So, I know that I’m a few years late here, but today, for the first time ever, I played World of Warcraft.
I was having another fun-filled morning obsessing over internet memes. And I think it was while reading TEH HOLIES BIBUL that I decided I needed to play WoW and see what it was all about because these have simply GOT TO BE my people.
Among the more obnoxious things that I LOVE: Lolcats, Rickrolling, Kittens Inspired by Kittens, David After Dentist, and the god-damned absolute genius of Kittens Inspired by David After Dentist. And all of these things are possible because of places like 4CHAN and Something Awful, which means they are possible because of the same people who play World of Warcraft.
There’s an oxymornic aspect to nerd-dom. They’ve got some very high-tech pursuits and are fueling technological innovation, but they’re also the only people who still use really low-tech online services (like 4CHAN). They’re on IRC way more than iChat and on old-school, 1980s-style bulletin board services way more than facebook.
But anyway, this is way off-topic. The point is WoW. I downloaded the trial version this morning and got it all loaded up because I love IRC and 4CHAN and LOL.
The first character I built was a dwarf rogue with a big red beard. He died, pretty quickly. I didn’t realize, at first, that you can just respawn yourself, so I went back and made a new guy. This one’s a human warrior and he and I got stuck. I don’t know how or why, but hours passed.
So, I get it, kind of. For me, anyway, part of the draw has to be that the game universe is a lot like the actual universe (vast and ever-expanding). So you can just go forever. And your character grows. I mean, it’s not exactly analagous to really human growth, but where it differs it’s actually better. You go through experiences and challenges and buy and sell things, but unlike real life where it’s generally impossible to figure out why you’ve done anything or whether you’re better or worse off for it, in the game it’s obvious and numerical. You are constantly improving and you can see it happening.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up. I’ve got the kind of mind that can obsess over these sorts of things, but I also have the attention span of a 4-year-old. For now, I think I’d like to get my little human up to level 10 (he’s a level 8, as of this writing) because that would be the first official “milestone” in his young life. So if I just stop posting altogether in the near future you will know I have run off to live the sad, lonely, but delighfully controllable life of the gamer.