Couples Who Slay Together – EJ & Simes

Welcome to our Community Project of 2017 (you can see our last one in 2014 here)!

We propose to do a series of – fun and lightearted – interviews which help us learn a bit more about our awesome community, and hopefully unravel some juicy details about our readers. 

If you would like to get involved, contact us.

Thanks for doing our little interview! Can you introduce yourselves?

We are E-J and Simes, we live in London with our SmokeyCat and have been married for 16 years. Simes does things with computers and E-J helps nurse sick animals back to health.
Could you share a pic of you together – either IRL or in game, we don’t mind!

Here we are spinning around in The Vortex Pinnacle 🙂


How long have you been together and where did you meet?

We met in Cambridge about 21 years ago, via mutual friends.

Show us a picture of your setup – do you have a cute couple thing going on, all cosy?

This is our current set up – Simon has 3 screens and I have 2. In our previous home, my computer was in the attic but I could see Simon through the attic hatch from where I was sitting and so could throw socks at him to get his attention if he had his headphones on 🙂 sock throwing is an excellent form of communication I feel!

So, do you tend to play the same games together or prefer to keep gaming life separate?

We mostly play Warcraft but atm our mains are in different guilds as Simon is interested in more progressive raiding than I am but even so, I think sitting next to each other means that even when we are doing different things in game, we still feel like we are gaming together.

With the current political situation it’s only right we ask your affiliation: HORDE OR ALLIANCE?

Alliance Prevails!! /cheer!

 I have just dinged a Tauren Paladin to 110 and am loving her. I main a Gnome Mage (me too! Woop!) Simon mains a Shadow Priest – we do like alts but this has been a slow expansion for them.

Spill the beans: what’s the most fun activity you like to do together? GAMING ACTIVITY… naughty! 😉 

Erm, either raiding or battlegrounds I think – being a Gnome makes me an excellent target so that Simon can sneak up behind people and get his dots rolling.

As a couple, do you find sharing your gaming hobby helps your relationship? 

Definitely – I think it helps greatly when you play an MMO and you appreciate that sometimes it’s not just your partner who is doing something, but they are grouped up with other RL people so you can’t just down tools and go AFK at the drop of a hat. It’s great on long journeys as well as we try and work out where the story could go next and come up with daft ideas together. The family that plays together, stays together.

*ahem* who rides who on the two seater mount?
I ride Simon – he ususally has an addon that has told him where we need to go so it’s easiest to let him be in charge. Maybe this is why I do all the driving IRL…

Who is the raid leader in your relationship?!
Co-leads – each of us brings different skills and strengths to the relationship and between us we have a great balance.

What’s been the biggest, how can I say this… marital dispute… whilst gaming together?
We have different approaches to leveling and whilst it can be fun doing it together, as Simon has raid requirements to hit, he often needs to level much faster at the beginning of an expansion than I do and that did lead to some tension. So now we set off together but don’t worry if one of us gets ahead of the other – we’re always happy to go back and help each other with quests.

One of you has to kill 100 kobolds and one has to collect the 100 shiny beads they drop… who does which task and why?
Whoever’s AOE is better will do the killing – we like to be efficient!

Where do you see your future in gaming?
Staying with WoW while the story is so compelling and after that, we would want to find a different RPG to roll characters in together. To be honest as long as we’re in the same gaming world, it’s all good.

Ok, the million pound question. You’re farming a rare mount. Neither of you has it. It drops. Who gets it?!!
Simon would try and insist I got it, I would demand that we roll for it!

You two sound like you have a great setup together 🙂 thanks for taking part!

I’d also just like to say a massive thank you to Simes at this point for being so helpful with my endless nooby questions. Thanks pal ❤

Check out EJ here and Simes here.