Wallaceth goes 50

For the ones that are visiting this blog for the first time, this is an extra, irregular post. This blog is about arthurian legends, publishing a new post every weekend. I’ve being studying arthurian legend as a hobby for several years (King Arthur, Excalibur, Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, the Round Table and so on). So, this blog talks about those legends, and according to my countless searches, seems to be the only reference in Portuguese with reliable content, going from the stories to movies and books reviews.

Knowing my interest in such matters, my sister-in-law gave me a videogame which name is quite suggestive and fits my legendary interests: Dark Age of Camelot. She bought it in the States, in a trip she made a couple years ago.

It took me a long time to actually try the game and start enjoying it, mostly because is a paid game, and such model is not popular here in Brazil. We lack completely of any kind of tech support regarding games. Probably the best example to show this is the fact that the original XBOX console was never sold by MS here, only through the black market (and the same goes for accessories and games). In the PC business, the things are a bit different, but it is quite clear for all developers that the market share of gamers that are able and want to pay for playing online is just too small.

Anyway, the fact is I’m playing DAoC for more or less 8 months now, and this weekend my toon (as we call the characters in-game) called Wallaceth reached level 50, the highest one available. But the best thing is this happened among friends.

Online gaming is all about meeting other gamers. Real people with real life, real husbands and wives, kids, dogs and cats. It is great to feel their friendship, to share happiness when a mission is accomplished, to raid together, bringing support each other.
Pushing, tanking, buffing, getting aggro, casting, healing. Behaving as a single, coordinated group. And laughing together when a circle of tombs remind us to call more people for the next raid.

Our guild received a proper name considering its origins: From The Ashes. A sad episode marked the end of our previous guild in the way we remember it, and a new, fresh beginning, with some members from the old guild and new people bringing a joyful mix. I play as the inexperienced one most of the times, after all this is my first MMORPG, my first toon and my first guild, but besides getting lost and killed for bad aggro a couple times, I think I learned a lot. And now thinking in which one will be my next toon. What our guild needs now? More healers? Casters? Pullers? Tanks, maybe? That will help me to decide. I do not think anymore like a single player, I think as a guild member. It is great to help, and be helped. It grows as a sense of community, and makes you looking forward for the next time you can join a group and encounter nasty red mobs clustered at the next corridor.

It is hard to put it in words (especially if we consider the fact that English is a foreign language for me), but all this time I spend playing DAoC gave me the chance to meet exceptional people, able to work as a team no matter the distance, language or even lifestyle differences. We are all in the same boat when online, and made of our guild a family. It is a feeling I can hardly describe.

No more introductions; as I promised online, watch the very unique moment when the slowest necro of all times reached 50:

Thanks to all my online friends which make this possible! Thanks for your friendship, I love playing with you all. Looking forward for our next raid!