Real Life is Serious Business part 2

So, I will not tell you which game I'm playing at the moment. Let's just say that in the US, a mans best friend is a big dog. That should give those that are in the know a clue, albeit a cryptic one, to what I'm into. The real challenge is not the game ofcourse, it's the synergy between playing a time-consuming behemoth of an mmorpg and not losing track of real life. Because real life, as we all know, is SRS BSNS.

I'm going to try and compile a list of reasons and causes why mmorpg-ing takes up so much more time, and compells me to the screen so much more. You, dear reader, are of course welcome to join in and add reasons of your own, so that we may one day have a great compendium of how-to's and how-nots and watch-out-your-wife-is-going-to-leave-yous. Here we go then:

The big list of reasons why mmorpgs eat up my life whereas regular (offline) games do not:

1) Size: mmorpgs are big. Areas are big, compared to offline games. They need to be, since there are often more players around. That means that simply navigating the game world and gaining experience will take, on average, longer.

2) Realtime: I think this is an important difference. Mmorpgs do not have a pause button that you can quickly press. You either log out or you find a safe place, but those things both take more time than pressing a pause button. Don't believe me? Here is an example:

What you should do, is just drop what you are doing like in a normal game and focus on whatever RL issue/thing/monster is in need of your attention. But that could mean you die in-game. And dying in a game goes against the very fiber of the gamers' nature. Dying is for noobs. Dying is 2007. Dying is Not Done.

So you spent 5 minutes hiding your toon behind a tree, checking mob patrol paths and asking in chat if any hostile players have been seen recently. By the time you have "secured" your character, you can bet your subscription that whatever drew your attention has been dealt with, not by you, but by someone who might have had better things to do.

More to come.

Real Life is Serious Business (part 1)

A little billing issue with Blizzard reminded me of how long I haven't played World of Warcraft, three months, give or take a few days. Three months seems like a long time. But since I was going through my payment history anyway, I decided to dig up when my account was created.

June 2005.

Bloody hell. That's almost four years. So all of a sudden, three months doesn't mean that much anymore. Or does it? I'm afraid it does. I may be done with WoW, in fact, I'm pretty sure of that. But that doesn't mean that my love for the MMORPG genre is gone. To be completely straight, I HAD no love for MMORPGs until I picked up WoW. Before Warcraft, I lived my gaming life by this motto: "I play games to escape reality and all the retards in it, why the hell would I want to join the same retards in a game, and pay monthly for the privilege as well?" I now know the answer, because it's fun, there is no AI that could substitute the erratic human mind, and because most people are not, contrary to what I thought, retards. Barrens excluded, natch.

So while Warcraft is a closed chapter (well, book) the story of the MMORPG-fever in 4701s brain goes on. I tried several mmo-games during and after WoW; including Warhammer, EVE, Spellborn and even Istaria (get vista supported you cocks.)None of them appealed to me the way World of Warcraft did. Not back then, anyway. I was still caught up in the way WoW works, and there was little room in my head for something else. But I quit WoW, and the last lingering aromas of that sweet sweet game are fading. My mmo-nose can pick up other smells again, not just Blizzard-scented ones.

Which smell proved to be strongest, and whether it was strong enough to seduce me back to mmo-land is something for part 2...

Doodle 2

This is a new doodle, made during a very interesting business meeting.

Excuse the crappy editing, but the thing was made in the margin of a list. It was only one half before I scanned and mirrored it in paint (no photoshop on my work pc, what are people thinking?). I also decided to delete several company names using the airbrush tool, I know my responsibilities!

Oh, here's the original:

Sketchy situation

So today, I'm like totally going to talk about ME. I'm a hardcore Doodler. In fact, I've been Doodling all my life. In the margins of all my highschool paperwork, you will find sketches of fantasy creatures, space marines, trees, egg houses, birds, tanks, guns, mechs, techs, dooms, glooms and spacebumbles. My teachers thought this to be a sign of laziness, which is, of course, rubbish. The fact that I was able to finish school without a) doing a crap, b) get decent grades for the classes that interested me, and c) was able to keep on doodling all the way up to my exams just shows how good I was at multitasking.

Either that, or school just wasn't that hard. Hm.

Anyways, that was my first period of intense Doodling. My second period was a few years back at a Callcenter, which is the perfect environment for a Doodler. You have your hands free all the time, and nobody cares about what you do on paper, as long as your mouth is moving. Making a sale was the best part, it gave you an extra coffee break and some calls that you could just fuck up and keep Doodling, since you were ahead of the game anyway. I filled up an entire dummy in a years time with Doodles.

