A Pilgrim’s Digression

Yes, I play a video game as a hobby.  Some would say World of Warcraft is a lifestyle choice, not a hobby, since it consumes so much of its players time and lives.  But I still call it a hobby, like playing golf with one’s buddies on a Saturday afternoon…er, playing golf four or five hours a night, five days a week plus weekends.

I am often ashamed to admit to my lifestyle in mixed company.  Saying that one’s hobby is a video game is often, to another man, a signal that he can feel superior to you.  It allows him to say that in his free time he goes to the gym/plays a game of football with his friends/rides a bicycle/runs a marathon/makes love to multiple women at the same time.  Or just watches sports on TV.  Yes, even watching sports on TV trumps video games in manly culture.

Never mind that in his man cave, you will probably find an XBox and a Rockband setup, which he uses to jam to “More than a Feeling” when he’s feeling special.

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I’ve been thinking about cancelling my World of Warcraft subscription.  I’ve gone as far as downgrading my subscription to a month by month basis, rather than the every three month subscription I was paying for previously.  It sounds kind of wasteful to even talk about it, since just a few weeks ago I bought the latest expansion pack for forty dollars.

But the expansion has been somewhat responsible for these thoughts of abandoning the game creeping into my head.

I’ve said to anyone who has asked that the Wrath of the Lich King is the best product Blizzard has created to date.  It’s fun and immersive.  The quests have definitely been upgraded from the “kill 10 boars” style that used to be standard in Online Role-Playing Games.  One evening while I was playing, my wife asked me what I was doing and I said, “Trying to get this bull sea lion to mate with the cow.”  She has been making fun of me ever since, and mentioning to friends and relatives that I play a video game in which one task is to help sea lions mate.

Yet that is indeed the quality of the quests Blizzard has provided, and if you don’t think that’s a measurable improvement, well, you haven’t created a human mage and leveled her up in Elwynn Forest and rapidly grown sick of killing wolves and boars and various other woodland creatures.

The game is fun.  Blizzard has returned to its fantasy roots, with a few medieval and Norse stylistic touches thrown in for flavor.  The background music is beautifully Celtic.  The story is interesting–I am actually taking time to read quest text, for the first time in a long time.

So why am I thinking about leaving?

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It’s one of those mornings where the alarm clock must have been going off for ten minutes before the sound penetrated my sleeping brain. I was in a deep freeze of undreaming sleep. When I finally did come out of my coma, I rolled out of bed into the morning dark and staggered around my room trying to get my bearings.

What time? What place? What am I supposed to do?

I try to gather up the things I will need in the bathroom. Towel, contact solution and contacts, toothbrush. I end up standing, swaying in the dark, trying to get straight in my mind whether I have everything.

Ugh, my head.

Fifteen years ago, this might have been the morning after a night on the town. Instead, it is the result of playing World of Warcraft until ten past midnight, then not being able to fall asleep until one A.M. Then the alarm went off at what time?

I look at the clock for the third time. 4:50 A.M. But I know that’s not right. I always set the clock fifteen to twenty minutes fast, so that I feel like I am saving time. It sounds silly, especially when I have barely slept and I’m standing there looking at the clock thinking “It’s really 4:35 A.M. Can I go back to sleep?”

No, I can’t.

I hadn’t done this in awhile. I thought the addiction was over, after more than a month of being able to quit playing and go to bed at 10:30. But last night, I went on an impromptu Karazhan raid with some people I hadn’t played with for a long time, and we had so much fun. There was Frenchy and his wife, the two Quebecoise who everyone loves to hear speak over Vent. There was the middle-aged, retired guy from Vancouver…who plays a petite, pretty female Draenei mage. There was the newbie, our novice Paladin healer we took along just to gear him up out of greens and blues. There was our guild leader, female cancer survivor and tree Druid, never letting our health fall much below 5%.

It was a wonderful time. We almost could have made a Karathon of it, running the whole instance, but we started too late. So we went through Shade of Aran, then did the Chess event just for kicks (and to try to get our Paladin the shield that drops). Then we all quit, dead tired.

And this is the morning after. I feel like crap, but am happy as can be.

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My wife tells me that when I write a post about World of Warcraft here at my blog, she doesn’t even read it. I’ve heard the same from other people, as well. Thus in the interest of further segregating my “real life” from my “WoW life,” I have decided to create a World of Warcraft blog as a kind of diary of my daily adventures in Azeroth and Outland.

Kilrogg Was Here is my WoW blog. I decided to use the free Wordpress domain for this blog simply because, due to time constraints, I desire ease of use more than anything. I don’t want a lot of control over the page design, or a large amount of disk space for pictures. I want a simple blog where I can log in and write an entry, then post it and forget it. Wordpress.com gives me the same functionality as my personal Wordpress install, without having to do the install or the maintenance.

Anyway, if you want, you can read about my goals for the site over at Kilrogg. Lately I’ve just come to recognize that although this is a generalist blog (hence the word “Digression” in the title), I can’t expect everyone to be interested in the same things I am. Especially in terms of this particular video game.

