A painting of me

World of Warcraft

   10 May 2006, lunch time

I met two American kids playing in Bahrain while playing World of Warcraft yesterday. I bought the game a few days back. I never really understood the appeal of these massive multi-player RPG games till yesterday. My first two days in the game consisted of playing for a couple hours, playing through little quests and killing monsters—typical RPG fare, I suppose. Yesterday, I was doing much the same thing when some other player asked if I wanted to kill monsters with him. I thought, “Why the hell not?” Once you start playing with someone else the dynamic of the game changes. I actually put off having dinner for an hour because I was in the middle of a quest with this kid and his sister; I’d feel bad leaving them high and dry. We did our quest together, which was actually quite hard so it’s a good thing we grouped up, and then I decided to call it a night.

Shima was very disapproving when I told her my story. She thinks I am going to one of those boyfriends who neglects their girlfriend in order to play video games. Apparently the term for wives who disapprove of their husbands Warcraft habits is Wife Aggro.

Anyone else play World of Warcraft? Gary and I are on the same server, Eitrigg, but seeing as how he is level 60 we haven’t done much together.

 

Comments

  1. You think announcing to the whole world that you want to play with them will make you less addicted to the game?

  2. But i’m not addicted to the game.

  3. Addiction to MMORPGS isn’t that bad. Benefits include:
    1. Being able to set goals on a daily (sometimes hourly or sooner) interval with certainty.
    2. Saving a ton of money by not going out or seeing anybody. (In fact, MMORPG investment is probably the best investment anybody can make. You can spend more time playing mmorpgs than watching tv, talking on the phone, working out at a gym, or doing any of those things that require monthly subscription all for the price of $15/month, sort of consolidating all your monthly expenditure into 1 simple bill.)
    3. Exploring vast areas without having to do actually go anywhere, meeting people from around the world.
    4. Having fun with a ton of your friends on a daily basis without the hassles of actually going out to meet with them, convince them that Downtown isn’t evil, dragging them out from the suburbs, organizing and planning outtings etc.
    5. Ganking is legal in PvP enabled mmorpgs, whereas it’s highly illegal in real life.

    However, the downside is you end up spending 9178 hours, 30 minutes, 5 seconds in a game with nothing to show for it other than personal satisfaction. But you won’t notice it till you quit haha.

  4. Maybe I shouldn’t stoke the fire, but when in the past have you delayed your dinner by an hour for complete strangers, and later felt bad for not staying around longer?

  5. Well, it’s not like I had anything pressing to get done. Playing online is fun. Also, Penny Arcade’s take on Warcraft addiction.

  6. I play on the Dalaran server, but I’ve not played for a couple of weeks as I realized at this critical moment in my life, with job applications and hunting for someplace new to live and a viable future, WoW was going to be a real problem.

    Also, this all just goes to prove that girls are dumb. Except the ones who play WoW. I almost believe that. Whoa.

  7. guys anyidea where I can buy wow pre-paid (EU) card in Bahrain!!?

  8. Can you buy the cards on eBay? Or online from Amazon or EB Games? I was playing with a couple kids from Bahrain, but they were originally from Colorado. I’m guessing thier dad has an American credit card.

  9. Thank you Ramanan for the reply.

    The proplem I can’t buy anything from internet because I bought Geforce 7800 GTX 2 months ago with out telling my father so he removed my access from his credit card, otherwise I would directly pay to blizzard insted of buying cards.

    thanks for your time ;)

  10. Agreed, I’ve been playing on the Runetotem (EU) Server for the last 9 months and the game is awesome, totally immersive; Plus once you bring in the multi-player/grouping/raiding aspect you may as forget about the real world for a few hours.

    Awesome man.

    Sean

  11. WoW is a great community. At least it keeps you from getting furious in overcrowded places and jammed roads. We, the LiB Team, play on EU-Magtheridon PvP server which ganking is part of our daily lives. I must admit that it makes us vent all our anger in there instead of going killing anyone who pisses us off! We’ve been on Magtheridon for a year now and it’s great.

    As for the EU Prepaid cards, we get them from a shop in KSA Dossari Computer Mall for BD 14 which accounts to BD 7 per month which is not that bad comparing to the BD 6.5/month you pay using your credit card and you’re set for two months so you can go get them once every two months or buy like two and not have to worry for four months!

  12. I play WoW on the Exodar server, and MMO’s are great. They help people get used to qorking in groups, they help you with setting and acheiveing quest object – i mean goals! They help you realize that not going to the bathroom and eating HotPockets for days in a row is a BAD combonation if you care about your clothes, and much more! Just, please, for the love of all that is descent, DONT try the HotPocket thing!!

  13. One of the great things about in-game money and virtual economies is that they never went through this whole economic meltdown. So take that to all of those people who think the real world is better then computer games!

  14. You got numerous positive points there. I made a search on the issue and found nearly all peoples will agree with your blog.

  15. kinda liked what you have written . it just is not that easy to discover great stuff to read (you know really READ and not simply going through it like a zombie before going to yet another post to just ignore), so cheers man for really not wasting my time on the god forsaken internet. :)

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