In the past three months, I’ve been on two continents and 23 countries. I’ve been through the Scarlet Monastery in the far north and fought crocs along the Wild Shore south of Booty Bay at the deepest point of Stranglethorn Vale. Along the way I befriended a handicapped woman from Tennessee and a 19-year-old Mom from Texas who’s juggling motherhood with college. While discovering the marshes in the Wetlands, I’ve given motherly advice to a young woman coping with a new baby and during the boat ride from Menethil Harbor to Theramore Isle I congratulated a forty-something-year-old man for having the courage to start a new career. I’m a World of Warcraft senior gamer.

For years I was intimidated by this on-in computer game. I stuck to solitaire and would occasionally venture out into a simple on-line matching game like Gold Strike. It took a great deal of urging by my college- aged son and my 57-year-old younger sister for me to give it a chance. I finally took the plunge this past January. My son gently guided me, suggesting that I might be most comfortable starting my virtual life as a human paladin, explaining what they do and why that might fit me. I hovered around my safe area in Elwynn Forrest at the Northshire Abby, practicing my skills by killing wolves that never attacked me and striking down little Kobalt vermin, workers and laborers. Pretty hard to die there. My confidence grew and I left the Abby for the next town of Goldshire. That was the start of my life in Azeroth.

Since then I’ve learned how to mine ore and smelt copper and tin into bronze bars; I’ve reached the professional artisan achievement for skinning animals and working with their hides; and I’ve used my hands to craft leatherwork vests and boots for friends. The first aid classes I’ve taken have saved lives. I’m not afraid to explore the most remote areas of each country or to stop and ask guards for directions in big cities. In order to truly discover all countries, I’ve fought with both the Alliance and the Horde.

I’m surprised at how much I’ve learned from World of Warcraft. Going into this game, I expected only to be entertained. What I did not expect was to learn how much this game reflected life itself and how it made me acutely aware of my own personality.

I’ve learned that people tend to choose characters that are a reflection of themselves. For example, I have found that my son was right, I’m definitely a good Human Paladin. I charge into the middle of a group of enemies, throw down consecration to do damage and then whip butt. I like the “in-your-face” style of game playing, but also love the power of being able to bring people back from the dead. Perhaps that’s because I’m a definite A-type personality, independent, strong willed, with a definite entrepreneurial spirit. I love leading the pack, so to speak, yet stress teamwork.

It’s for that reason that my sister and I make a great team. She’s a really good mage – often called “glass canon”. A mage is a character that stands back away from the pack, using heavy buffs to kill creatures from a distance, but with a vulnerability that does not offer themselves a lot of protection. So when we quest together, she is perfectly content at staying back away from the confrontation, watching my back and keeping me alive. That’s pretty much a reflection of our real lives. She weighs and considers all facets of a problem before making a good decision. I make a quick analysis of the issue, make sure my guns are loaded and charge in, sometimes with more “balls than brains” as they say. I have a tough exterior and she has a strength behind her vulnerability.

I love to explore, both in gaming and in real life. My goal as a Warcraft Paladin is to explore every area of both continents, whether horde or alliance, and periodically jump into any random dungeon with a pack of strangers. My real life is no different. At twenty-years-old I left for Europe for three months to explore on my own and since then have visited 52 countries. Up until I came on-line three months ago, my sister was, and still is when I’m not on-line, content to lope along by herself at her own pace and rarely goes into dungeons to adventure with complete strangers. Sandy is very much a home-body in both lives.

I was surprised at how well my game character even reflected my physical traits. The family joke has always been that I had the ability to trip over a Kleenex in a forty-acre field. My mind is always a yard ahead of my feet, so I tend to be klutzy. Life is no different as a character. My sister insists that in all her years of game playing, she never met anyone before me that could be riding along and suddenly fall off their horse. My 25-year-old son, who has been playing since the open beta version in 2004, is incredulous that I can fall over a cliff as easily as I do or find the one computer “black hole” between the mountain and a tree trunk that does not allow a character to get out.

This klutzy trait has become a family joke. During a quest called MacKreel’s Moonshine, players need to stand on the Arathi Highlands side of the Thandol Span Bridge and leap across an expanse to the bridge on the other side. Believe me, it’s a very, very long ways down from this bridge to the river below. As I stood on the precipice, my sister alongside me, my son on the other side urging me on, my hands got sweaty. I tell you, for a moment it felt real. They began chiding me that if anyone was going to fall over the edge, it would be me. I insisted that this definitely would not be the case. I was on my horse and thought that perhaps if I got a running start, I would have a better chance of leaping the substantial gap. I began to back my horse up by hitting “s” on the keyboard, then decided it would be safer to turn around and walk the horse back a bit to get a running start. So I turned my horse around, completely forgetting that I still had my hand on the “s” key to move backwards and simply backed up right over the edge. All that could be heard as my loyal mount and I descended hundreds of feet was, “Oh *&^@# I’m going to die!!!!!” As I’m floating downstream, the laughter of my sister and my son breaks over the headsets. It must have taken them ten minutes to recover. But good sports that they are, they jumped in after me and we all swam upstream to find our way out of the river.