Personally, I think it’s a cultural phenomenon. Others, especially non-gamer spouses of players , think otherwise.

Although this was not the first time my guild successfully cleared Karazhan, this was a first time for me. We began work on it Tuesday evening and had a really successful run that first night. No wipes. We killed all the bosses in one shot up to Illhoof, the optional satyr boss in the library. We resumed the fight Saturday night with Netherspite. I was expecting a pretty easy time of it, since the trash was basically cleared for the final three boss fights. Kara was empty except for a few Shades and Horrors, plus Prince Malchezaar and Netherspite.

Netherspite gave us fits. I think we spent a good hour and a half on him, trying and wiping, over and over. I had no problems riding the blue beam on my warlock–I just drain tanked through the hits I was taking–but I wasn’t seeing the void zones when they would open up beneath me. Finally our raid leader, Jimby, asked me if I was zoomed in to first person view.

I wasn’t in first person, but I was zoomed in pretty close. That’s how I have always played, normally. He told me I needed to zoom out as far as possible for these bosses so I can see more of the area around me. It makes sense, but had never occurred to me that something so simple could be inhibiting my playing better. It made all the difference though. Netherspite is a huge, blue dragon, and when zoomed in, one can see very little of what’s going on around the room.

Next up, we took on Prince Malchezaar. If Netherspite was frustrating, this fight was impossible, at least that night. Prince is a giant Draeneii-looking creature who, by himself, would be a pushover. But he summons Infernals who fall from the sky, landing and, while standing in one place, casting a Hellfire-like area of effect spell that forces you to move around. Where the Infernals fall is totally random, but if luck is against you, they fall in such a way as to isolate your casters from being able to cast spells on the boss, or else they fall in such a way as to hem in your tank and melee DPS, essentially forcing the healers to heal through the Hellfire. He also casts a spell called Enfeeble that takes a random two or three players and reduces their hit points to one point. He then casts a Shadow Nova after a few seconds that, if you get caught in it during the Enfeeble, will essentially ensure death. You cannot be healed during the Enfeeble. It wears off pretty quickly, though, and actually proved to be no problem at all, since as a caster I was standing at max range anyway (out of range of the Shadow Nova). Still, it is rather shocking to see your health bar drop down to one point, and to know there is nothing you can do about it.

What killed us again and again on Prince were the Infernals. They just weren’t dropping right for us. The fight is all about luck in that respect, and I could tell it was frustrating people. It was frustrating me. We were a good group. We had the tank and the DPS and the healing to take him down, but we were getting bad drops on the Infernals.

We finally gave up about eleven-thirty. We are all East coasters, most of us with families, and so we rarely play after midnight.

Then last night, it happened that most of us were online anyway, so we decided to make one final try to kill Prince. Again it seemed like we were going to be unlucky. We got him to 3% health on the first try. Second attempt we brought him down to 6%. The problem was we were getting him down in health, but people were dying to the infernals. It was getting late and people were making mistakes, too, such as not being at max range (sometimes the Infernals make that difficult though). And in one case, we just had to laugh because after all our meticulous preparation prior to starting the fight, the hunter misdirected aggro onto a healer instead of the tank. I looked up and all I see is this big blue demon charging towards the DPS/Healer group instead of towards the tank standing out there on the balcony. It was a prime “Oh shit” moment.

Finally, finally, we did get him down, though. And again it all came down to luck: the Infernals didn’t pin us down, and we didn’t lose anyone. He dropped some pretty good items, too, which was a relief because after all the time we spent on him this weekend, I think everyone expected him to drop crap. I got my Tier 4 helm token, for the Voidheart Crown. I think it’s incredibly ugly, so I will probably leave “Show Helm” unchecked in my preferences. Occasionally in PvP I see people wearing it, and to me it just gives away how well-geared you are to your opponent. I’d rather my opponents be in the dark about me and my gear.

One of the two hunters with us also got the Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix, so all in all, it was a good kill.

At this point, it was about eleven fifteen. We decided to make one shot at Nightbane, another optional boss that you have to summon. Nightbane is a fiery, skeletal dragon that has a number of abilities, but he proved somewhat easier than Prince to kill. We had a wipe the first time we tried him, though. Our pally was supposed to pick up the skeleton he drops on us so that I could AoE them with my Seed of Corruption. I waited for him to tell me he had the skeletons, and then I cut loose with the Seed. Well, he didn’t have them. Not all of them anyway. Two of them attacked and killed me, and with no one else to AoE them, the group was facing Nightbane and his skeleton minions. Wipe.

However, one of our Priests was still Soulstoned from the final Prince fight. She rezzed us and we re-grouped without having to run back from the graveyard. The Soulstone was about to expire anyway, so I stoned her again, and we tried one more time. This time we took him down hard. The pally waited an extra three seconds to make sure he had aggro on the skeletons, and it was smooth sailing. I don’t remember what dropped from Nightbane. I already had my purple for the night, so I wasn’t rolling on anything anyway.

