i love acronyms. when i worked on P&G stuff, that seemed to be about the only way you could communicate with someone. so many of them were used, in fact, that there exists a master list which explains what all of them mean. i had to periodically check it just to make sure i understood what everyone was talking about sometimes…

but this isn’t about P&G, now, is it? no way…this is about the addiction. the game. i’m talking about World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

it’s out today…and for some reason i’m not really as excited as i’m building this up to be. i’ve actually played WoW for the past 2 years. i’ve had a really good time with it. i went through a period where i stopped playing for several months, but was lured back in at the request of a couple of people from work who really wanted to play together. that lasted all of about two weeks, but that was long enough for it to re-ignite my interest. and so i marched on with my sweet, sweet mage. i got her up to level 60, joined a cool guild, went and did some high level instances, got some decent stuff (though i’m admittedly under-equipped as compared to a lot of others) and did my thing there. but around christmas i started getting bored, and when i get bored with characters in games like this, i start creating new characters. i think i have character multiple personality disorder or something. as of now, i have a level 60 mage, a 60 hunter, a 42 rogue, a 34 paladin, a 34 warrior, a 29 druid, a 16 shaman, and a 14 warlock. i would be willing to bet that if i took all of the time that i put into those other ‘boredom based’ characters that i would have one character that would absolutely destroy just about anyone.

but you see, the problem is that getting to where you are completely decked out with amazing equipment requires a level of commitment that even my inner dork has issues swallowing. don’t get me wrong…i love these kinds of games…specifically this one. it’s a well thought out, well designed, well executed time sink in which 8 million people now throw their lives into. and that’s what makes it dangerous.

for those of you that don’t know what that level of commitment is…we’re talking about something that actually requires a veritable TON of organization just to pull off. not only do you have to have the software to play the game, but you also have to have a number of plug-ins that enhance your ability to know what’s going with the raid group you’ve joined. sometimes these raid groups can be as little as five and as many as forty people deep. and there have to be an assortment of character classes in order to be successful with the instances. and the large raid groups are really only feasible through a guild, which means you have to get in good with a guild that is actually equipped and has the knowledge to do these high level instances.

and then, of course, you have to have a way to communicate with all of those people; afterall, it can get pretty hairy trying to play and read everything that is going on in the chat window. so you have to get a headset and a program that allows you all join a chat server so you can coordinate your strategies. and then there’s the amount of time you spend in each on of these instances. some can take on the upwards of 2-3 hours to finish completely. and while the rewards are great for killing the bosses within the instance, there is no guarantee that you will get anything but a huge repair bill for your current set of equipment in the end. you aren’t guaranteed anything because the boss item drops are random, and they may or may not drop something you can use.

you have to sign up in advance for these raids, so you aren’t necessarily even guaranteed a spot…especially when there’s a lot of the same of your class in the guild. sometimes you have to be on an hour earlier than when the raid actually happens to make sure everyone is there. sometimes the raid that you planned for in advance doesn’t even happen because not enough people end up showing up…which means that you’ve just most likely wasted a weekend night for some of the really big instances. sometimes you’ll go on the raid and not get very far…and the list goes on and on…

so where’s the fun in this, you ask? i’m not exactly sure…but it’s one of the only ways that you can get better equipment to better thoroughly embarrass your foes on the battlefield. of course, there’s PVP (player vs. player), but that has its own set of problems, the foremost being it’s limited range of settings (capture the flag, capture and hold strategic points, etc.). it can get tiring doing those over and over and over again…and there’s the issue of playing with a group of PVP’ers that are actually going to do what is required to win rather than just play and do what you want. blah blah blah…

i admit that the game does an excellent job of setting your expectations to where you can do just what you want and have fun. case in point, i like creating characters and doing the quests and and leveling and getting new abilities, etc. etc. etc. i could do that and continue to have fun, but there’s always that stupid carrot being dangled out in front of you…the carrot that tempts you to want to step it up yet another notch. see, what the game ALSO does an excellent job at is making you just frustrated enough to want to take that step, and before you know it, you’re investing more and more and more time…

with the introduction to TBC comes the introduction of new races, and this gets my interest in starting up a new character again pretty high. but for what purpose? i already have characters that i have spent many, many hours (measured in days) leveling up and equipping. why do i want i want to go through the same thing over again…only to most likely have this same feeling happen again when i’ve got the new character to it’s max level?

i think that i probably sound like a drug addict who is coming to the realization that, yes, i am an addict and no longer just the ‘casual user’. or maybe i’m being a little too melodramatic.

bah…who am i kidding. i’ll end up buying the expansion and i will end up enjoying it up to whatever level i choose. despite all of the scenarios i’ve laid out above, the fact of the matter is that a game is what you make of it. this one has a little more incentive built in to play more just because you get to see all of the cool things that other people have, which leaves you thinking, ‘hey, that’d be cool to have that…’ sounds a little bit like real life, eh? except in this case, you’re burning time instead of a bunch of money on, say, a new iPod or a new car or whatever just because you saw someone else with one.  

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.