My old blog, Epiphany was rife with them, in later days (starting around fall 2004, when I started playing, in fact) and starting this one, I thought to myself "at least I won't be blogging about World of Warcraft all the time, I am so done with it!"
I am so not.
Ran the guild for five great years. Quit for months, the guild came apart with a fizzle, and then one day, I decided to play again. Solo. Or, more importantly, with Alden. That was near the end of last year, and I've been steady since. Solo, though. No guild, no schedules, no raiding, no social obligations, no chatting. Just me, and occasionally Luiz, and when Alden's allowed to play I love guiding him around. No real fever for the game anymore, just idle clicky time when nothing's going on. A few hours a week, if that.
The third expansion is coming out in less than a week. They're fixing everything about the early game, and adding a bunch of stuff. The fever is back. I've been playing whenever I get a chance, and feel enthusiastic about logging on. All the old stuff I loved, the idea of questing, leveling, and being self-sufficient, has been examined and updated. Last two expansions focused on end-game high level stuff, not geared towards casual players. This update is for me.
I'm still not joining a guild. I play this game with eleventy billion people, like it's a single player. It was kind of awesome to run a guild filled with friends, old and new.... but it took up every spare minute of my time, and the game drama...oh the in game drama, it always became real life drama. All the scheduling, the arranging, the worrying about game stuff, then maintaining the site, and the cost of upkeep. For five years, WoW wasn't one of my hobbies, it was my hobby. It's kind of awesome now to not have that obligation. I do miss the "good old days" sometimes, mostly when I'm lonely in game, drinking, with no one to talk to.
It's nice to look back over my playing style and levels of addiction over the years, from the manic "seek help" Asheron's Call days around 1999, where I'd play for eight hours straight, and sleep two hours a night. (because I'd never cut into family time...I would just play like a junkie after everyone went to sleep), to my "I hate mmos" phase, to my now casual "I can play AND have a life" phase. It's nice.
Postscript: Holy shit, I am such a flaky creature of habit. I just clicked on Epiphany, to use the link up there, and the very last post, almost two years ago to the day, is about WoW, and it sounds almost identical to this one. I am such a bizarre creature of habit. I almost deleted this in one fell swoop, out of embarrassment (to who, myself, of course!) but I mentioned it laughing, to Luiz, and he was like "you better not delete it" So, I'm leaving it. I guess I need a mental check every two years, along the lines of "I am a thirty-something year old woman, and I play video games, habitually, and I am okay." Maybe I ought to make this a theme. Every two years, do a state of the union post about my life and gaming. Riveting. I'm rolling my own eyes, at myself. I need to get new material, or something.
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