World of Warcraft; My Rebound MMO
EverQuest was my first love. Oh I dabbled before that and spent time with the likes of Ulitma Online, Meridian 59, and various MUDs, but EQ was my first drop down drag out devoted commitment.
It was far from love at first site. In fact the first time met we could barley understand each other. It was in beta and I was clueless. My first character ran around town for five minutes, pressed “a” before hitting enter and was promptly killed by an NPC.
I was pretty sure that was a horrible way to make friends and logged off.
But EQ was young and at the urging of mutual friends I gave it another chance. They helped me understand the language of EverQuest, offering us a much smoother introduction. All that hand holding my friends did paid off. We got along famously.
A whole new world opened up to me, and I took every advantage to spent time in it. I joined a small friends and family guild, I amused myself in a role-playing guild, and I hoarded DKP in a huge raiding guild. (Not all at the same time mind you!)
Each new experience just gave me more incentive to continue; my first naked Crushbone raid, thirteen-hour raid, epic quest, loot camp, DKP, NPC farming, dragon raid, buff bot, online wedding, monster train, web meta gaming, raid wipe caused by me, custom interface, trade skill, bazaar mule, and much more.
Clearly EQ had a lot to offer and I wanted to experience as much of it as I could. And we were happy for a long time.
Most relationships, once the giddy excitement of new love has worn off, need a breather to consider the next step. Ours was no different. The obvious next boost in our commitment would be for me to become a guide. I went so far as to get the paperwork all filled out. The sheer amount of work just to apply gave me pause.
It was a good test of my intentions because eventually I decided I didn’t want to turn this relationship into a job; that keeping the fun was more important.
In time, no matter how hard I tried, the relationship degraded into feeling like a job – an unrewarding one at that. I would spend hours online raiding, buffing, and grinding my levels for what? My wondrous new experiences turned into repetition and then finally into chores.
The break up was hard on me. I convinced myself that we could be friends, visiting often, hanging out, and generally make a nuisance of myself. But my heart wasn’t in it, for I knew it was over.
Then along came World of Warcraft (WoW) – EQ’s younger, faster, better-looking cousin.
Keeping it within the family made it really easy for me to dive right back in. Only later, while coming up for air, did I realize that this was all too familiar; I was in a rebound relationship.
Frantically I reassessed the situation and came up only with corroborating evidence. Wow, attempting valiantly to woe me with its good looks and fast leveling, had nothing really new to offer me. Again I was left with a job-like commitment.
In the end I decided it would be best for me if we were just friends. I visit occasionally and we hang out with mutual friends; WoW doesn’t seem to mind. All it really seems to care about is that I keep up my monthly beer tab. Its really good at making me feel special.
It would take something incredibly innovative and fabulously new for me to have a connection with a game like I had with EverQuest. WoW was a great band-aid, but for now I will forgo dating with in the MMO family. They are a bit more needy then I can handle.
Lets just be friends.
Tags: drama, everquest, rants, roleplaying, world of warcraft
August 11th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Dumar and Xarex == uber.
Avelon == gimp.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:42 am
I have to say, that is pretty darned near exactly how I feel about WoW. I tried hard to love it… but, it was as you so eloquently put a “Rebound MMO”. I was already done with Everquest when it came out… I want to be part of it’s life so badly, but I just can’t do it. It is nice to visit though and reminisce about the battles we waged… even join the fight once or twice in a BG… however, my heart is elsewhere…
August 11th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I had a brief fling with City of Heroes. She was not enough to lure me away from my True love Mutants and Masterminds. I will admit to having a couple of impure thoughts about DC Universe Online who is tempting me with her luscious curves however.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:15 am
OMG! Dont make me post images of Dumar Down!!
Its nice to hear that other people feel the same way about WoW and EQ. So many new people have joined the MMOG world in the past few years that I think now a large majority have this first love experience with games like WoW. We are a dying animal, the EQ1 cherries! =)
I hope that DC Universe is better then CoH. I never managed to feel very heroic in that game. Five minutes after I rescued the girl on the corner there she would be again getting mugged again.
The best thing about CoH was that they would send me a comic every month. I held on to my subscription far longer then I would have otherwise.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
CoH was the socialist’s MMO. Or John Lennon’s. “Imagine there’s no loot, no DKP…” But it was fun. Certainly the most visually rewarding MMO out there, but it fell short when all the best content was all front-loaded. You got the best of your powers by level 32.
Anyway, hi TFG. :p
WOW was more than a rebound for me. It was the first real relationship that lasted. I felt secure in my commitment to WOW, happy to spend time on raids. WOW was the only one that loved me back for who I was. I was content to commit to WOW, to spend beastly amounts of time on raids, and it lasted up until it changed into something else.
