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15 Minutes of Fame: Road warrior dad keeps up with son via WoW
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. By now, most of us know somebody or have at least heard of somebody in an extended family that stays close by gaming together. Fact is, we can't really think of a better way to strengthen family ties across the miles. We all know that common interests are the mortar in a thriving relationship, and we know that kids open up with long-distance relatives most easily when the pressure's not on them to conversationally "perform." When you game with family across the miles, you share a real-time hobby with all the attendant chatter, enthusiasm and companionship that naturally comes along. Meet Golis, aka Blaine Sundrud. The 40-year-old traveling sales engineer spends a huge portion of his life on the road -- so he's turned to WoW to help keep in touch with his teenage son. "We have been able to use our time in game to eliminate the fact that I am in a hotel in Florida while he is still home in Utah," he explains. "We get on a phone call (hooray for free long-distance) and can just talk and fool around for the evening." The family connection doesn't end there. "Combine that with the fact that my parents (who live in Pennsylvania) play on the same server (both of them)," Golis continues. "While they are not the WoW addicts that my son and I are, we can usually count on a couple times a month conferencing them in on our call, and the four of us can go instancing, fishing, or just generally looking at the scenery. Due to the cost of travel, my son probably sees his grandparents in person once a year. Thanks to WoW, he has been able to get to know and play with them as if they just lived over the river and through the woods."
One Shots: The family that slays together...
One of the things that we've heard about many times over is the ability of MMOs to bring family together -- not just over long distances, but also over short ones. Case in point, the two Rogue World of Warcraft team you see pictured above. The one on the left happens to be my Rogue, and the one on the right belongs to my son, who is just as much of a gaming fiend as I am. Now we love to geek out together in both virtual and real worlds, and I can definitely say it's made us that much closer.Do you have a great screenshot that you feel shows off some common ground to all MMOs or has an interesting story attached to it? If so, send it along to us with your story, and you may see it here on the next edition of One Shots!
