I play World of Warcraft

I wonder how many people just left the page when they saw the title of this post.

I have a friend, we'll call him Shides. That is his in-game name, so why not. I've known Shides about 9 years now. Shides started talking to me about World of Warcraft in 2004 (I think when the beta came out) and told me I should play. I ignored him. Shides continued to talk about WoW for the next 3 years and told me I should play. I continued to ignore him. In the 4th year, Shides and I actually worked together, and I heard about WoW more and more often. I started to wear down.

See I was one of those D&D kids in junior high and high school. I played the early D&D video games when they came out and loved them. When I really started seeing how WoW worked, I got more and more interested. Without telling Shides, I downloaded the trial version of WoW on Christmas Eve 2008. I "rolled" a Dwarf Hunter and began playing. I was hooked within about an hour. I told Shides what I had done when we came back to work after Christmas. He explained to me all I had done wrong. I needed to be Horde (orcs and trolls and zombies), not Alliance (humans and elves and dwarves). I needed to be on a PvP server (where other players can kill you) and not a PvE server (where they can't). But he also told me that I couldn't play with him, as our professional relationship would not work within the confines of the game. I rolled a Horde character - a Tauren Druid - on his server, and he hooked me up with a ton of good stuff to get me going. but I couldn't join his guild as long as we worked together.

Well 45 days later I got laid off from the company where we worked together. I rebounded quickly and found something while I was still living on severance, but the immediate benefit of being let go was that I was able to join Shides' guild immediately. Shides had been part of a guild since the day WoW went live in 2004, and he was an officer in a large, successful guild. Completely Broken on Skullcrusher-US, if you're into that kind of thing.

So I belong to a large successful raiding guild though I myself do not raid. I have a bunch of alts (the lingo of the game is that you have a character you primarily play and are concerned with - a "Main" - and then you may have one or more other characters that you alternate time with, hence the name "Alt"). Anyway my "toons," as they are often called, are:
Bowcephus, an Orc Hunter
Bosbovis, a Tauren Druid
Bosmortis, a Tauren Death Knight
Bostaurus, a Tauren Shaman
Bosbellum, a Tauren Warrior

If I had a main - I'm not sure that I do - it would be Bowcephus, though I have been concentrating on Bosbovis for the last 2 months and will for at least another month.

BTW you'll notice that all my toons are Bo-something, which is why I go by "Bo."

So anyway I tinker. I play a lot - my wife works evenings and sings in a choir, so I am home 4 nights a week without her - but I have no intention of raiding. I level toons, gear them up, and move on to the next toon. Ideally I will have one of every class, though I can tell you now I will almost certainly never level my priest, warlock, or mage past level 30 or so. Just not that interested in cloth classes, not sure why.

So those are my toons. I'll have more to say later, I'm sure.