But after that great period, came the Doodle Depression! Yessah! Such a busy job, so much pressure, no time to Doodle at all! It was a disgrace, to be honest. But now the tides have turned. In my current job, I have found the perfect balance between online leisure and, well, work. So now, I proudly show you the results:



Everybody say awesome.

Breathing

I should probably breathe out more, and more slowly. Zen just isn't my thing though.

Food, delicious food, how I love thee

So, yesterday was a normal work day, with some normal emaling to and from the home front. When it came to dinner, we were both out of ideas, and Owlet mentioned she'd just take the ducklings out shopping and she would see if she ran into anything nice.

I figured, well ok, rice and some prefabricated sauce woudln't be my first choice, but I can live with it. Easily, I'm hungry as hell all the time anyway. But despite that, my expectations for the evening meal were not high.

Imagine how my jaw dropped when I came home that night. Owlet had gone all Pioneer Woman on me! Here's the goodness, and boy oh boy, it was goooood. Unfortunately, the lady Drummond does not allows us city slickers to abuse her imagery, so you will have to make do with the urls. It's no punishment to check her website anyway, so gogo!


Zucchini cakes

Ranch Chicken (garglegargleslurp; makes me swoon just thinking of it)

Onion Rings

and fresh Homemade Ranch Dip to top it all off.

It was so fucking good, I'm still feeling like I'm floating on a cloud. The saying goes that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach. Well, maybe it is. and not because men are gorging pigs, but because GOOD FOOD MATTERS, GODAMMIT. It brightens your day, it makes you get tiny orgasms in your head, it re-establishes family ties (if you manage to keep your kids at the table long enough) and , oh yeah, it keeps you alive too.

Snippets

Today, I decided to take the train, because outside it looks like rain. Yesterday I shaved my head, because lots of hair makes me look bad. I think brothers' new house is a go, I sure hope so. Owlet posted her "Facts of the day" I'm not sure what's she's trying to say. Last night I had salmon, pasta, peas and cream, it's way tastier than it might seem. Sometimes I still feel like playing WoW, it really was an addiction you know.

Maybe the best game ever is a bit to good

Since I quit WoW, I've never once checked BigRedKitty. I knew that his enthusiasm and light-hearted manner were just the sort of thing that would make me feel comfy about playing again, which is the last thing I need. Well guess what; he's quitting.

I'm not going into details, you can read what you need to know straight from the dwarfs' mouth here. If memory serves me right, Resto4life went through something similar a while back. Hell, I went through something like that a while back. Yeah for sure I did. Did you really think I woke up one morning and thought: "What a fecking great day, let's quit the best game ever."

No, it wasn't quite like that at all. I was in a deep deep dip at that time. I don't think Owlet ever got around to making plans to leave me, but she'd have had every right to do so back then. Back then...only two months ago. I'm not saying WoW could have wrecked my marriage. But I'm pretty sure I could have, if I hadn't been smart enough to see the writing on the wall:



Yes, WoW promises more cake than GlaDOS ever could, yet delivers even less.

Which leads me too defend the game more than crucify it. It's a work of such magnitude. In game terms, in programming terms and in terms of infrastructure. But above all, a victory for the gaming industry. I don't think any other product can boast to have so many people devoting so many hours to it. It's the cutting edge of user-milking, of carrot-on-a-stick tactics to keep the gamer interested, and frustrated, and NEARLY IN REACH of the ever-elusive Cake.

You can't win the race. But you don't have to run it.

Food for Thought

Here some things to keep your heads occupied:

Solvents

- Normally speaking, I would be slightly surprised to find out that my employers, a recruitment agency, keep a large jerrycan of turpentine in the kitchen at our office. Today however, I was merely thankful for that fact.

Why is that?

Hint: I rode my bike this morning, and it has gear shifting troubles

Justice

- It may be good to see justice served, but is it fun to watch a person you don't like and can't get along with no matter what you do claim her triumph over the other party, even if she had the truth on her side?

Do stupid people deserve the same justice I would want for myself?

Hint: stupid cow co-worker bitch has had "an argument" about working folk ravaging her floor*, apparantly she has won.

*) Her floor, yes. I'm guessing they wouldn't ravage her even if they'd been lost at sea for ten years. I wouldn't. I got sick even thinking of the possibility.