.

Oh, and … Hoot.