From gaming widow to gamer

I recently noticed that I have a World of Warcraft category for my personal blog. Yet I never post anything with it. Maybe that’s because Ten does enough WoW blogging for both of us.

On a more serious note, I guess I should state that I do play World of Warcraft; although I think it really should be renamed World of Warcrack as there are eight million people playing it worldwide. Blizzard really did get the formula right with this MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game). There are enough quests to solo, enough dungeons to run with groups of five, and a ton of raid instances (10 - 40 people). Couple that with interesting classes, different races, two factions that can’t speak to one another, and you have a world that people spends hours upon hours exploring.

Some people don’t get the attraction with MMOs, and admittedly, I was one of them. In fact, in the past, I had been known to refer to myself as a “gaming widow” since Guin played a ton of Dark Age of Camelot. I actually resented how much time he gamed online.

Now don’t think I didn’t like computer games at all. I was a huge Quake addict and would play it for hours on end. I also played the heck out of Tombraider. Occasionally, I would delve into Guin’s old AD&D games, which look incredibly archaic now. I even played The Sims. Granted, I spent a lot of time designing homes and finding creative ways to make my Sims self-destruct. However, I just didn’t see the draw of an MMO.

So how does one go from gaming widow to gamer? It took years. In December of 1999, my mother bought Asheron’s Call for Guin. It was officially his first MMORPG. He tried to get me to play it and even bought me a copy months later. I liked the cutesy things in the game like snowmen at winter time, and pumpkins you could throw and costumes at Halloween. I just wasn’t into the social interaction piece of it. If you’re not going to interact in an MMO then there’s really no point in playing one. Thus, my copy of AC sat on my shelf never to be played again.

Fast forward to almost two years later, and you’ll find Guin playing another MMO, Dark Age of Camelot. I didn’t get the lure, and I spent many nights doing my own thing while he gamed. Luckily, I had my own hobby of making cards and books so I wasn’t a shrew that didn’t let him play his game. (My mom pretty much put it into perspective when she said, “Is he at a bar? Is he spending all your money? Is he with another woman? Why are you complaining?”) So I stamped while he gamed, and we occupied the same space in the spare room. I won’t say we spent quality time together as he was focused on his game.

The downside to DAoC was that the quests were time-consuming, the lands were vast, and the dungeons could easily require up to 100 people to take out a mob (enemy). One raid could go on for hours. And trust me, Guin would play for HOURS. He would not only game on his computer, he would use my computer with a second account to run his healbot/buffbot (a second character that runs behind your character whose sole purpose is to give heals/buffs to the first character).

One day I made the mistake of leaning over my computer to see what he was doing. That’s when he asked me to press a few buttons. Looking back, I see how easily he hooked me because his healer was a girl. Hindsight is 20/20, no? I had a lot of fun with DAoC, especially with RvR PvP (realm versus realm player versus player). In fact, that’s what I did the most with my game time.

Move to the summer of 2003, and here is where I blame Ten for my current MMO addictions. Guin had bought Star Wars Galaxies as it was touted as the next big thing in MMOs. Pfft! Anyways, he played it but was disinterested because it was so buggy. It basically sat on the shelf with DAoC. That is until Ten came for a visit.

Ten encouraged me to create a character on Guin’s account and to game with him. He was the sole person I gamed with in SWG, and I had a ton of fun learning the game with him during that visit. Alas, Ten was in the process of relocating with the USAF and didn’t get to play as much. Oddly enough, I didn’t stop playing because I was alone. (It was probably for the best that Ten didn’t game as much since he was strictly a follower of the rules of the Empire while I was sympathetic to the Rebels; what a shock. I would have needed to counter every move Ten made to assist the Empire.)

I honestly think what drew me in was the fact that I could make clothing and color them in any manner that I wanted. I guess I was reverting to my youth and my love of paper dolls. That and I could own a house and decorate how I wanted. My first character was a smuggler (like Han Solo) with some tailoring. I played the game so much that I actually bought a second account and created a tailor who was also a merchant. So I had my fighting character, Rhowan Dawnbringer, a human, and my crafting character, Ilere, a Zabrak. Well, Rhowan met an untimely demise, and I created a Twi’lek, Ki’lari Kess, who was a fighter and an image designer. Although, Ki’lari was a Teräs Käsi Master, she always ran around with her Master Image Designer tag while dressed in full composite armor. She was also bubblegum pink. Don’t ask; long story.

After Ten left, I met a merry band of folks who I still game with today. In fact, we moved from SWG together because it truly lacked content. Great world, good intentions for storyline, bad follow-through on Sony’s part. We all ended up making our own content to entertain ourselves. That and most of us were so rich from the insane payouts from the quests. Lots of issues. Thank goodness we all left before the Combat Revamp.

We found ourselves at launch (2004) in Everquest 2, where Ten and Chi joined us. I played a mystic, a healing class. I don’t know what on earth possessed me to think that I really wanted to play a healer. There were some ups and downs. EQ2 is not a solo friendly game, especially as a healer. Also, if you don’t like raiding, it’s not the game for you. Although, I will say I had a lot of fun with my friends.

Then we migrated over to WoW a year later. Amazingly enough, there are about eight of us from the original SWG guild playing WoW. We’re all in the same guild. Ten and Chi are in the different guild. Ten and I have learned over the years that when we bring bad juju when we are in guilds together. They always implode, so now we stay in different guilds. That and I am nowhere near as hardcore as Ten.

WoW isn’t as group dependent as EQ2. In fact, that’s probably what keeps it going with all those subscribers. It caters to any kind of gamer - hardcore to casual. I’m not a casual player. My /played time will prove that, but I am also not a hardcore raider by any stretch of the imagination. Real life and real friends will take precedence over a raid any time. However, I do like to raid, which in this case is a 10-man dungeon and the occasional twenty-five man.

Who knows where the road will lead me when it comes to gaming. Maybe Warhammer Online?