Thursday, September 11, 2008

I Hope You Play MMOs For YOU...

...because no one else gives a shit if you stop. Don't think otherwise. I mean, it seems pretty obvious, but I think sometimes we lose track of that. Here’s a funny little story. I played WoW since retail release way back in February of 1987. Back then Franklin Roosevelt was president, Vietnam had just ended, and although the Great Depression was just getting started, WoW was fun and exciting, and I really had a good time playing it. MMOs were a whole new can of worms, and I would happily slay wolves all day looking for those oh-so-elusive wolf noses. I played with a roommate, then joined a guild, then stayed with that guild for a while. None of this is news. It’s not even remotely interesting. I KNOW. SHUT UP.

A funny thing happened, though, on May 20th 2008. My account, which I had logged over 8 zillion hours on and had three level 70 ‘mains’ (lol alts are for noobs) got banned because I began to tire of the grind associated with raiding, and finally just downloaded Glider one day and set that shit up to run while I slept, yo!

Hm.

Blah blah blah, tried finding a new game (Age of LoLnan), that didn’t work, and eventually got given a new WoW account from a friend. In my teary eyed naiveté I was like GOLLY! I GOT A NEW LEASE ON (my lack of a) LIFE! I’VE CERTAINLY LEARNED MY LESSON. I’M GONNA PLAY WOW LIKE I USED TO, AND ENJOY THE GAME FOR WHAT IT IS! Except now I had no one to play with anymore, and playing MMOs ‘alone’ blows. My guild that was just starting to tackle Archimonde in Hyjal was busy doing what raiding guilds do, and when I looked up my roommate from oh so long ago, he had crossed over and was now playing alliance side on a PVE server. This will be fun! I’ve never played alliance, so everything will be NEW! Woo here I go new class new race new everything, ready set commence!

Except my friend still lives in America, and I’m stuck playing the entire grind from 1 to 70 while the rest of the server sleeps. Even the gold spamming bots don’t play when I’m on. It reminds me why I stopped playing with him in the first place, after moving to Japan. This shit sucks, and even if I wanted to xfer my now 62 hunter to another server, it’s fucking alliance side on PVE. Gralgahagahrlahalrag. Have you ever been in a BG with Alliance? I'm not saying they're bad, it's like they just figure they're going to lose, and so refuse to put forth effort accordingly.

But why should I keep plugging away, alone on the server, for the day my hunter is 70, if the only light at the end of the tunnel is raiding Kara again with my roommate’s guild on my-Saturday-morning-his-Friday-night? I suppose in the end I’ll at least have a (PVE server alliance) level 70 hunter to play with in Wrath?

Druids, rogues, and warriors all seem like the classes I’m most interested to play again in Wrath, though, because those were the three I actually used to play in a somewhat high level (tier 5ish) before they all got banned. At this point, there’s very little incentive to log in and play, so I’m left wondering what it is I’m playing for again. In the end, I’m really not. I go to the arcade and play Street Fighter 4 (or save a few bucks and play an older version on MAME), just chill with the kid, or soak up Japanese programming on TV. 62 was a milestone for the hunter (Steady Shot, woo woo), but now that I’ve reached it, seeing the Outlands stretching out before me looks more like a pain in the ass than “the final stretch to 70”.

The next big thing has got to be Warhammer, it certainly wasn’t Conan. In the meantime, I’ll probably just see about botting one of each class back up to 70. I keep feeling like I’m reaching the edge of my threshold for suffering through games, and it isn’t even my job to do so. The guys at GameSpot or whatever are supposed to suffer through them. As a hobby, why is ours so hateful? Reading books or watching movies is rarely as painful as the grind to 70. I honestly can’t be fucked doing it all over again, and I’ve reached the point (again) that if the new account gets banned, it’s just as well anyway.

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