When I started playing World of Warcraft, about three years ago, it was because Matt had started playing while I was away on vacation, and it looked fascinating and fun, and because, honestly, if I was going to spend half my evening watching over his elbow, I might as well be actually playing the game.
It's a fantastic game. Three years later, my "main" is level 80, I have an alt at 72 and another at 67, not to mention half a dozen lower-level characters on four different servers that were started and abandoned... and there are still zones I haven't explored, professions I haven't tried, races and classes I haven't played. That doesn't even count content like dungeons and raids that are still way out of my league.
But after a while, the "shiny" wears off, and you get a feel for the rhythm of the thing. For the types of quests offered (kill X of those, collect Y of these, retrieve this, deliver that, confront the boss mob, Go Over There). For the terrain (oh god, not more effing mountains). For the lore (begat, besmirched, betrayed). And once you reach that point, it's mostly a really gorgeous video game with a social component.
The social component has been the primary draw for me for the last year or so. Once the MeadeHall stuttered to a halt, WoW was one of the few places I could congregate with my friends.
Only lately, that's been sort of crumbling, too. It's not the game's fault, or ours. It's just the nature of the beast. When you're chatting via game interface, then the conversations become jagged, as you pause for combat or to wade through city chatter. And they tend to become encrusted with in-game concerns: showing off the latest awesome loot; asking for advice or help; complaining about that guy who just wiped the raid or stole your node. Intellectual intercourse and heart-to-heart discussions doesn't fit into the pattern of things very well. Without hyperbole: I have more in-depth conversations in Twitter than I do in Warcraft.
I took the month of December off from the game, and though I missed it, I didn't really long for it. I missed it in the way you miss your fingernails when they've been freshly trimmed, or that lock of hair you play with when it's been cut: I missed the habit of it. When I came back to the game in January, I tried to keep it from being a habit again, but I've noticed lately that it's trending that way again. I click on that icon whenever I've got ten minutes to spare. Just to check on my auctions. Just to finish that last turn-in. Just to do a couple of dailies. Just... and suddenly an hour is gone. Two hours. More.
And let's be honest: I don't really have a spare 10-15 hours a week to dump into WoW anymore. As part of my losing-weight-and-getting-healthy plan, I'm trying to exercise more: that's typically three or four nights a week that I'm going to the gym or firing up the Wii Fit, and there's not much time left over, afterward, for WoW. I've got scrapbooks I want to put together, and even if it's a slightly cheesy hobby, it's my slightly cheesy hobby. And when I'm done, I've got something I can hold in my hands, something I can point to and say, "I made this," with at least a modicum of satisfaction. How much pride can I take in a handful of video game characters? I've got projects I want to do around the house; I'd love to set aside some time to start writing again; I've got stacks of books I'd like to read. There are people I could socialize with in the real world; and failing all that -- heck, I could go to bed early and actually get some sleep!
WoW is an amazing game, and it keeps getting better. I love it that there's always something to do. (Matt quit, in part, because he didn't have any clear-cut goals for his characters. That's not my issue -- I have very specific goals for each of my characters right now.) The social component is still a big lure.
My mind is not 100% made up yet, but it's about 90% of the way there. I'm paid up through mid-July, and there's at least one thing I'd like to do in the game that I'd regret leaving behind. But it's something I can do in just a few play sessions, and when it's done...? I strongly suspect that this chapter will be over.
No comments:
Post a Comment