Breakfast Topic: How has playing WoW made your life better?
Maybe WoW is just a fun game you play for now, I dunno. Me, though? I can check off a whole host of ways that playing World of Warcraft has made my life better.
WoW is where my friends are. Sure, I have friends who haven't played a game in their lives -- but WoW is responsible for connecting me with multiple networks of friends I wouldn't have met any other way. New faces in our cross-MMO guild, a network of WoW Insider coworkers I've joined at multiple other companies and projects by now, far-flung virtual friendships with players I've played with and interviewed over the years ... These people are the kind of friends who pull out their couches when we road-trip through their area. Good people.
WoW has helped me sort out my personal strengths and my personal preferences. From learning the tasks I'm best suited for as a guild officer to understanding my addiction to the stressful crunch of healing, WoW has funneled me toward the pastimes and projects that suit me best.
WoW pulls the family together. At some point, everyone in my family has played WoW. We like our WoW, and we like cheering each other on. That pretty little draenei shaman thunking down totems and blazing out Chain Lightning on the way up the hill from the farm to the lumbermill, the one who topped the DPS list at the end of the BG? Yeah, you just got pwned by my 12-year-old geeklet -- and probably at least one of us was standing behind her watching the carnage and smirking, too.
WoW has made me a better gamer. The skills I learned bashing my head against the crucible of several ages of raiding or in suboptimal groups cobbled together from whatever our friends were playing that year has definitely tuned up my game.
WoW has become a pervasive part of my professional mix. In 1,651,518 words over 2,359 days (or so our content management system tells me), I've written a lot of material for WoW Insider. For two and a half years, I copyedited virtually everything we published as well. Even today, when much of my work is found elsewhere, it's the rare day that something in WoW Insider gold doesn't pop up on my calendar.
I could go on -- but the point is how WoW has touched your life, not mine. Has WoW brought you together with someone who became the love of your life? Has it helped you keep in touch with far-flung friends? Taught you how to herd cats with a feather? How has World of Warcraft influenced your life for the better?
