Coupling, Azeroth-Style
Do WoW and Marriage go together like a main tank and a bandage?
Amber and Jeremy Weldon tell it like it is!
by Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle
Folks like Jack Thompson were probably hoping that gamers would gradually become extinct. We're supposed to live in basements, pop our post-adolescent acne, and not find a date, let alone marry, right? The gaming gene should eventually go the way of the polio virus, right? Not so! Turns out we marry and have kids just like normal people. In fact, most - most - of us are normal adults. World of Warcraft brought gaming to the mainstream, and now the future of the industry that generates more annual revenue than Hollywood is safe as can be.
Two entirely normal- yet very gracious and fun- WoW gamers from the American heartland agreed to talk to me about their WoW playing habits. Amber and Jeremy Weldon, along with an estimated 22% of the playerbase (according to Nick Yee's Daedalus project), are married, have a kid or kids, and play MMORPGs. Have a spouse that nags incessantly you to log off and spend some time with him or her? Maybe, just maybe, after reading what Amber and Jeremy have to say, they might log on with you instead!
Many thanks to the Weldons for spending some time answering these questions. They answered separately, so we had a little "Newlywed Game" style fun too.
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Jeff Woleslagle, WoW @ Ten Ton Hammer: How long have you two been playing WoW? Is WoW your first MMORPG?
| Amber: We've been playing WoW off and on since not long after it came out. We played the open beta and had fun with it, so we decided to get it after it came out. WoW isn't our first MMORPG. We've played UO, Horizons, and EVE. Jeremy plays EVE now and then still when he gets bored with WoW. I usually just play my non-MMO games when I get bored, such as Zeus, Age of Mythology, or Final Fantasy games. One of things I love most about my husband is that he shares my love of gaming (and reading). |
| Jeremy: We've been playing WoW off and on since December of 2004. Our first MMORPG was UO around the time of publish 16 (2000-2001). Before that we loved to play Diablo 2 using the private LAN option. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Do you play together or one at a time? What are your favorite characters to play?
| Amber: We do both. On the characters we play together, we try to pick two different classes that would play well together. Our favorite characters are night elves--a hunter and a priest. The hunter/priest combo makes a pretty good team while leveling up and we're never in contention for each other's equipment. |
| Jeremy: There are times when one of us aren't around or when one of us isn't in the mood to play WoW. But when we are both on at the same time, we do play together. I'm an alt-aholic, so I only have one lvl 60 character to experience the full benefits...I'd have to say playing a Shadow Priest is my favorite. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Do you have a most memorable gaming moment as a couple? Most romantic? Any long walks in Elwynn Forest on a moonlit night? :)
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Amber: Not really any romantic ones. Although, we do have a running backstory with our main characters (we play on an RP server). Our characters are "engaged" and I've been busy writing up how they met and all for our guild's RP thread on the forums. Eventually we plan to have an in-game wedding for our two characters.
Our memorable gaming moments are a bit silly. For instance, my son likes to sit on my lap and make my characters jump by hitting the spacebar. He likes to watch the screen when I'm running around or flying somewhere. Once, I wasn't playing, but Jeremy was and he went over and hit Jeremy's spacebar. It was a crucial moment in the fight and Jeremy's character died as a result of the jump. It was pretty funny to us. I think sometimes that some of our friends that don't play games think Jeremy and I are bit weird sometimes. We've had to explain why we sometimes call our son "the murloc" (he really likes to gargle and sounds just like a murloc when he does so). |
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Jeremy: *Loaded question warning* :)
We've been playing so long...wow. Recent ones that stick out in my mind are our accomplishment of a 45-minute Baron Run and the downing of Hakkar (the real Hakkar). We haven't been romantic in WoW much (that's what real life is for), but we both hang out at the Blue Recluse Inn...drink and wear our dressy cloths (she loves her little black dress). |
Ten Ton Hammer: Does your spouse's favorite character match his or her personality?
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Amber: Absolutely. My husband is a very giving person and tends to receive little credit for how much he does. Priests are the same way. Healers are essential to a group, yet if something goes wrong, the healer is the first one blamed. It can get frustrating, but he loves it when he's able to save a raid from a wipe.
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| Jeremy: Amber and I both like to RP a bit, so there is always part of each our personalities in our characters. I'd have to say that her main matchs her very closely...minus the haughty attitude that she throws in that usually throws off the people that don't RP any at all. |
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(Jeremy's well |
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Ten Ton Hammer: Ever have a WoW-related disagreement? Hopefully no one ended up sleeping on the couch!
| Amber: We have had WoW-related disagreements. It's usually along the lines of "I haven't seen you all day and now you're going on a raid without me?!" We've never gotten really upset with each other though. In the end, it's only a game and there are much more important things to get upset over. |
| Jeremy: Horde or Alliance was a big one, but in the end she won and thus my main is a Night-elf Priest and she is the infamous Night-elf Hunter. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Who's the better player? Who's the better cook?
| Amber: If you had asked this question to us 7 years ago when we first got married, I would have answered "him" on both accounts. However, I've passed him in cooking skill since then, probably because I get a lot more practice than he does. He's still the better player though. I'm pretty good at PvE, but I stink at PvP. He's good at both. |
| Jeremy: I'm the life-time gamer geek and it shows that I'm usually teaching her the ropes. Depends...grill or oven? She's the better cook inside, and I'm the better cook outside. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Sometimes couples have a hard time playing together because one spouse is a little more zealous about playing and all the sudden a level gap develops. Do you guys stay well within grouping range of each other?
