The New Addiction

First, it was Everquest. This addiction hit me twice. The first time, I quit out of frustration with the game, and because it was starting to cause problems in my personal life. Yeah, lame, I know. I joined a few years later to play with some people I worked with, had a lot of fun, especially due to the changes that had taken place in the game, met a lot more players, but after awhile, I could not take the way the game was anymore. Spending a few hours looking for a group was not my idea of fun, so I quit, and will probably never go back.

Then, it was Anarchy Online. I liked this game a lot more than Everquest. It fit my playstyle a lot better, since I enjoy soloing. Soloing in this game allowed me to walk away from the game a lot, which was needed after Conner was born. Eventually though, my playtime was always being cut off due to more important things, for example, the baby needing a bottle or attention, so I quit that game. I will play it again though, if they have any new price incentives for players that have cancelled. I know I will not go back to EQ, but AO was fun, and I wouldn't mind paying for it for another month to play it again.

My new addiction is one I have been waiting for since I first heard about it in 2001. In the past, Blizzard has never let me down. I have loved their games since I first installed Warcraft back in 1995. Later that year, I played and loved Warcraft 2, and then Diablo, Starcraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft 3. So when I first heard that they were making an MMORPG based in the Warcraft universe, I was both excited and disapointed. Excited because a new Warcraft game would be out, disapointed because I knew I would get sucked into another MMORPG, and at the time, I was playing none and had been out of EQ for a year.

As the games development progressed and more information was being released, I could tell that this game would be a lot better than the rest. They were focusing on FUN, which is something that a lot of the other developers out there seemed to forget. The game was finally released, and I installed it a few days ago.

Yes, I am now addicted to World of Warcraft, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

In my first 10 minutes of play, I had already received 2 quests and had killed several rats and zombies. That in the first 10 minutes!! My first 10 minutes of EQ were spent trying to find my way out of a city, and then trying to find something to fight, and then dying. My first 10 minutes of AO were spent trying to figure out the interface, controls, hotkeys, etc. I don't remember my first 10 minutes of Ultima Online, but I last played it shortly after it launched in 1997, and honestly I don't think I actually spent ten minutes in that pile of crap.

The game loaded very quickly. In EQ, I could load the game, and there were several screens to click through, and then go get a soda before I was in the game. And I am not talking about getting a can of soda and taking it back to my desk. I mean getting a can, getting ice, putting ice in the glass, then putting the soda in the glass, throw away the can(yeah yeah, I should recycle these), and then go back to the desk. In this game, I load it up and am ready to go in like 30 seconds. That is so fucking cool.

Since I am a casual player who can't play everyday or for long hours anymore, WoW has an exp bonus that you get when you are logged out, so that you won't be far behind the people that play WoW all the time. That is awesome. EQ punished you if you could not play for several hours at a time, or every night. Well, ok, they didn't really punish you, but it took forever to get to do anything meaningful, like fight things and get cool shit. Yippee, I killed a snake and got a cloth hood!! Now I can wait 2 minutes and fight the same snake.. again!!! *yawn*

And of course, soloing, which is important to me. I like being able to solo because it gives me more freedom. Can't find a group? Oh well, I can go solo and not have to listen to other players bitch. All the experience and loot will be mine. The people behind EQ would often do whatever they could to make sure you could not solo, and this was a pain, especially if you were not playing a group friendly class(my preferred was a Necromancer). AO was a lot more friendly, and soloing was a big part of the game since you could easily get solo missions at the terminals. I also found a lot of nice places to solo in the Shadowlands, which was more challenging but a lot of fun. WoW seems to be very friendly to soloers, both based on what is written on their website, and what I am hearing from other players. Hell, they don't even really punish you for dying. That is fucking cool.

One thing I like knowing is I don't have to play tonight in order to quickly get where I want to be in the game. I can wait until tomorrow night and use that nice exp bonus to help catch me up to where I want to be. That rules, especially since I may play my two other new games tonight, one of which I need to start over on(I am looking at you Star Ocean).