Project WoW Noob: Rowan's GF Edition

So I had my own Project WoW Noob on Saturday, and thought I might post about it here, so as not to steal thunder from Jarira. I probably won't be continuing this as a series like GeeCee, though.

Having played D&D as a teen, my GF expressed some interest in checking out World of Warcraft. So I jumped on the Silvermoon realm and had her create a character on my account to try it out. She chose a Blood Elf Paladin. I had hoped she would pick a different race that had seen more changes to their noob quests, but the BElfs are so pretty. She had some fun with the customization screen before hitting the "That Name is unavailable" roadblock. We got over it as this was only going to be a trial toon anyway, and she entered the World.  The race intro started and we learned about the glorious past of the Blood Elf Pe--her phone rang. It was her daughter, so she had to take it. I logged her toon out and started a dummy toon just so she could see the intro in full. I personally love the sense of story I get when listening to these; plus the fly-throughs of areas long familiar to me, but which will brand new to her.

Logging her back in, I directed her to talk to the first quest-giver. She had a hard time using my Logitech M570 to steer, as she rarely uses a mouse at all, thanks to her iPhone and netbook. Plus, the mouse controls steering and camera angle at the same time, which can be tough for a noob. So she ended up using the arrow keys, which made me dizzy as the world spun around her. Also, being a pally meant that she had no ranged ability to start with, so she had to be right on top of the target to whack at it the first time. And those darn mana wyrms wouldn't sit still.

Still, she rapidly improved, using a combination of arrow keys and the mouse to target and attack her prey on the various quests. I have a few addons (OK, a ton), but I really like the relatively new WoW map and quest guide, so I have dropped Questhelper. She misunderstood a couple quests, (spoiler) like the first one from the trainer in which you are supposed to learn a new ability and use it on the target dummies. My GF thought that the ability had already been learned and proceeded to find a target dummy, to no avail.

She spent the better part of the morning wandering around Sunstrider Isle with me sitting beside her on the couch giving tips and advice. I tried to avoid giving to much advice, letting her stumble though mistakes but helping when she asked. We didn't have some of gaffes encountered by GeeCee and Jarira, who are not playing in the same room. Heh, I wasn't playing at all actually. The one thing that I did do for her was jump off the top of the Falthrien Academy into the water below, greatly shortening the trip, but not a move for novices.

We had fun laughing at her noobish blunders, but in the end she had done pretty well. It was interesting for me to see things that I normally take for granted through the eyes of a new player, like how to equip new armor, how to decide what weapon to equip, etc. She had enough fun that she wants to play more, though we haven't decided whether we're going to use a dormant second account of mine, or if she will get an independent one. Plus, she's not sure if her current computer can handle the game client. I may be buying RAM for Christmas.