Family Bondage

Please ignore the title. It's an inside joke. But I couldn't help it.

I don't think many people my age (29) will ever say this, but I'm a gamer because of my dad. He's the one who got me started.

Way back in the day when a computer with a CMYK monitor was a pretty amazing thing, he would occasionally bring one home from his office for the weekend for me to play on. He'd show me the fantasy adventure games that were the precursor to things like "King's Quest." You know. A text based game with really bad little images to help you along.

(Incidentally, this is also what got me into programming, as I wasted as many hours playing around with BASIC as I did playing games.)

Later on it was an Atari 2300. Then I branched off into other consoles as they came out (Hi, Nintendo!) and he stuck with the PC. He was big on just about anything Sierra put out, and I would happily jump in front of the computer when he wasn't on to take advantage of them as well. He also introduced me to Warcraft (the original RTS) and games like Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, SimCity, Castles, Lords of Magic...I could go on and on.

A couple years ago, after I got serious about WoW I thought, "You know, I think my dad would enjoy this game." I play in a guild with a lot of Parent/Children pairs (or sets) and this really drove that idea home.

My dad didn't game nearly as much as he used to, but I think that was due to keeping machines well past their gaming prime. So a lot of stuff coming out that he would play, he just couldn't. Despite wanting to introduce him to the game, I decided to hold off until his comp was a little more up-to-date.

Late last year he finally upgraded his PC. I saw a chance. So over the Christmas break I gave him the Wrath install DVD and hooked him up with a Trial account. I told him he might enjoy it.

He rolled a Human Warrior (hmm...sounds familiar...) and started leveling him through Elwyn Forest. I kinda expected him to like the game. I didn't expect him to like it enough that he was playing 4- or 5-hour stretches at a time. (Like me, he had enough time off banked up to take the last two weeks of the year completely off work. So many an afternoon were spent glued to the screen.)

I wanted to roll a new toon to kinda jog behind him at times and help him out. I definitely wanted something with a heal button. I already had a Priest in my roster, so the only Human class left to me was a Paladin. (I wanted a new toon because I didn't want to get ahead of him in levels and start carrying him through the game.)

I reset all the beginner tips so I could see what the game was telling him and what he might still need filled in. I have to say, Blizz has done a hell of a job making the starting experience a lot easier. It can still be overwhelming, but it's much much better than it used to be.

There were a lot of noob moments ("Jumping doesn't help your combat." "Campfires will kill you if you stand in them." "You don't have to save before you quit." "Yeah, Hogger's what's known as an Elite mob.") and some general gamer rust. I'm still trying to get him to use two hands to play instead of one. Being able to move/turn and fight at the same time would make things easier on him, I think.

After a few days he said that it was one of the most fun games he's played in a while and being able to play a game with me was making it that much better. He was looking forward to the weekend when he was planning on making the push to 20 and then deciding if he wanted to continue with the full game or not. I was sure he was hooked and I smiled.

Then disaster struck. Between a number of factors, his whole weekend got pulled out from under him and he didn't get to play at all. Then work started back up, leaving only weekends available. (His trial expired on a Wednesday.) He said that, while it was fun, he could too easily imagine that happening enough times in a month that he wouldn't be able to play enough to make the subscription fee worth it. But he was heartened to know that the game would save his progress indefinitely in case he ever changed his mind.

I couldn't argue with that. No use in paying for a game you couldn't find time to play.

This was all during the first week of January.

A week and a half ago I called my dad for some help with my taxes. Some of the new homeowner stuff was a little confusing to me, as this was my first year owning a home. After we got all my questions answered, he mentioned that he had gone out and picked up his own retail copy of WoW and upgraded to a full account. He's going to stay on a month-to-month (non auto-renewing) subscription for now, but I have a feeling that as long as he finds a few hours a weekend to play, it won't be long before he's running around Northrend.

I checked the Armory yesterday. My Paladin is now 5 levels behind him. Time to catch up...