A Warm Welcome In The Nick Of Time
By: Craythur
My return to WAR brought me to Phoenix Throne thanks to The Cotcast (now Multiplaying) crew. A planned server wise T2 Dwarf vs Greenskins convinced me to play here even though the podcast folks moved away from the game before I reactivated my account.
This time around I was on my own. I had no friends to socialize with, no guild, and no real plan other than to see what had changed and try the game from another faction. I rolled Craythur and hit the ground running. I had decided to play a healer again to ensure I would have some group utility. I enjoy helping the folks around me so it was a no brainer. There was only three or four other people in the starting zone. They weren't talking or interested in grouping. So it was me and my runes against the invading Greenskins.
Mere moments into Craythur's first day I experienced a great joy. The massive cannon went off and all the NPC dwarves cheered it's name. "Helga!" I was floored. It may seem a small thing to the rest of you. For me, all the love and joy the designers put into the Dwarf Greenskin zones and the game in general was hammered home to me with that one atmospheric bit of code. I set up a /shout For Helga! macro and joined in whenever I heard the gun roar. I still fire off that macro on occasion. It's harder to find as my action bars are far more crowded than they used to be. :)
I got caught up in the PVE quests in Mount Ekrund and environs. I would find the Oathgold. I would chase the chuffin Greenskins from our ancestral lands. I would avenge the fallen and resolve their grudges. I had returned!
I got a bit carried away and ended up leveling Craythur out of T1 before the great Dwarf vs Greenskins event. So I rolled my first alt (the steel eyed engineer Macready) and waited for the big day.
After a couple of weeks the day finally arrived! The organizers of the event, however, didn't. I was pretty disappointed initially. I had been looking forward to meeting the PT community and making a fresh start with like minded players. On order side, there were less than 10 people in the RVR lake. Most of them were there by accident rather than design. The same was true for the destro side. Near as I can tell, there were less than a dozen people taking part in the event over the course of 3 or 4 hours. That includes both factions. The event was a bust.
My return to WAR nearly ended that day. Standing on a rock outside the Greenskin warcamp waiting for destro to return gave me far too much time to think. If I was going to play on a server with no sense of community then I might as well play my original launch characters who were now on Iron Rock. Jumping into a high level character with no guild/friends/social network didn't really appeal to me.
But then something pretty cool happened. One of the three dwarves I had been hanging out with invited me to join his guild. We had been chatting for quite some time. He seemed a decent fellow. So I readily agreed. He logged off his dwarf and sent me an invite from his main "Vampiresbane". I had no sooner clicked the Accept Button when Alliance chat appeared and was filled with people welcoming me to the family. Most of the welcomes were in Gaelic. BOOM! Community. I was floored. That instant feeling of acceptance and camaraderie turned my day around and convinced me to stick with Phoenix Throne.
That was quite a moment. I try to provide that same moment for new players to our family. Those initial welcome messages in Alliance are a big deal to a player interested in the social side of this game. When you see a new member join our family please welcome them, even if several other folks already have. It makes an impact. :)
http://www.gaisciochnaanu.com/tavern/2659/
Craythur