| Amber: Well, we have characters that we play together and then we have others that we play on our own. The ones we play together usually never get more than 2 levels apart from each other. |
| Jeremy: Altaholics-R-us. Our mains were the same level of each other all the way to 60, but we have various alts that we play when we're not on together. And it's hard at times to tell who's the more zealous player, we each have our times when we can't stop playing. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Do you play apart from each other once in a while? Are you guys active in a guild? If so, can you tell us something about the guild? How big is it? Do you have other real-life friends in the guild? Is the focus on PvP, endgame, just plain fun?
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Amber: We do play apart now and then, more so since we've both hit 60 with our main characters. Jeremy's priest always has a place in a raid, but my hunter is not always needed. So we find ourselves doing different things on the game while both on at the same time. I usually will play on an alt or do some crafting when this happens. Plus, there are days that I just don't feel like playing at all.
Jeremy and I are both officers in a guild. Our guild is very family-oriented. I love it. There's so many other people in there that are families and are playing. We have father/son, mom/son, brothers, cousins....it seems like almost everyone in our guild is related to someone else in it. Jeremy signed the charter on the guild, and I was one of the members who joined shortly after it was an "official" guild. Our guild has went thorugh a lot of changes throughout the 9 months-or-so since it was formed, but one thing that has stayed the same is that it's very family-friendly. At the moment, we're working on restructuring it. We think the guild has grown too big and that there are some people that don't understand about helping each other out to further everyone's character. The guild grew too big too fast. We want to keep that family-feel to the guild, so we're going to be doing some house-cleaning. Our guild focuses on PvE. We're trying to get to the point where we can work on endgame. We've gotten through ZG (except for one of the optional bosses--Jindo) and we're working a bit on AQ20. Even though we have a large guild, it's still hard to find enough people for raids a lot of the times. This is one of the reasons we're restructuring. We still don't want to be focused solely on endgame, but we want those that do want to do endgame to be able to. We're working on scheduling raids so that we always have a full group. It's a bit difficult, because we have people from all over the world in our guild--Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and others.
Our real-life friends that play MMO's, don't play WoW. They play UO, DAoC and EVE. They're always trying to get us to come play their games and we're always trying to get them to come play WoW. |
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Jeremy: We do play apart, usually with alts, but sometimes with our mains (since they're lvl 60). Being part of a guild that is teething on raiding is part of it. I'm always a needed participant, but sometimes there are too many hunters that have spoken up before she did to make the raid. We've been members of Maelstom of Emerald Dream (yes, yes confusing I know...but I wouldn't change the name now) since December of 2005...Christmas Eve is when we joined I think.
Up til recently we've been a casual family oriented guild. We have father-son, mother-son, wife-husband, brother-sister, and cousins groups in our guild. It's very enjoyable to have us all under the same name. With most of us getting to lvl 60 and interested in raiding, our interest is turning a little more focused that direction. And I think we're gonna continue to get more focus on raiding as we go along. But we do everything...RP, PvP and Raid. |
Ten Ton Hammer: To couples that are just starting to enjoy gaming together, can you offer a few words of advice on how to keep the peace and keep it fun?
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Amber: It's a game. If it starts to get to where it's not fun, try something else. Compromise is important in every relationship and Jeremy and I have compromised on almost everything. We compromise on what kind of characters we play in order to work well together. We compromise on how late we stay up playing. We compromise on whether we're going to go see a movie or go on a guild raid on a Saturday night.
Family always comes first. Jeremy and I have made a rule that we don't go through instances or raids unless our son is sleeping. Family first is something that a lot of people that play these games don't seem to understand. I've seen friends (real-life friends) who only played a game as a relationship. The only times they would communicate is through the game. It got to the point where if we wanted to come over, we had to play the game with them in order to visit them. Neither would talk to the other and they both wanted everything their way. In my opinion, they let gaming get between their relationship with each other. They ended up in a divorce. Games are fun, but they are not life. There's so much more to a relationship then just doing the same thing at the same time. I might get frustrated if Jeremy levels too fast, or if he stays up too late raiding, or plays the game when I'd rather go out somewhere, but I don't stay mad long. Because more often than not, I'm right there staying up till 2 or 3 am with him or catching up to him in levels on an alt while he's raiding with his main. We game for fun. Once it gets to where it's not fun (we've had it happen before--with UO), then we find something else to do that will be fun. |
| Jeremy: Ultimately remember that it's a game. Don't get so lost in it that you start to neglect each other, and try to do stuff you both like. |
Ten Ton Hammer: Last question - the future of couples gaming everywhere depends on how you answer this ancient question... cake, or pie?
| Amber and Jeremy: Cheesecake! |
| Amber: Best of both worlds. |
Ten Ton Hammer: You guys have been awesome, and you sound like you make a great gaming pair, so we'll forgive you for going with a dessert that involves the word "cake."
Thanks again to Amber and Jeremy for their time. Have a couples gaming story you'd like to share? Email us!
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