WoW, O WoW, Wherefore Art Thou

A couple months back I turned off all my online games. I say 'all' as if there were that many, but in fact there were only three, each costing $13 - $14 a month. (A lot of people object to the monthly costs of online games, but I find them to be the best entertainment value out there.) I was subscribed to Vanguard, Warhammer, and World of Warcraft. Vanguard I only played irregularly because the game has never worked well since it debuted a few years ago. Over the last year and a half, I've been subscribed maybe six months. I would play it for a month or two, get disgusted with all the bugs and 'quirks', then unsubscribe. A few months later I would subscribe again and repeat the pattern, always with the hope that the game would be better. It's a decent enough game and looks pretty, but it sinks under its flaws after awhile.

Warhammer is a fun game that debuted last year. Like Vanguard, it has flaws, but the flaws don't kill the game. Also like Vanguard, I had a pattern of subscribing for a month or two at a time and then walking away for a few months. Needless to say, cancelling my subscriptions to these two was relatively painless, and probably would have happened anyway at some point since.

World of Warcraft (WoW), on the other hand... I love playing WoW! Just over 10 years ago I jumped into the MMO game field by playing EverQuest. EQ was a fine game for its time, and I played it for 4½ years. Then a friend got me into the WoW Alpha test program. I started WoW believing I could play both, but after two weeks of not touching my EQ account, I cancelled it and never looked back. If you add up the time I played WoW in Alpha and Beta and the time since the game went live, I've played WoW for almost six years. And, with the exception of times when I was on vacation or otherwise not able to log into my account, I played nine days out of ten, sometimes an hour, sometimes five or six hours. I know most of the WoW game world better than I know San Bernardino.

So, turning off my WoW account was hard. I initially turned it off at the same time I turned off the others, but then the WoW writing contest came around, and I turned my account back on for a month in case I needed some in-game references. But, when that additional month expired, I turned off my account and it's been off ever since. That's been about six weeks now.

I have to tell you it's been hard. I know most people would say that I'm addicted to the game, and I will agree that addiction is a factor. But, honestly, I would rather play WoW than watch TV, and, in my book, WoW has more value than 99% of TV. Unlike TV, when I'm playing WoW, my mind is actively engaged. When I watch TV I usually have to play solitaire or do something else because TV just doesn't hold my interest longer than 15 minutes— and that's programs I like! (When I watch TV with other people it's a little different because I view the program we're watching as part of a conversation all of us are having... which is why I piss off some people while watching TV because I feel free to talk during it.)

I have other games— many other games— that I can play offline. My infatuation with them rarely lasts long though. Here's the really ironic thing: even though I choose to almost never play in a group or a raid with other people online, I do enjoy seeing the other characters (players) running around the game world. It makes me feel like part of the community, even though I am the silent neighbor.

Without WoW I have had to find other sources for online play. There are oodles of free online games out there these days, but 'free' is another way of saying 'alternate form of payment.' By and large that alternate form of payment means you're playing a shallow and uninteresting game. I have played Dungeon Runners. DR is a one-dimensional parody of WoW. You can play it for absolutely nothing, but if you do, there is a banner ad at the top of the game window. I can live with that, but the next limitation is that super duper cool items are not equipable by free players. That is, you might kill a rat monster and see it drop the Righteous Sword of Unholiest Slaying, but as a free player all you can do is sell it for a tiny bit of coin. Only paying players can equip the uber items. (DR has a modest monthly fee of $4.99) But, in the long run, the problem with DR is that you can only play it a week before it gets mind numbingly repetitive and dull.

I logged in one evening to my old Guild Wars account. GW is so close to being a good game. It's several years old now, but the game world is still gorgeous. There's just something that doesn't quite work about the game. On top of that nebulous something, the game also requires group play for a lot of content, and, as I said, I don't like to group up with others. Having bought the GW game years ago, it's free for me to play online as much as I want, but I find that it just doesn't call me to come back and play over and over.

I've also tried an insane Chinese-made game called Ether Saga. It's like running around in the cutest anime ever filmed— so cute in fact that it feels like you're killing pokémon. Of all the online games I've played, it has the most innovative new features. In fact, one of the problems, I feel, is that there is too much going on. It's as if there are so many options that you can't even hold them all in your head simultaneously. On top of that, the color scheme of the game is absolutely lurid, with the brightest blend of day-glo and pastel colors you've ever seen. It rather hurts one's eyes.

So, where does that leave me now? Well, ironically, last week I got an email from the makers of Vanguard and they are offering free gameplay for the month of June to all former subscribers. That's what I've been playing. But, in a week, I've grown so bored with it, that I already want to give it up.

I guess this means I have an extra hour or two a day to be productive. You'd better believe when I have a steady employment check again that WoW will be the first thing I turn back on!

See you soon.

"Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind."— Thomas Jefferson