At a party, Rebecca, a friend of a friend, asked me what games I played and if I could advice her something to try. She was into the phone games, (feeding pets, growing pumpkins, decorating houses, the works) and wanted to broaden her horizon. Something sweet, not too brutal, no walking around with a gun.
Maybe you will like Warcraft, I said. The same quick reward system, and you can be an elf. She wanted to be an elf. I sent her an invitiation, and she created a blonde hunter elf. I showed her around for the first couple of hours and left her to it.
At that point I was not playing Warcraft much, so it took a couple of days before I checked up on her. She had levelled a lot, asked me an incredible amount of questions and didn’t really have time to listen to the answers. I saw the signs. She was falling for it. And she was falling hard. Soon she told me about her spreadsheets, her own gear calculating system and self programmed hovering tools. I pictured her desk as glowing screens in center, surrounded by scribbled notes, empty cans of Red Bull and forgotten foods.
She wanted to be the best.
She wanted to raid and be top dps.
She got into a guild and started raiding a couple of times a week. And it went well; she was making progress, learning the tactics, topping the dps. And she expected the same dedication of others. This guild had the fairly common guy-girl leadership. She got along great with everybody, but not that great with leadergirl. There was tension between them. Then Leadergirl cancelled some raids, changed times and switched players around teams for no apparent reason. Rebecca got angry with Leadergirl, I want to play, why did you cancel, we need to progress, why did we get the noob healer, and as reply Leadergirl kicked her. Just like that.
Hours spend on various mumbles. This guild had to be crushed. She would take away her team and start her own guild.