Here is No Why

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Me and 9,999,999 of My Closest Friends

January 26, 2008 3:21 AM

have a deep, dark secret. One that only some of my closest friends know about. But it's time I come clean. I feel that, by hiding this secret from the world, I've erected a barrier between myself and the world at large that prevents me from finding real intimacy. So here goes. I play World of Warcraft. There. Now you know. Please don't judge me too harshly. It's a natural progression, really, seeing as how I played a hell of a lot of Magic: The Gathering in high school. Yeah, the girls loved me.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the World of Warcraft--or "WoW" for short--it is the most popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying game in the world. It now has over ten million players. It was also the subject of an awesome episode of South Park.

The basic premise of the game is that you play a character--you can choose from several races such as the bull-like Tauren and the zombie diminutive dwarves--to complete quests and make your character more powerful. What makes it a "massively multiplayer online" game is that your character exists in the same online world--which, by the way, is by far the largest game world in any game I've ever played--as hundreds of thousands of other players' characters. The result is that the game doesn't have to be a solitary experience--you can always find other people to kill monsters with. Of course, I prefer to quest with people I already know from the real world. We've gotten massive XP in our party using teamspeak.

I was really skeptical when I first signed on at the urging of a certain Asian, but the game is actually immensely enjoyable and extremely deep. There are so many different things to do and myriad ways to play the game, the end result of which is that the game is usually very enjoyable and fulfilling. And, most of all, extremely relaxing.

Like any RPG, the main point of WoW is to advance your character. It's an arduous process that takes a lot of time, but it's worth it when your character is an unmitigated badass. I have three main characters right now. The oldest, Ismael, is a Tauren shaman--just like fucking William Shatner--who can hurl lightning bolts from his fingertips. Next up is Ithryn, an undead mage that hurls fireballs the size of small cars. His name is a reference to the Istari, the group of wizards including Gandalf and Saruman from Lord of the Rings. My lowest-level main character is Valarawker, a troll priest that can heal like a motherfucker.

Anyway, the game is an awesome distraction, and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants something relaxing, fun, and challenging to do. Or, you know, you could have a life. But I find that those are overrated.

2 Comments

Shivan Dragon said:

Magic, huh. I used to play magic all the time, too. I got into it when Revised was still out, just missing The Dark expansion. But with the deluge of new sets, I found it hard to keep up and eventually I just kept using my old cards instead of staying up to date with all the new stuff. I always thought it was unfortunate that no one could understand that it was a smart, strategic game not all that different from chess and instead wrote if off as a geek's domain.

January 26, 2008 11:55 AM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Mr. Dragon,
I loved the Shivan Dragon. It wasn't the best creature in the game, but it was almost certainly the most badass.

You started playing way before I did--I started playing right around Fourth Edition and the Ice Age expansion. But then the sets started getting way too wacky, in my opinion and, honestly, I stopped associating with the people I played with, so it became harder to stay interested.

I totally agree, though, that Magic is a really deep and strategic game. I mean, it can be. It's sort of the same thing as I was saying about WoW--there are so many different ways to play the game, so many ways to approach winning, that it's really challenging to come up with a deck that can defend against all the possible attacks while still keeping a clear offense itself. It really is a great game.

At the same time, though, it's got "geek" written all over it: a fantasy setting, role-playing elements, its own terminology and mythology, monsters and magic. It was made for geeks by geeks. And even though I agree that, at its highest levels, Magic is just as complex as chess, let's not lose sight of the fact that chess is a huge geek game, too.

I actually miss Magic sometimes. But, when I do, I just log into the World of Warcraft.

January 26, 2008 1:56 PM