reflective essay #4

Experiences that stand out in my mind include, cutting the tree after a hurricane, the first time my team killed the lich king in wow, and the births of my daughters.  These experiences all include me and others. 

Cutting the tree after the hurricane:  in this experience, my father directed me and one of my sisters in the process of cutting a small piece of the trunk off a tree that had fallen in our yard during the storm.  We used a special saw to do this and had to work together in order to succeed.  We saved the piece of the tree for many years before it was finally lost in one of our many moves.

The first time my team killed the lich king in wow:  this was an exciting day.  The team consisted of ten people who all needed to work together to succeed.  Each of us had our specific tasks to do which related to the class of character we played.  I play a Warlock in this experience.  One task specific to my class was the maintaining of a teleport circle so if I was grabbed I could return to the fight easily when dropped, while the team focused on the lich king.  Another task that all of the team had to do was stay alive.  As we all worked together, we used Ventrilo for voice communications to let the rest of the team know what we were doing, especially if we died or were grabbed by a valkery.  We had been trying for several weeks to bring down the lich king before we succeeded.  After success we had a party in game.

The births of my daughters:  these are both memorable experiences.  While the same process was involved, there were drastic differences in the completion of the task.  With the older daughter, I was hungry and had no strength when it was time to do the real work for her to be born.  Also this labor was induced, which made it necessary to keep monitors on at all times and so I could not get up and walk about.  With the younger daughter, I had walked across the town the night before and noticed a backache in the morning.  I took a shower and then watched my clock and timed the frequency of the backache cramp.  Then I called my doctor and asked what he wanted me to do.  He requested that I come to his office so he could check things out. From his office I was sent to the hospital. This time at least I was not hungry, and was able to occasionally take a short walk.  Both daughters were born during the dark hours of the night, one just before midnight, and the other after midnight.  I was in the hospital for the three days of the week that they were born.

In all of these experiences it was necessary to work with others for success.  In the first I needed to work with my sister and father, in the second with the other nine members of my team and in the last with my doctor and the nursing staff at the hospital.  All involved communications at some level and in the second, lack of communication would cause failure.  These experiences could be used for inspiration in creating a game that demands high skills in communications.