World of Warcraft has been around for 10 years… Seriously…what?

— Charlie Banks (@charliebanks) August 10, 2014

Yes Charlie, come November, World of Warcraft will be ten,
the player demographic mostly features lots of men,
wait…..that sounds a little sexist,
and might alarm the feminists,
I’m sure that many girly girls,
(and various other types of girls,)
enjoy this fantasy gaming world.
I feel, however, that I should stress,
that that elf over there who’s wearing a dress,
could in fact be a big, hefty bloke,
out to give his mates a shock,
by choosing to wear a rather nice frock.

Right, the game is loading,
I’m about to press play,
here are the instructions,
I’m on my way.
I get to choose a character,
I get to choose a race,
I can customise my clothing,
I can customise my face,
I get to choose a realm,
(a fancy word for place),
and I get to choose a class*
in this multi-player space.

Men can opt to be a female,
and vice versa for the girls,
there’s a lot of gender confusion,
(as was previously mentioned)
in this online gaming world.
There’s role playing too,
and chatter back and forth,
between tanks, damage dealers and healers,
and the Alliance and the Horde.

(what…where….who?)

I’m a World of Warcraft novice,
(WoW to those in the know),
so I think it’s about time I gave this MMORPG**  a go.
I’m off to the land of Azeroth,
(which isn’t at all like Middle Earth)
I’ll choose to be a human,
‘cos I happen to already be one,
yes, I think that that might work,
‘cos I don’t fancy being an Orc.

WoW’s a simple game to learn, Blizzard Entertainment say,
good, cos Candy Crush and Layton are the only games I play.
I’ll go with the Alliance and join a guild of dwarves and elves,
or I might be anti-social, and go solo, by myselves (?)

Well, I’m standing in a clearing about to start the game,
at one with my online character, I even have a name,
(Susan the Grey – the LOTR references just won’t go away).

Yikes!  who are all these weirdos,
they don’t look very friendly,
hang on they’re coming closer,
I think they want to kill me.
Which button do I press,
to start an online quest,
what the hell is going on,
up there on the screen,
and what on Azeroth,
do all these symbols mean?
Ouch! that goblin thing just hit me,
with a flashy bolt of light,
is it ok to run away now,
‘cos I don’t know how to fight.
I think I have a problem,
I don’t know how to run,
(am I missing something here,
is an all-out ambush supposed to be fun?)
Ok, let’s forget the running,
I can barely even walk,
do WoW fantastical characters ever get to talk?
(‘cos I’d be telling this lot to f*ck off I can tell you.)

Blizzard say their game’s a doddle, but I don’t understand a thing,
just setting up my character requires a degree in game-ing.
I don’t like all the fighting, the dungeons and the raids,
I don’t know where I’m going, or who I’m supposed to save.
Too many confusing buttons,
too many things to know,
and this place is really scary,
I think it’s time to go.

Happy soon to be 10th birthday to the online game of W0W,
but I’m sticking to Professor Layton and Candy Crush for N0W.

* this doesn’t mean avoiding the riff-raff apparently

**  Massively multiplayer online role-playing game