[/caption]This is the twenty-first post in our Game of the Day series.
Games are played for enjoyment, but also because of some hook intrinsic to them. Sometimes the reason doesn't always mesh with having fun. One in particular awakened an obsession with collecting and minimal character improvements as rewards to hours, days, and months of work. Additionally there's the peer pressure to continue participating when it's the only commonality in video games between you and your friends. Even without the title of this post, you might guess I'm talking about World of Warcraft.
Obviously I loved Blizzard games, Warcraft 2 in particular, and so the idea of gallivanting about the Azeroth landscape at a largely personal level appealed to me. I waited out the beta, reading various things here and there, only wanting to experience the final product. Thus at the end of October or November in 2004, I purchased two copies and a strategy guide (because it had Penny Arcade comics in it!). The day I bought it, we were visiting my girlfriend's family, so all I could do was read the guide and spout off all the cool stuff it had in it. She eventually conceded to my proselytizing and attempted it herself a week or two after I started.
As a fan of Thief, I created a gnome rogue named Redcheese after Richard Cheese (who I was listening to at the time). Then I went about the snowy starting area and got completely confused and simultaneously enthralled. The world was large, it was new and scary, and General Chat was still about sharing and caring rather than being stupid and annoying. I remember grouping up with a little gnome mage in order to take on a cave full of trolls and being consistently decimated. Much later I would learn that both classes are considered "squishy" and not the most compatible of companions.
Later on I convinced many people at my day job to buy and play the game as well, something of a renewed Warcraft Friday. There was an initial surge in participates which created enormous amounts of misunderstandings and the number dwindled down to 6 core players on a PvP server (Burning Blade). Since you can only have 5 in a group, this caused problems more often than not, and is only one of the many reasons why we eventually stopped grouping up. The other is that getting ganked constantly took all the fun out of our weekly romps. However these jerks try to reason, danger and all, they're still jerks and made our pathetic attempts at learning and interacting with the game nearly impossible. We stopped in the 40's, my character Gob (a Troll Holy Priest) had gotten to 47.
As a joke after our supposed recreational outlet via WoW faded, I created an arrogant Paladin named Lightfist who ended up becoming one of my favorites. Unfortunately, constant changes to the game mechanics kept messing with my particular methods, and eventually I gave up on him. Then most recently I created a Dranei Shaman named Dejuor (yes, it's misspelled, whatever) and dropped him after the umpteenth time they reset talent points.
I've started and stopped this addiction constantly, like many I would guess. And will probably give the new expansion a small bit of my time. My stints in Blizzard's MMO have continually gotten shorter with the breaks in between getting longer. As they cater more to crowds not including me, it has been difficult to justify spending money in something that barely satisfies. For example, playing Oblivion after WoW was surprisingly great. Ditto for Fallout 3 and others. Witcher, not so much. But regardless, it has served kinda like a "palette cleanser" experience. Since most of my friends have stopped it as well, it doesn't serve any other purpose. Time to play WC2!
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar