Meetings to remember

In my everyday life I'm a person with a constant bad memory. I often find it hard to keep track of when, where and how I met people for the first time. Happenings a few years back in time will fade away quickly - and I notice that my ability to remember things is strongly connected to how well documented they are. To put it short: if it's caught in a picture I'll remember it, but mainly what's in the photo. If it's not it's gone.

Because of that it's unexpected and a bit fascinating how well I can remember happenings and meetings in the game which have resulted in friendships I hadn't thought about. And I don't have to take a single screenshot - the picture is there anyway, very clear.

Like when I ran into Wolfpally as I was following James levelling guide, having a lonely and hopeless fight against the harpyas in Thousand needles. One damned level should be grinded this way, until they had dropped 50 brilliant feathers, which would be traded for a 14 slot bag at Darkmoon fair. What a pain it was! Woulfie was following the same guide and we whispered a little. Suddenly we had became friends, and we still are, though our paths normally never cross in the game (he being an altoholic, myself being more into raiding.)

Another meeting I'll never forget was when I met Natherme, a friendship that was initiated by her standing shouting at me, mad and annoyed with me, since I after completing Arcatraz in a PUG rolled and won Lamp of peaceful radiance, an offhand she had been chasing for long herself. I was wearing a two hand staff and she thought I should have passed. That's the first and only time I've been called ninja in an instance and I took it hard. But - after some mail conversation in game - we had sorted it out, and also developed a friendship bond, which we probably never would have done unless that lamp had dropped. Things happen.

A third and last memory - which makes me a bit sad - is from Hinterlands. Imagine that altar you need to get up on if you want the mallot for ZF. I was standing beneath it, hiding for the trolls behind a bush. They seemed to aggro at the slightest little movement. I had managed to sneak up there, but now I couldn't move back or forward. To put it shortly: I was a very anxious little gnome, not knowing what to do, so I called for help in general to see if there was someone else around. And behold! Suddenly I got an answer on my SOS from a hunter - Derisal. Together we managed to make a bulls run up to the altar and thus managing at least one part of the quest chain. But the mallot we finally agreed that we could live without. Unfortunately we couldn't keep questing since his little baby had woken up. Pretty typical for him, as it would turn out. We shared each others company from level 60 and for a while, he playing on a paladin at the same level as me. Pala and mage - you can hardly imagine a better combo. He tanked - I spanked - and if needed he could throw a heal on me. We were surprised of how good we performed together and we soon started to call ourselves "The Unbeatable Duo". Our conditions were a bit special - suddenly in the middle of a difficult "take down an elite"-quest he would have to rush off, to change diapers, assist his girlfriend when breast feeding or something else. But unlike many other players I was understanding, I was happy about the short periods we could get together, since we cooperated so well. We were an unlikely couple - he being a rock musician, a few years above 20, me being more of a ... well ... mature lady. But it worked.

The story has a sad ending, I'm sorry to say. One day I had got a letter in the game. Bad News was the title of it and I became worried. Yes, he had left the game, switching to Lord of the Ring, in order to play with his RL friends. He sent me the gold he had, at least 1 500, which later became my flying mount and a few other things. But I didn't care about that. I cried, knowing I had lost a good friend. Even this day the letter is still in my bank, as a souvenir to remember all the fun we had.

Memories from magic meetings. So much more valuable and long lasting than the best epic drop you could ever think of. Gear comes and goes, it will soon be switched, after all it's just pixels and files on a server. But the fun moments I've had with my game friends - they'll always be there somewhere in my own memory bank, long after WoW has been replaced by some other game.