I started playing World of Warcraft in November 2007.
Burning crusade had been released in January the same year.
I’ve been watching my boyfriend and his friends play and something about the game spoke to me.
I just had to try it for myself, and that’s where Faydra was born.
A Bloodelf Retribution Paladin.
I remember in the beginning I was still very shy playing in an online game, where you had to interact with strangers, and where most of the players where male.
I was constantly teased by my boyfriend and friends that I wasn’t that good at the game, and I was even told that they wouldn’t want to raid with me, when I dinged max lvl because I wouldn’t be good enough to do it.
That sparked an inner voice promising “Ill show you guys I can do it better” and eventually I did 😊
The first few years I just ran around mostly by myself just lvling, but when one of my friends from primary school asked me to come play with him and his Danish guild I said yes, and I got into raiding then.
I still remember my first raid, I was tanking it and I was terrified, but they where all super supportive and we managed to down all the bosses in Karazhan and Zulaman.
The next expansion came out shortly, the Wrath of the Lich King, and I started the lvling process again, this time I made a new character and leaving my friend and my paladin behind. I made a priest with a few friends, and ended up in an English-speaking guild, when I hit max lvl.
This was the first time, I had been on my own, in an English-speaking guild, and it was slightly intimidating talking to strangers on Team Speak, but once I got to know them all, it was an amazing feeling. I was sitting in Denmark and talking to people across the world. Getting to know different cultures and viewpoints. My world had just opened to be bigger than just me sitting alone.
A few months later I went to a guild meet with them all in Cardiff Wales. At the time I was single, but I’ve been talking to this guy from Scotland a lot more, and we started dating after that guild meet up. He moved over to Denmark a few months later and I was with him for about 6 years.
I wasn’t the best at speaking English, in the beginning I was shy, but when my boyfriend from Scotland moved over, I slowly got the hint of a Scottish accent I still have today.
And a few years later people wouldn’t be able to recognize that I was Danish.
English became my first language, I even started dreaming in English. I still do.
Over the years I stopped being shy around people and started doing things in the game I would never have thought I’d be brave enough to do.
I started a guild of my own, I became an officer in most of the guilds I was in, managing websites, applications, recruiting people on discord, and in writing.
I started raid leading.
World of Warcraft is just a game in so many people’s eyes, but for me it was a jump to develop skills for myself I never thought I would have gained.
When I first started, I hardly knew how to turn my computer on, and everything was a challenge, figuring out how to download add on’s, installing a voice program.
To be competitive in the game I had to do a lot of homework. Read up on the different bosses in wow, learn how to play my class well, since I was the raid leader I had to read up on the other classes as well, and their jobs in that raid, and then convey it all to them in voice.
I had to learn how to review applications and how to write one, and to this day I’ve never done a job application, but a guild application and a job application looks a lot like the same thing, and I’m confident if I had to make one I would do it well because of my experiences in wow.
Sometimes there would be conflicts in game, and as a leader I had to address those conflicts and sort it out, so I learned how to handle conflicts well.
It was sort of a try and fail thing in the beginning but with every mistake you make you learn what not to do next time.
I learned to be tough and sometimes had to turn people down, who didn’t have the right experience for the task my guild needed them to do. That was the hardest one to learn, because it doesn’t matter if it’s the sweetest people you talk to, you must think of what’s best for your team.
There where moments I had to fail an application or a trial and I had to tell them myself, that they didn’t make the cut.
Today the recent thing I’ve learned is stream my game play in World of Warcraft and I’m in the process of learning how to edit videos, for future guide videos on you tube.
Its not just the practical set of skills I’ve gotten today but my social skills have improved massively. I’m no longer shy when it comes to talking to strangers.
When you are a girl playing in a world that’s mostly dominant by guys, it can be challenging. Its still a world, where everyone immediately think if you are a girl that you aren’t as good a gamer as them. Getting the same respect, they give each other is something I had to work towards, and slowly built up.
Especially when it comes to leading a bunch of people. Earning respect takes a lot of hard work, but when you show them how serious and hard working you are, that normally does the trick.
There are moments where you will get flirty comments from people. When I first became a streamer, I got a few comments that I should become a titty streamer, and its something I just shrug off now.
I play more games then just World of Warcraft now, and there is always something new to learn, a new challenge to complete. Its never ending and along the way I build stronger connections to people from other countries. That’s my favorite part of playing online games, is the people.
The people I was once to shy and to scared to talk to, is now the biggest motivation for me to continue playing World of Warcraft, along with the skills I get every year, that I can use in any workplace.
I never realized how much I’ve learned until last year when I went to a lecture with my mentor about gaming, and how much you learn from it.
It’s always been addressed as taboo playing video games at the lvl we do, but now gaming has been proven that it does benefit you as a person.
I love what I do, and I wouldn’t change this lifestyle. I’ve on several occasions gone to meet people I’ve meet in game in real life. I’ve become a more confident person, and my social skills has improved to the better, and the creativity I got from it, still surprises me.
World of Warcraft changed my life to the better.
Below I put in some screenshots from the games I play 🙂
Missfaylyn 