As people were hearthing out, I took this screen capture of the flaming pile of bones that is Nightbane (clicky click on the tumbnail), and us standing around gawking. I like the imposing mountains in the distance, and I think this shows how well-designed the instance is aesthetically. Karazhan is definitely a work of art, both in terms of game art and game play. I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Last night in World of Warcraft, I ventured into Karazhan with my guild for the first time. Since everyone else has been inside Kara multiple times, I needed some one-on-one instruction and lots of patience from our raid leader. It was a memorable and throughly enjoyable night worthy of a blog post, I think.

Raiding Kara has been a long-term goal of mine since I first began hearing about it several months ago. Friends venturing inside brought back stories of the ferociously difficult battles and the superior loot to be had inside its crumbling walls. Having seen it for myself, now, after all this time, I have to say that everything was true.

It is a beautifully designed instance that shows off Blizzard’s attention to detail and sure grasp of what makes a game fun. Although we use the term “dungeon” and “instance” to refer to these special places in Azeroth where the bosses hit harder and the better loot drops like rain, what I thought of when I first climbed the stairway from the stables to the banquet hall was Hotel California.

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This weekend was a big one for my gnome Warlock, Holdwine. After more than a year playing World of Warcraft, I finally got him to level 70, the current level cap. It was a pretty intense weekend of play, and I drew some pretty intense aggro from the wife, as well, because of how much time I spent in the game.

For those of you that don’t know, “aggro” is a term used in the game to refer to the amount of “hate” one has built up on a monster. For example, you get too close to a monster and it “aggroes” or notices you and starts attacking. Well, players have taken that term and applied it to real life, specifically to their significant other.

“Dude, I’ve got to quit now and do some laundry. I’m really drawing aggro from the girlfriend.”

Similarly, players refer to “grinding rep” with the significant other. In the game, when you complete quests for specific factions, you earn Reputation with them that unlocks rewards.

“No play for me today; I’m grinding rep with the wife. I’ve got to do ten loads of laundry to earn time to raid tomorrow night.”

I have never heard of any female players who have aggro issues with their boyfriends or husbands. In fact I specifically asked in guild chat the other night if there were any female players with “husband aggro” stories. It must be a rarity. One woman responded, “The only husband aggro I get is when I’m playing on his account and he wants to play.”

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Some days by three o’clock in the afternoon, I am so tired I am literally dizzy with sleeplessness. Some days it doesn’t even take that long for exhaustion to smack me down. I work a ten hour day, arriving at the office around 6:30, and sometimes when I get there, I am in a complete stupor because I went to bed between midnight and 12:30 that morning.

Anyone who plays the MMORPG video game World of Warcraft probably knows the feeling. At 6:30 AM, having just finished an instance run barely five hours earlier, you feel dislocated, wandering loose in a half-dream world, head aching, eyes raw.

Coffee helps. Without Starbucks, I probably would not make it through to lunch, some days. I once had a colleague who would crawl under his desk and sleep and pretend he was out for a meeting. Now I wonder if he wasn’t a secret World of Warcraft player. Certainly there have been days when I have looked under my desk and thought, “Could I? Should I?”

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There’s an old joke that the acronym MMORPG stands for “Many Men Online Role-Playing Girls.” This little film plays around with that idea, to great effect. Even if you don’t play games, give this a chance…I promise it’s funny

Jimmy: The World of Warcraft Story

I read in a news article somewhere that, in one reporter’s opinion, World of Warcraft is now a “generational event” comparable to the Beatles or the invention of the Atari. That seemed an overstatement at the time–and maybe it is an overstatement–but undeniably, the game has had an impact on people.

I find it fascinating how people have used the game’s mechanics to create their own mini-films. In the case of this particular film, one might even say that there is a creative vision behind it, with the gender confusion and the vaguely gay-themed overtones. There is probably a college research paper somewhere in this idea…but thankfully, I don’t have to write it.

This post is going to mean absolutely nothing to people who don’t play World of Warcraft, so I give you fair warning. The half-dozen or so people who don’t play the game can stop reading whenever their interest wanes.

If you do stop reading, I nonetheless recommend that you take a look at this online comic series, The Noob, by the artist Gianna Masetti. Masetti has hilariously parodied the experience of entering the world of a role-playing game, even titling her fictional RPG Clichéquest. It’s a fun read, and hopefully even someone not familiar with this type of game can appreciate the humor of it.

Having just initiated my best friend to WoW over the past couple weeks, I’ve been thinking about what my experience was like when I first started playing. Specifically, I have been remembering some of the humorous, or stupid things I did as a n00b–as a new player. Again, a warning: these may not be humorous if you don’t play the game.

It was only August 31 of last year that I installed the game, but in some ways the period prior to August 31, 2006, seems like a previous era of my life. I have devoted hours and hours to this game. In some ways, it has come to seem as real to me as real life, or as gamers call it, RL. To some extent, we have to distinguish between our real life and our virtual life, for sanity’s sake, but when you spend as much time–if not more–in a game than you do socializing with “real life” friends and family, is the game in fact becoming your real life?

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