World of Warcraft

There are no houses in World of Warcraft.

Not crowding the immaculate, sunkissed walkways of Stormwind, where it never rains. Not hiding the dim, torched hallways of Ironforge, nor laying about in the dreamstate of Darnassus, a city whose surreal fauna create a haze your graphics card cannot dissipate.

There is no lack of exotic real estate. The plains of Durotar are windswept and desolate; they promise you something, an oasis, then take it. There is a tree, the World Tree, which could – realistically – support 5,000-6,000 treehouses – if only anybody’s hero were working construction. The peaceful haven Shattrath, and the surrounding Terokkar Forest, appeared to me a psychologist’s Rorschach of calm. Waves of dark green with cracks, little light revelations, suggested I could find a house there.

But Destromath, my character, a Dwarven hunter, was not allowed a house. For all that I accomplished in that video game, I never settled him down. Each night, I’d log out and leave Destromath at a place of convenience. His slumber was strictly pragmatic. If you left your character at an inn, for example, you’d gain double experience for a short time the next time you played. Yet Destromath was maximum level; he would never benefit from an inn’s reprieve. He needed something more, something a video game designer’s generous mathematics and planning could not provide.

I played World of Warcraft at a near-professional level for almost 5 years, so, eventually, I found a home for him.

It was approximately 3 inches by 4 inches. A bit smaller than others I’d seen, sure, but it felt cozy, and he and I made it home. We lived there with anywhere from 5 to 60 strangers at a time; positions, ranks, and corners, even, swapped constantly. Relationships began and ended before you had a chance to learn names. For a while, Destromath shared a sort of “penthouse suite” with 4 or 5 others, but the burdens of that station weighed both of us back down to the first floor. We belonged there.

Socialization, something stereotypically said to be a type of rare luxury for video game players, was all we had. Our small rectangle was a refuge from the Lich King of Naxxramas or the Old God of Ahn’Qiraj or the Lord of Blackrock Mountain. It trapped us, and together in its safety, we tipped, toed around a World designed to kill us. In the antiquated Romantic sense, in victory and defeat, we remained at home, always.

Together, at home, was all we had.

It is a lesson I learned later, and much too late: that people – they are your home. And, beautifully, in World of Warcraft, you can take them with you. You have them wandering alone at night across those desolate plains. Or in the depths of that mountain. Or just before you take a rest, in an inn or elsewhere.

It was just a chat window, yes, a small rectangle occupying a corner of my computer monitor, but for 5 years alone in the World – a home.