I know it’s like crazy to think, but there are new WoW players, so maybe don’t be a dick today
I was puttering around Orgrimmar the other night and there was this level 22 orc in nothing but a christmas sweater, walking around the city carrying a balloon. I teasingly followed him around and it led to a cat and mouse sort of game around a building. He caught up to me, I /gasped, and he launched into what I have to believe was an improv about being the Best Banana Salesman.
I figured this HAD to be someone’s low-level alt they rolled on a RP server for some reason and I play along and eventually look this guy up on my other monitor while talking to him. He has NO achievements. No pets beyond some basics. No raid anything. This is a new player. He’s level 22 so either is new or he paid an additional 15 dollars on a second account for… whatever benefits that entails?
I end up giving him 1000 gold for a banana and /yelling about the best banana salesman.
Before I logged off there were definitely random people hunting him down and buying bananas.
Log into the game and have fun. If they’re newbies, ESPECIALLY have fun with them. It’s what turned me into an RPer. I rolled a character on Cenarion Circle back in Vanilla to fuck with RPers and ended up getting dragged into a scene.
Sorry to hijack this post but I’ve been thinkin’ about this for two weeks.
I ran into a new player not long ago, when I was leveling my nightborne mage! I zoned into Dire Maul for a random group finder dungeon, and as I was picking up all the quests from the NPCs by the entrance, I saw in chat, “Whoa, what are you? I didn’t see that in the character creation options!”
Turns out, the player of the pandaren hunter who typed that was talking to me, because he’d never seen a nightborne before. How adorable is that?
One of the other people in the group had recently returned to the game after quitting in Wrath of the Lich King, and none of the others seemed familiar with the dungeon. Luckily they had me along to play tour guide and teacher. 🙂
I explained the boss strategies (such as they are in Dire Maul…mainly to kill the trash before the tree boss so it doesn’t all come rushing in during the boss fight, but also the deal with the pylons) and led the way through the dungeon’s various stairs and passages. Along the way I also explained terms like “vanilla WoW,” “trash,” and “adds.” Oh, and I had to explain how to hand in the quests when we were all done (although that wing of Dire Maul is hideous, what with the quest you have to go way up on the walkway to hand in, then alllll the way back to the library to get the reward chest.)
One player got mind controlled by a boss and the newbie was like, “WHOA, since when does this game have friendly fire? I’m so sorry, [guy I almost killed just now]!” I explained what had happened.
He also asked some questions about different classes, and about how interrupts worked. He was under the impression that interrupts were kind of useless because dungeon bosses were mostly immune, so one of the other players and I explained that they’re actually super important under some circumstances, etc.
I don’t even remember all the questions he asked, and all the tidbits I thought to bring up on my own, but it was fun for me to remember my own noob days and pay forward the help I’ve gotten through the years–and I’m sure it was great for him to have someone willing to answer his questions. The other people in the group were super patient, too, and the person who was returning after years away also had questions about what had changed.
So yeah. There are still new players coming into WoW, and it can be really rewarding (in a warm fuzzy/good karma kind of way, not the achievement points/mounts/gold kind of way) to help them out a little. 🙂
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