WoW creating father and son time

Like my pet boar?

As our kids have grown into teenagers, they seem to want to spend less and less time with their parents. I understand this happens to most parents but I really enjoy father and son activities. Throwing a ball back and forth, playing videogames and the like. Over the last week or so since World of Warcraft Burning Crusade came out, I’ve been spending some father son time with our oldest and a little bit with our middle son exploring dungeons, amassing treasure and even learning new trade skills in skinning and leatherworking.

Along the way he’s leveled up to 21 and I’m at level 16. I chose to be a dwarf hunter. I like the fact that I can use a gun which is something I’d likely never do in my first life and couldn’t do in Everquest. I also have enjoyed riding the Griffons from one land to another. It’s kind of like travelling across the skies in other virtual worlds.

World of Warcraft is an entertaining MMORPG and I can see why so many people play (over 8 million and counting). As mentioned before, it’s not as time consuming to level up as it is with Everquest which is attractive to me. At the same time it isn’t really easy either. I think total game time so far is 1 day and I’m at level 16. Our middle son, the most experienced WoW player in our family tells me that is pretty slow. What can I say, I’m a WoW newbie.

I have learned a few tricks along the way. Doing the quests gives faster experience and how to send my pet into fight instead of myself (my dwarf is pretty weak, but my pet boar is strong). While it’s more fun to just camp monster areas fighting the baddies, many of the quest still have you going out and battling too. I enjoy non-combative activities like leatherworking and taming new pets. At the rate I’m going I should be an artisan skinner around level 20. I used to like fishing in Everquest and I imagine you can do that in WoW as well. Also would like to buy a pickaxe and try my hand at some mining in WoW.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be playing WoW, nor how long we’ll be carrying two accounts ($30+ a month, ouch), but it’s father son experiences like these that my wife must not have realized when she said didn’t see any value in these games. Any time parents can spend with their siblings working on an enjoyable activity together is valuable.