I've noticed something happening to me over the years as I have started to play World of Warcraft more and more. The need for ample sleep, and my ability to ignore my body's need for sleep have both grown to life crushing limits. I am ... officially ... addicted to World of Warcraft. And while any sort of addiction is usually concieved as a purely negative thing, I find the time I spend playing WoW, both fufilling and a hell of a lot more fun than going to a bar to get smashed. A 23 year old college student with ADD and a job that pays more than enough cash to get obliterated on a daily basis, yet here I sit on Friday and Saturday nights trying to grind rep for the new faction introduced in 2.4 for hours on end, having philisophical conversations on vent, and wondering why the hell my I feel compelled to capitalize Night Elf. Lord have mercy on whatever my soul has become after WoW swallowed it.

Now I guess all is not lost. I have made a lot of really great friends along the way, but they only help serve my addiction by giving me something interesting to talk about while I waste my life away jumping around on the squares in Ironforge at 4am while waiting for my Magisters' Terrace group to form up. Is this what the 20-something years are all about? I wonder what people like me did before WoW? They probably played Evercraptacularicious, or whatever the heck that game is called. It's ancient history at this point, although I do often chuckle at how Blizzard totally stole their formula, played with it a bit, and created a better game in the long run. Great job whoever the f made Everquest. You single handedly created your own carpet to stand on as it got pulled out from underneath you all at the same time. Maybe people like me played Ultima, which I guess could be considered the great great grandaddy of MMOs. But that was back when 20mhz was a super computer and games had more text than pixels on the screen.

And what the hell was up with Everquest 2?! They basically said to everyone "HEY LOYAL FANS!!!! THANKS FOR SHELLING OUT A CRAP TON OF MONEY FOR OUR OLD GAME THAT IS NOW OLD AND UGLY AND OUTDATED!!! YAY MONEY!!! INSTEAD OF A REALLY GREAT AND FREE UPGRADE FOR OUR OLD CRAPTASTIC GRAPHICS AND SHODDY GAMEPLAY WE HAVE SOME AMAZINGLY GREAT NEWS!!!! WE'VE TAKEN A TINY FRACTION OF ALL THAT MONEY YOU GAVE US AND SPENT IT ON A NEW, EVEN CRAPPIER GAME SO YOU HAVE TO GIVE US MORE MONEY NOW!!! YAY MONEY!!!" And I love how they basically charge for any sort of new content they want to add on to the game. "HEY FANS! WE'RE ADDING FREAKING FARIES TO THE GAME!!!! HOLY CRAP I KNOW!! IT'S SWEET!! THEY FLY AND STUFF EXCEPT THEY REALLY DON'T FLY THEY JUST KINDA HOVER AND WHEN YOU JUMP THEY KINDA JUST MOVE UP AND DOWN WITH NO ANIMATION!! AND THEN WE'RE PUTTING IN FIVE ... YES FIVE ... NEW GAME BREAKING WEAPONS!!! THAT'LL BE 39.99 PLEASE AT LEAST FOR THIS MONTH AND THEN NEXT MONTH WE'LL ANNOUNCE ANOTHER ONE FOR THE NEXT MONTH AND THAT ONE WILL BE 39.99 TOO!!!! YAY MONEY!!!!"Whoever designed their business model should be shot in the face with a large sack of potatoes.

WoW on the other hand has it all laid out. The expansion was ENORMOUS, added two races, and a whole SLEW of new content and places to explore. And their major updates might as well be expansions on their own with crazy new quests to do and ... I leave it like this ... they have their stuff figured out. PERIOD.

I'll end with this: If you hate WoW just because a lot of people play it, and you've never tried it because you think it'll be stupid and boring ... you're absolutly right. WoW IS stupid and boring and the grind to 70 BLOWS ... HARD! BUT ... when you finally DO get to 70 and you meet up with a cool bunch of people in a guild and start doing stuff together and start making better friends than any you've ever had in real life ... you'll sorta understand why so many people play it. It's not about the game ... but the fact that you can have so much fun doing crappy boring and most often times frustrating things with some of the coolest, most hilarious people you'll ever meet. And it's them that will bring you back night after night ... logging into ventrillo ... and having in depth conversations about how cool it would be to be able to "insert wow class ability here" in real life. It's easy to criticize the game, but some of the most hilarious and amazingly fun moments of my life have played out in the one game everyone loves to hate ... and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

-Pred

Server - Eredar

Character - Predasus - 70 Night Elf Rogue

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