I had a great time tonight, questing out in the Ghostlands with my father :)
Dad started to play Runescape as a way to chat with my brother and myself (mainly me, I live further away and visit less often), and then recently we got him onto World of Warcraft and he's been plugging away since Christmas.
Because of my brief foray into raiding, and the fact that he'd be available to play in the evening, I didn't get a chance to play WITH him, although we got some good chances to chat about the game in general and each time I visit we share some new things.
Now we're finally getting a chance to play together, because my evening play time isn't already spoken for (well, I could lie and say I'm not there, but I don't like to lie).
So tonight Dad and I tackled some quests in Ghostlands. We started in Tranquillien with his little Mage and I put on my Shaman healing gear, and we trodded off together to lay waste to bats and spiders and ghouls.
Dad on Vent, Me on Chat
In order to make this gaming together easier for him, I helped Dad get set up with Ventrilo when I visited last, and we've agreed that when we play together, I don't talk - I type. I can type a lot faster than he can ;) and his 56k internet connection gets super lagged if there's incoming talking while he's trying to play. Maybe there's some configurations I could alter to improve performance but I'll worry about that later.
For now, it seems to be working pretty well. We went out and finished a couple of the quests that we share in our quest logs - he lead the pace and the direction and the attacks, and I mainly acted as heals or backup DPS if we got some extra mobs.
Once, Knucklerot came upon us when I had Dad looking in his spellbook for Frost Nova - I was able to run away without death but Dad didn't even see the attack coming. Soooo... I got to rez him, and save him a run back!
It was all kinda neat and fun. This is the first person from my Real Life that I've actually played with on this game - not just chatted with because they're in a completely different part of the game than I am.
I'm looking forward to partying again, very soon :)
Today's Newbie Mage tip:
Use Frost Nova to freeze meleee mobs in place once they're physically close to you, so you can back away to cast without interruption. Even if you're a Fire-spec'd or Arcane-spec'd mage, Frost Nova works the same way and is just as effective.
You can continue to use Rank 1 of Frost Nova and not worry about using higher versions of it when you get the skill - the amount of time frozen never changes, just the amount of damage caused and it causes miniscule damage to begin with. Save the mana, use Rank 1.