Actually, I’m surprised how many players are pretty good sports about this frailty I have. I was in an instance once (a five-man player dungeon), my first time through, when I accidently fell off the side of a cliff into the midst of a pack of poisonous blobs. It came as no surprise that my son jumped down after me to help me, but it did come as a complete surprise when the rest of the instance team jumped down as well and fought to protect me. I will forever be grateful for that.

That’s just one example of gamer kindness. There are so many wonderful players that one encounters throughout the game. Some just throw you a “buff” (a protective spell) as they ride by; some stop to help you kill enemies when you’re way above your head and then just ride away once you’ve been saved, leaving you wondering, “who was that masked man?” Most people are very nice and very understanding, especially if they know you’re new to the game.

But there are always a few. It will come as no surprise that I have also learned that jerks in computer games are probably the same kind of jerk in real life. Once I got to a higher level, I built up the courage to try playing a dungeon. A dungeon is comprised of a five-man team that goes into a specially allocated part of the computer server reserved for just those five players, and together they go through a location, such as a cave, monastery or castle, to fight an enemy. Gamers do this for the experience, or sometimes to “loot” for a good piece of weaponry or armor. It’s the tank’s job to go in first to gather all the enemies into one clump so that the three damage dealers (the fighters), can come in to back him up and kill the enemy. It’s the healer’s job to stand back, away from the foray, and heal all the members, keeping them alive. Damage dealers are expendable, the healer and the tank are harder to find when forming a group.

So what’s the best example of a jerk? It’s when you’re in a dungeon as a five-man team and not five minutes into the instance the enemy drops an item the tank wants badly, so he just grabs the item and exits the dungeon, leaving the other four players without protection, without the looted piece and unable to go on without a tank. You pretty much have to know that it’s a reflection of what this player is like in real life. I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that this is the same player who takes what he wants in life, even if it means leaving everyone around him in a lurch. There’s no “I’ in team, and I’m pretty certain he’s no team player at home or work.

Bullies exist in World of Warcraft just as they do in the school yard. There’s no honor in a 13-year-old boy beating up a 7-year-old kid, just as there is no honor in a level 32 warrior throwing down a duel flag in front of a brand new level 6 player. It’s a no contest win. How can you feel good about beating someone who has no equipment, no armor and no experience? To add insult to injury, I’ve seen those same bullies torment the low-level player by clucking like a chicken when he declines the duel. Tell me that behind this character is a mature, honorable and respectful player. I’ll take my chances that it’s a pre-teen bully. What I truly respect is the level 6 player who declines the duel and walks away from the bully; or even more, a level 60 player who witnesses this encounter, calls the bully a jerk and then when the bully insults him as well, takes the duel and whips his butt. You’d think this could be a life lesson for these people, but I’ve seen this same bully, after being beaten by the level 60 player, call him names and then turn around and try to duel another low level player! There are some hard lessons to be learned in life and it appears that some people are immune to learning.

But the jerks and the bullies seem to be few and far between and are greatly overshadowed by the friendly, truly nice people who play and by the hundreds of laughs my sister and I have shared as we quest together every night. 9:00 p.m. is our special time. We put on our headsets, jump into our characters and take off to conquer the world, leaving all the everyday problems of the real world behind. I laugh as she lopes through the Hillsbrad Foothills, dragging very spider, bear and cougar within miles behind her and we both laughed so hard we almost wet our pants the time I got disconnected from the server in Duskwallow Marsh. By the time she realized I was no longer behind her and went back to check on me, my head was caught in a tree, my horse was being bit in the butt by a crocodile, and I was almost dead before I could get logged back on again.

Playing World of Warcraft has been a wonderful way for me to reconnect with my sister and to “meet” some really great people with whom I would never have come in contact otherwise. I am honored that so many people value the advice that only a “seasoned” woman of 62 years can provide. I’m pleased to see that in this world microcosm, people are still friendly, generous, kind and understanding. It’s a good place for seniors to go. There’s no age discrimination; no one knows how old you are, only what kind of person stands behind the player you are. You have a chance to travel the world, even if you can’t leave your chair. You can be the warrior you always wanted to be with the body you always hoped to have and everyone can get a job, even at 62, mining ore, making leather goods, concocting potions or bandaging wounds with first aid. Even better, it keeps your mind sharp, your skills toned and gives you a chance to connect with family members hundreds of miles away on a regular basis. You can become part of their lives again or remain a part of their lives when they leave home.

I believe that seniors are becoming the new silent minority of World of Warcraft. These retired and semi-retired baby boomers have the time and experience to be strong players and more and more are joining the ranks. World of Warcraft isn’t just for kids any more.