That’s not true. I was the one that changed. I lost my taste for MMOs. WOW really just evolved into the next logical step.
EQ was the rocky, abusive relationship that I finally grew out of before I found WOW. It was the Ike to my Tina – it inspired my imagination, ignited a sense of accomplishment I had never dreamed of and created for me a willing medium in which I hid and nurtured within, safe from the world outside. However, it exacted a price for sure – would hurt me every chance it got and in every way imaginable, and yet, I would slink back to it begging for one more chance, desperate for that feeling of inspiration.
I left it for a long relationship with DAOC, and I was happy there, but I think after a few years, DAOC and I found that we really didn’t have much in common.
With EQ’s free trial, I gave it a quick run, getting some massive twinks and vastly accelerated leveling curve, even remaking a new character and choosing the class that had tormented me to point of deleting my highest level class. However, it failed to impress me. I had seen its flaws and I had outgrown it. I leveled to 50 in a week’s time (maybe 15 hours /played time?) and threw it away, a flash in the pan moment of lust for days long gone that was laughably inept and unfulfilling.
Oh, I’m an MMO slut, I know. I’ve had ‘em all over, even the really bad free ones like 9 Dragons and Maple Story. I’ve had several at a time, hell I even shacked up with SW:G for a month. But while WOW was the only one that I truly fit with, I agree with TFG that EQ will always have a special place.
The recycle bin.
August 28th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I love that “EQ was the rocky, abusive relationship”. So true in so many ways. We were all just lovelorn enough to come back for more. Hopefully we know better by now!
MMO slut. Hehehehehee!
Props on writing almost as much of a novel as I did. =P
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Proof that TGF sees me in some way that I should be scared of…
February 7th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
TFG,
I know exactly what you’re saying. God, I remember my first exposure to EQ, It was early in my career in IT, and I’d just picked up a copy of EQ a few days before going on an interview for a project I was hoping to land to keep from being kicked to the curb by my better half for being a lazy bum. During my interview, I soon discovered that EVERYONE in the office played EQ…That it consumed them, became the focus of every conversation in the office: Who just finished what quest, what loot dropped where, who got caught in the “train of the Century” in someplace called “Blackburrow”…Hell…most people were two-boxing – One to run Remedy to log tickets, the other PC was for Everquest.
For the 8 months I was on that project, I ate, slept, talked, and spat EQ…but something was just plain…missing. It wasn’t until about 9 months later, after giving EQ a break when the project ended and I was summarily kicked from their guild on Prexus because I no longer worked in their office, that I found a group of people that made EQ feel less like a collection of blocky pixels on my computer screen, and more like a real living, breathing world. The fact that we were all members of the same forum, for an up and coming web comic strip, provided the foundation for the Guild that became so much a part of my life that the people in it became a part of my family. People with the strangest of nicknames, like Gaedan, Kirilith, Dalakar, Dedpool, Xaaz, Scyllz, Holt, Barlypop and a young woman playing a Bard named…um…damn…what was her name again…Tols…something…
These people helped me to discover things about myself, to discover passions I’d long forgotten, especially things like writing fiction and acting (or in the case of this group of amazing people, roleplaying), and while I never did make it to much of the endgame content within EQ (I stopped leveling my Main character at level 43, a level shy of being able to go on raids to the Plane of Hate), their inspiration helped me to create two feature length novellas, and started the creative flow which I’ve carried on to every game I’ve played since.
I’d have to say that it’s almost not about the game anymore for me these days, but the people I play with and the world in which we game in that counts the most for me. Like any good relationship, if there is a connection there within the game where I can identify with my character, the situation he finds himself in, and if I can find a really good group of people to share the experience with, that’s all that counts.
Now my gaming experience is shared with my oldest Son, who’s now 14 (going on 40…those of you who are parents will understand), that it’s not just about me and my experience in gaming anymore, that it is a family passion now. It makes me happy that he’s passionate about good gaming and good friends…Now if I can only get him to be as passionate about his Algebra…God he Abhors math… :p
Happy Gaming!
Enth :D
February 9th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Tolsia, silly, her name was Tolsia. Not like you didn’t know that! =P
Its true though, Fourth Wall really did feel like a family and it is probably another reason I loved EQ so much.
It is probably the reason that, like you, I play online games with my friends and family. An experience I can share with them rather then just another thing to do with my time.
/hugs
Thanks for the comment, and long too. Gotta love the long comments!!
<3