Encounter at Argent Dawn

”Hi sexy”

It came out of nowhere, in pink letters, which indicated it was a whisper. Clearly this was intended for me.

For a moment I was confused. How came that someone called me sexy? My gnome appearance is no doubt cute, but I don’t think anyone ever heard the epithet “sexy”.

Then I realized that this version of Larisa, actually wasn’t a pink pigtailed gnome, but a blood elf chick. And yeah, I suppose they look kind of sexy, at least that’s what they’re designed to be.


The new blogosphere guild
I think I could be excused for my rather slow pace in grasping the situation. After all it took place only a few seconds after I had spawned at Argent Dawn (EU). In this very moment I had only one single thought in my head: to execute my plan to look up Tam’s alt, joining the brand new blogosphere guild Single Abstract Noun.

I was still a bit upset and annoyed after finding out at the creation screen that Larisa with a normal “i, as well as Larísa, with an the emergency accent, were occupied, just as Larissa. I guess it’s the effect of having a highly populated server. Lots of players need lots of names.

Finally I had come up with the bizarre spelling Larïsa, which I knew would be annoying for anyone wanting to put me on their friends list. But I didn’t see any alternative but to insert those stupid dots. I couldn’t possibly let go of my online alter ego in a guild that was so connected to my life as a blogger.

There was other stuff going on contributing to my confusion. A yellow question mark was calling for my attention right in front of me. And Blizzard’s crash course, introducing the interface to new players messed up with some addons that randomly had spawned all over the screen.

So maybe it wasn’t so strange that it took me a while to find myself and localize the the guy who had approached me, a rather handsome looking blood elf.

How to react?
Suddenly I recalled where I was. Squee! Argent Dawn is an RP realm. Finally, after all this hesitating and the mumblings about wanna-try-one-day from the closet, I had taken the scary step. This was the real thing. Maybe this was the normal state of things here? Maybe there’s a lot more interaction going on between players here than there is on my normal PvE home realm? At least I liked to think there was. And I asked myself if there was some sort of social conventions that I was supposed to follow.

I fell into deep contemplation. How should your character react when someone calls you sexy? Maybe I should blush a little, or even flirt a bit? Or… probably not. After all I didn’t know this guy at all. Certainly a rude gesture and a slap on the chin would be more natural?

But before I had come anywhere near taking a decision, the caller had vanished, and I found myself smiling into the air.

Cosy and chatty
I shrugged, did a /who Single and found what I was looking for. Shortly after I was let into the cosiest little guild I’ve ever encountered. Bloggers are a special kind. They may appear shy, preferring thinking and writing to socializing. But put them in the right company and they’ll suddenly turn out chatty. They just can’t shut up.

When I saw a character in the guild list – currently offline, but nevertheless - named “Tobold” in the guild, I all but fainted. Tobold – a guildie of mine? Wow. Is this for real? Is this THE Tobold? “We think so”, came the answer.

Since Wednesdays basically are gaming free nights for me, I only stayed online five minutes. Still it was some damned good minutes, filled with giggles, happy greetings and a general cosiness that is hard to describe. It was a homecoming, an in-game version of The Pink Pigtail Inn is the best description I can give. (As a matter of fact the guild tabard is designed to make you associate to a virtual pub.)

Like for everyone else, this is just a side project. My home and the bulk of my gaming time will remain at Stormrage. But there also are times in the game, outside of the scheduled raids, when I find myself pretty lonely. I guess I’m just not very good at making friends. I can always pug away a few instances with an alt, but it leaves me with an empty feeling. And when this happens, I hope that I might find some likeminded people from the blogosphere to hang out with at Argent Dawn.

And who knows, next time I’m online as Larisa the Bloodelf or maybe Larisa the Tauren or Larisa the Troll – I haven’t yet made up my mind about what class and race to play (please feel free to come with suggestions) – I even might dare to put on my role playing glasses. I’m not ready to force the story-of-my-life upon any stranger I meet – I’m not ready to be in character at all. But maybe I can start out by just listening a little to conversations I may stumble upon, getting an idea of what it’s all about.

Or maybe I’ve got too high expectations on what an RP realm is like?

The future will tell. All I know now is that I’m kind of happy that things messed up for Tamarind so he came around to take this initiative. The worst things that happen to us often turn out to be blessings, leading us to try new paths we never would have thought of else.

Anyway: I've had my first encounter withe Argent Dawn and I'm looking forward to grab the next opportunity to drop by and spend some time with my fellow bloggers and readers.