Why do I play?

My fellow guildie, Honorshammer, of the popular blog, Honor’s Code, recently posted regarding a topic written about on another blog - “Why do I play?”, that is, how have those of us playing WOW arrived at this point. I thought his post was quite fun, and nostalgic, and decided to write a similar post. Some of this I’ve covered in the past, but hey, it’s my blog and my memory lane. :-)

Curse of the Azure Bonds — what a blast from the past! I also played Pools of Radiance, which I think was a precursor to CotAB. I played those games during my freshman and sophomore years at college, particularly sophomore year. I was a computer lab assistant, and dormed in the same building as the lab — you can guess what I was doing most nights, lol. I still remember my computer science teacher figuring out, and subsequently teaching me, how to hack the player files for those games. It was great fun to run around with all attributes at 25, lol.

I, too, cut my teeth on Atari 2600 (Defender, PacMan, Pitfall, Atari Circus, etc.), but following that, mostly played arcade games at convenience stores and stuff through high school. It wasn’t until later college years before I got my first SNES and N64. I played many games on both consoles, but my favorite on each was Mario Kart (Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64). Ah, the memories of playing against Sindella, spending hours racing each other, honing our skills, getting to the point where the most minute mistake meant losing instead of winning. Kart is probably the one game at which I was truly an expert.

It was around this time that I became a Mac person, particularly because I was in the design program at school. There was a game demo that I was exposed to for something called Marathon. It would become my most favorite computer game. It was of the same vintage as Doom for PC, but was leagues better. The story line ranks as one of the best of all games I have ever played. It spawned 2 sequels in Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity, and formed the bedrock for one of the most popular games ever — Halo. Today, Marathon is still alive and free to download and play thanks to Bungie’s decision to make the game’s code open source. That project is Marathon: Aleph One.

These games lead to an infatuation with the game company Bungie, and that infatuation was deepened with the release of their game Myth: The Fallen Lords. It was a game that pretty much defied the current genres. It wasn’t a RPG, nor was it a FPS—it wasn’t a first-person anything. I guess it got classified as a RTS, but it was different from all others in that category. Instead of having to strategically create resources and then use them to overpower others, you were given a set amount resources—the same amount as everyone else—and had to then use your army strategically. It was an incredible game, and I believe, the first I played with a truly 3D environment. It also spawned 2 sequels in Myth 2: Soulblighter and Myth 3: The Wolf Age. Myth 2 was even better than the first, but by the time Myth 3 came out, the franchise had been purchased by another company, which meant the story line fell far short of Bungie’s quality.

At this time, there was growing excitement in the Bungie and Mac community, as Bungie had begun development on their next game, loosely set in the same universe as the Marathon series, a game called Halo. I was hyper amped about this game as it looked incredible, and was set to be my next big gaming experience. But just months after the marketing hype had begun, Bungie sold out to Microsoft, committing to develop Halo exclusively for their new forth-coming console, the Xbox. I was crushed, and vowed never to play or purchase another Bungie game—especially Halo.

I kind of lost my game mojo, but I did play some other things I’d had an interest in: Unreal, Unreal Tournament (fun stuff), Quake 3 (too cartoony), Rune (awesome solo Nordic game) and Diablo 2. I was fairly happy with Blizzard making their flagship games available on Macs as well as PCs, but, even though the visual quality was excellent, I couldn’t immerse myself in their storylines like I could with Marathon and Myth. Still, it scratched the gaming itch, and for that, I was happy.

I was aware of the fledgling MMO gaming world, but felt I didn’t have the interest, time or money necessary to get into one of those. Besides, most of them and probably all of them were not available for Mac users. So, when I heard about Blizzard making World of Warcraft, and that it would be available on Macs simultaneously as PCs, I was interested enough to read up on it, but still felt the restrictions I had previously held. Then my co-worker, Neo (currently of Dominion) told me one day there was going to be a public beta for WOW, and it was going to be free. I thought, hey, I could mess around with it for a month for free. I even expected that I would remain aloof and distant from it, and therefore would not have any problems dropping it when the beta was over.

Boy, was I wrong.

I did, indeed, drop it when the beta ended. But I had been bitten, and 3 weeks after launch, I purchased my copy and created the rogue who would become Ofn. I still would rate the story line(s) as being inferior to those I experienced in Bungie’s games, but the game experience was immersive, even overwhelming. And here I am playing, still today.

I don’t know where Honors is taking Part 2 of his “Why do I play?”, but he hinted at something that’s been on my mind for a while—leaving the game. Obviously it’s not been too strong in my mind because I’m still going strong in WOW, probably as strong as it’s ever been. I pretty much attribute that to actually being on the cutting edge of the content for once in my WOW experience. But I have realized for some time now, that I won’t play WOW forever. When will the day come that I stop? And what will my motivation be to stop? That day hasn’t come, and the reason has yet to reveal itself, but I suspect it will have to do with my family. My kids are getting a little older (my son is starting first grade this year), and it won’t be too long before their activities will be filling my time (and theirs) and I don’t think it would be fair to them to give so much energy to a game, energy that could compromise what I give them. So far, there has been little impact, and I suppose it may be alright for a while as long as I manage myself properly, giving the correct priority to things that deserve it. But how long will I be able to do that? I don’t know.

For now, I am enjoying where I am in WOW, and I am looking forward to Icecrown Citadel and eventually killing / subduing Arthas. Beyond that, time will tell.

This week’s AH win: Winning several auctions (bids) today of stacks of netherweave cloth for 4 copper each! Yes, you read that right, 20x pieces of Netherweave for 4 copper. As I craft things with them to turn them into 10g to 15g, I wonder what the profit percentage is there? If my math is correct, 4 copper -> 10g is 30,000% ROI. ROFL! The guy woulda been better off vendoring them. :-)

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After a couple weeks of high temps (90°s F) with high humidity, fall is signaling its impending arrival...
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