My birthday happens around Thanksgiving. In fact, I was born on Thanksgiving. What that means is that my birthday is always around Black Friday and usually I can score some pretty good deals for myself. Last year, Blizzard put up their vanilla World of Warcraft on sale for $5 over the weekend. Being the unselfish person that I am, I decided to buy a copy for my wife for my birthday.
She seemed to be ok with this but insisted that she wouldn’t be able to play until after the new year because of how busy the holiday season gets. That seemed reasonable.
By Christmas, I had again grown tired of the World of Warcraft, only going through the motions as I logged in. I had ran the new 5 man Ice Crown content several times and was starting to gear up my Death Knight to be a tank… but it just wasn’t fun anymore. I had several games sitting on my steam list that I still had not installed and even more coming for Christmas and after during the holiday sale. So I quit. Well, I stopped playing. I kept my account active with the hope that after the new year my wife would join me and soon we’d be questing together through Azeroth and frolicking in the bushes with a gratuitous use of emotes.
The new year came and went. I started asking the wife on occasion if she wanted to come play WoW. The answer was always the same, or at least always similar… to put it short: “no”. It was polite. She wasn’t rude about it, but it seemed like it just wasn’t something she wanted to do. So I would retreat to the basement alone and tend to saving Ferelden.
Near the end of the month, I had just about given up. I hadn’t played Warcraft in over a month and I was still paying for it. I cancelled my subscription and threw in the towel for good. A few days later, my wife asks “Hey, do you want to play WoW tonight?” I was blown away. I stammered a quick “yes” and headed down to the basement to make preparations.
That night, Kilthur, a Dwarf hunter, and Trinetty, a Gnome rogue were born. We played for a few hours and gained several levels thanks to the 300% recruit-a-friend experience boost. I think the wife was really starting to get into it again. Several years ago and pre-Burning Crusade, before we had kids, she had a level 56 undead warrior that she had leveled herself on a pvp server. We shared the account and only had 1 computer back then so we couldn’t play together… but she was into it. She had a guild, had met several friends, was running battlegrounds and having a great time. Eventually that ended but she may be back! at least partially.
Since that night, we have played 2 more times. We are now level 15 and are questing in Loch Modan. The recruit-a-friend experience boost is ridiculous. We’ve seriously only played about 4-5 hours. That includes time spent running to IF to get professions and hit the AH as well as some quality time roleplaying in the Deeprun Tram (if you know what I’m saying). It’s been fun. Our gaming time is limited. We only play after the kids go to sleep, but this is definitely a viable reason to keep my account active… and even pay for another one. Look forward to tales of adventure as the wife and I travel through Azeroth in search of phat lootz. Also look forward to tales of dual boxing as I take advantage of the other benefit of 2 accounts.
