Right, so I've picked World of Warcraft back up again. I keep starting this game, but I never quite get anywhere before I lose interest or run out of time, and have to let it sit for a few months while I save up or get my work out of the way. I think I've figured out what it is that frustrates me the most about this game.

Now, I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means. Although I've played a fair share of MMORPGs (The Realm, Ultima Online, Ragnorok Online, Guild Wars, FFXI, WoW, Eve Online, and one or two more I can't remember), I've never stuck with many of them for very long. They've all had their good sides and their bad sides. They've all had some things that I found were implemented well, and some that just seemed lacking. With WoW, despite having purchased the game when it first came out, I've basically been capped by level 30. By the time I finally get through my 20s, I'm so horribly bored of the game, and it's constant run and fetch quests that keep sending you back to the same place over and over again, that I can't find any way to rationalize blowing another chunk of cash to continue my subscription yet another month.

I know it's actually not that hard, and doesn't really take that long to get those levels. But that's for a hardcore gamer, or even an average gamer. As an occasional gamer, it can take me a long time to get those levels. I'm a beginning teacher, still obtaining my B.Ed. at university, so there's a lot of planning, marking, and assignments that I need to worry about. Add to the top of that my 20 hr/wk part-time job, and I don't really have all that much time to play video games. To make things more difficult for levelling, I only play MMORPGs with my fiancee as one of those things that we do together. So with the limited number of hours a week that I can set aside for gaming, it takes quite a while to get those levels, and that subscription quickly expires.

Now, once upon a time we used to play Ragnarok Online. Not a particularly good game overall. It was "cute" with it's anime-like interface and characters. It was also cheap. And, most importantly for an occasional gamer, you could purchase 30 hrs that could be used any time within a 6 month span. Now that, my friends, is a brilliant idea. I may get 3 hours a week to play video games. Assuming I were to spend all those hours playing a MMORPG, that'd be 10 weeks of play, which 2 weeks over 2 months. Now, I could easily rationalize paying out the coin for something that I could stretch over 6 months, whenever I happen to have time. I'd have no problem with that. But shuffling out a horde of cash for a monthly subscription, of which I'm going to get 12 hours of play, it's pretty frustrating and really not worth the coin.

I like the game, but it's frustrating as a poor, occasional gamer. I'm currently running on Maelstrom, as a Troll named Hlatshwayo. It's an RPPVP server, because as an avid PNP RP gamer, I figure the online version wouldn't be too bad. Too bad most players haven't a clue what the acronym RP means...

Oh well. Enough game talk for now. I gotta get back to marking...